RENEWAL OF YOUTH.
The Minister and his wife had finished breakfast in their dining-room
on the first floor, a room much too big and showy, that never could
be thoroughly thawed out, even with heavy curtains and the heat of a
furnace that warmed the whole house, and the steam from the hot dishes
of a copious repast. By some chance that morning they were alone
together. On the table amidst the dessert, always a great feature
in the Southerner’s meal, lay a box of cigars and a cup of vervain,
which is the tea of the Provençal, and large boxes filled with cards
of invitation to a series of concerts to be given by the Minister.
They were addressed to senators, deputies, clergymen, professors,
academicians, people of society--all the motley crowd that is generally
bidden to public receptions; and some larger boxes for the cards to the
privileged guests asked to the first series of “little concerts.”
Mme. Roumestan was running them over, occasionally pausing at some
name, watched by her husband out of the corner of his eye as he
pretended to be absorbed in selecting a cigar, while really his furtive
glance was noting the disapprobation and reserve on her quiet face at
the promiscuous way this first batch of invitations had been selected.
But Rosalie asked no questions; all these preparations did not
interest her. Since their installation at the Ministry she had felt
herself farther off than ever from her husband, separated by his
many engagements, too many guests and a public way of living that
had destroyed all intimacy. To this was added the ever-bitter sorrow
of childlessness; never to hear about her the pattering of tireless
little feet, nor any of those peals of baby laughter that would have
banished from their dining-room that icy look as if a hotel where they
were stopping for a day or two, with its impersonal air on tablecloth,
furniture, silver and all the sumptuous things to be found in any
public place.
In the embarrassing silence could be heard the distant sound of hammers
interspersed with music and singing. The musicians were rehearsing,
while carpenters were busy putting up and hanging the stage on which
the concert was to take place. The door opened; Méjean entered, his
hands full of papers.
“Still more petitions!”
Roumestan flew into a rage: No, it was really too bad!--if it were the
Pope himself there would be no place to give him. Méjean calmly placed
before him the heap of letters, cards and scented notes:
“It is very difficult to refuse--you promised them, you know--”
“I promised? I haven’t spoken to one of them!”
“Listen a moment: ‘My dear Minister--I beg to remind you of your kind
speech,’ and this one, ‘The General informs me that you were so kind as
to offer him,’ and this, ‘Reminding the Minister of his promise.’”
“I must be a somnambulist, then!” said Roumestan in astonishment.
The fact was that as soon as the day for the concert was decided upon
Numa had said to every one whom he met in the Senate or Chamber: “I
count on you for the 10th, you know,” and as he added “Quite a private
affair,” no one had failed to accept the flattering invitation.
Embarrassed at being caught in the act by his wife, he vented his
irritability upon her as usual.
“It’s the fault of your sister with her taborist. What need have I
of all this fuss? I did not intend to give our concerts until much
later--but that girl, such an impatient little person! ‘No, no, right
away;’ and you were in as much of a hurry as she was! _L’azé me fiche_
if I don’t believe this taborist has turned your heads.”
“O no, not mine,” answered Rosalie gayly. “Indeed I am dreadfully
afraid that this foreign music may not be understood by the Parisians.
We ought to have brought the atmosphere of Provence, the costumes, the
farandole--but first of all,” she added seriously, “it is necessary
that you must keep your promise.”
“Promise, promise? It will be impossible to talk at all very soon!”
Turning towards his secretary, who was smiling, he added:
“By Jove, all Southerners are not like you, Méjean, cold and
calculating and taciturn. You are a false one, a renegade Southerner,
a _Franciot_, as they say with us. A Southerner?--you? A man who
has never lied and who does not like vervain tea!” he added with a
comically indignant tone.
“I am not so _franciot_ as I seem, sir,” answered Méjean calmly.
“When I first came to Paris twenty years ago I was a terrible
Southerner--impudence, gesticulations, assurance--as talkative and
inventive as--”
“As Bompard,” prompted Roumestan, who never liked other people to
ridicule his dearest friend, but did not deny himself the privilege.
“Yes, really, almost as bad as Bompard. A kind of instinct urged me
never to tell the truth. One day I began to feel ashamed of this and
resolved to correct it. Outward exaggeration could be mastered at least
by speaking in a low voice and keeping my arms pressed tightly against
my sides; but the inward--the boiling, bubbling torrent--that was
more difficult. Then I made an heroic resolution. Every time I caught
myself in an untruth I punished myself by not speaking for the rest of
the day; that is how I was able to reform my nature. Nevertheless the
instinct is there under all my coolness. Sometimes I have broken off
short in the middle of a sentence--it isn’t the words I lack, quite the
contrary--I hold myself in check because I feel that I am going to lie.”
“The terrible South--there is no way of escaping from it!” said the
genial Numa, philosophically, blowing a cloud of smoke from his cigar
up to the ceiling. “The South holds me through the mania I have to
make promises, that craziness of throwing myself at people’s heads and
insisting on their happiness whether they want it or not--”
A footman interrupted him, opened the door and announced with a knowing
and confidential air:
“M. Béchut is here.”
The Minister was furious at once. “Tell him I am at breakfast! I wish
people would let me alone.”
The footman asked pardon, but said M. Béchut claimed that he had an
appointment with his Excellency. Roumestan softened visibly:
“Well, well, I will come. Let him wait in the library.”
“Not in the library,” said Méjean, “it is occupied; there’s the
Superior Council! You appointed this hour to see them.”
“Well, in M. de Lappara’s room, then--”
“I have put the Bishop of Tulle in there,” said the footman timidly;
“your Excellency said--”
Every place was occupied with office-seekers whom he had confidentially
told that the breakfast hour was the time when they would be sure to
find him--and most of them were personages that could not be made to
“do antechamber” like the ordinary herd.
“Go into my morning room,” said Rosalie as she rose. “I am going out.”
And while the secretary and the footman went to reassure and quiet the
waiting petitioners Numa hastily swallowed his cup of vervain, scalding
himself badly, exclaiming: “I am at my wits’ end, overwhelmed.”
“What can that sorry fellow Béchut be after now?” asked Rosalie,
instinctively lowering her voice in that crowded house where a stranger
was lurking behind every door.
“What is he after? After the manager’s position of course. _Té!_ he
is Dansaert’s shark--he expects him to be thrown overboard for him to
devour.”
She approached him hastily:
“Is M. Dansaert to be dropped from the Cabinet?”
“Do you know him?”
“My father often spoke of him--he was a compatriot and old friend of
his. He considers him an upright man and very clever.”
Roumestan stammered out his reasons: “Bad tendencies--free-thinker--it
was necessary to make reforms, and then, he was a very old man.”
“And you will put Béchut in his place?”
“O, I know the poor man lacks the gift of pleasing the ladies.”
She smiled a fine scornful smile.
“His impertinences are as indifferent to me as his compliments would
be. What I cannot forgive in him is his assumption of clerical learning
and piety. I respect all forms of religion--but if there is one thing
more detestable in this world than another, it is hypocrisy and deceit.”
Unconsciously her voice rose warm and vibrating; her rather cold
features beamed with a glow of honesty and rectitude and flushed with
righteous indignation.
“Hush, hush,” said Numa pointing towards the door. Perhaps it was not
perfectly just; he allowed that old Dansaert had rendered good service
to his country; but what was to be done? He had given his word.
“Take it back,” said Rosalie. “Come, Numa, for my sake--I implore you!”
The tender request was emphasized by the gentle pressure of her little
hand upon his shoulder. He was much touched. His wife had not seemed
interested in his affairs of late; she had given only an indulgent
but silent attention to his plans, which were ever changing their
direction. This urgent request was flattering to him.
“Can any one resist you, my darling?”
He pressed upon her finger tips a kiss so fervid that she felt it all
up her narrow sleeve. She had such beautiful arms! It was most painful,
however, to say anything disagreeable to a man’s face and he rose
reluctantly:
“I will be here, listening!” she said with a pretty threatening
gesture.
He went into the next room, leaving the door ajar to give himself
courage and so that she might hear all that was said. Oh, the beginning
was firm and to the point!
“I am in despair, my dear Béchut--but it is utterly impossible for me
to do for you as I promised--”
The answer of the professor was inaudible, but rendered in a tearful,
supplicating voice through his huge tapir-like nose. To her surprise
Roumestan did not waver, but began to sound the praises of Dansaert
with a surprising accent of conviction for a man to whom all his
arguments had only just been suggested. True, it was very hard for him
to take back a promise once given, but was it not better than to do
an act of injustice? It was his wife’s thought modulated and put to
music and uttered with wide, heartfelt gestures that made the hangings
vibrate.
“Of course I will make up to you in some way this little
misunderstanding,” he added, changing his tone hastily.
“Oh, good Lord!” cried Rosalie under her breath. Then came a shower
of new promises--the cross of commander in the Legion of Honor on
the first of January next, the next vacancy in the Superior Council,
the--the--Béchut tried to protest, just for decency’s sake, but said
Numa: “Permit me, permit me, it’s only an act of justice--such men as
you are too uncommon--”
Intoxicated with his own benevolence, stammering from sheer
affectionateness--if Béchut had not gone Numa would have offered him
his own portfolio next. But suddenly remembering the concert, he called
to him from the door:
“I count on seeing you next Sunday, my dear professor; we are starting
a series of little concerts, very unceremonious you know--the very ‘top
of the basket’--”
Then returning to Rosalie, he said:
“Well, what do you think of it? I hope I have been firm enough!”
It was really so amusing that she burst into a peal of laughter. When
he understood her amusement and that he had made a number of new
promises, he seemed alarmed.
“Well, well, people are grateful to one all the same.”
She left him, smiling one of her old smiles, quite gay from her kind
deed and perhaps above all delighted to find a feeling for him reviving
in her heart that she had long thought dead.
“Angel that you are!” said Numa to himself as he watched her go, tears
of tenderness in his eyes; and when Méjean came in to remind him of the
waiting council:
“My friend, listen: when one has the luck to possess a wife like
mine--marriage is an earthly Paradise. Hurry up and marry!”
Méjean shook his head without answering.
“How now? Isn’t your affair prospering?”
“I fear not. Mme. Roumestan promised to sound her sister for me, but as
she has never said anything more--”
“Don’t you want me to manage it for you? I get on splendidly with my
little sister-in-law.... I bet you I can make her decide....”
There was still a little vervain left in the teapot, and as he poured
out a fresh cup Roumestan overflowed with protestations to his first
secretary. “Ah! no, success had not altered him; as always, Méjean was
his best, his chosen friend! Between him and Rosalie he indeed felt
himself stronger and more complete....
“O, my friend, that woman, that woman--if you only knew what her
goodness is! how noble and forgiving! When I think that I was capable
of--”
Positively it was with difficulty that he restrained himself from
launching the confidence that rose to his lips along with a heavy sigh.
“If I did not love her, I should be guilty indeed.”
Baron de Lappara came in quickly and whispered with a mysterious air:
“Mlle. Bachellery is here.”
Numa turned scarlet and a flash dried the tenderness from his eyes in a
moment.
“Where is she? In your room?”
“Monsignor Lipmann was there already,” said Lappara, smiling a little
at the idea of the possible meeting. “I put her downstairs in the large
drawing-room. The rehearsal is over.”
“Very well; I will go.”
“Don’t forget the Council,” Méjean tried to say, but Roumestan did
not hear and sprang down the steep stairway leading to the Minister’s
private apartments on the reception floor.
He had steered clear of serious entanglements since the trouble over
Mme. d’Escarbès, avoiding adventures of the heart or of vanity, because
he feared an open rupture that might ruin his household forever. He
was not a model husband, certainly, but the marriage contract, though
soiled and full of holes, was still intact. Though once well warned,
Rosalie was much too honest and high-minded to spy jealously upon her
husband, and although she was always anxious, never sought for proofs.
Even at that moment, if Numa had had any idea of the influence this
new fancy of his was to have upon his life, he would have hastened to
ascend the stairs much more quickly than he had come down them; but
our destiny delights to come to us in mask and domino, doubling the
pleasure of the first meeting with the touch of mystery. How could Numa
divine that any danger threatened from the pretty little girl whom he
had seen from his carriage window crossing the courtyard several days
before, jumping over the puddles, holding her umbrella in one hand and
her coquettish skirts gathered up in the other, with all the smartness
of a true Parisian woman, her long lashes curving above a saucy,
turned-up nose, her blond hair, twisted in an American knot behind,
which the moist air had turned to curls at the ends, and her shapely,
finely-curved leg quite at ease above her high-heeled boot--that was
all he had seen of her. So during the evening he had said to De Lappara
as if it were a matter of very little importance:
“I will wager, that little charmer I met in the courtyard this morning
was on her way to see you.”
“Yes, your Excellency, she came to see me, but it was on your account
she came.”
And then he had named little Bachellery.
“What! the _débutante_ at the Bouffes? How old is she? Why, she’s
hardly more than a child!”
The papers were talking a great deal that winter about this Alice
Bachellery, whom a fashionable _impresario_ had discovered in a small
theatre in the provinces, whom all the world was crowding to hear when
she sang the “Little Baker’s Boy,” the chorus to which--
“Hot, hot, little oat-cakes”--
she gave with an irresistible drollery. She was one of those divas half
a dozen of whom the boulevard devours each season, paper reputations
inflated by gas and puffery, which make one think of the little
rose-colored balloons that live their single day of sunshine and dust
in the public gardens. And what think you she had come to ask for at
the Minister’s? Permission to appear on the programme at his first
concert! Little Bachellery and the Department of Public Instruction!
It was so amusing and so crazy that Numa wanted to hear her ask it
himself; so by a Ministerial letter that smelt of the leather and
gloves of the orderly who took it he gave her to understand that he
would receive her next day. But the next day Mlle. Bachellery did not
appear.
“She must have changed her mind,” said Lappara, “she is such a child!”
But Roumestan felt piqued, did not mention the subject for two days and
on the third sent for her.
And now she was awaiting him in the great drawing-room for official
functions, all in gold and red, so imposing with its long windows
opening into the garden now bereft of flowers, its Gobelin tapestries
and its marble statue of Molière sitting in a dreamy posture in the
background. A grand piano, a few music-stands used at the rehearsal,
scarcely filled one corner of the big room whose dreary air, like an
empty museum, would have disconcerted any one but little Bachellery;
but then she was such a child!
Tempted by the broad floor, all waxed and shiny, here she was, amusing
herself by taking slides from one end of the room to the other, wrapped
in her furs, her hands in a muff too small for them, her little nose
upraised under her jaunty pork-pie hat, looking like one of the dancers
of the “ice ballet” in _The Prophet_. Roumestan caught her at the game.
“Oh! Your Excellency!”
She was dreadfully embarrassed, her eyelashes quivering, all out of
breath. He had come in with his head up and a solemn step in order
to give some point to a somewhat irregular interview and put this
impertinent huzzy, who had kept Ministers waiting, in her proper place.
But the sight of her quite disarmed him. What could you expect?
She laid her simple ambition so cleverly before him as an idea that had
come to her suddenly, to appear at the concerts which every one was
talking about so much--it would be of so much advantage to her to be
heard otherwise than in comic opera and music hall extravaganzas, which
bored her to death! But then, on reflection, a panic had seized her:
“Oh, I tell you, a regular panic! Wasn’t it, Mamma?”
Then for the first time Roumestan perceived a stout woman in a velvet
cloak and a much beplumed bonnet advancing toward him with regular
reverences every three steps. Mme. Bachellery, the mother, had been
a singer in a concert-garden. She had the Bordeaux accent, a little
nose like her daughter’s sunk in a large face like a dish--one of
those terrible mothers, who, in the company of their daughters, seem
the hideous prophecy of what their beauty will come to! But Numa was
not engaged in a philosophical study. He was too much engrossed by the
grace of this hoyden that shone from a finished body, a body adorably
finished, as well as by her theatrical slang mingled with her childlike
laugh, “her sixteen-year-old laugh,” as the ladies of her acquaintance
called it.
“Sixteen! then how old could she have been when she went on the stage?”
“She was born there, your Excellency. Her father, now retired, was the
manager of the Folies Bordelaises.”
“A daughter of the regiment,” said Alice, showing thirty-two sparkling
teeth, as close and evenly ranked as soldiers on parade.
“Alice, Alice, you forget yourself in the presence of his Excellency.”
“Let her alone--she is only a child!”
He made her sit down by him on the sofa in a kindly, almost paternal
manner, complimented her on her ambition and her sentiment for real
art, her desire to escape from the easy and demoralizing successes of
comic opera; but then she would have to work hard and study seriously.
“O, as for that,” she answered, brandishing a roll of music, “I study
two hours every day with Mme. Vauters.”
“Mme. Vauters? Yes, hers is an excellent method,” and he opened the
roll of music and examined its contents with a knowing air.
“What are we singing now? Aha! The waltz of _Mireille_, the song of
Magali. Why, they are the songs of my part of the country!”
He half closed his eyes and keeping time with his head he began softly
to hum:
“O Magali, ma bien-aimée,
Fuyons tous deux sous la ramée
Au fond du bois silencieux....”
And she took it up:
“La nuit sur nous étend ses voiles
Et tes beaux yeux--”
And Roumestan sang out loud:
“Vont faire pâlir les étoiles....”
“Do wait a moment,” she cried, “Mamma will play us the accompaniment.”
Pushing aside the music-stands and opening the piano, she led her
reluctant mother to the piano-stool. Ah, she was such a determined
little person! The Minister hesitated a moment with his finger on the
page of the duet--what if any one should hear them? Never mind; there
had been rehearsals going on every day in the big salon.... They began.
They were singing together from the same sheet of music as they stood,
while Mme. Bachellery played from memory. Their heads were almost
touching, their breaths mingled together with caressing modulations of
the music. Numa got excited and dramatic, raising his arms to bring
out the high notes. For many years now, ever since his political life
had absorbed him, he had done more talking than singing. His voice had
become heavy like his figure, but he still loved to sing, especially
with this child.
He had completely forgotten the Bishop of Tulle and the Superior
Council which was wearily awaiting him round the big green table.
Several times the pallid face of the chamberlain on duty, his official
silver chain clanking, peered into the room but quickly disappeared
again, terrified lest he should be caught gazing at the Minister of
Public Instruction and Religions singing a duet with an actress from
one of the minor theatres. But a Minister Numa was no longer, only
Vincent the basket-maker pursuing the unapproachable Magali through
all her coquettish transformations. And how well she fled! how well,
with childish malice, she did make her escape, her ringing laughter
clear as pearls rippling over her sharp little teeth, until at last,
overcome, she yields and her mad little head, made dizzy by her rapid
course, sinks on her lover’s shoulder!...
Mme. Bachellery broke the charm and recalled them to their senses as
soon as the song was finished. Turning round, she cried:
“What a voice, Excellency! What a noble voice!”
“Yes, I used to sing when I was young” he said, somewhat fatuously.
“But you still sing _maganifisuntly!_ Say, Baby, what a contrast to M.
de Lappara!”
Baby, who was rolling up her music, shrugged her shoulders as much
as to say, that was too much of a truism to be discussed or to need
further answer. A little anxious, Roumestan asked:
“Indeed? M. de Lappara?”
“O, he sometimes comes to eat _bouillabaise_ with us; then after dinner
Baby and he sing duets together.”
Hearing the music no longer, the chamberlain ventured at last into the
room, as cautiously as a lion-tamer going into a cage of lions.
“Yes, yes, I am coming,” said Roumestan, and addressing the little
actress with his best “Excellency air” in order to make her feel the
difference in position between him and his secretary:
“I am very much pleased with your singing, Mademoiselle; you have a
great deal of talent, a great deal! And if you care to sing for us on
Sunday next, I gladly grant you that favor.”
She gave a joyful, childlike cry: “Really? O, how lovely of you!”--and
in an instant flung her arms about his neck.
“Alice! Alice! Well, I declare!” cried her mother.
But she was gone; she had taken flight through the great rooms where
she looked so tiny in the long perspective--a child! O, such a perfect
child!
Much agitated by her caress, Roumestan paused a few moments before he
went upstairs. Outside in the wintry garden one pale sun-ray shone on
the withered lawn and seemed to warm and revive the winter. He felt
penetrated to the heart by a similar warmth as if the contact with this
supple youthful form communicated some of its spring-like vitality to
him. “Ah! how charming is youth!”
Instinctively he glanced at himself in the mirror; a mournfulness came
over him that he had not felt for years. How changed things were, _boun
Diou!_ He had grown very stout from want of exercise, much sitting at
his desk and the too constant use of his carriage; his complexion was
injured by staying up late at night, his hair thin and grizzled at the
temples; he was even more horrified at the fatness of his cheeks and
the vast flat expanse between his nose and his ears. “I have a mind to
grow a beard to cover that.” But then the beard would be white--and
yet he was only forty-five. Alas, politics age one so!
He was suffering there, in those few moments, the frightful anguish a
woman feels when she realizes that all is over--her power of inspiring
love is gone, while her own power to love still remains. His reddened
lids swelled with tears; there in the midst of his masterful place
this sorrow profoundly human, in which ambition had no part, seemed to
him bitter almost beyond endurance. But with his usual versatility of
feeling he consoled himself quickly by thinking of his talents, his
fame and his high position. Were they not just as strong as beauty or
as youth in order to make him loved?
“Come, come!”
He quite despised himself for his folly, and, driving off his troubles
with the customary jerk of his shoulder, went upstairs to dismiss the
Council, for he had no time left to preside to-day.
* * * * *
“What has happened to you, my dear Excellency, you seem to have renewed
your youth?”
This question was asked him a dozen times in the lobby of the Chambers,
where his good humor was remarked upon and where he caught himself
humming, “O Magali, my well-beloved.” Sitting on the Bench he listened
with an attention most flattering to the speaker during a long-winded
discourse about the tariff, smiling beatifically beneath his lowered
eyelids.
So the Left, whom his character for astuteness held in awe, said
timidly one to the other: “Let us hold fast, Roumestan is preparing a
coup!” In reality he was engaged in bringing before his mental vision,
through the empty hum of the wearying discourse, the outlines of little
Bachellery, trotting her out, as it were, before the Ministerial Bench,
passing her attractions in review, her hair waving like a golden net
across her brow, her wild-rose complexion, her bewitching air of a girl
who was already a woman!
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.