“Madame, give me the _Constitutionnel_.”
“They are all in use at the moment, monsieur.”
“Well, then give me the _Courrier Français_.”
“Here’s the first sheet of it, monsieur. You shall have the rest in a
moment.”
“When I read a newspaper, madame, I like to have it whole; with this new
fashion of yours, of cutting the paper in two, you sometimes make us
wait at the most interesting places, and that is very unpleasant.”
“But, monsieur, we can’t take ten copies of the same paper! The expenses
are big enough already! By cutting the paper, it is easier to
accommodate a number of people, and the second sheet of the _Courrier
Français_ will certainly be returned before you have read the first.”
“That is not certain. I am not one of those people who spend an hour
reading a column. I want a whole paper.”
“Will you have the _Débats_?”
“Very well, give me the _Débats_.”
The gentleman who insisted upon having a whole newspaper, like the
children who insist upon having a dish to themselves at a restaurant,
although they often cannot eat half of it, had entered the reading room
grumbling; he took his seat upon a bench between two readers, one of
whom, a young and courteous man, moved along to make room for him, while
the other, who was old and wrinkled, with his hair brushed _à la_
pigeon’s wing, glanced crossly at the newcomer and turned his back on
him after muttering in a sour tone:
“Be careful, monsieur, you are sitting on my coat.”
I was standing at the door of the room, where I rarely remain long; I
easily obtained a whole newspaper, because I selected a humble literary
sheet; and in these days when politics engrosses everybody, mere
literature is cruelly neglected. I can readily understand that people
are interested in and absorbed by the interests of our country. There
are times when I myself read the great newspapers eagerly; but even then
I could not pass hours poring over them. What would you have? One cannot
make oneself over, and politics has never been in my line. Indeed, I may
be wrong, but it seems to me that that would be a most blessed country
where the people were never called upon to busy themselves with
politics.
I wanted to know what the papers said about the play that was produced
the day before at the Variétés. One paper declared that is was
detestable, another pronounced it delightful; is it possible to form an
opinion upon such judgments?
“Madame, give me the _Quotidienne_, please, and the Gazette de France,
if nobody has them.”
“No, monsieur, nobody has them; here they are.”
I turned to look. One often turns to look when one is not reading
anything serious; I wanted to see the gentleman who had taken the
_Gazette_ and the _Quotidienne_. I saw a very tall, straight individual,
with smooth, plastered hair, curly behind the ears; with a furtive eye
and a honeyed voice; I was on the point of saying, with red ears and a
flushed complexion; in truth, he had both these, and if I had looked at
him before he spoke, I could have guessed what papers he would have
asked for. Some people claim that the face is deceitful; but no, it is
not so deceitful as it is said to be, especially to those who take the
trouble to examine it carefully.
I still held my paper in my hand but I was no longer reading it. I
amused myself by scrutinizing all those faces leaning over the printed
pages. It would have made a pretty picture for a _genre_ painter. That
stout man, with his elbows resting on the table covered with the
conventional green cloth, had the air of a potentate called upon to
arbitrate between neighboring kings. Sometimes he protruded his lower
lip, dissatisfied doubtless with what was being done; but soon his
expression softened, his mouth resumed its usual expression, and a
slight nod of the head indicated that he was better pleased with what he
was reading.
At his right, a short, gray-haired man was reading with an avidity which
was depicted upon every feature. It mattered little to him that people
came in and went out, coughed, blew their noses, or sat down beside him;
his eyes did not leave for one second the sheet that he held before
them, and they gleamed like a young man’s. There was patriotism, glory,
liberty in that expression.
Beyond him, a man of uncertain age, a man with a mania; that could be
seen at a glance. The lamp must be exactly in front of him, his feet
must have a chair to rest upon, and his snuff-box must be placed beside
his paper. If all these conditions were not exactly fulfilled, then he
was perfectly wretched and had no idea what he was reading. I soon had a
proof of it: his neighbor moved his snuff-box with his elbow, whereupon
he raised his eyes angrily and glared at the offender, muttering:
“It seems to me that you have room enough, and that it isn’t in your
way!”
It was several minutes before he could resume his reading in peace, and
he did not do so until he had replaced his box at the same distance from
his hand as before. But soon a more serious accident happened: as there
were many people in the room, a newcomer ventured to take the chair upon
which his feet were resting. Thereupon the man with the mania was
completely upset; after glancing askance at the person who had presumed
to take such a liberty, he rose, walked to the desk, angrily threw down
the newspaper and a sou, and left the room, saying:
“It’s outrageous! it is impossible to read the news when one is
interrupted and disturbed every moment.”
The man with the smooth hair had taken a seat in the corner at the end
of the room. From time to time he cast a furtive glance about him; then
he resumed his reading, but very quietly, without moving, without the
slightest change of expression.
Just beyond him, a stupid faced man had been leaning over the same sheet
for an interminable time; but he was not asleep, as I thought at first.
That man was, so I was told, the terror of all reading rooms. He
regularly took four hours to read an ordinary newspaper, and six to read
the _Moniteur_. If those who let newspapers had many customers like him,
they would have to charge by the hour, as at billiards.
I was about to return to my literary review, but my attention was
distracted by a female voice which rang in my ears; anything of the
feminine gender always distracts my attention. I instantly abandoned the
regular customers of the reading room, and looked into the next room at
the right, which was filled with tables covered with books; for at that
establishment books as well as papers were let; and in truth it was
wisely done, for in these days, in order to earn one’s living, it is
none too much, in fact sometimes it is not enough, to do two things at
once.
As I was standing between the two rooms, it was easy for me to look into
the one devoted to books: I saw a woman of some twenty years, with a
bright, wide-awake face. Her dress indicated that she lived near by; her
head was uncovered; a black silk apron _à corsage_ fitted her snugly;
but her feet were in list slippers which were much too large for her,
and she also had a thimble on one of her hands, which were covered with
old gloves of which the fingers were cut off. She tripped in, smiling,
and placed a package of books on the desk, saying:
“Here! we have _devoured_ all these already!”
“What! why, you only got them yesterday!”
“Oh! we read fast at our house; my aunt doesn’t do anything else, and my
sister has a sore thumb and couldn’t work; she often has a sore thumb,
my sister has; and my brother much prefers reading novels to practising
on the violin. I confess that I like it much better too, when he is not
practising; it’s so tiresome to have a violin forever scraping in your
ears; oh! it sets my teeth on edge just to think of it. I have a horror
of a violin--What are you going to give me? We want something nice.”
“I don’t just know, you read so fast; before long you will have read all
the books I have got.”
“We want something new.”
“New! that’s what all the subscribers say; they think that nothing is
good except what is new; and yet we have some old novels which are far
ahead of the modern ones.”
“Bah! you say that to get me to take your _Cleveland_, your _Tom Jones_
and your old _Doyen de Killerine_ again.”
“The _Doyen de Killerine_ is a very good book, mademoiselle, and----”
“Madame, I don’t take any interest in a hunchback hero with crooked legs
and patches over his eyes. No! no! what I like is a handsome young man,
very dark and well-built, with a noble carriage; he is all right,--you
can imagine him and fancy that you are looking at him. When he makes
love, you say to yourself: ‘I’d like to have a lover like him;’ and
there’s some pleasure in that.”
The proprietress smiled; I did the same, while pretending to be
engrossed in my paper. The young woman fluttered from one table to
another; she would take up a book, open it, then put it back on its
shelf, saying:
“We have read this; we have read this. Bless my soul! have we read
everything?”
“Here, mademoiselle,” said the woman who kept the room, “here’s
something interesting and well written.”
“What is it?”
“_La Femme de Bon Sens, ou La Prisonnière de Bohême._”
“Let’s see whom it is by: translated from the English by Ducos. Why,
this was published in 1798! Are you making fun of me, to give me such an
old novel as this?”
“What difference does it make how old it is, when I tell you that it is
good?”
“I tell you that its age makes a great deal of difference; we like
pictures of contemporary manners. A novel more than twenty years old
cannot depict the manners of to-day.”
“But it may depict the passions and absurdities of society; those things
are of all times, mademoiselle. That is why people still enjoy seeing
_Tartufe_, the _Misanthrope_, the _Etourdi_, although those works are
certainly not new.”
“Oh! it all depends on the taste. But I don’t want the _Femme de Bon
Sens_. Besides, I don’t like the title; it seems to be an epigram.”
“Well, here is something new--the _Bourreau de_----”
“Enough! enough! thank the Lord we have never cared for
executioners--_bourreaux_--! we don’t like the literature of the burying
ground, the manners of the Morgue. It is possible that such pictures may
be true to life, but we have no desire to go to those places to find
out; we would shun with horror a street or square where preparations
were being made to execute a criminal; and you expect us to enjoy
reading books where the author persists in describing such horrors in
detail, in presenting ghastly pictures! Oh! it seems to me, madame, that
a man must have a very bad opinion of women to think that they will
enjoy such reading, that such tableaux can possibly have any attraction
for them. It is equivalent to coupling us with the wretches who rush in
crowds to look on at an execution; and I did not suppose that there
could be any glory in writing for those women!”
I could not resist the desire to look up from my paper; we like to meet
people who think as we do, and as I agreed absolutely with that young
woman in her views regarding literature, I looked at her with
satisfaction. Chance willed that she should look at me at the same
moment. I smiled, no doubt, for she made a funny little face and skipped
away to another part of the room.
She soon returned with four volumes, and said:
“At last, I believe I have found one that we haven’t read: _Eugène et
Guillaume_. I will take this. It’s by Picard; it ought to be good.”
“You should not always trust to the author’s name, mademoiselle;
however, when it is by a writer who knows how to write, one is sure at
all events to have something which will not offend in style, even if the
plot or the incidents are not well done. You say that you will take
_Eugène et Guillaume_?”
“Yes, but I must have something else with it. Four volumes! why, they
will hardly last one evening. By the way, have you anything new by the
author of _Sœur Anne_? He is my favorite, you know.”
I could not help looking at the young woman with still greater
satisfaction, for I am very intimate with the author whom she named.
“No, mademoiselle, I have nothing by that author that you have not read.
But here is something that came out yesterday.”
“Ah! give it to me, give it to me.”
“I don’t know just what it is, but so far as newness goes, I will
warrant it.”
“Let me have it.”
“Will you promise not to keep it long?”
“Yes, yes; you know that it is only a matter of one evening with us.”
“You will be very careful about cutting it?”
“Yes, yes! I must run now, or my aunt will say that I have been
gossiping.”
The young woman took all the volumes under her arm and went out, after
casting another rapid glance in my direction.
She was succeeded by a woman with a round cap and calico wrapper. She
brought back only a single book, which she laid on the desk, saying:
“Great heaven! we had hard work to finish it! I thought that we would
never see the end!”
“It is true that you have had the book nearly a month.”
“Oh, dear me! we don’t read fast at our house; you see, as a general
thing, my man reads to me while I am working; and as he still has the
catarrh, he stops at every comma to cough. Never mind, it’s mighty
interesting. I cried hard with that poor girl who spends fifteen years
in the underground dungeon, with nothing but bread and water to eat. She
must have had a good stomach, I tell you, not to be sick.”
“Do you want something else?”
“Yes, to be sure. Something about robbers, if you please, and about
ghosts, if you have anything, because a novel with robbers and ghosts in
it can’t help being interesting. Oh! and then I want something with
pictures, some of those lovely pictures of crimes. I am very fond of
pictures, I am; and then you see, I say to myself: ‘a novel that they
don’t spend the money to put pictures in, why it can’t have Peru behind
it.’ Don’t I hit the mark?”
“Here is something, madame, that will interest you greatly.”
“What is it?”
“_The Ghosts of the Nameless Château_, or _The Brigands of the Abandoned
Quarry_.”
“Ah! what a splendid title! what a ring there is to it! Let’s look at
the pictures. A man eating a skeleton. Bless my soul! that must be good.
I don’t want to see any more; I’ll take the _Ghosts_, and I’ll go and
buy some jujube paste for my husband, so that he won’t cough quite so
much when he’s reading.”
The worthy woman who loved pictures was succeeded by an elderly man who
also wanted a novel. He was asked what sort of story he wanted; but it
mattered little to him: he wanted it to read in bed at night, something
that would put him to sleep right away. What he wanted was found at
once.
After him came a lady on the decline. She brought back a volume of
memoirs, and she wanted more memoirs; according to her, memoirs were the
only proper thing to read. When a lady has passed the age for making
conquests, I can understand that memoirs seem instructive to her and
also pleasant reading; to her the past has more charm than the present.
Being no longer able to tell us of what she does, she desires that we
should be interested in what she has done; that is one way to keep
people talking about her. After a life of adventures, she considers that
to cease to occupy the public attention is a living death. Poor
creature! I am sorry for her; she dies twice over. But see how mistaken
she is! she falls into oblivion while seeking immortality; and there are
some excellent mothers of families, simple, virtuous women, who
nevertheless do not die altogether, for all who have known them treasure
their images and their memories in the depths of their hearts.
The lady of the memoirs went away with eight octavo volumes under her
arm. Next came an old gentleman powdered and musked as in the days of
the Regency. He wore a little three-cornered hat which did not approach
his ears, and a silk muffler over his coat, although it was only the
first of October. This gentleman nodded patronizingly to the
proprietress and placed two volumes on her desk.
“What the devil did you give me this for?” he said; “it’s a wretched,
detestable book.”
“What! didn’t you like it, monsieur? Why, it has been generally
praised.”
“I promise you that it will not be praised by me!”
“Then monsieur does not want the sequel? There are two more volumes.”
“No, indeed, I don’t want the sequel. It was as much as I could do to
read three pages.”
“Was that enough to enable you to judge?”
“Yes, madame; I always judge by the first few lines. I want something
good, something useful--a romance of the times of chivalry, for
example.”
“I have _Amadis de Gaule_.”
“I have read that.”
“_Geneviève de Cornouailles._”
“I’ve read it.”
“The _Chevaliers du Cygne_.”
“I’ve read it. I’ve read all the old books of that sort. Give me a new
one.”
“Why, romances of chivalry are seldom written nowadays.”
“What’s that! seldom written? Why aren’t they written, pray? You must
have some written, madame; you must order some from your novel writers.”
“They say that they are no longer in vogue, monsieur.”
“They don’t know what they are talking about; there is nothing else so
good; that is the true type of novel. But these modern authors do not
understand the taste of their readers. They write books in which they
aim to be bright and realistic. They draw pictures of society, as if
such things could be compared with a description of a tournament! In the
old days they used to write much better novels. Those of the younger
Crébillon were not without merit; those of Mademoiselle de Scudéry were
a little too long, I admit; but _Le Sopha_, _Le Bijoux Indiscrets_, and
_Angola_--those are fine stories, sparkling with delectable details!”
“If monsieur would like _L’Enfant du Carnaval_, by Pigault-Lebrun, that
too is full of very amusing incidents.”
“No, madame, no; I don’t read such books as that. What do you take me
for? That is so broad! why, there’s a certain dish of spinach,
which----”
“Which makes one laugh, monsieur, whereas your Angola makes one blush,
or even worse.”
“Madame, give me a romance of chivalry. I want to teach my grandson, and
certainly that is the only sort of reading that can be at once useful
and agreeable to him.”
“Would monsieur like _Don Quixote_?”
“_Don Quixote_! fie, madame! your Cervantes is an impertinent fellow, a
knave, a sneak, who presumes to ridicule the noblest, most gallant, most
revered things in the world! If that Cervantes had lived in my time,
madame, I would have made him retract his _Don Quixote_, or else, by the
shades of my ancestors, I swear that he would have passed an
uncomfortable quarter of an hour!”
The proprietress pretended to have a paroxysm of coughing in order to
conceal her desire to laugh. As for myself, I could not contain myself,
I burst out laughing and the paper fell from my hands. The man with the
muffler turned in my direction; he eyed me indignantly and put his right
hand to his left side, whether in search of a sword, in order to treat
me as he would have treated Miguel Cervantes, I do not know. But,
instead of a weapon, his hand came into contact with nothing more than a
bonbon box; he opened that, and took out two or three pastilles which he
put in his mouth with a dignified air, and said to the woman:
“Come, let us have done with this. What are you going to give me,
madame?”
“Perhaps monsieur is not familiar with the story of the _Quatre Fils
Aymon_?”
“I have read it three times, but I shall be glad to read it again. Give
me the story of the _Fils Aymon_, and I will let my grandson meditate
upon it; it will not be my fault if I do not make a Richardet of him.”
The gentleman put the book under his muffler; then he flashed an angry
glance at me, and probably proposed to make a very dignified exit;
unfortunately, as he glanced at me, he failed to see a lady who was
coming in; and when he turned, he collided with her; the lady’s hat
knocked off his three-cornered one, which was carefully balanced on his
head. The little old man picked up his hat and pulled it over his eyes,
muttering: “What are we coming to?” and went out, slamming the door so
viciously that he nearly broke all the glass, which action I considered
by no means worthy of an old chevalier.
The lady who had knocked off the little hat was young and rather pretty;
a half veil thrown back over her hood did not conceal her features;
indeed, her eyes did not indicate a person who shrank from being
noticed; far from it. But there was in her dress a mixture of coquetry
and slovenliness, of pretension and poverty; she had in her hand a
pamphlet which she tossed upon the desk, saying:
“I have brought back the _Chevilles de Maître Adam_; how much do I owe
you?”
“Six sous, mademoiselle.”
“What! six sous for a farce which I have kept only three days,--just
long enough to copy my part?”
“That is the price, mademoiselle. You gave me thirty sous as security;
here’s twenty-four.”
“Why, it’s an exorbitant price, madame--six sous! I hire very often, but
I have never paid so much as that. It would be as cheap to buy the
thing. How much does it cost?”
“Thirty sous, mademoiselle.”
“Great heavens! how they are putting up the price of plays nowadays!
It’s an awful shame! But I must have the _Mariage de Figaro_, to learn
the part of Chérubin, which I am going to play on Sunday on Rue de
Chantereine. I can’t learn my parts unless I copy them; writing seems to
engrave them on my brain. I copied Nanine in one night and I knew it the
next day. But six sous! that’s rather hard. People think that it doesn’t
cost anything to act in society. I should think not! there’s no end to
the expenses. Costumes, rouge, bundles to be carried! Never mind, give
me Figaro. I have never played in a burlesque yet, but my teacher told
me that I ought to be very good in it, because I am not knock-kneed.
Keep what I paid you; that will pay for this.”
The _Mariage de Figaro_ was handed to her. She turned over the leaves of
the pamphlet, muttering:
“Oh! how short it is! almost no long speeches, and I am so fond of
lengthy dialogues! I am sorry now that I don’t play Suzanne. But I will
copy both parts; then I can play the man or the woman as they want. I am
not particular.”
The actress-apprentice stuffed the pamphlet into her bag and went out,
winding about her body an old shawl which looked as if it had often done
duty as a turban for Zaïre or Mohammed.
It must be very amusing to let books; you see a great many people and
hear amusing things; there are people who instantly lay bare their
folly, their absurdity, their wretched taste; but the business requires
patience, especially when one has to do with such customers as the
chevalier in the muffler.
I was about to return my newspaper and pay for it, when I heard a very
familiar voice even before the person to whom it belonged had entered
the door. I turned and saw my friend Bélan, who, in accordance with his
custom, shouted as if he were talking to a deaf person, and found a way
to occupy the space of four people, although he was very slim and his
height exempted him from the conscription. But Bélan kept his arms in
motion all the time, stood on tiptoe to increase his height, threw his
head back, and went through the antics of a bear in a cage.
As he opened the door, Bélan spied me; he came toward me, exclaiming:
“Ah! I was looking for you, Blémont, my friend; I have just come from
your rooms; they told me that you might be here, and here you are.”
“Hush! hush! don’t talk so loud,” I said to Bélan, whose shrill tones
caused a revolution in the reading room. “Wait a moment; I am at your
service.”
“My dear fellow, I have come about a very serious matter. I will tell
you about it, and you will see whether----”
“Hush, I say; these people reading the newspapers, whom you are
interrupting, don’t care anything about your affairs; that isn’t what
they came here for.”
“That is true, but----”
“Come on;” and taking Monsieur Bélan’s arm, I dragged him away from the
reading room.