AN EVENING PARTY AT THE MINISTRY.
There was an unusual look to the Faubourg St. Germain that evening.
Quiet little streets that were sleeping peacefully at an early hour
were awakened by the jolting of omnibuses turned from their usual
course; while other streets, where usually the uninterrupted stream and
roar of great Parisian arteries prevail, were like a river-bed from
which the water has been drained. Silent, empty, apparently enlarged,
the entrance was guarded by the outline of a mounted policeman or by
the sombre shadows across the asphalt of a line of civic guards, with
hoods drawn up over their caps and hands muffled in their long sleeves,
saying by a gesture to carriages as they approached: “No one can pass.”
“Is it a fire?” asked a frightened man, putting his head out of the
carriage window.
“No, sir; it is the evening party of the Public Instruction.”
The sentry passed on and the coachman drove off, swearing at being
obliged to go so far out of his way on that left bank of the Seine,
where the little streets planned without system are still somewhat
confusing, after the fashion of old Paris.
At a distance, sure enough, the brilliant lights from the two fronts
of the Ministry, the bonfires lighted in the middle of the streets
because of the cold, the gleam from lines of lanterns on the carriages
converging to one spot, threw a halo round the whole quarter like the
reflection of a great conflagration, made more brilliant by the limpid
blueness of the sky and the frosty dryness of the air. On approaching
the house, however, one was reassured by the perfect arrangements of
the party; for the conflagration was but the glare of the even white
light rising to the eaves of the nearer houses, that rendered visible,
as distinctly as by day, the names in gold upon the different public
buildings--“Mayory of the Seventh District,” “Ministry of Posts and
Telegraphs,” fading off in Bengal flames and fairylike illumination
among the branches of some big and leafless trees.
Among those who lingered notwithstanding the chill wind and formed
a hedge of curious gazers near the hotel gates was a little pale
shadow with awkward, ducklike gait, wrapped from head to foot in a
long peasant’s cloak, which allowed nothing of her but two piercing
eyes to be visible. She walked up and down, bent with the cold, her
teeth chattering, but insensible to the biting frost in the fever and
intoxication of her excitement. Occasionally she would rush at some
carriage in the row advancing slowly up the Rue de Grenelle with a
luxurious noise of jingling harness and champing bits of impatient
horses, where dainty forms clad in white were dimly seen behind the
misty carriage windows. Then she would return to the entrance where the
privilege of a special ticket allowed the carriage of some dignitary to
break the line and enter. She pushed the people aside: “Excuse me--just
let me look a moment.” Under the blaze from the lamp-stands built in
the form of yew trees, under the striped awning of the marquees, the
carriage doors, opening with a bang, discharged upon the carpets their
freight of rustling satin, billowy tulle and glowing flowers.
The little figure leaned eagerly forward and hardly withdrew herself
quickly enough to avoid being crushed by the next carriage to come on.
Audiberte was determined to see for herself how such an entertainment
was managed. How proudly she gazed on this crowd and these lights, the
soldiers ahorse and afoot, the police and these brilliant goings-on,
all this part of Paris turned topsy-turvy in honor of Valmajour’s
tabor! For it was being given in his honor and she was sure that his
name was on the lips of all these fine and beautiful gentlemen and
ladies. From the front entrance on Grenelle Street she rushed to that
on Bellechasse Street, through which the empty carriages drove out;
there she mingled with the civic guards and the coachmen in immense
coats with capes round a _brasero_ flaming in the middle of the street,
and was astonished to hear these people talking of every-day matters,
the sharp cold of that winter, potatoes freezing in the cellars,
of things absolutely foreign to the function and her brother. The
slowness of the crawling line of carriages particularly irritated her;
she longed to see the last one drive up and be able to say: “Ready at
last! Now it will begin. This time it is really commencing.”
But with the deepening of the night the cold became more penetrating;
she could have cried with the pain of her nearly frozen feet; but it is
pretty rough to cry when one’s heart is so happy!
At last she made up her mind to go home, after taking in all this
gorgeousness in one last look and carrying it off in her poor, savage
little head as she passed along the dismal streets through the icy
night. Her temples throbbed with the fever of ambition and almost burst
with dreams and hopes, whilst her eyes were forever dazzled and, as
it were, blinded by that illumination to the honor and glory of the
Valmajours.
But what would she have said, had she gone in, had she seen all those
drawing-rooms in white and gold unfolding themselves in perspective
beneath their arcaded doorways, enlarged by mirrors on which fell
the flames of the chandeliers, the wall decorations, the dazzling
glitter of diamonds and military trappings, the orders of all
kinds--palm-shaped, in tufted form, broochlike, or big as Catherine
wheels, or small as watch-charms, or else fastened about the neck with
those broad red ribbons which make one think of bloody decapitations!
Pell-mell among great names belonging to the Faubourg St. Germain there
were present ministers, generals, ambassadors, members of the Institute
and the Superior Council of the University. Never in the arena at Aps,
no, not even at the tabor matches in Marseilles, had Valmajour had such
an audience. To tell the truth, his name did not occupy much space at
this festival which was given in his honor. The programme was decorated
with marvellous borders from the pen of Dalys, and certainly mentioned
“Various Airs on the Tabor” with the name of Valmajour in combination
with that of several lyrical pieces; but people did not look at the
programme. Only the intimate friends, only those people who are
acquainted with everything that is going on, said to the Minister as he
stood to receive at the entrance to the first drawing-room:
“So you have a tabor-player?” And he answered, with his thoughts
elsewhere:
“Yes, a whim of the ladies.”
He was not thinking much of poor Valmajour that evening, but of another
appearance much more important to him. What would people say? Would
she be a success? Had not the interest he had taken in the child made
him exaggerate her talent? And, very much in love, although he would
not have owned it yet to himself, bitten to the bone by the absorbing
passion of an elderly man, he felt all the anxiety of the father,
husband, lover or milliner of a _débutante_, one of those sorrowful
anxieties such as one often sees in somebody restlessly wandering
behind the scenes on the night of a first representation. That did not
prevent him from being amiable, warm and meeting his guests with both
hands outstretched; and what guests, _boun Diou!_ nor from simpering,
smiling, neighing, prancing, throwing back his body, twisting and
bending with unfailing if somewhat monotonous effusion--but with shades
of difference, nevertheless.
Suddenly quitting, almost pushing aside, the guest to whom he was
speaking in a low voice and promising endless favors, he flew to meet a
stately lady with crimson cheeks and authoritative manner: “Ah, Madame
la Maréchale,” and placing in his own the august arm encased in a
twenty-button glove, he led his noble guest through the rooms between
a double row of obsequious black coats to the concert room, where Mme.
Roumestan presided, assisted by her sister.
As he passed through the rooms on his return he scattered kind
words and hand-shakes right and left. “Count on me! It’s a settled
thing!”--or else he threw rapidly his “How are you, friend?”--or again,
in order to warm up the reception and put a sympathetic current flowing
through all this solemn society crowd, he would present people to each
other, throwing them without warning into each other’s arms: “What! you
do not know each other? The Prince of Anhalt!--M. Bos, Senator!” and
never noticed that the two men, their names hardly uttered, after a
hasty duck of the head and a “Sir”--“Sir,” merely waited till he was
gone to turn their backs on each other with a ferocious look.
Like the greater number of political antagonists, our good Numa had
relaxed and let himself out when he had won the fight and come to
power. Without ceasing to belong to the party of moral order, this
Vendean from the South had lost his fine ardor for the Cause, permitted
his grand hopes to slumber, and began to find that things were not
so bad after all. Why should these savage hatreds exist between nice
people? He yearned for peace and a general indulgence. He counted on
music to operate a fusion among the parties, his little fortnightly
concerts becoming a neutral ground for artistic and sociable enjoyment,
where the most bitterly hostile people might meet each other and learn
to esteem one another in a spot apart from the passions and torments of
politics.
That was why there was such a queer mixture in the invitations; thence
also the embarrassment and lack of ease among the guests; therefore
also colloquies in low tones suddenly interrupted and that curious
going and coming of black coats, the assumed interest seen in looks
raised to the ceiling, examining the gilded fluting of the panels, the
decorations of the time of the Directory, half Louis XVI, half Empire,
with bronze heads on the upright lines of the marble chimneypieces.
People were hot and at the same time cold, as if, one might believe,
the terrible frost outside, changed by the thick walls and the wadding
of the hangings, had been converted into moral cold. From time to time
the rushing about of De Lappara and De Rochemaure to find seats for the
ladies broke in upon the monotonous strolling about of bored men, or
else a stir was made by the sensational entrance of the beautiful Mme.
Hubler, her hair dressed with feathers, her profile dry like that of an
indestructible doll, with a smile like a stamped coin drawn up to her
very eyebrows--a wax doll in a hair-dresser’s window. But the cold soon
returned again.
“It is the very devil to thaw out these rooms of the Public
Instruction. I am sure the ghost of Frayssinous walks here at night.”
This remark in a loud tone was made by one of a group of young
musicians gathered obsequiously round Cadaillac, the manager of the
opera, who was sitting philosophically on a velvet couch with his back
against the statue of Molière. Very fat, half deaf, with a bristling
white moustache, his face puffy and impenetrable, it was hard to find
in him the natty and politic young _impresario_ under whose care
the “Nabob” had given his entertainments; his eyes alone told of
the Parisian joker, his ferocious science of life, his spirit, hard
as a blackthorn with an iron ferule, toughened in the fire of the
footlights. But full and sated and content with his place and fearful
of losing it at the end of his contract, he sheathed his claws and
talked little and especially little here; his only criticism on this
official and social comedy being a laugh as silent and inscrutable as
that of Leather-Stocking.
“Boissaric, my good fellow,” he asked in a low voice of an ambitious
young Toulousian who had just had a ballet accepted at the opera after
only ten years of waiting--a thing nobody could believe--“you who know
everything, tell me who that solemn-looking man with a big moustache
is who talks familiarly to every one and walks behind his nose with as
thoughtful an air as if he were going to the funeral of that feature:
he must belong to the shop, for he talked theatre to me as one having
authority.”
“I don’t think he is an actor, master, I think he is a diplomat. I just
heard him say to the Belgian Minister that he had been his colleague a
long time.”
“You are mistaken, Boissaric. He must be a foreign general; only a
moment ago I heard him perorating in a crowd of big epaulettes and he
was saying: ‘Unless one has commanded a large body of men--’”
“Strange!”
They asked Lappara, who happened to pass; he laughed.
“Why, it’s Bompard!”
“_Quès aco Bompard?_” (Who is this Bompard?)
“A friend of Roumestan’s. How is it you have never met him?”
“Is he from the South?”
“_Té!_ I should say so!”
In truth, Bompard, buttoned tightly into a grand new suit with a
velvet collar, his gloves thrust into his waistcoat, was really trying
to help his friend in the entertainment of his guests by a varied but
continuous conversation. Quite unknown in the official world, where
he appeared to-day for the first time, he may be said to have made a
sensation as he carried his faculty for invention from group to group,
telling his marvellous visions, his stories of royal love affairs,
adventures and combats, triumphs at the Federal shooting-matches
in Switzerland, all of which produced the same effects upon his
audience--astonishment, embarrassment and disquiet. Here at least there
was an element of gayety, but it was only for a few intimates who knew
him. Nothing could dispel the cloud of _ennui_ that penetrated even
into the concert room, a large and very picturesque apartment with its
two tiers of galleries and its glass ceiling that gave the impression
of being under the open sky.
A decoration of green palms and banana-trees, whose long leaves hung
motionless in the light of the chandeliers, made a fresh background to
the toilettes of the women sitting on numberless rows of chairs placed
close together. It was a wave of white moving necks, arms and shoulders
rising from their bodices like half-opened flowers, heads dressed with
jewelled stars, diamonds flashing against the blue depths of black
tresses or waves of gold from the locks of blondes; a mass of lovely
figures in profile, full of health, with lines of beauty from waist
to throat, or fine slender forms, from a narrow waist clasped by a
little jewelled buckle up to a long neck circled with velvet. Fans of
all colors, bright with spangles, shot with hues, danced in butterfly
lightness over all and mingled the perfumes of “white rose” or opoponax
with the feeble breath of white lilacs and natural fresh violets.
The bored expression on the faces of the guests was deeper here as
they reflected that for two mortal hours they must sit thus before the
platform on which was spread out in a semicircular row the chorus, the
men in black coats, the women in white muslin, impassive as if sitting
in front of a camera, while the orchestra was concealed behind copses
of green leaves and roses, out of which the arms of the bass-viols
reared themselves like instruments of torture. Oh, the torment of the
“music stocks”! All of them knew it, for it was one of the cruelest
fatigues of the season and of their worldly burden. That is why,
looking everywhere, the only happy, smiling face to be found in the
immense room was that of Mme. Roumestan--not that ballet-dancer’s
smile, common to professional hostesses, which so easily changes to a
look of angry fatigue when no one is watching. Hers was the face of a
happy woman, a woman loved, just starting on a new life.
O, the endless tenderness of an honest soul which has never throbbed
but for one person! She had begun to believe again in her Numa; he
had been so kind and tender for some time back. It was like a return;
it seemed as if their two hearts were closely knit again after a long
parting. Without asking whence came this renewal of affection in her
husband, she found him loverlike and young once more, as he was the
night that she showed him the panel of the hunt; and she herself was
still the same fair young Diana, supple and charming in her frock of
white brocade, her fair hair simply banded on her brow, so pure and
without an evil thought, looking five years younger than her thirty
summers!
Hortense was very pretty to-night also; all in blue--blue tulle that
enveloped her slender figure like a cloud and lent a soft shade to
her brunette face. She was much preoccupied with the début of her
musician. She wondered how the spoiled Parisians would like this music
from the provinces and whether, as Rosalie had said, the tabor-player
ought not to be framed in a landscape of gray olive-trees and hills
that look like lace. Silently, though very anxious in the rustle of
fans, conversations in low voice and the tuning of the instruments, she
counted the pieces that must come before Valmajour appeared.
A blow from the leader with his bow on his desk, a rustling of paper
on the platform as the chorus rises, music in hand, a long look of
the victims toward the high doorway clogged with black coats, as if
yearning to flee, and the first notes of a choral by Glück ring through
the room and soar upward to the glassy ceiling where the winter’s night
lays its blue sheets of cold.
“_Ah, dans ce bois funeste et sombre...._”
The concert has begun.
The taste for music has increased greatly in France within the last
few years. Particularly in Paris, the Sunday concerts and those given
during Holy Week, and the numberless musical clubs, have aroused the
public taste and made the works of the great masters known to all,
making a musical education the fashion. But at bottom Paris is too
full of life, too given over to intellect, really to love music, that
absorbing goddess who holds you motionless without voice or thought in
a floating web of harmony, and hypnotizes you like the ocean; in Paris
the follies that are done in her name are like those committed by a fop
for a mistress who is the fashion; it is a passion of _chic_, played to
the gallery, commonplace and hollow to the point of _ennui!_
_Ennui!_
Yes, boredom was the prevailing note of this concert at the Ministry of
Public Instruction. Beneath that forced admiration, that expression of
simulated ecstasy which belongs to the worldly side of the sincerest
woman, the look of boredom rose higher and higher; there soon appeared
unmistakable signs that dimmed the brilliant smile and shining eyes
and changed completely their charming, languishing poses, like the
motion of birds upon the branches or when sipping water drop by drop.
On the long rows of endless chairs these fine ladies, one woman after
the other, would make their fight, trying to reanimate themselves with
cries of “Bravo! Divine! Delicious!” and then, one after another, would
succumb to the rising torpor which ascended like the mists above a
sounding sea, driving far away into the distance of indifference all
the artists who defiled before them one by one.
And yet the most famous and illustrious artists of Paris were there,
interpreting classical music with all the scientific exactness it
demands, which, alas, cannot be acquired save at the expense of years.
Why, it is thirty years now that Mme. Vauters has been singing that
beautiful romanza of Beethoven “L’Apaisement,” and yet never has she
done it with more passion than this evening. But it seems as if strings
were lacking to the instrument; one can hear the bow scraping on the
violin. And behold! of the great singer of former days and of that
famous classical beauty there remains nothing else but well studied
attitudes, an irreproachable method and that long white hand which at
the last stanza brushes aside a tear from the corner of her eye, made
deep with charcoal--a tear that translates a sob which her voice can no
longer render.
What singer save Mayol, handsome Mayol, has ever sighed forth the
serenade from “Don Juan” with such ethereal delicacy--that passion
which is like the love of a dragon-fly? Unfortunately people don’t
hear it any longer. There is no use for him to rise atiptoe with
outstretched neck and draw out the note to its very end, while
accompanying it with the easy gesture of a yarn-spinner seizing her
wool with two fingers--nothing comes out, nothing! Paris is grateful
for pleasures which are past and applauds all the same; but these
used-up voices, these withered and too well-known faces, medals whose
design has been gradually eaten away by passing from hand to hand,
can never dissipate the heavy fog which infests the Minister’s party.
No, notwithstanding every effort which Roumestan makes to enliven it,
notwithstanding the enthusiastic bravos which he hurls in his loudest
voice into the phalanx of black coats, nor the “Hush!” with which he
frightens people who attempt to converse two apartments away, and who
thereafter prowl about silent as spectres in that strong illumination
and change their places with every precaution in the hopes of finding
some distraction, their backs rounded and their arms swinging--or fall
completely crushed upon the low arm-chairs, their opera hats suspended
between their legs--idiotic and with faces empty of expression!
At one time, it is true, the appearance of Alice Bachellery on the
stage wakes up and enlivens the audience; a struggling bunch of curious
people assails each of the two doors of the hall in order to see the
little diva in her short skirt on the platform, her mouth half open
and her long lashes quivering as if with surprise at seeing all this
multitude.
“_Chaud! chaud! les p’tits pains d’ gruau!_” hum the young club-men
as they imitate the low-lived gesture that accompanies the end of her
refrain. Old gentlemen belonging to the University approach, trembling
all over, and turning their good ear toward her, in order not to lose a
bit of the fashionable vulgarity. So there is a disappointment when,
in her somewhat shrill and limited voice, the little pastry-cook’s boy
begins to produce one of the grand airs from “Alceste,” prompted by
Mme. Vauters, who is encouraging her from the flies. Then the faces
fall and the black coats disperse and begin once more their wandering
with all the more freedom, now that the Minister is not watching them;
for he has slipped off to the end of the last drawing-room on the arm
of M. de Boë, who is quite stunned by the honor accorded him.
Eternal infancy of Love! What though you may have twenty years of law
at the Palace of Justice behind you and fifteen years on the Bench;
what though you may be sufficiently master of yourself to preserve
in the midst of the most agitated assemblies and most ferocious
interruptions the fixed idea and the cold-bloodedness of a gull that
is fishing in the heart of a storm--nevertheless, if passion shall
once enter into your life, you will find yourself the feeblest among
the feeble, trembling and cowardly to the point of hanging desperately
to the arm of some fool, rather than listen bravely to the slightest
criticism of your idol.
“Excuse me--I must leave you--here is the _entr’acte_--” and the
Minister hurries away, casting the young _maître des requêtes_ back
into that original obscurity of his from which he shall never emerge
again. The crowd struggles toward the sideboards; the relieved
expression on the faces of all these unfortunate listeners, who have
at last regained the right to move and speak, is sufficient to make
Numa believe that his little _protégée_ has just won a tremendous
success. People press about him and felicitate him--“Divine!
Delicious!” But there is nobody to talk positively to him about the
thing that interests him, so that at last he grabs hold of Cadaillac,
who is passing near him, walking sidewise and splitting the human
stream with his enormous shoulder as a lever.
“Well? well? How did you like her?”
“Why, whom do you mean?”
“The little girl,” said Numa in a tone which he tries to make perfectly
indifferent. The other man, who is good enough at fencing, comprehends
at once and says without blenching:
“A revelation!”
The lover flushes up as if he were twenty years old--as when, at the
Café Malmus, “everybody’s old girl” pressed his foot under the table.
“Then--you think that at the opera--?”
“No sort of question!--but she would have to have a good one to put
her on the stage,” said Cadaillac with his silent laugh. And while the
Minister rushes off to congratulate Mlle. Alice, the “good one to put
her on the stage” continues his march in the direction of the buffet
which can be seen, framed by an enormous mirror without a border, at
the end of a drawing-room which is all brown and gilded woodwork.
Notwithstanding the severity of the hangings and the impudent and
pompous air of the butlers, who are certainly chosen from University
men who have missed their examination, at this spot the nasty tempers
and boredom have disappeared in front of the enormous counter crammed
with delicate glasses, fruits and pyramids of sandwiches; humanity
has regained its rights and these evil looks give way to attitudes of
desire and voracity. Through the narrowest space that remains open
between two busts or between two heads bending over toward the bit
of salmon or chicken wing on their little plate, an arm intrudes,
attempting to seize a tumbler or fork or roll of bread, scraping off
rice powder on shoulders or on a black sleeve or a brilliant, crude
uniform. People chatter and grow animated, eyes glitter, laughter rises
under the influence of the foaming wines. A thousand bits of speech
cross each other--interrupted remarks, answers to questions already
forgotten. In one corner one hears little screams of indignation: “What
a brute! How disgusting!” about the scientist Béchut, that enemy of
women, who is going on reviling the weaker sex. Then a quarrel among
musicians. “But, my dear fellow, beware--you are denying altogether the
increase of the _quinte_.”
“Is it really true she is only sixteen?”
“Sixteen years of the cask and some few extra years of the bottle.”
“Mayol!--O, come now! Mayol!--finished, empty! and to think that the
opera gives two thousand francs every night to that thing!”
“Yes, but he has to spend a thousand francs of seats to get his
auditorium warm, and then, on the sly, Cadaillac gets all the rest of
it away from him playing écarté.”
“Bordeaux!--chocolate!--champagne!--”
“--will have to come and explain himself before the commission.”
“--by raising the ruche a little with bows of white satin.”
In another part of the house Mlle. Le Quesnoy, closely surrounded by
friends, recommends her tabor player to a foreign correspondent with
an impudent head as flat as that of a _choumacre_ and begs him not
to leave before the end of the play; she scolds Méjean, who is not
supporting her properly, and calls him a false Southerner, a _franciot_
and a renegade. In the group near by a political discussion has
started. One mouth opens in a hateful way with foam about the teeth and
says, chewing on the words as if they were musket balls and he would
like to poison them:
“Whatever exists in the most destructive of demagogies--”
“--Marat the conservative!” said a voice--but the rest of the sentence
was lost in a confused noise of conversations mixed with clattering of
plates and glasses, which the coppery tones of Roumestan’s voice all
of a sudden dominated: “Ladies! hurry, ladies!--or you will miss the
sonata in _fa!_”
There is a silence as of the dead. Then the long procession of trailing
trains begins to cross the drawing-room and settle itself once more
into the rows of chairs. The women have that despairing face one sees
on captives who are returned to prison after an hour’s walk in the open
fields. And so the concertos and symphonies follow each other, note
after note. Handsome Mayol begins again to draw out that intangible
note of his and Mme. Vauters to touch again the loosened cords of her
voice. All of a sudden a sign of life appears, a movement of curiosity,
just as it was a little while ago when the small Mlle. Bachellery made
her entrance. It is the tabor-player Valmajour, the apparition of that
proud peasant, his soft felt hat over one ear, his red belt around
his waist and his plainsman’s jacket on one shoulder. It was an idea
of Audiberte’s, an instinct in her natural feminine taste, to dress
him in this way in order to give him greater effect in the midst of
all the black coats. Well, well, at last, this at least is new and
unexpected--this long tabor which hangs to the arm of the musician, the
little fife on which his fingers move hither and yon, and the charming
airs to the double music whose movement, rousing and lively, gives a
moire-like shiver of awakening to the satin of those lovely shoulders!
That worn-out public is delighted with these songs of morning, so fresh
and embalmed with country fragrances--these ballads of Old France.
“Bravo! Bravo! Encore!”
And when, with a large and victorious rhythm which the orchestra
accompanies in a low note, he attacks the “March of Turenne,” deepening
and supporting his somewhat shrill instrument, the success is wild.
He has to come back twice, ten times, being applauded first of all
by Numa, whom this solitary success has warmed completely and who now
takes credit to himself for this “fancy of the ladies.” He tells them
how he discovered this genius, explains the great mystery of the fife
with three holes and gives various details concerning the ancient
castle of the Valmajours.
“Then he really is called Valmajour?”
“Certainly--belongs to the Princes des Baux--he is the last of the
line.”
And so this legend starts, scatters, expands, enlarges and becomes at
last a regular novel by George Sand.
“I have the _parshemints_ at my house,” corroborates Bompard in a tone
which permits of no question.
But in the midst of all this worldly enthusiasm more or less fabricated
there is one little heart which is moved, one young head which is
completely intoxicated and takes all these bravos and fables seriously.
Without speaking a word, without even applauding, her eyes fixed and
lost, her long, supple figure following in the balancing motion of a
dream the bars of the heroic march, Hortense finds herself once more
down there in Provence on the high terrace overlooking the sun-baked
plain, whilst her musician plays for her a morning greeting, as if
to one of those ladies in the Courts of Love, and then sticks her
pomegranate flower on his tabor with a savage grace. This recollection
moves her delightfully, and leaning her head on her sister’s shoulder
she murmurs very low: “O, how happy I am!” uttering it with a deep and
true accent which Rosalie does not notice at once, but which later on
shall become more definite in her memory and shall haunt her like the
stammered news of some misfortune.
“_Eh! bé!_ My good Valmajour, didn’t I tell you? What a success!--eh?”
cried Roumestan in the little drawing-room where a stand-up supper was
being served for the performers. As to this success, the other stars
of the concert considered it a bit exaggerated. Mme. Vauters, who
was seated in readiness to leave while she waited for her carriage,
concealed her spite in a great big cape of lace filled with violent
perfumes, while handsome Mayol, standing in front of the buffet,
showing in his back his slack nerves and weariness by a peculiar
gesture, tore to pieces with the greatest ferocity a poor little plover
and imagined that he had the tabor-player under his knife. But little
Bachellery did not stoop to any such bad temper. In the midst of a
group of young fops, laughing, fluttering and digging her little white
teeth into a ham sandwich, like a schoolboy assailed by the hunger of a
growing child, she played her game of infancy. She tried to make music
on Valmajour’s fife.
“Just see, M’sieur le ministre!”
Then, noticing Cadaillac behind his Excellency, with a sharp twirl of
her feet she advanced her forehead like that of a little girl for him
to kiss.
“Howdy, uncle!--”
It was a relationship purely fantastic such as they adopt behind the
scenes.
“What a make-believe madcap!” grunted the “right man to put one on the
stage” behind his white moustache, but not in too loud a voice, because
in all probability she was going to become one of his pensioners and a
most influential pensioner.
Valmajour stood erect before the chimneypiece with a fatuous
air, surrounded by a crowd of women and journalists. The foreign
correspondent put his questions to him brutally, not at all in that
hypocritical tone he used when interrogating ministers in special
audiences; but, without being troubled in the least thereby, the
peasant answered him with the stereotyped account his lips were
used to: “It all come to me in the night while I listened me to the
_nightingawles_ singin’--”
He was interrupted by Mlle. Le Quesnoy, who offered him a glass of wine
and a plate heaped up with good things especially for him.
“How do you do? You see this time I myself am bringing you the
_grand-boire_.” She had made her speech for a purpose, but he answered
her with a slight nod of the head, and, pointing to the chimneypiece,
said “All right, all right, put it down there,” and went on with his
story.
“So, what the birrud of the Lord could do with one hole....” Without
being discouraged, Hortense waited to the end and then spoke to him
about his father and his sister.
“She will be very much delighted, will she not?”
“O, yes; it has gone pretty well.”
With a silly smile he stroked his moustache while looking about
him with restless eyes. He had been told that the director of the
opera desired to make him an offer and he was on the watch for him
afar, feeling even at this early moment the jealousy of an actor
and astonished that anybody could spend so much time with that
good-for-nothing little singing-girl. Filled with his own thoughts, he
took no trouble to answer the beautiful young girl standing before him,
her fan in her hand, in that pretty, half-audacious attitude which the
habit of society gives. But she loved him better as he was, disdainful
and cold toward everything which was not his art; she admired him for
accepting loftily the compliments which Cadaillac poured upon him with
his off-hand roundness:
“Yes, I tell you ... yes, indeed!... I tell you exactly what I mean
... great deal of talent ... very original, very new; I hope no other
theatre save the Opera shall have your first appearance.... I must find
some occasion to bring you forward. From to-day on, consider yourself
as one of the House!”
Valmajour thought of the paper with the government stamp on it which
he had in the pocket of his jacket; but the other man, just as if he
divined the thought that possessed him, stretched out his supple hand:
“There, that engages us both, my dear fellow;” and pointing out Mayol
and Mme. Vauters--who were luckily occupied elsewhere, for they would
have laughed too loud--he continued:
“Ask your comrades what the given word of Cadaillac means!” At this he
turned on his heel and went back into the ball.
Now it had become a party which had spread into less crowded but
more animated rooms, and the fine orchestra was taking its revenge
for three hours of classical music by giving waltzes of the purest
Viennese variety. The lofty personages and solemn people having left,
the floors now belonged to the young people, those maniacs of pleasure
who dance for the love of dancing and for the intoxication of flying
hair and swimming eyes and trains whipped round about their feet. But
even then politics could not lose its rights and the fusion dreamt
of by Roumestan did not take place. Even of the two rooms where they
danced one of them belonged to the Left Centre and the other to the
White, a flower de luce White without a stain, in spite of the efforts
Hortense made to bind the two camps together! Much sought out as the
sister-in-law of the Minister and daughter of the Chief Judge, she
saw about her big marriage portion and her influential connections a
perfect flock of waistcoats with their hearts outside.
While dancing with her, Lappara, greatly excited, declared that His
Excellency had permitted him--but just there the waltz ended and she
left him without listening to the rest and came toward Méjean, who did
not dance and yet could not make up his mind to leave.
“What a face you make, most solemn man, man most reasonable!”
He took her by the hand: “Sit down here; I have something to say to
you--by the authority of my Minister--”
Very much overcome, he smiled, and while noting the trembling of his
lips Hortense understood and rose very quickly.
“No, no, not this evening--I can listen to nothing--I am dancing--”
She flew away on the arm of Rochemaure, who had just come to fetch her
for the cotillion. He too was very much taken; just in order to imitate
Lappara, the good young fellow ventured to pronounce a word which
caused her to break out in a gale of gayety that went whirling with her
round the entire room, and when the shawl figure was finished she went
over toward her sister and whispered in her ear:
“Here we are in a nice mess! Here is Numa, who has promised me to each
of his three secretaries!”
“Which one are you going to take?”
Her answer was cut short by the rolling of the tabor.
“The farandole! The farandole!”
It was a surprise for his guests from the Minister--the farandole to
close the cotillion--the South to the last go! and so--_zou!_ But
how do people dance it? Hands meet each other and join and the two
dancing-rooms come together this time. Bompard gravely explains: “This
is the way, young ladies,” and he cuts a caper.
And then, with Hortense at its head, the farandole unrolls itself
across the long rows of rooms, followed by Valmajour playing with a
superb solemnity, proud of his success and of the looks which his
masculine and robust figure in that original costume earn for him.
“Isn’t he beautiful!” cried Roumestan, “isn’t he handsome! a regular
Greek shepherd!”
From room to room the rustic dance, more and more crowded and lively,
follows and chases the spectre of Frayssinous. Reawakened to life by
these airs from the ancient time, the figures on the great tapestries,
copied from the pictures of Boucher and Lancret, agitate themselves and
the little naked backs of the cupids who are rolling about along the
frieze take on a movement in the eyes of the dancers as of a rushing
hunt as wild and crazy as their own.
Away down there at the end of the vista Cadaillac has edged up to the
buffet with a plate and a glass of wine in his hand; he listens, eats
and drinks, penetrated to the very centre of his scepticism by that
sudden heat of joy:
“Just remember this, my boy,” said he to Boissaric, “you must always
remain to the end at a ball. The women are prettier in their moist
pallor, which does not reach the point of fatigue any more than that
little white line there at the windows has reached the point of being
daylight. There is a little music in the air, some dust that smells
nicely, a semi-intoxication which refines a sensation and which
one ought to savor as one eats a hot chicken wing washed down with
champagne frappé.--There! just look at that, will you.”
Behind the big mirror without a frame the farandole was lengthening
out, with all arms stretched, into a chain alternate of black and
light notes softened by the disorder of the toilets and hair and the
mussiness that comes from two hours’ dancing.
“Isn’t that pretty, eh?--And the bully boy at the end there, isn’t he
smart!” Then he added coldly, as he put down his glass:
“All the same, he will never make a cent.”