Sentimental Education (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (27 page)

“Good-bye to them!” said she. “Now let us begin the attack!”

And the choir-boy, a joker, making a big sign of the cross, said grace.

The ladies were scandalised, and especially the fishwife, the mother of a young girl she was raising to be a respectable woman. Neither did Arnoux like “that sort of thing,” as he considered that religion ought to be respected.

A German clock, adorned with a rooster, chimed out the hour of two, gave rise to a number of jokes about the cuckoo. All kinds of talk followed—puns, anecdotes, bragging remarks, bets, lies taken for truth, improbable assertions, a tumult of words, which soon became dispersed in the form of chats between particular individuals. The wines went round; the dishes succeeded each other; the doctor carved. An orange or a cork would every now and then be flung from a distance. People would quit their seats to go and talk to some one at another end of the table. Rosanette turned round towards Delmar, who sat motionless behind her; Pellerin kept babbling; M. Oudry smiled. Mademoiselle Vatnaz ate, almost alone, a group of crayfish, and the shells crackled under her long teeth. The angel, poised on the piano-stool-the only place on which her wings permitted her to sit down—was placidly chewing without ever stopping.

“What an appetite!” the choir-boy kept repeating in amazement, “what an appetite!”

And the Sphinx drank brandy, screamed out with her throat full, and wriggled as if possessed by a demon. Suddenly her cheeks swelled, and no longer being able to keep down the blood which rushed to her head and nearly choked her, she pressed her napkin against her lips, then threw it under the table.

Frédéric had seen her: “ ’Tis nothing!” And at his entreaties to be allowed to go and look after her, she replied slowly:

“Pooh! what’s the use? That’s no worse than anything else. Life is not so amusing!”

Then, he shivered, a feeling of icy sadness taking possession of him, as if he had caught a glimpse of whole worlds of wretchedness and despair—a charcoal heater beside a folding-bed, the corpses of the Morgue in leather aprons, with the tap of cold water that flows over their heads.

Meanwhile, Hussonnet, squatted at the feet of the female savage, was howling in a hoarse voice in imitation of the actor Grassot:

“Be not cruel, O Celuta! this little family fête is charming! Intoxicate me with delight, my loves! Let us be merry! let us be merry!”

And he began kissing the women on the shoulders. They quivered under the tickling of his moustache. Then he conceived the idea of breaking a plate against his head by tapping it there lightly. Others followed his example. The broken earthenware flew about in bits like slates in a storm; and the ’longshorewoman exclaimed:

“Don’t bother yourselves about it; these cost nothing. We get a present of them from the merchant who makes them!”

Every eye was riveted on Arnoux. He replied:

“Ha! about the invoice—allow me!” desiring, no doubt, to pass for not being, or for no longer being, Rosanette’s lover.

But two angry voices here made themselves heard:

“Idiot!”

“Rascal!”

“I am at your command!”

“As am I at yours!”

It was the mediaeval knight and the Russian postilion who were disputing, the latter having maintained that armour dispensed with bravery, while the other regarded this view as an insult. He wanted to fight; all intervened, and in the midst of the uproar the captain tried to make himself heard.

“Listen to me, messieurs! One word! I have some experience, messieurs!”

Rosanette, by tapping with her knife on a glass, succeeded eventually in restoring silence, and, addressing the knight, who had kept his helmet on, and then the postilion, whose head was covered with a hairy cap:

“Take off that saucepan of yours! and you, there, your wolf’s head! Are you going to obey me, damn you? Pray show respect to my epaulets! I am your commanding officer!”

They complied, and everyone present applauded, exclaiming, “Long live the Maréchale! long live the Maréchale!” Then she took a bottle of champagne off the stove, and poured out its contents into the cups which they then extended towards her in a toast. As the table was very large, the guests, especially the women, came over to her side, and stood on tiptoe on the slats of the chairs, so as to form, for the space of a minute, a pyramid of headdresses, naked shoulders, extended arms, and stooping bodies; and over all these objects sprays of wine spurted in the air, for the Pierrot and Arnoux, at opposite corners of the dining-room, each letting fly the cork of a bottle, splashed the faces of those around them.

The little birds of the aviary, the door of which had been left open, broke into the room, quite scared, flying round the chandelier, knocking into the windows and the furniture, and some of them, alighting on the heads of the guests, looked like large flowers.

The musicians had gone. The piano had been drawn out of the entrance-hall. The Vatnaz seated herself before it, and, accompanied by the choir-boy, who shook his tambourine, she made a wild dash into a quadrille, striking the keys like a horse pawing the ground, and wriggling her waist about, the better to mark the time. The Maréchale dragged Frédéric away; Hussonnet did cartwheels; the ’longshorewoman bent her joints like a circus-clown; the Pierrot manoeuvred like an orang-outang; the female savage, with outspread arms, imitated the swaying motion of a boat. At last, unable to go on any further, they all stopped; and a window was flung open.

The broad daylight penetrated the room with the cool breath of morning. There was an exclamation of astonishment, and then came silence. The yellow flames flickered, making the drip glass of the candlesticks crack from time to time. The floor was strewn with ribbons, flowers, and pearls. The pier-tables were sticky with the stains of punch and syrup. The wall hangings were soiled, the dresses rumpled and dusty. The women’s hair hung loose over their shoulders, and their make-up, trickling down with the perspiration, revealed pale faces and red, blinking eyelids.

The Maréchale, fresh as if she had come out of a bath, had rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes. She flung her wig some distance away, and her hair fell around her like a fleece, allowing none of her outfit to be seen except her breeches, the effect thus produced being both comical and pretty.

The Sphinx, whose teeth chattered as if she had a fever, wanted a shawl.

Rosanette rushed up to her own room to look for one, and, as the other came after her, she quickly shut the door in her face.

The Turk remarked, in a loud tone, that M. Oudry had not been seen going out. Nobody noticed the maliciousness of this observation, so worn out were they all.

Then, while waiting for their carriages, they managed to put on their broad-brimmed hats and cloaks. The clock struck seven. The angel was still in the dining-room, seated at the table with a plate of sardines and fruit stewed in melted butter in front of her, and close beside her was the fishwife, smoking cigarettes, while giving her advice as to the right way to live.

At last, the cabs having arrived, the guests made their departure. Hussonnet, employed as correspondent for the provinces, had to read through fifty-three newspapers before his breakfast. The female savage had a rehearsal at the theatre; Pellerin had to see a model; and the choir-boy had three appointments. But the angel, attacked by the preliminary symptoms of indigestion, was unable to rise. The mediaeval baron carried her to the cab.

“Look out for her wings!” cried the ’longshorewoman through the window.

At the top of the stairs, Mademoiselle Vatnaz said to Rosanette:

“Good-bye, darling! That was a very nice party you threw.”

Then, bending close to her ear: “Take care of him!”

“Till better times come,” returned the Maréchale, as she turned her back.

Arnoux and Frédéric returned together, just as they had come. The ceramics dealer looked so gloomy that his companion wished to know if he were ill.

“I? Not at all!”

He bit his moustache, knitted his brows; and Frédéric asked him, was it his business that annoyed him.

“By no means!”

Then all of a sudden:

“You know him—Pere Oudry—don’t you?”

And, with a spiteful expression on his face:

“He’s rich, the old scoundrel!”

After this, Arnoux spoke about an important piece of pottery, which had to be finished that day at his works. He wanted to see it; the train was leaving in an hour.

“Meantime, I must go and kiss my wife.”

“Ha! his wife!” thought Frédéric. Then he made his way home to go to bed, with his head aching terribly; and, to quench his thirst, he drank a whole carafe of water.

Another thirst had come to him—the thirst for women, for licentious pleasure, and all that Parisian life permitted him to enjoy. He felt somewhat stunned, like a man coming out of a ship, and in the visions that haunted his first sleep, he saw the shoulders of the fishwife, the back of the ’longshorewoman, the calves of the Polish lady, and the hair of the female savage flying past him and coming back again continually. Then, two large black eyes, which had not been at the ball, appeared before him; and, light as butterflies, burning as torches, they came and went, ascended to the cornice and descended to his very mouth.

Frédéric made desperate efforts to recognise those eyes, without succeeding in doing so. But already the dream had taken hold of him. It seemed to him that he was yoked beside Arnoux to the pole of a hackney-coach, and that the Maréchale, astride of him, was disembowelling him with her gold spurs.

F
rédéric found a little townhouse at the corner of the Rue Rumfort, and he bought it along with the brougham, the horse, the furniture, and two flower-stands which were taken from the Arnoux’s house to be placed on each side of his drawing-room door. In the rear of this apartment were a bedroom and a closet. The idea occurred to him to put up Deslauriers there. But how could he receive her—
her,
his future mistress? The presence of a friend would be an obstacle. He knocked down the partition-wall in order to enlarge the drawing-room, and converted the closet into a smoking-room.

He bought the works of the poets whom he loved, travel books, atlases, and dictionaries, for he had innumerable study plans. He urged the workmen to hurry, rushed about to the different shops, and in his impatience to enjoy his new home, carried off everything without even holding out for a bargain.

From the tradesmen’s bills, Frédéric ascertained that he would have to pay out very soon forty thousand francs, not including the succession duties, which would exceed thirty-seven thousand. As his fortune was in landed property, he wrote to the notary at Le Havre to sell a portion of it in order to pay off his debts, and to have some money at his disposal. Then, anxious to become acquainted at last with that vague entity, glittering and indefinable, which is known as “society,” he sent a note to the Dambreuses to know whether he might be at liberty to call upon them. Madame, in reply, said she would expect a visit from him the following day.

This happened to be their reception-day. Carriages were standing in the courtyard. Two footmen rushed forward under the marquee, and a third at the head of the stairs led him in.

He was conducted through an anteroom, a second room, and then a drawing-room with high windows and a monumental mantelpiece supporting a clock in the form of a sphere, and two enormous porcelain vases, in each of which bristled, like a golden bush, a cluster of sconces. Pictures in the style of lo Spagnoletto
^ab
hung on the walls. The heavy tapestry door hangings fell majestically, and the armchairs, the consoles, the tables, all of the furnishings, in the style of the Second Empire, had a certain imposing and diplomatic air.

Frédéric smiled with pleasure in spite of himself.

At last he reached an oval room panelled in rosewood, filled with dainty furniture, and letting in the light through a single window, which looked out on a garden. Madame Dambreuse was seated at the fireside, with a dozen people gathered round her in a circle. With a polite greeting, she made a sign to him to take a seat, without, however, exhibiting any surprise at not having seen him for so long a time.

Just at the moment when he was entering the room, they had been praising the eloquence of the Abbé Cœur. Then they deplored the immorality of servants, a topic suggested by a theft which a
valet-de-cbambre
had committed, and they began to indulge in gossip. Old Madame de Sommery had a cold; Mademoiselle de Turvisot had gotten married; the Montcharrons would not return before the end of January; neither would the Bretancourts, now that people remained in the country longer. And the triviality of the conversation was intensified by the luxuriousness of the surroundings; but what they said was less stupid than their way of talking, which was aimless, disconnected, and utterly devoid of animation. And yet there were men present who were well-versed in life—an ex-minister, the cure of a large parish, two or three Government officials of high rank. They adhered to the most hackneyed and commonplace topics. Some of them resembled weary dowagers; others had the appearance of horse-jockeys; and old men accompanied their wives, who could have passed for their granddaughters.

Madame Dambreuse received all of them graciously. When it was mentioned that anyone was ill, she knitted her brows with a painful expression on her face, and when balls or evening parties were discussed, assumed a joyous air. She would ere long be compelled to deprive herself of these pleasures, for she was going to take in from boarding-school her husband’s niece, an orphan. The guests extolled her devotedness: this was behaving like a true mother of a family.

Frédéric gazed at her attentively. Her matte skin looked as if it had been stretched tightly, and there was a freshness but with no glow; like that of preserved fruit. But her hair, which was in corkscrew curls, in the English fashion, was finer than silk; her eyes of a sparkling blue; and all her movements were dainty. Seated at the lower end of the apartment, on a small sofa, she kept stroking the red tassels on a Japanese screen, no doubt in order to let her hands be seen to greater advantage—long narrow hands, a little thin, with fingers tilting up at the points. She wore a grey moire gown with a high-necked bodice, like a Puritan lady.