A Test and an Avowal
Père Oriol and his son had remained for a long time chatting after
the girls had gone to bed. Stirred up and excited by Andermatt's
proposal, they were considering how they could inflame his desire
more effectually without compromising their own interests. Like the
cautious, practically-minded peasants that they were, they weighed all
the chances carefully, understanding very clearly that in a country
in which mineral springs gushed out along all the streams, it was not
advisable to repel by an exaggerated demand this unexpected enthusiast,
the like of whom they might never find again. And at the same time it
would not do either to leave entirely in his hands this spring, which
might, some day, yield a flood of liquid money, Royat and Chatel-Guyon
serving as a precedent for them.
Therefore, they asked themselves by what course of action they could
kindle into frenzy the banker's ardor; they conjured up combinations
of imaginary companies covering his offers, a succession of clumsy
schemes, the defects of which they felt, without succeeding in
inventing more ingenious ones. They slept badly; then, in the morning,
the father, having awakened first, thought in his own mind that the
spring might have disappeared during the night. It was possible, after
all, that it might have gone as it had come, and re-entered the earth,
so that it could not be brought back. He got up in a state of unrest,
seized with avaricious fear, shook his son, and told him about his
alarm; and big Colosse, dragging his legs out of his coarse sheets,
dressed himself in order to go out with his father, to make sure about
the matter.
In any case, they would put the field and the spring in proper trim
themselves, would carry off the stones, and make it nice and clean,
like an animal that they wanted to sell. So they took their picks
and their spades, and started for the spot side by side with great,
swinging strides.
They looked at nothing as they walked on, their minds being preoccupied
with the business, replying with only a single word to the "Good
morning" of the neighbors and friends whom they chanced to meet. When
they reached the Riom road they began to get agitated, peering into the
distance to see whether they could observe the water bubbling up and
glittering in the morning sun. The road was empty, white, and dusty,
the river running beside it sheltered by willow-trees. Beneath one of
the trees Oriol suddenly noticed two feet, then, having advanced three
steps further, he recognized Père Clovis seated at the edge of the
road, with his crutches lying beside him on the grass.
This was an old paralytic, well known in the district, where for the
last ten years he had prowled about on his supports of stout oak, as he
said himself, like a poor man made of stone.
Formerly a poacher in the woods and streams, often arrested and
imprisoned, he had got rheumatic pains by his long watchings stretched
on the moist grass and by his nocturnal fishings in the rivers, through
which he used to wade up to his middle in water. Now he whined, and
crawled about, like a crab that had lost its claws. He stumped along,
dragging his right leg after him like a piece of ragged cloth. But
the boys of the neighborhood, who used in foggy weather to run after
the girls or the hares, declared that they used to meet Père Clovis,
swift-footed as a stag, and supple as an adder, under the bushes and
in the glades, and that, in short, his rheumatism was only "a dodge on
the gendarmes." Colosse, especially, insisted on maintaining that he
had seen him, not once, but fifty times, straining his neck with his
crutches under his arms.
And Père Oriol stopped in front of the old vagabond, his mind possessed
by an idea which as yet was undefined, for the brain works slowly
in the thick skulls of Auvergne. He said "Good morning" to him. The
other responded "Good morning." Then they spoke about the weather, the
ripening of the vine, and two or three other things; but, as Colosse
had gone ahead, his father with long steps hastened to overtake him.
The spring was still flowing, clear by this time, and all the bottom of
the hole was red, a fine, dark red, which had arisen from an abundant
deposit of iron. The two men gazed at it with smiling faces, then they
proceeded to clear the soil that surrounded it, and to carry off the
stones of which they made a heap. And, having found the last remains of
the dead dog, they buried them with jocose remarks. But all of a sudden
Père Oriol let his spade fall. A roguish leer of delight and triumph
wrinkled the corners of his leathery lips and the edges of his cunning
eyes, and he said to his son: "Come on, till we see."
The other obeyed. They got on the road once more, and retraced their
steps. Père Clovis was still toasting his limbs and his crutches in the
sun.
Oriol, drawing up before him, asked: "Do you want to earn a
hundred-franc piece?"
The other cautiously refrained from answering.
The peasant said: "Hey! a hundred francs?"
Thereupon the vagabond made up his mind, and murmured: "Of course, but
what am I asked to do?"
"Well, father, here's what I want you to do."
And he explained to the other at great length with tricky
circumlocutions, easily understood hints, and innumerable repetitions,
that, if he would consent to take a bath for an hour every day from ten
to eleven in a hole which they, Colosse and he, intended to dig at the
side of the spring, and to be cured at the end of a month, they would
give him a hundred francs in cash.
The paralytic listened with a stupid air, and then said: "Since all the
drugs haven't been able to help me, 'tisn't your water that'll cure me."
But Colosse suddenly got into a passion. "Come, my old play-actor,
you're talking rubbish. I know what your disease is--don't tell me
about it! What were you doing on Monday last in the Comberombe wood at
eleven o'clock at night?"
The old fellow promptly answered: "That's not true."
But Colosse, firing up: "Isn't it true, you old blackguard, that you
jumped over the ditch to Jean Cannezat and that you made your way along
the Paulin chasm?"
The other energetically repeated: "It is not true!"
"Isn't it true that I called out to you: 'Oho, Clovis, the gendarmes!'
and that you turned up the Moulinet road?"
"No, it is not."
Big Jacques, raging, almost menacing, exclaimed: "Ah! it's not true!
Well, old three paws, listen! The next time I see you there in the
wood at night or else in the water, I'll take a grip of you, as my
legs are rather longer than your own, and I'll tie you up to some
tree till morning, when we'll go and take you away, the whole village
together----"
Père Oriol stopped his son; then, in a very wheedling tone: "Listen,
Clovis! you can easily do the thing. We prepare a bath for you, Coloche
and myself. You come there every day for a month. For that I give you,
not one hundred, but two hundred francs. And then, listen! if you're
cured at the end of the month, it will mean five hundred francs more.
Understand clearly, five hundred in ready money, and two hundred
more--that makes seven hundred. Therefore you get two hundred for
taking a bath for a month and five hundred more for the curing. And
listen again! Suppose the pains come back. If this happens you in the
autumn, there will be nothing more for us to do, for the water will
have none the less produced its effect!"
The old fellow coolly replied: "In that case I'm quite willing. If it
won't succeed, we'll always see it." And the three men pressed one
another's hands to seal the bargain they had concluded. Then, the two
Oriols returned to their spring, in order to dig the bath for Père
Clovis.
They had been working at it for a quarter of an hour, when they heard
voices on the road. It was Andermatt and Doctor Latonne. The two
peasants winked at one another, and ceased digging the soil.
The banker came across to them, and grasped their hands; then the
entire four proceeded to fix their eyes on the water without uttering
a word. It stirred about like water set in movement above a big fire,
threw out bubbles and steam, then it flowed away in the direction of
the brook through a tiny gutter which it had already traced out. Oriol,
with a smile of pride on his lips, said suddenly: "Hey, that's iron,
isn't it?"
In fact the bottom was now all red, and even the little pebbles which
it washed as it flowed along seemed covered with a sort of purple mold.
Doctor Latonne replied: "Yes, but that is nothing to the purpose. We
would require to know its other qualities."
The peasant observed: "Coloche and myself first drank a glass of it
yesterday evening, and it has already made our bodies feel fresh. Isn't
that true, son?"
The big youth replied in a tone of conviction: "Sure enough, it was
very refreshing."
Andermatt remained motionless, his feet on the edge of the hole. He
turned toward the physician: "We would want nearly six times this
volume of water for what I would wish to do, would we not?"
"Yes, nearly."
"Do you think that we'll be able to get it?"
"Oh! as for me, I know nothing about it."
"See here! The purchase of the grounds can only be definitely effected
after the soundings. It would be necessary, first of all, to have a
promise of sale drawn up by a notary, once the analysis is known, but
not to take effect unless the consecutive soundings give the results
hoped for."
Père Oriol became restless. He did not understand. Andermatt thereupon
explained to him the insufficiency of only one spring, and demonstrated
to him that he could not purchase unless he found others. But he could
not search for these other springs till after the signature of a
promise of sale.
The two peasants appeared forthwith to be convinced that their fields
contained as many springs as vine-stalks. It would be sufficient to dig
for them--they would see, they would see.
Andermatt said simply: "Yes, we shall see."
But Père Oriol dipped his fingers in the water, and remarked: "Why,
'tis hot enough to boil an egg, much hotter than the Bonnefille one!"
Latonne in his turn steeped his fingers in it, and realized that this
was possible.
The peasant went on: "And then it has more taste and a better taste;
it hasn't a false taste, like the other. Oh! this one, I'll answer for
it, is good! I know the waters of the country for the fifty years that
I've seen them flowing. I never seen a finer one than this, never,
never!"
He remained silent for a few seconds, and then continued: "It is not
in order to puff the water that I say this!--certainly not. I would
like to make a trial of it before you, a fair trial, not what your
chemists make, but a trial of it on a person who has a disease. I'll
bet that it will cure a paralytic, this one, so hot is it and so good
to taste--I'll make a bet on it!"
He appeared to be searching his brain, then cast a look at the tops
of the neighboring mountains to see whether he could discover the
paralytic that he required. Not having made the discovery, he lowered
his eyes to the road.
Two hundred meters away from it, at the side of the road could be
distinguished the two inert legs of the vagabond, whose body was hidden
by the trunk of a willow tree.
Oriol placed his hand on his forehead as a shade, and said
questioningly to his son: "That isn't Père Clovis over there still?"
Colosse laughingly replied: "Yes, yes. 'Tis he--he doesn't go as quick
as a hare."
Then Oriol stepped over to Andermatt's side, and with an air of serious
and deep conviction: "Look here, Monchieu! Listen to me. There's a
paralytic over yonder, who is well known to the doctor, a genuine one,
who hasn't been seen to make a single step for the last ten years.
Isn't that so, doctor?"
Latonne returned: "Oh! if you cure that fellow, I would pay a franc a
glass for your water!"
Then, turning toward Andermatt: "'Tis an old fellow suffering from
rheumatic gout with a sort of spasmodic contraction of the left leg and
a complete paralysis of the right; in fact, I believe, an incurable."
Oriol had allowed him to talk; he resumed in a deliberate fashion:
"Well, doctor, would you like to make a trial of it on him for a month?
I don't say that it will succeed,--I say nothing on the matter,--I only
ask to have a trial made. Hold on! Coloche and myself are going to dig
a hole for the stones--well, we'll make a hole for Cloviche; he'll
remain an hour there every morning, and then we'll see--there!--we'll
see."
The physician murmured: "You may try. I answer confidently that you
will not succeed."
But Andermatt, beguiled by the prospect of an almost miraculous cure,
gladly fell in with the peasant's suggestion; and the entire four
directed their steps toward the vagabond, who, all this time, had been
lying motionless in the sun. The old poacher, understanding the dodge,
pretended to refuse, resisted for a long time, then allowed himself to
be persuaded, on the condition that Andermatt would give him two francs
a day for the hour which he would spend in the water.
So the matter was settled. It was even decided that, as soon as the
hole was dug, Père Clovis should take his bath that very day. Andermatt
would supply him with clothes to dress himself afterward, and the two
Oriols would bring him a disused shepherd's hut, which was lying in
their yard, so that the invalid might shut himself in there, and change
his apparel.
Then the banker and the physician returned to the village. When they
reached it, they parted, the doctor going to his own house for his
consultations, and Andermatt hurrying to attend on his wife, who had to
come to the establishment at half past nine o'clock.
She appeared almost immediately, dressed from head to foot in
pink--with a pink hat, a pink parasol, and a pink complexion, she
looked like an aurora, and she descended the steps of the hotel to
avoid the turn of the road with the hopping movements of a bird, as it
goes from stone to stone, without opening its wing. As soon as she saw
her husband, she exclaimed:
"Oh! what a pretty country it is! I am quite delighted with it."
A few bathers wandering sadly through the little park in silence turned
round as she passed by, and Petrus Martel, who was smoking his pipe in
his shirt-sleeves at the window of the billiard-room, called to his
chum, Lapalme, sitting in a corner before a glass of white wine, and
said, smacking the roof of his mouth with his tongue:
"Deuce take it, there's something sweet!"
Christiane made her way into the establishment, bowed smilingly
toward the cashier, who sat at the left of the entrance-door, and
saluted the ex-jailer seated at the right with a "Good morning"; then,
holding out a ticket to a bath-attendant dressed like the girl in the
refreshment-room, followed her into a corridor facing the doors of the
bath-rooms. The lady was shown into one of them, rather large, with
bare walls, furnished with a chair, a glass, and a shoe-horn, while a
large oval orifice, coated, like the floor, with yellow cement, served
the purposes of a bath.
The woman turned a cock like those used for making the street-gutters
flow, and the water gushed through a little round grated aperture at
the bottom of the bath so that it was soon full to the brim, and its
overflow was diverted through a furrow sunk into the wall.
Christiane, having left her chambermaid at the hotel, declined the
attendant's services in undressing, and remained there alone, saying
that if she required anything, she would ring, and would do the same
when she wanted her linen.
She slowly disrobed, watching as she did so the almost invisible
movement of the wave gently stirring on the clear surface of the basin.
When she had divested herself of all her clothing she dipped her foot
in, and the pleasant warm sensation mounted to her throat; then she
plunged into the tepid water first one leg, and after it the other,
and sat down in the midst of this caressing heat, in this transparent
bath, in this spring, which flowed over her, around her, covering her
body with tiny globules all along her legs, all along her arms, and
also all over her breasts. She noticed with surprise those particles of
air innumerable and minute which clothed her from head to foot with an
entire mail-suit of little pearls. And these pearls, so minute, flew
off incessantly from her white flesh, and evaporated on the surface of
the bath, driven on by others that sprung to life over her form. They
sprung up over her skin, like light fruits incapable of being grasped
yet charming, the fruits of this exquisite body rosy and fresh, which
had generated those pearls in the water.
And Christiane felt herself so happy in it, so sweetly, so softly, so
deliciously caressed and clasped by the restless wave, the living wave,
the animated wave from the spring which gushed up from the depths of
the basin under her legs and fled through the little opening toward
the edge of the bath, that she would have liked to have remained there
forever, without moving, almost without thinking. The sensation of a
calm delight composed of rest and comfort, of tranquil dreamfulness,
of health, of discreet joy, and silent gaiety, entered into her with
the soothing warmth of this. And her spirit mused, vaguely lulled into
repose by the gurgling of the overflow which was escaping--dreamed
of what she would be doing by and by, of what she would be doing
to-morrow, of promenades, of her father, of her husband, of her
brother, and of that big boy who had made her feel slightly ill at ease
since the adventure of the dog. She did not care for persons of violent
tendencies.
No desire agitated her soul, calm as her heart in this grateful moist
warmth, no desires save the shadowy hopes of a child, no desire of any
other life, of emotion, or passion. She felt that it was well with her,
and she was satisfied with the happiness of her lot.
She was suddenly startled--the door flew open; it was the Auvergnat
carrying the linen. Twenty minutes had passed; it was already time
for her to be dressed. It was almost a pang, almost a calamity, this
awakening; she felt a longing to beg of the woman to give her a few
minutes more; then she reflected that every day she would find again
the same delight, and she regretfully left the bath to be wrapped in a
white dressing-gown whose scorching heat felt somewhat unpleasant.
Just as she was going out, Doctor Bonnefille opened the door of his
consultation-room and invited her to enter, bowing ceremoniously. He
inquired about her health, felt her pulse, looked at her tongue, took
note of her appetite and her digestion, asked her how she slept, and
then accompanied her to the door, repeating:
"Come, come, that's right, that's right. My respects, if you please, to
your father, one of the most distinguished men that I have met in my
career."
At last, she got away, bored by these undesirable attentions, and at
the door she saw the Marquis chatting with Andermatt, Gontran, and Paul
Bretigny. Her husband, in whose head every new idea was continually
buzzing, like a fly in a bottle, was relating the story of the
paralytic, and wanted to go back to see whether the vagabond was taking
his bath. They were about to go with him to the spot in order to please
him. But Christiane very gently detained her brother, and, when they
were a short distance away from the others:
"Tell me now! I wanted to talk to you about your friend; I must say I
don't much care for him. Explain to me exactly what he is like."
And Gontran, who had known Paul for many years, told her about this
passionate nature, uncouth, sincere, and kindly by starts. He was,
according to Gontran, a clever young fellow, whose wild spirit
impetuously flung itself into every new idea. Yielding to every
impulse, unable to control or to direct his passions, or to fight
against his feelings with the aid of reason, or to govern his life
by a system based on settled convictions, he obeyed the promptings
of his heart, whether they were virtuous or vicious, the moment that
any desire, any thought, any emotion whatever, agitated his excitable
nature.
He had already fought seven duels, as ready to insult people as to
become their friend. He had been madly in love with women of every
class, adored them with the same transports from the working-girl whom
he picked up in the corner of some store to the actress whom he carried
off, yes, carried off, on the night of a first performance, just as she
was stepping into a vehicle on her way home, bearing her away in his
arms in the midst of the astonished spectators, and pushing her into a
carriage, which disappeared at a gallop before anyone could follow it
or overtake it.
And Gontran concluded: "There you are! He is a good fellow, but a fool;
very rich, moreover, and capable of anything, of anything at all, when
he loses his head."
Christiane said: "What a strange perfume he carries about him! It is
rather nice. What is it?"
Gontran answered: "I don't really know; he doesn't want to tell about
it. I believe it comes from Russia. 'Tis the actress, his actress, she
whom I cured him of this time, that gave it to him. Yes, indeed, it has
a very pleasant odor."
They saw, on their way, a group of bathers and of peasants, for it was
the custom every morning before breakfast to take a turn along the
road.
Christiane and Gontran joined the Marquis, Andermatt, and Paul, and
soon they beheld, in the place where the knoll had stood the day
before, a queer-looking human head covered with a ragged felt hat, and
wearing a big white beard, looking as if it had sprung up out of the
ground, the head of a decapitated man, as it were, growing there like a
plant. Around it, some vinedressers were looking on, amazed, impassive,
the peasantry of Auvergne not being scoffers, while three tall
gentlemen, visitors at second-class hotels, were laughing and joking.
Oriol and his son stood there contemplating the vagabond, who was
steeped in his hole, sitting on a stone, with the water up to his
chin. He might have been taken for a desperate criminal of olden times
condemned to death for some unusual kind of sorcery; and he had not let
go his crutches, which were by his sides in the water.
Andermatt kept repeating enthusiastically: "Bravo! bravo! there's an
example which all the people in the country suffering from rheumatic
pains should imitate."
And, bending toward the old man, he shouted at him as if he were deaf:
"Do you feel well?"
The other, who seemed completely stupefied by this boiling water,
replied: "It seems to me that I'm melting!"
But Père Oriol exclaimed: "The hotter it is, the more good it will do
you."
A voice behind the Marquis said: "What is that?"
And M. Aubry-Pasteur, always puffing, stopped on his way back from his
daily walk. Then Andermatt explained his experiment in curing. But
the old man kept repeating: "Devil take it! how hot it is!" And he
wanted to get out, asking some one to help him up. The banker succeeded
eventually in calming him by promising him twenty sous more for each
bath. The spectators formed a circle round the hole, in which the
dirty, grayish rags were soaking wherewith this old body was covered.
A voice said: "Nice meat for broth! I wouldn't care to make soup of it!"
Another rejoined: "The meat would scarcely agree with me!"
But the Marquis observed that the bubbles of carbonic acid seemed more
numerous, larger, and brighter in this new spring than in that of the
baths.
The vagabond's rags were covered with them; and these bubbles rose to
the surface in such abundance that the water appeared to be crossed
by innumerable little chains, by an infinity of beads of exceedingly
small, round diamonds, the strong midday sun making them as clear as
brilliants.
Then Aubry-Pasteur burst out laughing: "Egad," said he, "I must tell
you what they do at the establishment. You know they catch a spring
like a bird in a kind of snare, or rather in a bell. That's what they
call coaxing it. Now last year here is what happened to the spring
that supplies the baths. The carbonic acid, lighter than water, was
stored up to the top of the bell; then, when it was collected there in
a very large quantity, it was driven back into the ducts, reascended
in abundance into the baths, filled up the compartments, and all but
suffocated the invalids. We have had three accidents in the course
of three months. Then they consulted me again, and I invented a very
simple apparatus consisting of two pipes which led off separately
the liquid and the gas in the bell in order to combine them afresh
immediately under the bath, and thus to reconstitute the water in its
normal state while avoiding the dangerous excess of carbonic acid. But
my apparatus would have cost a thousand francs. Do you know what the
custodian does then? I give you a thousand guesses to find out. He
bores a hole in the bell to get rid of the gas, which flies out, you
understand, so that they sell you acidulated baths without any acid, or
so little acid that it is not worth much. Whereas here, why just look!"
Everybody became indignant. They no longer laughed, and they cast
envious looks toward the paralytic. Every bather would gladly have
seized a pickax to make another hole beside that of the vagabond. But
Andermatt took the engineer's arm, and they went off chatting together.
From time to time Aubry-Pasteur stopped, made a show of drawing lines
with his walking-stick, indicating certain points, and the banker wrote
down notes in a memorandum-book.
Christiane and Paul Bretigny entered into conversation. He told
her about his journey to Auvergne, and all that he had seen and
experienced. He loved the country, with those warm instincts of his,
with which always mingled an element of animality. He had a sensual
love of nature because it excited his blood, and made his nerves and
organs quiver. He said: "For my part, Madame, it seems to me as if
I were open, so that everything enters into me, everything passes
through me, makes me weep or gnash my teeth. Look here! when I cast a
glance at that hillside facing us, that vast expanse of green, that
race of trees clambering up the mountain, I feel the entire wood in my
eyes; it penetrates me, takes possession of me, runs through my whole
frame; and it seems to me also that I am devouring it, that it fills my
being--I become a wood myself!"
He laughed, while he told her this, strained his big, round eyes, now
on the wood, now on Christiane; and she, surprised, astonished, but
easily impressed, felt herself devoured also, like the wood, by his
great avid glance.
Paul went on: "And if you only knew what delights I owe to my
sense of smell. I drink in this air through my nostrils. I become
intoxicated with it; I live in it, and I feel that there is within it
everything--absolutely everything. What can be sweeter? It intoxicates
one more than wine; wine intoxicates the mind, but perfume intoxicates
the imagination. With perfume you taste the very essence, the pure
essence of things and of the universe--you taste the flowers, the
trees, the grass of the fields; you can even distinguish the soul of
the dwellings of olden days which sleep in the old furniture, the old
carpets, the old curtains. Listen! I am going to tell you something.
"Did you notice, when first you came here, a delicious odor, to which
no other odor can be compared--so fine, so light, that it seems
almost--how shall I express it?--an immaterial odor? You find it
everywhere--you can seize it nowhere--you cannot discern where it comes
from. Never, never has anything more divine than it arisen in my
heart. Well, this is the odor of the vine in bloom. Ah! it has taken
me four days to discover it. And is it not charming to think, Madame,
that the vine-tree, which gives us wine, wine which only superior
spirits can understand and relish, gives us, too, the most delicate
and most exciting of perfumes, which only persons of the most refined
sensibility can discover? And then do you recognize also the powerful
smell of the chestnut-trees, the luscious savor of the acacias, the
aroma of the mountains, and the grass, whose scent is so sweet, so
sweet--sweeter than anyone imagines?"
She listened to these words of his in amazement, not that they were
surprising so much as that they appeared so different in their
nature from everything encompassing her every day. Her mind remained
possessed, moved, and disturbed by them.
He kept talking uninterruptedly in a voice somewhat hollow but full of
passion.
"And again, just think, do you not feel in the air, along the roads,
when the day is hot, a slight savor of vanilla. Yes, am I not right?
Well, that is--that is--but I dare not tell it to you!"
And now he broke into a great laugh, and waving his hand in front of
him all of a sudden said: "Look there!"
A row of wagons laden with hay was coming up drawn by cows yoked in
pairs. The slow-footed beasts, with their heads hung down, bent by
the yoke, their horns fastened with pieces of wood, toiled painfully
along; and under their skin, as it rose up and down, the bones of their
legs could be seen moving. Before each team, a man in shirt-sleeves,
waistcoat, and black hat, was walking with a switch in his hand,
directing the pace of the animals. From time to time the driver would
turn round, and, without ever hitting, would barely touch the shoulder
or the forehead of a cow who would blink her big, wandering eyes, and
obey the motion of his arm.
Christiane and Paul drew up to let them pass.
He said to her: "Do you feel it?"
She was amazed: "What then? That is the smell of the stable."
"Yes, it is the smell of the stable; and all these cows going along the
roads--for they use no horses in this part of the country--scatter on
their way that odor of the stable, which, mingled with the fine dust,
gives to the wind a savor of vanilla."
Christiane, somewhat disgusted, murmured: "Oh!"
He went on: "Excuse me, at that moment, I was analyzing it like a
chemist. In any case, we are, Madame, in the most seductive country,
the most delightful, the most restful, that I have ever seen--a country
of the golden age. And the Limagne--oh! the Limagne! But I must not
talk to you about it; I want to show it to you. You shall see for
yourself."
The Marquis and Gontran came up to them. The Marquis passed his arm
under that of his daughter, and, making her turn round and retrace her
steps, in order to get back to the hotel for breakfast, he said:
"Listen, young people! this concerns you all three. William, who goes
mad when an idea comes into his head, dreams of nothing any longer but
of building this new town of his, and he wants to win over to him the
Oriol family. He is, therefore, anxious that Christiane should make
the acquaintance of the two young girls, in order to see if they are
'possible.' But it is not necessary that the father should suspect our
ruse. So I have got an idea; it is to organize a charitable _fête_.
You, my dear, must go and see the curé; you will together hunt up two
of his parishioners to make collections along with you. You understand
what people you will get him to nominate, and he will invite them on
his own responsibility. As for you, young men, you are going to get up
a _tombola_ at the Casino with the assistance of Petrus Martel with his
company and orchestra. And if the little Oriols are nice girls, as it
is said they have been well brought up at the convent, Christiane will
make a conquest of them."