“Oh, yes, monsieur, come to Paris with us!”
“You must go to the Opéra to-night; you will see us dance there, and it will be rather different from what it was in this room.”
“It would be very mean of you to refuse us.”
“And then,” cried Malvina, “at the Rocher de Cancale! That’s the place to get a good dinner! I’m going to stuff myself, I am!”
“Come, come, you must be one of us!” exclaimed Daréna.
The Spaniard and the Neapolitan each seized one of Chérubin’s arms; he let them drag him away and they carried him, almost dancing, to the cab, which he entered with Daréna and the four dancers.
“But I have a carriage,” cried the notary; “you will be too crowded with six in there! Let some of the ladies come in my carriage.”
“No, no!” said Daréna; “we’ll sit in one another’s laps—it’s all the more fun!—Off you go, driver; founder your nags—we’ll pay you for them. To the Rocher de Cancale!”
The cab drove away with Chérubin, who had not even had time to bid his nurse good-bye.
“Daréna has succeeded!” said Monfréville; “the bird has left his nest.”
“Yes,” replied Monsieur d’Hurbain, “but this sort of thing must not go too far. And this dinner—with those women; really, I can’t be there. I, a notary, dine with ballet dancers!”
“Oh! bless my soul! just once; you can go incog. Besides, it’s for a good motive, and your presence will prevent the dinner from being too indecent. Let us take my tilbury, we can follow them better.”
Monsieur d’Hurbain entered the tilbury with Monfréville, and Monsieur Gérondif and Jasmin jumped into the carriage.
“They are taking my young master to the Rocher de Cancale,” said the old servant, “and I have ordered a sumptuous banquet at the house, and a reception, with music and flowers and——”
“Never mind, worthy Jasmin,” rejoined the tutor, “all those things will serve as well later; my pupil will have to go home eventually. As for myself, I am Mentor, and I must not abandon Telemachus, even when he goes to dinner at the Rocher de Cancale.”
A handsome salon had been engaged and a sumptuous banquet ordered at the Rocher de Cancale, by Comte Daréna, who had said to himself before he started for Gagny:
“Whatever happens, we shall surely come back to dinner; to be sure, if I happen to be one of those who are to pay, it will be rather hard for me just at this time; but that doesn’t worry me much; I’ll order the dinner none the less.”
To give no thought to anything but pleasure, to pay no heed to the future, to be, in truth, often indifferent concerning affairs of the present, such was Daréna’s nature. Born of a noble family, he had received an excellent education and had studied diligently. His father, a man of a proud and stern character, having observed in his son early in life a decided taste for independence and dissipation, had thought that he could correct him by depriving him of those amusements and that liberty which are the ordinary means of relaxation after toil and study. Thus, when Daréna was nineteen years of age, he had never had a franc that he could call his own, or a half hour of freedom. At that time his father died; his mother had died long before, and he suddenly found himself his own master and possessed of a very pretty little fortune. He plunged recklessly into pleasure and dissipation, trying to make up all the time that his father’s severity had caused him to lose, and bade adieu forever to study and to serious things.
Cards, women, horses, the table, became his idols. At first he frequented the best society, to which his name and his wealth gave him access; from the very beginning he had a multitude of love intrigues; but Daréna was not sentimental, he looked for nothing but pleasure in such affairs, and broke them off as soon as he foreshadowed the slightest exaction or annoyance.
As ladies in good society are not always disposed to form a liaison of a few days only, and as Comte Daréna’s behavior was no secret, since he plumed himself on not becoming attached to any woman, his amatory triumphs gradually became less numerous in the fashionable world, and he was compelled to pay his addresses to petites bourgeoises, then to ladies of the theatre, then to grisettes, then to courtesans; and finally he had grown to be so unexacting on that point that he had been known to take his mistresses from the most humble ranks of society.
Daréna’s fortune, like his love-affairs, had sunk constantly lower and lower. At last, at the age of twenty-eight, the count had squandered his whole patrimony and had nothing left save the house in Faubourg Saint-Antoine, which he desired to sell, and upon which he had already borrowed more than it was worth.
But, far from worrying concerning his present plight and his future, so long as he was able to dine well, to drink champagne with a ballet dancer, a figurante, a lace-maker, or even a lady’s maid, Daréna snapped his fingers at all the rest. To obtain those enjoyments, he was often obliged to resort to doubtful expedients; but the man who is not particular in choosing his acquaintances is not always particular as to his means of existence.
A person named Poterne had seconded Daréna’s dissipation and ruin to the utmost of his power. This Poterne was a man whose age it was impossible to guess, he was so ugly and unshapely. A gaunt, bony, angular body, supported by thin, knock-kneed legs, was surmounted by an oblong head of excessive length, a nose broken in the centre and hooked at the end, a mouth without lips, a protruding chin, and small eyes of a dull green hue, shaded by bushy eyebrows, and turning incessantly in every direction. Add to these an enormous quantity of thick, dirty brown hair, always cut like the quills of a hedgehog, and you have a faithful image of Monsieur Poterne.
This man had become attached to Comte Daréna when he was still wealthy; he had offered his services in any capacity; he knew all the places in Paris where a young man of family can ruin himself with the least difficulty. If Daréna spied, at the play or on the street, a woman who attracted him, Poterne undertook to follow her, and to hand her a letter containing information concerning him. Later, Poterne made it his business to find usurers, money-lenders, accommodating tradesmen; so that he had become indispensable to the count, who treated him sometimes as his friend, sometimes as his servant, cajoled him occasionally, despised him always, and could never do without him.
The reader will assume perhaps that it had been this gentleman’s aim to enrich himself at the expense of the person whom he was assisting to ruin himself. That was Poterne’s idea at first; but his own vices prevented him from taking advantage of another’s failings. As inveterate a gambler and libertine as Daréna, while the latter was losing thousand-franc notes in a fashionable salon, Poterne was gambling away, in some wine-shop or low resort, the money he had extracted from his intimate friend. While Daréna entertained some charmer at Véfour’s or Véry’s, Poterne betook himself to a gin-shop to squander what money he had with a street peddler, and he was too ugly not to be compelled to be open-handed. And when Daréna was without a sou he sometimes abused his friend, and accused him of being the author of his ruin. At such times he unceremoniously appropriated all that Poterne possessed; and that worthy, who was also a coward, allowed himself to be despoiled without a murmur, promising himself that he would have his revenge ere long.
It may seem strange that the refined Monfréville should be on intimate terms with a man whose tastes, whose conduct, whose very dress, proved his disorderly mode of life. But there are people who, after knowing a person when he was rich and fortunate, dare not turn their backs on him when they meet him with a soiled coat and dingy hat. Moreover, Daréna still had intervals of prosperity; when the cards had been favorable to him, or when his friend Poterne had discovered some new resource, he instantly reappeared, elegantly and stylishly dressed; he frequented the theatres, the ballrooms and the best restaurants in Paris; and a few days later, a perceptible falling off in his toilet, a certain lack of neatness in some part of his costume, indicated that the situation had changed. But even with a wretched hat and dirty linen, Daréna succeeded so well in retaining the manners of good society, that it was hard to believe that he consorted with the very lowest.
Indeed, does anyone know aught of the private life of the great majority of the persons with whom he has only a passing connection? Meeting Daréna arrayed as in the days of his prosperity, seeing him squander money madly in some pleasure resort, no one asked him by what blessed change of luck he had become rich; and for the same reason, when he was seen, in shabby garments, slinking into a wretched twenty-two sou restaurant, no one took pains to inquire what hard luck he had had. In Paris, people do not try to worm themselves into other people’s secrets; and in this respect, discretion very often resembles indifference.
Monfréville, who had known Daréna when he was rich, was well aware that he had squandered his fortune, but he did not believe him to be entirely without resources, having no idea that he would resort to indelicate methods of obtaining money. The count had frequently borrowed a thousand-franc note of him, however, none of which had he ever returned; but Edouard de Monfréville was wealthy and attached little importance to those trifling services. And then, too, Daréna’s society amused him; his sallies, his indifference, sometimes carried to the point of cynicism, made him laugh and banished the melancholy humor which now and then took possession of his mind.
Sometimes people wondered what could be the cause of that pensive air, of that smile, rather bitter than mocking, which often played about Monfréville’s mouth. He was rich, he had everything calculated to attract. In society he was sought after, women schemed to gain his notice; he had been known to have a great number of love-affairs, and he was still at an age to have more. But his merriment rarely seemed genuine, and in his conversation he avoided speaking of a sex of which he could hardly have had reason to complain. Some thought that Monfréville had reached the point of being surfeited with all sorts of pleasure, and attributed to that fact the clouds that sometimes darkened his brow; others, when they heard him sneer at those of his friends who believed in the constancy of their mistresses, concluded that the handsome and fascinating Monfréville had had some unfortunate passion, had been the victim of some treachery. Finally, when he was seen to pass his thirtieth year, and even to approach his fortieth, without apparently thinking of marriage, all sorts of conjectures were indulged in.
“He must have a very low opinion of women,” people said, “as he doesn’t choose to do like other men, and settle down, under the yoke of hymen.”
But Edouard de Monfréville paid no heed to what people might think or say of him; he continued to live according to his taste, to do exactly as he chose; sometimes after passing a month in a succession of uproarious debauches, surrounded by a jovial, dissipated crowd, all whose follies he shared, he would hold himself aloof from society for weeks at a time, finding pleasure only in solitude. His friends had finally become accustomed to the eccentricities of his humor, because in society a rich man is always entitled to be original; only the poor devils are denied that privilege.
Now that we are better acquainted with the people whom we are to join, let us enter the Rocher de Cancale, where Chérubin had just arrived with the priestesses of Terpsichore.
Chérubin found himself in Paris, and at the Rocher de Cancale, before he had had time to collect his thoughts. All the way to town the ladies had talked so much nonsense, their conversation was so lively, their remarks so amusing, that the boy had not ears enough to hear, and he glanced constantly from one to another of the dancers, to make sure that he was not dreaming.
When they entered the cab, the ladies enveloped themselves in ample cloaks, which concealed their costumes, and pulled hoods over their heads, so that their headdresses could not be seen.
“Why do these ladies all disguise themselves in hoods?” Chérubin asked Daréna in an undertone.
“My dear marquis,” the latter replied aloud, “they do it so that their stage costumes may not be seen when they go into the restaurant, for the Carnival hasn’t come yet.—A modest dress is the correct thing in Paris.”
“Bah! I don’t care a fig for your correct thing!” said Mademoiselle Malvina; “for my part I’d just as lief walk about Paris in a Swiss costume. I say, why mightn’t I be a real Swiss?”
“If you wore an oyster woman’s costume, my dear girl, it’s much more probable that no one would think that you were disguised.”
“Well! well! that’s a joke, I suppose! how ugly you are! When you’re out-at-elbows the way you sometimes are, you don’t look any too much like a count yourself!”
Daréna laughed heartily and tapped Malvina on the cheek, saying:
“Come, come, hold your tongue, and above all things behave decently, mesdames; in the country a mild sort of freedom is permissible, but at the Rocher de Cancale, and in the honorable company with which you are to dine, remember, my little shepherdesses, that if you are not discreet I shall be obliged to turn you out of the room.”
“Bless my soul! we know how to behave, monsieur! Do you think we never go into swell society?”
“Why, I often dine with my friend and his brother, who’s one of the biggest butchers in Paris!”
“And I sometimes keep my cousin’s desk; she’s a baker and sells pastry, and only gentlemen with canary-colored gloves come to her little place to eat.”
“Very good, mesdames, very good; we are certain now that you are worthy to go into good society, and that you know how to behave decorously. Oh! if Monsieur d’Hurbain had not come to dine with us! But he has come, for I see him and Monfréville getting out of the tilbury. We have arrived; come, my young marquis, hand out the ladies.”
The carriage stopped and the door was opened; a porcupine’s head appeared, surmounting a body clad in an old nut-colored box-coat, the collar of which was marred by some very extensive spots of grease. It was Monsieur Poterne, who had stepped forward to assist the ladies to alight.
Malvina drew back, crying:
“Great God! what sort of thing is that? An owl, a hedgehog?”
“It is my—my business agent,” replied Daréna; “he has looked to it that everything is properly prepared, and now he has come to assist you to alight; he is an extremely obliging man.”
“He may possibly be obliging, but he is very ugly; isn’t he, Rosina?”
“Yes. Oh! how stupid it is to be ugly like that!”
“And when you look from him to our charming little Monsieur Chérubin!”
“Gad! there’s as much difference as there is between the sun and a flea!”
“Come, mesdames, get out of the carriage; you can talk upstairs.”
The company soon assembled in the salon where the table was laid. Messieurs d’Hurbain and Monfréville had arrived at the same time with the cab containing Chérubin and the dancers. The notary went to Daréna and said in his ear:
“I trust, my dear count, that your dancers will behave properly here. I agree that by their graceful dancing and their bright eyes they have fascinated this young man; but he is still a mere child, who ought not to consort with ballet dancers——”
“Mon Dieu! don’t be alarmed! You surprise me! It is due to me that this baby of sixteen years and a half consented to leave his nurse, and, instead of thanking me, you preach at me. Be of service to people—exert your imagination—so that they may lecture you afterwards!”
“I say, Daréna,” said Monfréville, scrutinizing Monsieur Poterne, who was sidling by the ladies, casting furtive glances at them, to which they replied by wry faces, “is that horribly dirty person a friend of yours? Do you expect us to dine with him? I must confess that I am not charmed by the prospect of his company. Who is the fellow? He looks very like a hawk.”
“He is my steward.”
“Ah! so you still have a steward? I thought that you had ceased to keep up an establishment.”
“I have kept nobody else. This man looks after my affairs—he’s an invaluable fellow for expedients.”
“In that case, he would do well to devise an expedient for obtaining another coat.”
“Well! aren’t we ever going to dine?” asked Malvina, trying a pas de seul in a corner of the salon.
“Yes, indeed, madame. Come, Monsieur Chérubin, be kind enough to take your seat.”
Monsieur d’Hurbain was about to sit beside Chérubin, but Monfréville stopped him, saying in an undertone:
“Let these girls sit by our pupil, or else we may lose all the fruit of our trouble. I have been watching Chérubin among all these people; he sighs sometimes, and if he should have an attack of homesickness, he might absolutely insist on returning to his nurse, and we should have much difficulty in keeping him in Paris.”
Monsieur d’Hurbain submitted; he allowed Mesdemoiselles Rosina and Cœlina to seat themselves on each side of Chérubin; Malvina, who was too late to obtain a seat next the young man, attempted to force Rosina to give up her chair to her and threatened to strike her; but a stern glance from Daréna put an end to the dispute, and Mademoiselle Malvina seated herself at the other end of the table, humming:
“You shall not take him away, Nicolas! ‘Tis I whom he will love, tradera!”
There was one vacant place, for Monsieur Poterne had ordered the table laid for nine, and, despite Daréna’s signs, the gentleman in the box-coat seemed to be on the point of taking the vacant chair, when the door opened and Monsieur Gérondif appeared, accompanied by Jasmin.
The professor bowed to the company, saying:
“I humbly salute the gentlemen, and I lay my homage at the feet of the ladies simultaneously.”
“What is the man doing to our feet?” Malvina asked Daréna, who was seated beside her, and whose only reply was a violent blow with his knee.
But Chérubin’s face lighted up when he saw the new arrivals, and he cried:
“Ah! here you are, my dear tutor! How glad I am that you came to Paris too! What a pity that—that you——”
Chérubin did not finish the sentence; he was thinking of Louise, and something which he could not define told him that his innocent playmate would not be in her proper place in the company of those young ladies who danced so prettily. Monsieur d’Hurbain, who was greatly pleased by the tutor’s arrival, because he saw therein an additional safeguard for Chérubin, saluted Monsieur Gérondif with a gracious smile, and said:
“You did well to follow your pupil, monsieur, and we relied upon your doing so. Pray take a seat at the table—there is a place awaiting you.”
“Yes, yes, sit there, Monsieur Gérondif,” cried Chérubin, pointing to the vacant seat. “And you, my good Jasmin, stand by me.”
“I know my duty, monsieur le marquis, and I will take my proper station.”
As he spoke, the old retainer put a napkin over his arm and planted himself behind Chérubin’s chair. As for Monsieur Gérondif, he did not wait for the invitation to be repeated; he pushed Monsieur Poterne aside, took his seat at the table and swallowed the soup that was placed before him, crying:
“This is the banquet of Belshazzar! It is the feast of Eleusis! the wedding festival of Gamache! Never assuredly was there a more sumptuous repast!”
“I say! that gentleman is talking in poetry,” said Malvina to her neighbor.
“Yes,” replied Daréna, “I believe that it was monsieur who wrote the tragedy called the Earthquake of Lisbon.”
Monsieur Gérondif smiled graciously at the count, murmuring with an air of modesty:
“I write verse rather easily, but I never wrote a tragedy, that is sure, certainly.”
“I beg pardon, monsieur, I took you for Master André; you have much affinity with him.—But let us drink to monsieur le marquis’s health, and to the pleasure of having him in Paris at last.”
Daréna’s proposition was eagerly welcomed; the glasses were filled with madeira, and emptied in Chérubin’s honor; the four dancers drank without heel-taps, and poured down madeira in a way to arouse an Englishman’s envy.
Meanwhile Monsieur Poterne, having been cheated out of the seat to which he aspired, had decided to remain on his feet and to assist Jasmin, in preference to retiring. So he took his stand behind Daréna; but while making a pretence of passing him a plate now and then, he asked him in undertones for whatever he saw on the table. Daréna passed him well filled dishes, and Poterne, instead of serving them to the guests, turned his back and rapidly made away with the contents.
The beginning of the repast was lively, but free from anything offensive to the proprieties; the young women, upon whom Daréna had enjoined the most rigidly correct behavior, gave their whole attention to doing justice to the dinner, and maintained an irreproachable demeanor, although they bestowed an amiable smile on Chérubin from time to time. Malvina alone let slip an occasional remark or jest of a somewhat obscene flavor; but Daréna always made haste to cover it by beginning to talk. His conversation, which was always piquant or rambling, Monfréville’s, who was in an unusually cheerful mood, and the quotations of Monsieur Gérondif, who, while eating for four, found time to display all that he knew, did not leave Chérubin a moment for reflection. Surprised to find himself the hero of that impromptu fête, he was dazzled, fascinated, taken captive; the glances that were darted at him, the witty remarks that he heard on all sides, the flattering things that were said to him, and the delicious, dainty, toothsome dinner, which gratified his sense of smell and of taste alike, prevented him from giving a thought to the village; for when his face became grave and indicated the arrival of a memory, his companions redoubled their attentions, their gayety and their pranks, to banish the cloud that had dimmed his eyes.
“I say,” suddenly exclaimed Malvina, who, as she turned her head, happened to see Monsieur Poterne taking away a plate that Daréna passed him, “so your man of business waits on you at table, does he? Is he your servant too?”
“He serves me in every capacity,” said Daréna; “I tell you he is an invaluable man; I make whatever I choose of him!”
“Then you’d better make a good-looking man of him!”
“Socrates, Horace, Cicero and Pelisson were hideously ugly,” said Gérondif, filling the little Swiss maiden’s glass; “a man may be very plain and still have a brilliant intellect.”
“Ah! you fox, you have your reasons for saying so,” retorted Malvina, tossing off her champagne.
The tutor, who did not expect that reply, scratched his nose and called for truffles.
The crash of a breaking plate interrupted the conversation; Jasmin, while trying to remove his young master’s plate, had dropped it on the floor; it was the fourth which had met that fate at his hands, together with two bottles and a carafe.
“I say, is that old fellow Jocrisse?” cried Malvina, with a roar of laughter.
“Such a valet de chambre must be very expensive!” said Monfréville, with a smile.
“Excuse me, my dear master,” said Jasmin, who turned scarlet at each new mishap caused by his awkwardness. “You see, it is a long while since I have waited at table; but I shall soon get used to it—it is simply a matter of renewing an old habit.”
“The devil!” said Daréna, “if he means to go on until he gets used to it, it will be very fine!”
“But why do you stand behind me, my good Jasmin? It is altogether too fatiguing for a man of your years. Sit in the corner yonder; I will call you if I should need you!”
“The idea of it!” said Jasmin, trying to stand erect. “Does monsieur think that I do not know my duty? I will not quit my post, monsieur; I will die first!”
“In other words, all the landlord’s crockery will die!” said Daréna, laughingly.—”Honor to unlucky pluck!” he added aloud, raising his glass.
“This old servant’s attachment is greatly to his credit and to his master’s,” said Monfréville, “I propose a toast to fidelity; it is so rare that we cannot do it too much honor, in whatever guise it appears.”
The toast was drunk with enthusiasm by the company. Monsieur d’Hurbain proposed a toast to the late Monsieur de Grandvilain, and Daréna to the ballet dancers at the Opéra. Monsieur Gérondif rose and exclaimed with great earnestness:
“To the progress of the culinary art in France! The old Romans may have had more dishes than we on their tables, but probably they were less satisfying.”
Mademoiselle Malvina, determined to propose a toast of her own, raised her glass and cried:
“I toast for very long ballets and very short skirts, in the interest of the dancers and of everybody who likes a high kick.”
None of the ladies chose to lag behind; Cœlina drank to her squirrel’s health, Rosina to her cat’s, and Fœdora to her cousin’s, who was in the Chasseurs d’Afrique. Monsieur Poterne drank to nobody’s health, but he kept his back turned to the table, and swallowed an appalling quantity of champagne. A terrible crash interrupted the toasts: Jasmin had dropped a pile of plates that time, and the floor was strewn with débris of crockery.
“This will be rather an expensive dinner,” said Daréna; “one must needs be very rich to indulge in such servants as this old Jasmin.”
Meanwhile the frequent toasts had excited the guests to some extent. Malvina, who could not keep still, began to dance a very pronounced cancan; Cœlina and Rosina attempted the Cracovienne; Fœdora waltzed with Daréna, and Monsieur Gérondif, finding that everything about him was in a whirl, although he did not leave his chair, called loudly upon Malvina for a second performance of the Mozambique dance, with all its accessories.
Monsieur d’Hurbain, who had retained his presence of mind, thought that it was time to take Chérubin away; he took the young marquis’s arm, motioned to Monfréville, and to the tutor, who left the table with regret, and, picking out a path through the broken crockery, they left the restaurant and entered a carriage which took them to the hôtel de Grandvilain, not observing that Jasmin, who had followed them, had succeeded in climbing up behind, with the assistance of a messenger.
“Aren’t we going back to Gagny?” inquired Chérubin, when he found himself in the carriage.
“It is impossible to-night, my dear friend, it is much too late,” said Monsieur d’Hurbain. “To-morrow, or a few days hence, you will think about it. Since you are in Paris, you should at least get acquainted with the city.”
“Yes,” mumbled Monsieur Gérondif, whose tongue was very thick, “Cras, to-morrow; cras mane, to-morrow morning; perendinus dies, day after to-morrow—no matter when!”
“And with your permission,” said Monfréville, “I will undertake to be your guide, and to show you all that a young man of your rank should know.”
Chérubin made no reply; he would have liked to return to Gagny; but the delicious repast of which he had just partaken had aroused a new train of ideas in his mind, and he had heard so much of the pleasures that awaited him in Paris, of which he had already had such a pleasant specimen, that he finally said to himself:
“After all, as long as I am in the city, I may as well see at once all the wonderful things I have heard so much about; and when I go back to Louise I shall have lots of things to tell her, at all events.”
The cab arrived at the mansion in Faubourg Saint-Germain; the porte cochère was thrown open. The equipage had no sooner entered the courtyard than the ears of the young marquis and his companions were assailed by some most extraordinary music. They heard the strains of several barrel-organs, several violins and two or three clarinets, playing at the same time, but playing different tunes. Male and female voices too, shrill and false, roared ancient airs, laments, or vaudeville choruses. The general result was a horrible medley of sounds.
The occupants of the carriage were asking one another what it could mean, when they heard a dull thud on the pavement, as if caused by the fall of a heavy body. They recognized Jasmin, who, when he attempted to climb down from behind the cab, had fallen in the middle of the courtyard. But the dauntless retainer was already on his feet, crying:
“It’s nothing; I just slipped.—Monsieur le marquis, I ordered this concert—musicians and singers—in honor of your return to your paternal mansion. Long life to the new Marquis de Grandvilain!”
Chérubin thanked Jasmin for his kind intentions, but begged him instantly to dismiss those people, who were making such a horrible din. Monsieur d’Hurbain and Monfréville bade the young man good-night, commending him in whispers to the care of his tutor, who was not in a condition to understand what they said; then they left him to enjoy the repose which he was likely to need.
When the strangers had gone, Jasmin asked Chérubin if he wished to pass his servants in review; and Mademoiselle Turlurette, who was overjoyed to see her young master, proposed that he inspect the linen closets and the servants’ quarters, so that he might become acquainted with his establishment and see how things had been managed since his father’s death. But Chérubin had no desire to take all that trouble; pleasure is fatiguing when one is not accustomed to it, and the young marquis wanted nothing except to go to bed.
When he saw the immense room which was to be his bedroom, where there was an old-fashioned bed, reached by a set of steps, and surrounded by enormous curtains of crimson velvet, Chérubin made a wry face and exclaimed:
“Oh! how ugly it is here! I liked my little room at my nurse’s much better; it was more cheerful! I am going back there to-morrow, for it seems to me that I can’t sleep well here.”
But at sixteen years and a half, after a tiresome day, one sleeps well anywhere; and that is what happened to Chérubin.
As for Monsieur Gérondif, after bestowing an affable smile on Mademoiselle Turlurette, whom he called “mesdames,” because, his eyesight being a little blurred, he took her for two persons, he was escorted to his apartment, and was radiant with delight when he saw the fine room that had been prepared for him. He stretched himself out luxuriously in a soft bed, and gently laid his head on a pile of pillows, saying:
“I never slept in such a bed as this! I sink in, I drown! It is enchanting! I would like to pass my life in bed, and dream of the Mozambique dance!”
Chérubin woke late; he gazed about him in amazement and tried to collect his thoughts. He asked himself why he had left Gagny, his dear Nicole, and Louise, whom he loved so dearly. Then he thought of the magnificent dinner of the day before and of those four young women, who were so pretty and gay and amusing, and who danced so gracefully, casting soft glances at him the while. It was all well calculated to engross so inexperienced a head and heart.
Suddenly the crash of breaking furniture made Chérubin start; he turned his head and saw Jasmin standing in dismay beside a washstand that he had overturned.
“What is all this?” cried the young man, who could not help laughing at the grimace made by his old valet.
“It’s I, monsieur—it was because I didn’t want to make a noise and wake you.”
“So you call that not making a noise?”
“I was walking so carefully that I ran into that little piece of furniture, and it fell. But no matter; you can find those things at all furniture shops.”
“Oh! I am not at all alarmed, Jasmin. I am going to dress and go back to Gagny.”
“What! already, my dear master? Have you examined your cash-box?”
“That is all full of gold, monsieur,” said Jasmin, pointing to the cash drawer in the secretary; “and it’s all yours. And when it’s all gone, there is plenty more; you have only to apply to your banker. And one can enjoy so much in Paris with money.”
“Jasmin, you know that I don’t like to be thwarted. Where are my clothes and my shoes?”
“I threw them all out of the window, monsieur, except what Monsieur de Monfréville brought you yesterday.”
“What does that mean? Do you mean that I haven’t any trousers to put on? Are you mad, Jasmin?”
“It was Monsieur de Monfréville who advised me to throw away all monsieur’s old things. But there’s a tailor waiting outside, and a boot-maker and a shirt-maker and a hatter, who have brought some things that are more in style. It was Monsieur de Monfréville again who sent them all here; they’ve been waiting an hour for you to wake.”
“Let them come in then.”
The tradesmen were admitted. Each of them was attended by a boy laden with merchandise. While Chérubin selected those things which pleased him and which he was told were the most fashionable, Comte Daréna was announced.
Daréna wore his old ragged coat, his shapeless hat, and his rumpled cravat of the night before; but he appeared with his usual charming and playful manner, and shook the young man’s hand with great heartiness, crying:
“Here I am, my dear fellow; I intended to be here to salute you when you woke. I have come to breakfast with you.—Ah! you are making purchases? You should have left that to me; I would have sent my tradesmen to you. You left very suddenly last night, did you not? The ladies were all terribly surprised when they found that you were no longer there.”
“Monsieur d’Hurbain told me it was time to go—that we ought not to stay any longer at a restaurant,” replied Chérubin artlessly.
“Ah! charming! delicious!—In Paris you stay at a restaurant as late as you choose—you even pass the night there when the fancy strikes you. Your Monsieur d’Hurbain is a most estimable man, but he is not of our time, nor on the level of the age we live in. Luckily he won’t always be with you, for he would be a terrible bore.—Aren’t you going to take this blue coat?”
“I have already selected two sack coats and two frock coats.”
“Then I’ll take it; I can see at a glance that it will look well on me. I am also attracted by this little polonaise—it’s a whim. Parbleu! I like the color of these trousers; I’ll take them and these two waistcoats. When I am once started, there is no good reason why I should stop. Here are some shirts which should fit me perfectly. They make shirts now that fit as tight as a coat; I will take this dozen. These boots look as if they were well made.—You have a very pretty foot, Chérubin, of the same type as mine. I will take this pair of boots. Are they the same size as the ones selected by monsieur le marquis?”
“Yes, monsieur,” the boot-maker replied, with a bow.
“Then I will keep them.—I am curious to see if my head is the same size as yours, also. Let me see the hat you have chosen.”
Doing his utmost to squeeze his head into a hat which the hatter handed him, and which was much too small for him, Daréna cried:
“It will fit me—oh! it will end by fitting me. Have you another one like it there, hatter—but a little larger?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“Let me see—that is just right; I will take it.”
The tradesmen glanced at one another with some uneasiness; one could see in their eyes that they were wondering whether they ought to trust this gentleman, who selected so many things without even asking the price, and whose costume did not inspire unbounded confidence. Daréna put an end to their uncertainty by adding:
“By the way, here I am buying and buying, and I have no money with me! Parbleu! my friend the young Marquis Chérubin will pay for my purchases with his own; it is useless to make two bills. Then I will settle with him.—Will that inconvenience you, my young friend?”
“No, monsieur, it will give me great pleasure,” replied Chérubin, as he proceeded to dress; “I am delighted to accommodate you!”
And Jasmin whispered to his young master, as he assisted him to put on his waistcoat:
“It’s very good form, too, very noble, to lend to your friends; the late Monsieur de Grandvilain, your father, did it all the time! I will settle with monsieur’s tradesmen.”
Jasmin paid the various accounts.
Daréna gave the dealers his address, so that they might send him what he had selected, and they took their leave, greatly pleased.
While the old servant went out to give orders for breakfast, Daréna said to Chérubin:
“Now you are dressed in perfect taste—that is very good so far; but it isn’t enough; I propose that my young friend shall have all the little trifles, all the jewelry that is absolutely essential for a Parisian lion.”
“What do you say? a lion?”
“That is the name given to-day to a young man of fashion. Have you a watch?”
“Yes, this one; it belonged to my father.”
As he spoke, Chérubin showed Daréna a gold watch as thick as it was broad. The count roared with laughter as he glanced at it.
“Why, my dear fellow, if you should be seen carrying such an onion, people would laugh in your face.”
“What’s that? Why, it’s gold!”
“I don’t doubt it; and I may add that it is a most respectable watch, as it came from your father; but such watches are not worn now. Put it away carefully in your desk and have a stylish one, as thin as a sheet of paper. I have instructed my steward to find one for you, and to bring you this morning all the jewelry that you ought to have. Stay, I hear him asking for you now in your reception room.—This way, Poterne, this way; monsieur le marquis is visible.”
Poterne’s villainous face appeared at the bedroom door, and Chérubin invited him to come in. As he passed Daréna, he said to him rapidly and in an undertone:
“The dealer wouldn’t trust me with anything; he’s waiting at the door.”
“All right, you will be able to pay him. They’re not false, of course?”
“No, they’re genuine stones.”
“How much does he want for them?”
“Eight hundred francs.”
“Call it two thousand.”
Monsieur Poterne took a pasteboard box from his pocket, containing a very pretty, flat watch, a gold chain, which looked very light but was of beautiful workmanship, and a diamond pin. Chérubin uttered a cry of admiration when he saw the baubles.
“These, monsieur le marquis, are the finest and most stylish things to be had,” said Poterne, passing the chain about the young man’s neck, and doing his utmost to assume an honest expression.
“Yes, they’re in the latest style,” said Daréna. “My dear Chérubin, you must have these things; a well-dressed man cannot do without them. I have several chains myself; they are all broken just now, but I am having them mended.”
“Oh! I will buy all these jewels,” cried Chérubin. “Who would believe that there was a watch inside of this? What a pretty pin!—How much for them all, monsieur?”
Observing the young man’s enthusiasm over the jewels, Poterne thought that he might add a little more to the price.
“Twenty-five hundred francs in all,” he said.
Daréna turned his face away and bit his lips, while Chérubin ran to his cash drawer.
At sight of that drawer filled with gold pieces, Monsieur Poterne turned blue, his brow became wrinkled, his eyes increased in size and his nose shrunk. Daréna, observing his excitement, took advantage of the fact that Chérubin’s back was turned to administer a kick to his friend, muttering:
“I trust, you villain, that you have no detestable intentions; if I thought that you had, I would break every bone in your body.”
Poterne had no time to reply; he rubbed that portion of his anatomy which had been attacked, received the amount which Chérubin counted out to him in gold, and hastily took his leave. But he had hardly passed through the bedroom door when Daréna ran after him, saying:
“Excuse me, my young friend, I will return in a moment; I forgot to give my steward an important order.”
Hurrying after Poterne, who seemed anxious to avoid being overtaken, Daréna caught him on the stairs and seized him by his coat collar.
“Don’t go so fast,” he said; “you’re in a great hurry, you old scoundrel. Come, give me two thousand francs, in a hurry.”
“Two thousand francs!” muttered Poterne; “why, I’ve got to give eight hundred to the jeweler, who is waiting downstairs.”
“You can give him five hundred; he will be satisfied to wait for the rest.”
“But I——”
“I’ll break you into six pieces, if you argue. Come, Poterne, be decent! You know that when I am in funds, you never lack anything.”
Monsieur Poterne complied, looking as if he were about to weep. Daréna pocketed the gold and returned to Chérubin, who was admiring himself in the mirror. Jasmin came to say that breakfast was served, and the gentlemen took their seats at the table. They were hardly seated when Monsieur de Monfréville was announced.
When he saw Daréna at table with their young friend of the preceding day, Monfréville moved his head imperceptibly and said to the count:
“Here already? The deuce! you must have come quite early.”
“When I am fond of my friends, I am always in haste to see them,” replied Daréna.—”What wine is this, faithful Jasmin?”
“Beaune, monsieur,” replied the old servant, bowing.
“It is very good; but I like sauterne and chambertin at breakfast. You must have a fine cellar here?”
“Oh, yes, monsieur; and all old wines.”
“I imagine so, if they were laid in by our young friend’s father.—Come, O model of old retainers, go and bring us several more bottles. When a cellar has been left in peace for a generation, it seems to me that it is high time to empty it.”
Jasmin hastened to do as he was requested, and Monfréville said to Daréna:
“But you give orders without even consulting the master of the house!”
“My friend has given me carte blanche, and I am making the most of it.”
“Yes, monsieur,” said Chérubin; “pray do whatever you choose in my house.”
Daréna leaned toward Monfréville and said in his ear:
“He was already talking of going back to Gagny this morning; if we don’t make the young fellow giddy, he is capable of returning to his nurse, and that would be downright murder!”
“Aren’t you going to breakfast with us, monsieur?” Chérubin asked Monfréville.
“Thanks, my young friend, but I have breakfasted. Were you satisfied with the tradespeople whom I sent to you this morning?”
“Oh, yes, monsieur; everything was beautiful. I bought a lot of things, and so did monsieur le comte.”
Monfréville glanced at Daréna, who pretended not to hear and seemed busily occupied helping himself to partridge pie.
“And look at my watch and my gold chain, and this pin. Monsieur Daréna sent them all to me by his steward. How pretty they are, aren’t they?”
“Did you pay much for them?” Monfréville inquired.
“Why, no, only two thousand five hundred francs; I don’t call that dear!”
Monfréville looked again at Daréna, who continued to stuff himself with partridges.
“Why, yes, it was quite enough,” he said; “in fact, it was very dear. In the future, with your permission, I will advise you in your purchases; I fancy that I know at least as much about such matters as monsieur’s steward.”
Jasmin returned with a number of bottles; he broke one when he attempted to put it on the table, and dropped a cream cheese on Daréna’s head. Chérubin was terribly distressed by his servant’s awkwardness; and the old fellow, overwhelmed with confusion by what he had done, slunk out of sight behind a screen. Daréna was the first to laugh at the accident.
“It’s of no consequence,” he said; “I am not dressed yet.—For all that, my dear marquis, if I may venture to give you a piece of advice, I advise you to relieve your old Jasmin from the duty of waiting at table. His services will be ruinous to you and fatal to your friends. The excellent fellow has abundantly earned retirement and you must give it to him. I will go home to dress, and come back for you; for we will pass the day together, eh, Monfréville?”
“That is my wish, if it will not annoy our young friend.”
Chérubin hesitated a moment, then said falteringly:
“But I intended to—to go to Gagny—to see my—my nurse.”
“Oh! to-morrow! to-morrow!” cried Daréna; “we have too many things to do to-day; I will hurry home to dress and return at once.”
Daréna took his leave. Monfréville would have liked to hint to his young friend that he would do well not to place too much confidence in the count’s manifestations of friendship for him; but if he attempted so soon to destroy the young man’s illusions, if he told him to be on his guard against false friends, selfish affections, the wiles of shopkeepers, and all the perils of Paris, would he not run the risk of disgusting him with that city, which he had consented to visit only with regret?
“After all,” said Monfréville to himself, “Daréna is jovial and bright; he has the art of inventing some new pleasure every day, and even if his friendship should cost Chérubin a few thousand-franc notes, the youngster is rich, and one must needs pay for one’s apprenticeship in everything. Besides, I will keep an eye on our pupil, and I will try to see to it that his inexperience is not over-abused.—By the way, my young friend,” he said aloud, “what have you done with your tutor? He is to remain with you, is he not? Is he not well?”
“Dear me! you are right!” cried Chérubin. “I had entirely forgotten Monsieur Gérondif!—Jasmin, go and inquire what my tutor is doing; ask him why he doesn’t come to breakfast.”
Jasmin went to Monsieur Gérondifs room. The ex-schoolmaster was buried in his bed, sound asleep, and entirely hidden by the bedclothes and the pillows, which had fallen over his head. There was nothing save his snoring to indicate that the bed was occupied.
The old servant put out his hand toward the pillow; it came in contact with Monsieur Gérondifs prominent nose, which he laid hold of and pulled violently, crying out:
“Come, monsieur le savant, wake up; my master is asking for you.”
Monsieur Gérondif opened his eyes and rescued his nose from the fingers that had grasped it.
“What’s the matter?” he muttered; “what’s the meaning of this violence, and why wake me by the nose? That’s a new way, surely; rosy-fingered Aurora doesn’t treat the fair-haired Phœbus so.”
But, on learning that his pupil had breakfasted, Monsieur Gérondif decided to rise; he made a hasty toilet and went down to pay his respects to the marquis.
“The delights of Capua enervated Hannibal’s soldiers,” he said, eying the remains of the breakfast, which were very appetizing. “My dear pupil, I became even as a woman on my downy couch. Accept my apologies; hereafter I will certainly rise with the chanticleer.”
And Monsieur Gérondif seated himself at the table to make up for lost time, while Chérubin, to content Mademoiselle Turlurette, went to cast a glance at the different parts of the establishment. Monfréville, who had declined to accompany him, went to the tutor and said:
“Monsieur, you have a most important duty to perform; I doubt not that you will do your utmost to succeed.”
Monsieur Gérondif looked up at Monfréville, opened his enormous mouth, apparently annoyed at having to reply instead of eat, and said at last:
“In truth, monsieur, I have a very hearty appetite at this moment; but I hope to succeed in satisfying it with what is on the table.”
“That is not what I referred to, monsieur, but to your pupil, to this young man who should be the object of your utmost care here in Paris, because, although it was absolutely necessary that he should come here, we must see to it that he is not made the dupe of his innocence and his amiable disposition.”
After taking time to swallow a chicken wing, the tutor replied in a magisterial tone:
“In that respect, young Chérubin could not be in better hands! Never fear, monsieur, I will draw for my pupil a most appalling picture of the seductions in which people may seek to ensnare him. Morals before everything! That is my motto. St. Paul said: Oportet sapere ad sobrietatem! But I say that, at the marquis’s age, one must be virtuous first of all.”
“No, no, monsieur, that isn’t what I mean,” rejoined Monfréville, with a shrug; “it isn’t a question of terrifying the young man and trying to make a Cato of him. Let him enjoy such of the pleasures suited to his years as his means will allow; but prevent his abusing them, and see to it that he is not made the dupe of the schemers and swindlers with whom Paris is overflowing.”
“That is just what I say, monsieur; I will be constantly on the lookout; I will keep my eyes and ears open and my nose in the air, and it will not be my fault if the child succumbs to temptation. Moreover, I have an entirely novel system of education—always in the interest of good morals.—Pardon me if I continue my breakfast.”
“Clearly the man is either a fool or a hypocrite,” thought Monfréville, as he turned on his heel. “I trust that he is not both!”
Chérubin concluded his inspection of his family mansion, which seemed to him old, dark and dismal. Monfréville advised him to have it painted, furnished and decorated according to modern ideas.
Daréna returned, arrayed in the latest fashion; he had donned a part of the purchases he had made that morning without untying his purse strings, and with the money received from Poterne he had bought what he still lacked. So that his costume was beyond reproach, and he wore it with as much ease and unconstraint as he displayed in his old coat.
Chérubin admired Daréna’s elegant appearance and the grace with which he wore his clothes. Monfréville made similar reflections, regretting that a man possessed of so many advantages sometimes descended so low and frequented such wretched company.
“Here I am, at your service,” said Daréna. “We must take Marquis Chérubin somewhere. I can’t make up my mind to say ‘Grandvilain’; indeed, the name doesn’t fit our young friend at all, and if he takes my advice, he will be content with Chérubin alone, which is a most gallant name.”
“What!” murmured Jasmin, “is monsieur going to drop his father’s name? I tell you, I object!”
Nobody paid any heed to the old servant, and Daréna continued:
“First of all, our friend must see everything in Paris that deserves to be seen. That will take time; for a shrewd observer there is a great deal to see.”
“And then,” said Monfréville, “Chérubin will do well to give a few hours every day to the masters who are quite indispensable; for his education is far too incomplete for him to go into society.”
Monsieur Gérondif’s fork stopped in the act of conveying food to his mouth, and he cried:
“Who says that my pupil’s education is incomplete? He will surely know as much as I do very soon.”
“Come, come, learned Master André, don’t get excited,” said Daréna, with a laugh; “I have no doubt that you are very strong in the dead languages,—and in the art of carving a chicken; yes, you’re very good at that. But can you teach our friend music, dancing, riding, fencing, boxing?”
“Boxing?” muttered Jasmin, with an air of stupefaction.
“Yes, boxing, and all the fashionable sciences which a young man of rank and fortune must know, unless he wishes to be laughed at.”
“Trust me,” said Monfréville, taking Chérubin’s arm; “my father was a friend of yours, and even without that, your youth and innocence would be sufficient to awaken my interest and to arouse in me a wish to make an accomplished gentleman of you.”
“And to begin with,” said Daréna, “a short ride in the saddle; there is nothing pleasanter in the morning. Do you know anything about riding?”
“Oh! I can ride very well, and I’m not afraid,” Chérubin replied; “at the village I used to ride all our neighbors’ horses.”
“Good! there’s a livery stable close by where there are some very good horses; let us go there and hire, pending the time when you have horses in your stable—another indispensable thing.”
Chérubin went out with his two friends; he was beside himself with delight at the thought of a riding party. Being still a novice in all sorts of pleasure, Nicole’s foster-child had never before ridden anything but plough horses.
They went to the stable-keeper, who ordered his three best horses saddled. Just as the gentlemen were mounting, they heard a voice calling:
“Well! isn’t there a horse for me too?”
Thereupon they discovered Jasmin, who had followed his master, after tightening the waistband of his breeches as much as possible, covering his head with a long-vizored cap, which entirely concealed his eyes and nose, and arming himself with a hunting crop.
Chérubin and his friends could not help laughing at the aspect of Jasmin in the garb of a groom, and Monfréville exclaimed:
“This old servant’s devotion is becoming very painful.”
“But I don’t need you, Jasmin,” said Chérubin; “go back to the house; you can’t come with me, it would tire you too much.”
“I know my duty, monsieur,” replied Jasmin; “my place is always in your rear.”
“Yes, yes, he is right,” said Daréna; “and as he insists on coming with us, why, let him come.—A horse for this faithful retainer—a good little trotting horse. Jasmin has the look of an excellent rider.”
“He will certainly be thrown,” said Chérubin, in an undertone.
“That is what I expect too; but it will do him good. This fellow needs a lesson; he is extremely pig-headed; he insists on breaking your dishes, capping your friends with cheese, climbing up behind carriages, and riding horseback; we must try to cure him of this exuberant zeal.”
A horse was saddled for Jasmin, and, with the aid of two hostlers, he succeeded in climbing to its back. The cavalcade started; in the streets of Paris they went slowly and the old servant was able to follow his master, which he did with much pride, sitting erect in his saddle and bearing heavily on his stirrups; but when they reached the Champs-Elysées, Chérubin and his two companions started off at a gallop. Jasmin, seeing his young master disappear in a cloud of dust, was determined to follow him, and began to strike his steed with his crop. The beast, desiring nothing more than to join his stable companions, sprang forward and darted in pursuit.
But his old rider had presumed too much on his strength; in a few seconds the horse was galloping alone and Jasmin was rolling in the dust.
When they reached the Bois de Boulogne, Chérubin turned and said:
“Well! where on earth is Jasmin?”
“I was certain that he couldn’t keep up with us,” said Daréna.
“If only he has not fallen and hurt himself!”
“Don’t be alarmed; at his age one falls gently. Somebody must have picked him up, and we must hope that this lesson will correct the old fellow a little, for his attachment needs to be toned down.”
They rode on, the two gentlemen admiring the confidence of their young companion, who needed only a few lessons in grace and style to become an excellent horseman.
After their ride they returned to Paris, sauntered along the boulevards, visited several cafés, then went to one of the best restaurants in the Palais-Royal, and after dinner to the play. About midnight Chérubin returned home, not having had a single moment during the day to think of the village.
He found that Jasmin was not hurt by his fall, but he admitted to his young master that he should not try again to attend him to the Bois de Boulogne.
The following days were no less thoroughly occupied; Monfréville and Daréna were almost constantly with Chérubin; the former sent him teachers in all the social accomplishments; the second talked to him incessantly of the lovely little dancers with whom they had dined.
“Which of the four do you prefer?” he would ask.
And Chérubin would reply, lowering his eyes:
“They are very pretty, all four.”
“I understand, you liked them all. That can be arranged, and I will take you to see them whenever you choose; you will be received with open arms.”
At that suggestion Chérubin would turn as red as a cherry and stammer:
“Oh, yes! in a few days.”
And while his pupil was being taken about and entertained and dazzled, Monsieur Gérondif lay idly in his bed, sat for hours at a time at the table, showed his teeth to Mademoiselle Turlurette, and said to Jasmin every day:
“Above all, worthy Eumæus, do not forget the orders to the concierge: if anybody from Gagny, even Madame Frimousset, should call and ask to see monsieur le marquis, she must be told that Monsieur Chérubin de Grandvilain is absent, that he is travelling; for if my pupil should see her again, above all if he should see little Louise, although he is beginning to like the city, he might allow himself to be lured away again, and all the fruit of our efforts would be lost! And that would be the greater pity, because, thanks to the advice of his two friends and the lessons I give him, he must necessarily become ere long a most preponderating cavalier.”
Jasmin, who always humbled himself before the tutor’s learning, did not fail to do exactly what he recommended, saying to himself that it could not be wrong to send the nurse away without allowing her to speak with his master, because a man who educates children must be perfectly familiar with the rules of courtesy.
And the days and weeks and months passed in that life of enjoyment, of constant occupation, and of dissipation, which Chérubin led at Paris. Whenever he spoke of going to the village, his new friends said:
“Yes, to-morrow; you haven’t time to-day.”
But when Daréna proposed to Chérubin to take him to see one of the little ballet dancers whom he thought so attractive, the marquis replied, blushing to his eyes:
“Yes, to-morrow, to-morrow!”
While Chérubin was enjoying himself in Paris, making merry and thinking of nothing but pleasure, at Gagny his friends were dismal and bored, and shed frequent tears. It is often so in life: the happiness of one is acquired only at the expense of others’ misery. Is it not too high a price to pay? If we always reflected upon causes and effects, we should sometimes regret being happy.
On returning from Montfermeil, where, it will be remembered, she was sent by Monsieur Gérondif, Louise, who had discovered that he had had no other object than to get her out of the way, asked anxiously where Chérubin was; and Nicole, weeping bitterly, told her that the youth whom she still delighted to call her fieu had gone to Paris with several gentlemen, and some charming ladies, evidently foreigners, judging from their costumes, who had danced in her house in a style utterly unlike any village dance.
Louise wept a long while; her heart was torn. There was one pang more cruel than all the rest in her suffering; at fourteen and a half a girl may well know what it is to love; and with love jealousy had made its appearance.
“You let him go!” said Louise, sobbing; “but he promised never to leave me; those people must have taken him by force.”
“No, my child, Chérubin went away of his own free will, in high spirits, in fact, and almost dancing with those little hussies, who twirled round and round longer than the tops my boys used to spin when they were little.”
Louise wept more bitterly still.
“Why did you let those horrid women come into your house?” she cried. “Oh! I detest them!”
“Bless my soul, child, it was one of the gentlemen who brought ‘em; they drank milk just like cats; and then they danced like kids.”
“And Chérubin went away with them!—But he’ll come back to-morrow, won’t he, mother dear?”
“Let us hope so, my child.”
But the morrow and several more days passed without bringing Chérubin back to the village. Louise was so depressed that Nicole forgot her own grief to comfort her.
“But something must have happened to him!” the girl constantly exclaimed. “Probably they are keeping him in Paris against his will; for, if not, he would have come back. Let’s go after him, mother, let’s go after him.”
Nicole tried to make Louise listen to reason.
“Listen, my dear,” she would say, “it’s a long, long while since Monsieur Jasmin began to tell me: ‘My young master will have to go to Paris some time; he can’t pass his whole life out at nurse! If it was known that he’s still with you, I should be scolded.’ And a lot of things like that. The fact is, my child, that they usually take children away from a wet-nurse when they begin to talk, unless—unless——”
And the good woman stopped, for she was on the point of saying:
“Unless they do like your mother, and don’t take ‘em away at all.”
Louise had that instinct of the heart which enables its possessor to read one’s inmost thoughts; she divined the words that died on Nicole’s lips, and she said, sobbing and pressing her hand convulsively:
“Nobody came for me, I know that. My mother didn’t want me, and yet I couldn’t have been naughty then—I was too young. And if it hadn’t been for you, for your kindness, what would have become of me? Oh! dear Nicole, how can a mother ever abandon her child? I would have loved my mother so dearly, and she didn’t want to take me back, or even to kiss me! Oh! she must have died, I am sure, or else she’d have come after me, or at least have come to see me sometimes.”
“Yes,” said Nicole, kissing Louise, “you are right, my child, your mother must have died and not had time to send for you; perhaps she wasn’t able to tell where her child was. Bless my soul! people die so sudden sometimes! That’s the way it must have been. But let’s not say any more about it; you know, I don’t like to get into that subject, for it always makes you sad.”
“That is why I so seldom mention it, my dear Nicole, although I think about it almost all the time; but when Chérubin was with me, I used to forget sometimes that I don’t know who my parents are. He told me that he would always love me—and now he has abandoned me too.”
After this conversation Louise went to the end of the garden, where she could weep at her ease. In vain did Nicole say to her:
“He’ll come back, my child, he’ll come back!”
Time passed and they saw nothing of Chérubin.
At last, yielding to the girl’s entreaties, Nicole started with her for Paris one morning; and all the way Louise kept saying:
“We are going to see him. I’ll tell him how sad I am when I am away from him; I’ll tell him that I cry almost all the time, that there’s nothing to amuse me in the village, and he’ll come back with us, mother; oh! I am sure that he’ll come back with us.”
Nicole shook her head with a doubtful expression, and murmured:
“At any rate, we shall find out whether he’s happy and well; that’s the main thing.”
In due time they reached the old mansion in Faubourg Saint-Germain.
“This is his house,” said Nicole; “I recognize it all right! This is the very house where I came to get him when he was a spindling little thing, as thin as a rail. I made a fine boy of him, thank God! And then I came here two or three times to bring him to his father, when the old gentleman was alive.”
Louise gazed wonderingly at the old structure, whose severe aspect and time-blackened walls almost frightened her. Meanwhile, they had entered the courtyard, and Nicole said to the concierge:
“Monsieur, I’ve come to see my fieu—my nursling, young Chérubin, your master. He left us to come here, but we don’t like not having a chance to kiss him for so long; we couldn’t stand it any longer, so here we are.”
The concierge, who had his orders, replied:
“You can’t see monsieur le marquis, my master, for he isn’t in the house.”
“Gone out, has he? Oh well! he’ll come back! We’ll wait, won’t we, Louise?”
“Oh, yes, mother, we will wait; for we must see him when we came to Paris on purpose.”
The concierge rejoined with exasperating indifference:
“It won’t do you any good to wait; Monsieur de Grandvilain is travelling and he may not come home for ten days or a fortnight.”
“Travelling!” cried Louise; “oh dear! it’s very annoying! Where is he travelling, monsieur? in which direction? Has he gone far?”
“My master didn’t tell me.”
“But tell us at least whether he’s well?” said Nicole; “is he happy? is he enjoying himself in Paris?”
“Monsieur le marquis is in perfect health.”
“Thank God! But why does he go travelling without coming to see us?—Monsieur, are those young foreign ladies who dance so well travelling with—with Monsieur Chérubin?”