a friend of yours, and that's enough to justify me in forbidding you to
set your foot inside my doors again."
"But my intentions are absolutely pure, monsieur; as you know, my
pin-making enterprise opens very well; I hope to be able to extend it
very materially."
"Yes, yes! you'll have your excellent friends praise it and brag about
it! But I will not be your dupe any more. Go! and don't think of showing
yourself here again; you won't be admitted!"
Monsieur Mirotaine pushed the young man into the porch, and closed the
door violently upon him. Whereupon Lucien walked slowly away, murmuring:
"I shan't see Juliette again; I cannot even exchange a word or two with
her any more. Ah! Dodichet! what a pitiable service you have done me!"
XIV
DODICHET, TENOR
On leaving Lucien, Dodichet first of all purchased some tobacco, then
called at Mademoiselle Boulotte's, where Rosa had agreed to be; for
those damsels were informed of the scene which was to be played at
Monsieur Mirotaine's, and, as they were very curious to know how it had
gone off, Dodichet had promised to call and tell them about it the same
night.
The two _figurantes_ were smoking, and drinking grog; and Boulotte's
room, although much larger than Lucien's, was so filled with smoke that
one could hardly see across it. Which fact did not prevent Dodichet from
exclaiming in admiration at the picture before his eyes:
"Bravo! bravi! This brings me back to life! I have just left a man who
is not a man--he doesn't smoke! But here, on the contrary, I find women
who are equal to any trooper; this sets me up again!"
"Ah! here's Dodichet! Good-evening, Dodichet!"
"Good-evening, my young fairies of the wings! have you any cigarette
papers?"
"Oh! what a question! We would as soon be without bread!"
"True! my question was unnecessary. Your education is complete. Give me
a few. What are you drinking there?"
"Grog at three-six----"
"I will take several glasses. Be good enough to mix me one, Rosa, while
Boulotte, who has the knack of rolling cigarettes, rolls eight or ten
for me. Ah! mesdemoiselles, I am thirsty for a smoke!"
"Well, I don't see that you've anything to do but open your mouth;
there's no lack of smoke here."
"You do not understand me, my gay young Andalusian; I mean that I am
athirst to smoke, myself, and I have just been calling on a man who
never smokes!"
"Mon Dieu! where was that bird raised?"
"He never goes out, he stays at home all the time; he is in love, he
thinks of his charmer--that takes the place of a pipe."
"Has his charmer been well seasoned?"
"I didn't ask him."
"Well! tell us about the scene with the would-be husband at Monsieur
Mirotaine's, the marriage _à la_ Putiphar."
"Everything went off perfectly; but in the evening, a friend of mine,
Phoebus Dubotté--I call him Phoebus because he's fair-haired and
conceited--Phoebus arrived with his wife. It happens that he knows the
individual whom I had introduced as an Italian count."
"The man who lends you money because you know a secret that concerns
him, and in whose presence we mustn't mention Pontoise?"
"The same; Boulotte, you have a memory like a creditor. But Phoebus
mentioned Pontoise, and called my friend Miflorès by his true name. You
can guess the effect produced by that recognition!--Pass me a
cigarette.--The Mirotaines are furious, Putiphar would like an
opportunity to horsewhip me. My false count ran away, and I took my
leave, declaring that I proposed to run my sword through him somewhere.
The dénouement of our comedy was hurried a little; but it had to come to
an end some time, and I was beginning to be rather tired of the
Mirotaine circle. Still, there were some excellent types there. A
certain Monsieur Brid'oison, who looked on in admiration while his son
performed gymnastic feats on everybody's shoulders; his wife ate her
hair, and a sister of the host wept all the while because a pickled
onion hit her in the eye."
"And the dinner--was that good?"
"A miser's dinner. Wretched wines! no truffles! a _crême au camphre!_"
"_Au camphre?_"
"With camphor instead of sugar; I don't advise you to try it; it isn't a
satisfactory substitute. However, we did the trick; and I have just been
to see Lucien, to tell him how I have helped on his love affair."
"Did he thank you?"
"On the contrary, he scolded me, and preached me a sermon on
tobacco!--Pass me a cigarette.--Now, I must find my Miflorès, for I need
money. I have seen a dramatic correspondent, and he tells me that I am
wanted at Quimper-Corentin, where they require a tenor _jeune premier_.
I am young; I have an attractive countenance and a good enough voice! I
can reach high _G!_"
"_G!_ but that isn't _C!_"
"I am perfectly well aware, Mademoiselle Rosa, that _G_ is not _C_, or
rather _do_, to speak more elegantly; but a chest _G_ is very neat, all
the same; and, besides, if the audience isn't satisfied, I'll say:
_zut!_ [you be hanged!] and they will be."
"In what rôle are you going to make your first appearance?"
"In _Joconde_. I sing: _J'ai longtemps parcouru le monde!_ as if I'd
never done anything else."
"So they play comic opera at Quimper-Corentin, do they?"
"Why, my dear Rosa, where have you been? Don't you know that since the
theatres were enfranchised they play all kinds everywhere? I have seen
_Tartuffe_ in a barn, and _La Bataille de Pultava_ in a bedroom; the
Russians hid behind a night commode, and the Swedes carried a chamber
vessel with the bayonet. So there is nothing strange in their playing
comic opera at Quimper. There's only one thing that makes me hesitate:
the correspondent warned me that the manager doesn't furnish the
costumes; and as I don't want to play Joconde in a frock-coat or an
overcoat, I must buy a costume. I want it to be dazzling, gorgeous!
That's why I need money, and I must find Miflorès."
"But I thought you were expecting a legacy from an old aunt?"
"Yes, I still have that legacy in prospect; and that's the last! But the
old aunt persists in living. That's why I must see Miflorès."
"But by what spell do you succeed in making that man lend you money so
often?"
"Ah! that is my secret!"
"But you'll tell us your secret, Dodichet, won't you? You'll confide it
to us?"
"I will tell it to you, mesdemoiselles, when I no longer need to borrow
money of Miflorès; when I have inherited from my aunt."
"Oh! do tell us your secret, dear old Dodichet! We'll be very
close-mouthed."
"I do not doubt your discretion, mesdemoiselles! That's why I won't tell
you anything more."
Dodichet drank three grogs, smoked five cigarettes, then went home,
humming:
"'Mais on revient toujours
A ses premières amours!'"
The next morning, quite early, Dodichet went to the hotel where the
mysterious apothecary lived. He found him packing his trunks and
preparing to move.
"What does this mean?" cried Dodichet; "why these preparations for going
away?"
"Because I am leaving this house."
"Why, pray?"
"Because I'm afraid I shall be found here. There's your friend, that
stout man, who presumed to call me Seringat last night before a whole
roomful! I am very angry, monsieur! It was a mean trick that you played
on me, to take me to a house where I might meet a man who knew me at
Pontoise! I don't propose to lend you money so that you can treat me in
such a way as that!"
"Allow me to observe, my dear friend, that at this moment you are
talking like a goose! And I will prove to you in a few words that you
have no common sense. I borrow money of you--which I will return, by the
way, when I inherit from my aunt, you may be sure."
"Very well; I don't care about that; I'm in no hurry."
"Now, my reason for having recourse to your purse of late is that I am
rather short, that I need your help. You lend me money, not to oblige
me, I know that perfectly well, but because you're afraid that I will
divulge what you are so anxious to conceal."
"Yes, monsieur; that's the only reason--it's not from friendship at
all."
"Thanks; I appreciate that token of affection! But if I brought you face
to face with someone who had known you at Pontoise, that is to say, who
might disclose--what concerns you, why, it would be all over; you
wouldn't lend me any more money, because everything would be known!--So
you see that it is altogether against my interest that anyone should
recognize you. This Dubotté came to Mirotaine's--a most miraculous
thing; for he had always refused to go there, because they give their
guests cocoa for refreshments--he said so himself in my presence. So it
was simply an unlucky chance that he came there last night. Moreover, I
had no idea that Dubotté had ever known you at Pontoise; but luckily it
was before your--your event; he knows nothing about that."
"My word! if he'd mentioned that, I should have done some crazy thing!"
"I don't know what you'd have done; but you see that I could not have
anticipated that meeting. Come, my little Seringat, you're not angry
with me any more, are you?"
"Oh! don't call me Seringat--I don't want to be Seringat again!"
"To be sure--you are Miflorès. All right! My dear friend, I shall be
obliged to resort to your purse once more. I am going to make my début
at the Quimper-Corentin theatre, in _Joconde_, nothing less! And I must
have a costume for the rôle, a rich and elegant costume; Joconde is
Count Robert's friend, you know?"
"No, I don't know that play."
"I will reply in the words of Monsieur Prudhomme, in _La Famille
Improvisée_: 'You would be wrong if you could.'--How much do I owe you
now?"
"Two thousand francs, which I have lent you at four different times."
"That's right--five hundred francs each time; well, lend me a thousand
at once to-day. Then I shall owe you three thousand. But my old aunt
can't last much longer; and then, too, I am going to make a great
success on the stage, and tenors are paid fabulous prices now! I can
easily pay you three thousand francs, when I am earning fifty thousand a
year."
Monsieur Seringat took his wallet from his pocket and took from it a
thousand-franc note, which he handed to Dodichet, saying:
"This is for keeping my secret!"
"Thanks, my dear friend; you have unpleasant moments, but some very
agreeable quarter-hours. Will you come to Quimper to see my début?"
"No, I don't want to leave Paris; one can lose one's self better here,
in the crowd. I have discovered a small hotel, at the rear of a
courtyard, at the farther end of Rue Saint-Jacques, and I am going to
take refuge there."
"Very good; but as it is essential that I should always be able to find
you, if only to repay what I owe you, I think I will accompany you to
your small hotel at the rear of a courtyard--for it must be rather hard
to find, courtyards ordinarily being behind the hotel. Then I will bid
you farewell, and start for Bretagne to gather laurels and yellow-boys."
A cab was waiting at the door; the luggage was placed on top, Dodichet
took his place inside, with Seringat, and did not leave him until he had
seen him established in an old house on Rue Saint-Jacques, which
resembled a hotel about as much as Suresnes wine resembles Chambertin.
Dodichet's first care was to lay in a stock of tobacco, pipes, cigars,
and cigarette papers. After that, he turned his attention to his costume
for the rôle of Joconde. He spent three hundred francs, but he had a
gorgeous costume, which was almost new. On returning home, he tried it
on, and deemed himself so handsome in it that he sent his concierge to
tell Boulotte to come to see him as Joconde.
Mademoiselle Boulotte came, and uttered an admiring exclamation at sight
of Dodichet in tight, white silk pantaloons, slashed with violet velvet,
a tunic of velvet of the same color, a lace ruff, a velvet cap
surmounted by a fine white feather, a gilt belt, and yellow turn-over
top-boots. She insisted that he should go in that guise and take a glass
of beer with her; but he dared not take the risk of going to a café,
because it was not Carnival time. The best he could do was to send out
for a dinner to the nearest restaurant, and dine with his young friend
in his new costume.
Mademoiselle Boulotte was enchanted, and fancied that she was dining
with a foreign nobleman. They ate and laughed, and drank freely.
Dodichet sang snatches of his part between the courses; his voice had a
fair range, but it had been made hoarse by the excessive use of tobacco.
"My dear boy," said Boulotte, "you mustn't smoke on the day of your
début; no, nor on the day before, either."
"Pshaw! pshaw! I'm a little hoarse this evening; but if you swallow the
yolk of an egg raw, your voice becomes clear again, as if by magic.
Meanwhile, let's drink and smoke! I don't act to-morrow."
They smoked and drank so much that Joconde ended by rolling on the floor
in his fine costume, which he found spotted and rumpled and torn the
next morning. He was obliged to buy another pair of silk trousers; then
he lost no time in taking the train for Bretagne, without trying on his
costume again.
Arrived at Quimper-Corentin, Dodichet started off at once to find the
manager of the theatre. As he had a large supply of self-assurance and
cheek, he assumed the airs of one of the most talented performers of the
age, and the manager was taken in by his manner of the man accustomed to
winning triumphs. To make himself thoroughly agreeable to the manager
and to his future comrades, Dodichet invited them all to dine at the
best hotel in the town. At the table, he announced that they must not
spare the claret or the champagne. The local artists were not accustomed
to such treatment, and the manager himself, amazed to see a tenor who
was apparently wallowing in gold, was persuaded that he had placed his
hand on an Elleviou or a Tamberlick.
That same evening, the posters announced the early début of a young
tenor who had already appeared with great success at the leading
theatres of Russia, Germany, and Italy. As a measure of precaution,
Dodichet did not include France. As his name was not very pleasant to
the ear, and seemed better fitted to a comic actor than a real virtuoso,
he caused himself to be announced as Signor Rouladini, which name seemed
to promise an Italian artist.
"How many rehearsals do you want?" the manager asked his new recruit;
who replied, with the assurance which never deserted him:
"One will be enough. I know the piece by heart, and at a pinch I could
play all the parts."
But, at the rehearsal, il Signor Rouladini, who claimed to know the play
by heart, did not know even his own lines, and repeatedly turned to the
prompter.
"I have forgotten it a little, because I knew it too well," he said.
"But to-morrow, before the audience, I shan't miss a word."
"You are still very hoarse," said the manager; "would you prefer to have
your début postponed a day or two?"
"No, indeed! for my voice will be just the same later; but on the day of
my début, I will swallow the yolks of two or three eggs raw, and my
voice will be clear and sweet. Don't you worry at all!"
The manager did not seem to be altogether reassured, but all the artists
to whom Dodichet had given a dinner declared that he must have a very
sweet voice when he was not hoarse. The leading lady advised him not to
smoke till after his début. But Dodichet laughed in her face, and
offered to bet that he would smoke on the stage while she was singing;
the manager formally forbade his débutant to make that experiment, and
warned him that the audiences in that town were not very patient.
"That's because you don't know how to take them," was the reply; "I defy
them to show a bad temper with me!"
The day of the début arrived. In the morning there was another
rehearsal. Dodichet knew his part no better, and constantly appealed to
the prompter, an obstinate old supernumerary, who insisted that the
débutant was deaf. The voice was somewhat improved, thanks to the yolks
of eggs; but on leaving the rehearsal, Dodichet, in order to tighten up
his nerves, drank punch and treated all his comrades except the
prompter, with whom he was angry; and therein he made a capital
mistake: an actor should take as much pains to stand well with his
prompter as a tenant with his concierge.
At dinner, Dodichet thought it best to get slightly tipsy, so that he
would not be frightened when he faced the audience. Then he smoked,
coughed, spat, and tried his voice: the punch had entirely destroyed the
effect of the eggs, and his voice was almost inaudible. He sent out for
eggs, and ate several more raw while he was dressing, so that he was
horribly sick at his stomach when he went on the stage.
The sight of the crowded theatre greatly disturbed the débutant; he did
not know where he was, and spying in a proscenium box a man with whom he
had played dominoes the night before, he bowed and took off his cap to
him. Luckily, the audience took the salute for itself. The actor who was
on the stage with Dodichet motioned to him that it was his turn to
speak, but he had not the faintest idea what he was to say; so he turned
to the prompter and said in an undertone:
"My cue! my cue!"
"I just gave it to you," retorted the prompter, with the utmost
coolness.
The audience began to murmur. The actor who was playing Count Robert
came to his comrade's assistance once more; he skipped part of the scene
to the prelude to Joconde's famous air: _J'ai longtemps parcouru le
monde_. Thereupon there was profound silence in the hall; for everybody
was curious to hear the voice of the individual who acted so wretchedly,
and they were beginning to say to one another:
"That's your Italian singer all over! The dialogue is nothing to him,
and the music everything."
But on that occasion the music proved to be much worse than the
dialogue. The combination of eggs, punch, wine, and tobacco had given
the débutant such a peculiar voice that, when he attempted to sing, he
emitted a sort of unearthly sound which reminded one of a tea kettle, a
duck, and a serpent all at once.
The pit roared with laughter at first. But Dodichet coughed, spat, and
tried to smile at the audience, saying:
"This is nothing! it's a cat [hoarseness]!"
Then he began again:
"'J'ai longtemps parcouru le monde!'"
"Go and do it again!" cried a voice from the pit.
Dodichet began to cough again, then spat at the prompter, who stuck his
head out of his box, and shouted:
"Look out what you're doing!"
Once more the débutant began his air:
"'J'ai longtemps parcouru le monde;
Et l'on m'a vu, et l'on m'a vu!----'"[R]
A storm of hisses arose; this time the audience thought that he meant to
mock at them, and on all sides there were shouts of:
"Down with him! put him out!"
Dodichet tried to go on:
"'Et l'on m'a vu, et l'on m'a vu!'"
"We've seen quite enough of you!" cried the pit in chorus. "Off you
go!"
Dodichet pretended not to hear, and insisted on continuing his air; but
the audience made a terrible uproar, and some young men in the pit threw
raw potatoes and copper sous at the débutant.
"Ah! this is the way you treat me, is it?" he cried; "well, you're a
pack of brazen-faced hounds!"
And with that, he turned his back on the audience, made a most
contemptuous gesture, and rushed into the wings. But the gesture he had
indulged in and the words he had uttered excited the wrath of the
spectators to the highest pitch; they jumped down among the musicians,
climbed upon the stage, and scoured it in all directions.
"We'll teach the fellow to show such disrespect to the public," they
said; "it's a hiding, not hisses, that Signor Rouladini needs."
And the prompter in his hole rubbed his hands in glee.
The manager tried in vain to pacify the audience; they would not listen
to him. But Dodichet's comrades, seeing that the matter was becoming
serious, hustled him out of the theatre by a side door, with a
policeman's cloak over his shoulders and a fireman's helmet on his head.
"Leave the town at once," they said to him. "Don't go back to your
hotel, for you won't be safe there. Hurry to the station, and skip! the
Bretons don't understand a joke; they might do you a serious injury."
Bewildered by what had happened to him, Dodichet found himself in the
street with no clear idea how he had got there. Luckily for him, he
invariably carried his purse in his belt, so that he would always be
able to take something. He soon decided what course to take. Wrapping
himself in the cloak they had thrown over his shoulders, and fixing the
fireman's helmet firmly on his head, he made for the railway station.
"The provinces are not enlightened enough to appreciate me," he said to
himself; "I will return to Paris. I have two hundred francs in my purse
still, and with that I can await events."
He jumped into a carriage in which there were three women. His strange
costume frightened them, and they started to change carriages; but
Dodichet reassured them by saying that he had just left a fancy-dress
ball, and that he had retained his disguise on a wager. But, at the
first stop, he purchased other clothes, not daring to return to Paris as
Joconde, a policeman, and a fireman all in one.
This change of costume was expensive, and when he arrived in Paris
Dodichet had but one hundred francs left of the thousand Seringat had
lent him. But, on the very day of his return, he received a letter from
Troyes in an envelope with a black border.
"My poor aunt is dead!" he said to himself; "faith! I'll not play the
hypocrite so far as to weep for her. Her money arrives in the nick of
time. I will pay Seringat, I will buy a cashmere shawl for Boulotte, and
I will weave days of gold, truffles, and champagne; for the dear aunt
was rich. She must have left me more than a hundred thousand francs!"
Dodichet broke the seal; the letter did, in fact, announce the death of
his aunt, who had left her whole fortune to a third or fourth cousin, as
she did not choose that it should go to her scapegrace of a nephew, who
had made such a wretched use of the money his other relations had left
him.
Dodichet did not expect to be disinherited; he angrily crumpled the
notary's letter which told him the news; and for the first time his
reflections were not rose-colored.
XV
A RASCALLY BROTHER-IN-LAW
After his quarrel with Nathalie, Adhémar sought distraction and pleasure
to no purpose; go where he would, he found neither. When one loves
truly, it is a very painful thing to cease to see her whose presence had
a never-failing charm; one tries in vain to put a brave face upon it,
and to tell one's self that a lost love is readily replaced by another;
in reality, we cannot tear a beloved image from our hearts so easily; we
are conscious of an aching void, a brooding melancholy which follows us
everywhere; and we prefer the memories of the past for which we sigh to
all the pleasures that the present has to offer us.
Adhémar was unhappy, and dissatisfied with himself; and yet he strove to
convince himself that he was justified in breaking off that intimacy
which had so much charm for him.
"I loved her," he would say to himself; "I loved her sincerely, but she
did not love me, for she deceived me. That pipe case did not belong to
any woman. So that she received visits from men without telling me! and
when one's mistress once has mysteries of that sort in her life,
everyone knows what it means. And that smell of tobacco, which I had
noticed before! That smoker must have come often to see her! Ah!
Nathalie, Nathalie! you who were the woman I had dreamed of--to be loved
by whom would have made me so happy! But, no, women cannot be faithful;
why should she have acted differently from the others?"
On a certain day, when the young author was walking along the street in
gloomy mood, thinking such thoughts as these, he suddenly found himself
face to face with Lucien, who, also, was sighing dolorously.
"Ah! Lucien!"
"Adhémar!"
"Where are you going, my dear Lucien?"
"I am going--upon my word! I don't know where I am going. I am walking
about at random--I am so unhappy! so desperate!"
"Really? Come, tell me your troubles, my poor Lucien. I am none too
cheerful myself, by the way. So we will share our sorrows; that always
helps a little. Hasn't your invention, your little business enterprise,
succeeded?"
"Why, yes, it is going on very well, and that is just the reason I am in
such despair."
"I don't understand you."