The rents that he saw in his trousers seemed to distress young Astianax; he heaved a deep sigh and muttered:
"Sapristi! and it"s only the second time I have worn them!"
Thereupon, giving no further thought to the bouquet or to his quarrel, the little fellow walked rapidly away, trying to hold his hands over the holes in his garments, which his short coat did not cover.
Meanwhile the elderly gentleman had held the bouquet in his hand, still leaning rather heavily on his cane.
"n.o.body will dispute possession of these flowers with me any more," he said at last. "My two rivals have abandoned the ground; it"s a dangerous place, it seems, if I am to believe what that gentleman said.--Ha! ha!
you rascal! is it true that you amuse yourself throwing down mademoiselle"s customers?"
"Oh, no! it"s only a joke, monsieur!" Chicotin replied slyly; "but I have bad luck, I never hit the ones I aim at."
"Were you aiming at me, pray?"
"No, indeed, monsieur; of course not!"
"Because, you see, I have the gout, and if you had knocked me down, it might have been a more serious matter for me than for that little man, who ought not to have lost the habit of tumbling yet."
"Oh! monsieur, if I had had that misfortune, I should never have forgiven myself; but I"d have picked you up."
"That would have been most generous on your part; but I prefer that you shouldn"t have any occasion to pick me up. You look to me like a genuine ne"er-do-well; but I don"t dislike knaves of your sort."
"Monsieur"s a good judge."
"Would you like to come with me? I"ll give you an errand to do."
"Yes, monsieur, why not? And you won"t be sorry that you chose me; I do errands in first-cla.s.s shape!"
"Very good! if I am satisfied with you, I will give you my work. What"s your name?"
"Chicotin--nicknamed Patatras because----"
"Parbleu! I have a shrewd suspicion why you had that name given you, if you always make your entree as you did just now, by throwing people down.--But this pretty flower girl doesn"t like the way you treat her customers, and she is right."
"Bless me! monsieur," said Violette, "it"s the second time in two days that he has run into my counter like that."
"It"s the last time, Mamzelle Violette; I promise you I won"t do it again; I"m done."
"This girl is really lovely!" muttered the gentleman, as he paid for his bouquet. "Whom in the devil does she look like? Faith! I"ve known so many!--Follow me," he said, turning to Chicotin.
He walked away, leaning on his cane and putting his left foot to the ground with great precaution, which necessarily kept him from walking fast.
And Monsieur Chicotin followed him, taking several steps very rapidly, then falling back to cut a caper or some monkey trick.
"If we keep on at this pace," he said, "we shan"t beat the railway train."
X
A DOMESTIC INTERIOR
In a very handsome salon of an apartment on Boulevard Beaumarchais, in one of those fine houses recently built, which make that quarter one of the most attractive in Paris, three persons were a.s.sembled: Monsieur Glumeau, his wife and his daughter.
We know the ladies. Monsieur Glumeau, formerly a commission merchant, was a man of fifty years, of medium height, who had never been handsome, but who might have possessed some attractions when he was young, thanks to his light hair, his china-blue eyes--there are people who like china-blue eyes--and above all, to his slender figure, his shapely leg and his small and well-arched foot. As he grew older, Monsieur Glumeau had not taken on flesh like his excellent wife, but had retained a youthful appearance, especially when seen from behind; as to his face, that had become considerably wrinkled, but his eyes were still china-blue, and although he no longer possessed his fair hair, he had replaced it by a wig of the same color.
It is probable that Monsieur Glumeau"s features would not have undergone so sudden a revolution, except for the mania that he had contracted of drugging himself, of putting himself on strict diet for the slightest indisposition. The dread of being ill constantly tormented the ex-commission merchant, and by dint of taking care of his health, he had succeeded in ruining it. His ordinary reading was the fourth page of the large newspapers; he took note of all the infallible remedies announced and extolled by their inventors; he often bought them although he had not the disease which they were supposed to cure; but he would take them all as a matter of precaution, saying to himself: "If I should have this disease, I shall have the remedy at hand."
To this weakness of mind, far from agreeable in a family, Monsieur Glumeau added the pretension of shining in conversation. He constantly sought to make sharp or clever remarks; but as he was never able to think of any, he often halted on the way, which fact imparted much incoherency to his speech. Lastly, having formerly been what is called a fine dancer, he had retained much liking for that exercise, wherein he could at his pleasure exhibit his foot, of which he was very proud, and upon which he kept his eyes fixed as he danced.
After retiring from business with a very considerable fortune, which had recently been added to by an inheritance, Monsieur Glumeau had purchased a country house at Nogent-sur-Marne; there he had had built in his garden a small theatre, where in the summer his family and friends indulged in the pleasure of theatrical performances, being actors and spectators in turn. Monsieur Glumeau liked to receive company; the presence of guests made him forget his imaginary diseases; as his wife and his children were also fond of pleasure, the ex-commission merchant"s house was one of those where one was always certain to pa.s.s one"s time agreeably; ceremony and etiquette were banished from it, and everyone was at liberty to do what he pleased; the company was sometimes a little mixed but it made up in quant.i.ty what it lacked in quality.
At the moment of which we write, the head of the family was in the act of drinking a cup of tea into which he had squeezed the juice of a lemon, because when he woke that morning he had a bitter taste in his mouth.
"I think that this will do me good," said Monsieur Glumeau, as he drank his tea in little sips; "lemon juice in tea clears up the bile."
"But why will you have it that you"re bilious, my dear? Your complexion is very clear, you are not yellow."
"You say I am not yellow, my dear love; that"s a question! I am a little yellow--on one side of my nose; and I don"t propose to wait until I am as yellow as a pumpkin before I take a purgative."
"Do you mean to say that you propose to purge yourself again? That would be the last straw. You took Sedlitz water a fortnight ago."
"What does that prove, if I need it again?"
Madame Glumeau shrugged her shoulders, exclaiming:
"You make yourself sick by dosing yourself, Edouard!"
"Why no, my dear love, one doesn"t make oneself sick by taking care of oneself; on the contrary, it prevents one from being sick."
"You know that we have company to dinner to-day. I trust that you don"t propose to select this moment to take medicine."
"I am not talking about medicine to-day; but listen: just now I was reading in my paper the announcement of a most valuable discovery."
"Something to prevent potatoes from being sick?"
"Oh! I am not talking about potatoes!"
"But, my dear, they are so useful, so nourishing, so valuable, so----"
"Let me alone with your potatoes; I don"t like them. What I am talking about is an infallible remedy for the gravel."
"But you haven"t that, monsieur!"
"No, but I might have it!"