"She will overawe the police."
"We can say to them: "Respect this lady; your mother will perhaps be as old some day!""
Suddenly, the Baccha.n.a.l Queen rose; her countenance wore a singular expression of bitter and sardonic delight. In one hand she held a gla.s.s full to the brim. "I hear the Cholera is approaching in his seven-league boots," she cried. "I drink luck to the Cholera!" And she emptied the b.u.mper.
Notwithstanding the general gayety, these words made a gloomy impression; a sort of electric shudder ran through the a.s.semblage, and nearly every countenance became suddenly serious.
"Oh, Cephyse!" said Jacques, in a tone of reproach.
"Luck to the Cholera," repeated the Queen, fearlessly. "Let him spare those who wish to live, and kill together those who dread to part!"
Jacques and Cephyse exchanged a rapid glance, unnoticed by their joyous companions, and for some time the Baccha.n.a.l Queen remained silent and thoughtful.
"If you put it that way, it is different," cried Rose-Pompon, boldly.
"To the Cholera! may none but good fellows be left on earth!"
In spite of this variation, the impression was still painfully impressive. Dumoulin, wishing to cut short this gloomy subject, exclaimed: "Devil take the dead, and long live the living! And, talking of chaps who both live and live well, I ask you to drink a health most dear to our joyous queen, the health of our Amphitryon. Unfortunately, I do not know his respectable name, having only had the advantage of making his acquaintance this night; he will excuse me, then, if I confine myself to proposing the health of Sleepinbuff--a name by no means offensive to my modesty, as Adam never slept in any other manner.
I drink to Sleepinbuff."
"Thanks, old son!" said Jacques, gayly; "were I to forget your name, I should call you "Have-a-sip?" and I am sure that you would answer: "I will.""
"I will directly!" said Dumoulin, making the military salute with one hand, and holding out the bowl with the other.
"As we have drunk together," resumed Sleepinbuff, cordially, "we ought to know each other thoroughly. I am Jacques Rennepont?"
"Rennepont!" cried Dumoulin, who appeared struck by the name, in spite of his half-drunkenness; "you are Rennepont?"
"Rennepont in the fullest sense of the word. Does that astonish you?"
"There is a very ancient family of that name--the Counts of Rennepont."
"The deuce there is!" said the other, laughing.
"The Counts of Rennepont are also Dukes of Cardoville," added Dumoulin.
"Now, come, old fellow! do I look as if I belonged to such a family?--I, a workman out for a spree?"
"You a workman? why, we are getting into the Arabian Nights!" cried Dumoulin, more and more surprised. "You give us a Belshazzar"s banquet, with accompaniment of carriages and four, and yet are a workman? Only tell me your trade, and I will join you, leaving the Vine of the Divine to take care of itself."
"Come, I say! don"t think that I am a printer of flimsies, and a smasher!" replied Jacques, laughing.
"Oh, comrade! no such suspicion--"
"It would be excusable, seeing the rigs I run. But I"ll make you easy on that point. I am spending an inheritance."
"Eating and drinking an uncle, no doubt?" said Dumoulin, benevolently.
"Faith, I don"t know."
"What! you don"t know whom you are eating and drinking?"
"Why, you see, in the first place, my father was a bone-grubber."
"The devil he was!" said Dumoulin, somewhat out of countenance, though in general not over-scrupulous in the choice of his bottle-companions: but, after the first surprise, he resumed, with the most charming amenity: "There are some rag-pickers very high by scent--I mean descent!"
"To be sure! you may think to laugh at me," said Jacques, "but you are right in this respect, for my father was a man of very great merit. He spoke Greek and Latin like a scholar, and often told me that he had not his equal in mathematics; besides, he had travelled a good deal."
"Well, then," resumed Dumoulin, whom surprise had partly sobered, "you may belong to the family of the Counts of Rennepont, after all."
"In which case," said Rose-Pompon, laughing, "your father was not a gutter-snipe by trade, but only for the honor of the thing."
"No, no--worse luck! it was to earn his living," replied Jacques; "but, in his youth, he had been well off. By what appeared, or rather by what did not appear, he had applied to some rich relation, and the rich relation had said to him: "Much obliged! try the work"us." Then he wished to make use of his Greek, and Latin, and mathematics. Impossible to do anything--Paris, it seems, being choke-full of learned men--so my father had to look for his bread at the end of a hooked stick, and there, too, he must have found it, for I ate of it during two years, when I came to live with him after the death of an aunt, with whom I had been staying in the country."
"Your respectable father must have been a sort of philosopher," said Dumoulin; "but, unless he found an inheritance in a dustbin, I don"t see how you came into your property."
"Wait for the end of the song. At twelve years of age I was an apprentice at the factory of M. Tripeaud; two years afterwards, my father died of an accident, leaving me the furniture of our garret--a mattress, a chair, and a table--and, moreover, in an old Eau de Cologne box, some papers (written, it seems, in English), and a bronze medal, worth about ten sous, chain and all. He had never spoken to me of these papers, so, not knowing if they were good for anything, I left them at the bottom of an old trunk, instead of burning them--which was well for me, since it is upon these papers that I have had money advanced."
"What a G.o.dsend!" said Dumoulin. "But somebody must have known that you had them?"
"Yes; one of those people that are always looking out for old debts came to Cephyse, who told me all about it; and, after he had read the papers, he said that the affair was doubtful, but that he would lend me ten thousand francs on it, if I liked. Ten thousand francs was a large sum, so I snapped him up!"
"But you must have supposed that these old papers were of great value."
"Faith, no! since my father, who ought to have known their value, had never realized on them--and then, you see, ten thousand francs in good, bright coin, falling as it were from the clouds, are not to be sneezed at--so I took them--only the man made me do a bit of stiff as guarantee, or something of that kind."
"Did you sign it?"
"Of course--what did I care about it? The man told me it was only a matter of form. He spoke the truth, for the bill fell due a fortnight ago, and I have heard nothing of it. I have still about a thousand francs in his hands, for I have taken him for my banker. And that"s the way, old pal, that I"m able to flourish and be jolly all day long, as pleased as Punch to have left my old grinder of a master, M. Tripeaud."
As he p.r.o.nounced this name, the joyous countenance of Jacques became suddenly overcast. Cephyse, no longer under the influence of the painful impression she had felt for a moment, looked uneasily at Jacques, for she knew the irritation which the name of M. Tripeaud produced within him.
"M. Tripeaud," resumed Sleepinbuff, "is one that would make the good bad, and the bad worse. They say that a good rider makes a good horse; they ought to say that a good master makes a good workman. Zounds! when I think of that fellow!" cried Sleepinbuff, striking his hand violently on the table.
"Come, Jacques--think of something else!" said the Baccha.n.a.l Queen.
"Make him laugh, Rose-Pompon."
"I am not in a humor to laugh," replied Jacques, abruptly, for he was getting excited from the effects of the wine; "it is more than I can bear to think of that man. It exasperates me! it drives me mad! You should have heard him saying: "Beggarly workmen! rascally workmen! they grumble that they have no food in their bellies; well, then, we"ll give them bayonets to stop their hunger."(11) And there"s the children in his factory--you should see them, poor little creatures!--working as long as the men--wasting away, and dying by the dozen--what odds? as soon as they were dead plenty of others came to take their places--not like horses, which can only be replaced with money."
"Well, it is clear, that you do not like your old master," said Dumoulin, more and more surprised at his Amphitryon"s gloomy and thoughtful air, and, regretting that the conversation had taken this serious turn, he whispered a few words in the ear of the Baccha.n.a.l Queen, who answered by a sign of intelligence.
"I don"t like M. Tripeaud!" exclaimed Jacques. "I hate him--and shall I tell you why? Because it is as much his fault as mine, that I have become a good-for-nothing loafer. I don"t say it to screen myself; but it is the truth. When I was "prenticed to him as a lad, I was all heart and ardor, and so bent upon work, that I used to take my shirt off to my task, which, by the way, was the reason that I was first called Sleepinbuff. Well! I might have toiled myself to death; not one word of encouragement did I receive. I came first to my work, and was the last to leave off; what matter? it was not even noticed. One day, I was injured by the machinery. I was taken to the hospital. When I came out, weak as I was, I went straight to my work; I was not to be frightened; the others, who knew their master well, would often say to me: "What a m.u.f.f you must be, little one! What good will you get by working so hard?"--still I went on. But, one day, a worthy old man, called Father a.r.s.ene, who had worked in the house many years, and was a model of good conduct, was suddenly turned away, because he was getting too feeble. It was a death-blow to him; his wife was infirm, and, at his age, he could not get another place. When the foreman told him he was dismissed, he could not believe it, and he began to cry for grief. At that moment, M.
Tripeaud pa.s.ses; Father a.r.s.ene begs him with clasped hands to keep him at half-wages. "What!" says M. Tripeaud, shrugging his shoulders; "do you think that I will turn my factory into a house of invalids? You are no longer able to work--so be off!" "But I have worked forty years of my life; what is to become of me?" cried poor Father a.r.s.ene. "That is not my business," answered M. Tripeaud; and, addressing his clerk, he added: "Pay what is due for the week, and let him cut his stick." Father a.r.s.ene did cut his stick; that evening, he and his old wife suffocated themselves with charcoal. Now, you see, I was then a lad; but that story of Father a.r.s.ene taught me, that, however hard you might work, it would only profit your master, who would not even thank you for it, and leave you to die on the flags in your old age. So all my fire was damped, and I said to myself: "What"s the use of doing more than I just need? If I gain heaps of gold for M. Tripeaud, shall I get an atom of it?"
Therefore, finding neither pride nor profit in my work, I took a disgust for it--just did barely enough to earn my wages--became an idler and a rake--and said to myself: "When I get too tired of labor, I can always follow the example of Father a.r.s.ene and his wife.""
Whilst Jacques resigned himself to the current of these bitter thoughts, the other guests, incited by the expressive pantomime of Dumoulin and the Baccha.n.a.l Queen, had tacitly agreed together; and, on a signal from the Queen, who leaped upon the table, and threw down the bottles and gla.s.ses with her foot, all rose and shouted, with the accompaniment of Ninny Moulin"s rattle "The storm blown Tulip! the quadrille of the Storm-blown Tulip!"
At these joyous cries, which burst suddenly, like sh.e.l.l, Jacques started; then gazing with astonishment at his guests, he drew his hand across his brow, as if to chase away the painful ideas that oppressed him, and exclaimed: "You are right. Forward the first couple! Let us be merry!"
In a moment, the table, lifted by vigorous arms, was removed to the extremity of the banqueting-room; the spectators, mounted upon chairs, benches, and window-ledges, began to sing in chorus the well-known air of les Etudiants, so as to serve instead of orchestra, and accompany the quadrille formed by Sleepinbuff, the Queen, Ninny Moulin, and Rose Pompon.