"And is this all?" the minister exclaimed almost involuntarily.
"What!" answered Granet, "you seem hard to please!"
Amongst all these girls, there had been manifested an expression of mingled curiosity, coquetry and banter on Vaudrey"s appearance in their midst. His presence in the manager"s box had been noticed and his coming to the greenroom expected. Every one had hurried thither. Sulpice was pointed out. He was the cynosure of all eyes. On the divans beneath the mirror, some young, well-dressed, bald men, surrounded--perhaps by chance--by laughing ballet-girls, now half-concealed themselves behind the voluminous skirts of the girls about them, and bent their heads, thus rendering their baldness more visible, just as a woman buries her nose in her bouquet to avoid recognizing an acquaintance.
Vaudrey, observing this ruse, smiled a slight, sarcastic smile. He recognized behind the shielding petticoats, some of his prefects, those from the environs of Paris, come from Versailles and Chartres, or from some sub-prefectures, and gallantly administering the affairs of France from the heart of the greenroom. Amiable functionaries of the Ministry of Fine Arts also came here to study aestheticism between the acts.
All members of the different regimes seemed to be fraternizing in ironical promiscuousness here, and Vaudrey in a whisper drew Granet"s attention to this. Old beaux of the time of the Empire, with dyed and waxed moustaches, with dyed or grizzled hair flattened on their temples, their flabby cheeks cut across by stiff collars as jelly is cut by a knife, were hobn.o.bbing, fat and lean, with young fops of the Republic, who with their sharp eyes, wide-open nostrils, their cheeks covered with brown or flaxen down, their hair carefully brushed, or already bald, seemed quite surprised to find themselves in such a place, and chattered and cackled among themselves like beardless conscripts, perverted and immoral but with some scruples still remaining and less cunning than these well-dressed old roues standing firmly at their posts like veterans.
"The licentiates and the pensioners," whispered Vaudrey.
"You have a quickness of sight quite Parisian, your Excellency,"
returned Granet.
"There are Parisians in the Provinces, my dear Granet," replied Sulpice with a heightened complexion, his blood flowing more rapidly than usual, due to emotions at once novel and gay.
"Ah! your Excellency," exclaimed a fat, animated man with hair and whiskers of quite snowy whiteness, and smiling as he spoke, "what in the world brought you here?"
He approached Vaudrey, bowing but not at all obsequiously, with the air of good humor due to a combination of wealth and embonpoint. Fat and rich, in perfect health, and carrying his sixty years with the lightness of forty, Molina--Molina the "Tumbler" as he was nicknamed--spent his afternoons on the Bourse and his evenings in the greenroom of the ballet.
He had a small interest in the theatre, but a large one in the coryphees, in a paternal way, his white hair giving him the right to be respected and his crowns the right to respect nothing. Beginning life very low down, and now enjoying a lofty position, the fat Molina haunted the Bourse and the greenroom of the Opera. He glutted himself with all the earliest delicacies of the season, like a man who when young, has not always had enough to satisfy hunger.
Pictures that were famous, women of fashion, statues of marble and fair flesh, he must have them all. He collected, without any taste whatever, costly paintings, rare objects; he bought without love, girls who were not wholly mercenary. At a pinch he found them, taking pleasure in parading in his coupe, around the lake or at the races, some recruit in vice, and in watching the crowd that at once eagerly surrounded her, simply because she had been the mistress of the fat Molina. He had in his youth at Ma.r.s.eilles, in the Jewish quarter of the town, sold old clothes to the Piedmontese and sailors in port. Now it was his delight to behold the Parisians of the Boulevard or the clubs buy as sentimental rags the cast-off garments of his pa.s.sion.
"You in the greenroom of the ballet, your Excellency?" continued the financier. "Ah! upon my word, I shall tell Madame Vaudrey."
Sulpice smiled, the mere name of his wife sounded strange to his ears in a place like this. It seemed to him that in speaking of her, she was being dragged into a strange circle, and one which did not belong to her. He had felt the same only a few days before upon his entrance into the cabinet, on seeing a report of his marriage, his dwelling minutely described, and a pen portrait of that Adrienne, who was the pa.s.sion of his life.
"After all," continued Molina, "Madame Vaudrey must get used to it. The Opera! Why, it is a part of politics! The key of many a situation is to be found in the greenroom!"
The financier laughed merrily, a laugh that had the ring of the Turcarets" jingling crowns.
He went on to explain to his Excellency all the little mysteries of the greenroom, as a man quite at home in this little Parisian province, and lightly, by a word, a gesture even, he gave the minister a rapid biography of the young girls who were laughing, jesting, romping there before them; flitting hither and thither lightly across the boards, barely touching them with the tips of their pink satin-shod feet.
Sulpice was surprised at everything he saw. He did not even take the pains to conceal his surprise. Evidently it was his first visit behind the scenes.
"Ah! your Excellency," said Molina, delighted with his role of cicerone, "it is necessary to be at home here! You should come here often! Nothing in the world can be more amusing. Here behind the scenes is a world by itself. One can see pretty little la.s.ses springing up like asparagus. One sees running hither and thither a tall, thin child who nods to you saucily and crunches nuts like a squirrel. One takes a three months" journey, and pa.s.ses a season at Vichy or at Dieppe, and when one returns, presto! see the transformation. The b.u.t.terfly has burst forth from its coc.o.o.n. No longer a little girl, but a woman. Those saucy eyes of old now look at you with an expression which disturbs your heart. One might have offered, six months before, two sous" worth of chestnuts to the child; now, however, nothing less than a coupe will satisfy the woman. It used to jump on your knee at that time, now every one is throwing his arms around its pretty neck. Thus from generation to generation, one a.s.sists at the mobilization of a whole army of recruits, who first try their weapons here, pa.s.s from here into the regiment of veterans, build themselves a hospital in cut-stone out of their savings, and some of them mount very high through the tips of their toes if they are not suddenly attacked by _the malady of the knee_."
"Malady of the knee?" inquired Vaudrey.
"A phrase not to be found in the _Dictionary of Political Economy_ by Maurice Block. It is a way of saying that ill-luck has overtaken one. A very interesting condition, this malady of the knee! It often not only shortens the leg but the career!"
"Is this malady a frequent one at the Opera?"
"Ah! your Excellency, how can it be helped? There are so many slips in this pirouetting business! It is as risky as politics!"
Fat Molina shouted with laughter at this clumsy jest, and placing a binocle upon his huge nose, which was cleft down the middle like that of a hunting-hound, he exclaimed suddenly, turning towards the door as he spoke:
"Eh! Marie Launay? What is she holding in her hand?"
Light, nimble and graceful in her costume of a Hindoo dancing girl, a young girl of sixteen or seventeen summers, already betraying her womanhood in the ardent glances half-hidden in the depths of her large, deep-blue eyes, tripped into the greenroom, humming an air and holding in her hand a long sheet of paper.
She shook, as if embarra.s.sed by it, the broad necklace of large imitation pearls that danced on her fine neck and fell on her undeveloped bosom; and looking in search of some one among the crowd of girls, cried out from a distance to a plump little brunette who was talking and laughing within a circle of dress-coats at the other end of the room:
"Eh! Anna, you have not subscribed yet!"
The brunette, freeing herself unceremoniously enough from her living madrigals, came running lightly up to Marie Launay, who held out towards her an aluminum pencil-case and the sheet of paper.
"What the devil is that?" asked Molina.
"Let us go and see," said Granet.
"Would it not be an indiscretion on our part?" asked Vaudrey, half seriously.
The financier, however, was by this time at the side of the two pretty girls, and asked the blonde what the paper contained, the names on which her companion was spelling out.
Marie Launay, a lovely girl with little ringlets of fair hair curling low down upon her forehead, smiled like a pretty, innocent and still timid child, under the luring glances of the fat man, and glancing with an expression of virgin innocence at Sulpice and Granet, who were standing beside him, replied:
"That--Oh! that is the subscription we are getting up for Mademoiselle Legrand."
"Oh! that is so," said Molina. "You mean to make her a present of a statuette?"
"On her taking her leave of us. Yes, every one has subscribed to it--even the boxholders. Do you see?"
Marie Launay quickly s.n.a.t.c.hed the paper from her friend; on it were several names, some written in ink, others in pencil, the whole presenting the peculiar appearance of schoolboys" pot-hooks or the graceful lines traced by crawling flies, while the fantastic spelling offered a strange medley. Molina burst out laughing, his ever-present laugh that sounded like the shaking of a money-bag,--when he ran his eye over the list and found accompanying the names of ballet-dancers and members of the chorus, the distinguished particles of some habitues.
"Look! your Excellency--It is stupendous! Here: _Amelie Dunois_, 2 francs. _Jeanne Garnot_, 5 francs. _Bel-Enfant_--_Charles_--, 1 fr., 50 centimes. _Warnier I._, 2 francs. _Warnier II._, 2 francs. _Gigonnet_, 4 francs. _Baron Humann_, 100 francs. _The baron_!--the former prefect!
Humann writing his name down here with _Bel-Enfant_ and _Gigonnet_.
Humann inscribing above his signature--_I vill supscribe von hundertfranc_! If one were to see it in a newspaper, one would not believe it! If only a reporter were here now! For a choice _Paris echo_ what a rare one it would be!"
Granet examined little Marie Launay with sly glances, toying with his black moustache the while, and the other young girl Anna, very much confused at the coa.r.s.e laughter of Molina the "Tumbler," kept turning around in her slender fingers the aluminum pencil-case and looking at Marie as much as to say:
"You know I can never muster up courage to write down my name before all these people!"
"Lend me your pencil, my child," Molina said to her.
She held it out towards him timidly.
"Where the baron has led the way, Molina the Tumbler may certainly follow!" said the financier.
He turned the screw of the pencil-case to extend the lead, and placing one of his huge feet upon a divan to steady himself, wrote rapidly with the paper on his knee, as a man used to scribbling notes at the Bourse:
"Solomon Molina, 500 francs."
"Ah! monsieur," exclaimed Marie Launay upon reading it, "that is handsome, that is! It is kind, very kind! If everybody were as generous as you, we could give a statue of Terpsich.o.r.e in gold to Mademoiselle Legrand."
"If you should ever want one of Carpeaux"s groups for yourself, my child," said Molina, "you may go to the studio in a cab to look at it, and fetch it away with you in--your own coupe."
The girl grew as red as a cherry under her powder, even her graceful, childish shoulders turned pink, enhancing her blonde and childlike beauty.