Observe the beauty of the sky and water. Observe the palaces, the
columns and temples, built by the Romans; note those magnificent
statues, of which but few fragments remain. See that circus, in which
they used to hold bull fights, to train the young men to be
strong.--(_To his wife._) I'm satisfied that you've been gallivanting
with Grugeon.--See, in the distance, the famous Partiates fighting with
their fists like Englishmen, and playing the game of Siam with a large
roulette table.--(_To his wife._) He asked you to take a glass of beer
in a private room.--That handsome young man you see at the right is
Alcibiades, with Socrates, his teacher, who is teaching him things he
don't know.
While I listened I saw the curtain move more violently, and I heard the
girl say in an undertone:
"Oh! how stupid! Ah! how stupid! I tell you I won't!"
Père Trousquin motioned to his wife to pull the cord, and resumed his
harangue.
"This, messieurs and mesdames, is taken from mythology; it is the
magnificent Judgment of Solomon, called the Wise, who is preparing to
carve a little child, exactly as if it was a pie. Observe the
consternation of the little one as he awaits his fate, with his legs in
the air; observe the fiendish glee of that shrewish stepmother, who
looks on, dry-eyed, as if someone was going to give her a slice of
rabbit; but observe the grief of the real mother, who seeks to turn
aside the cleaver which already threatens the innocent child's navel."
THE YOUNG WOMAN (_under the curtain_).
Ah! the villain! ah! the villain! he keeps right on. What a stupid!