"I will work myself to death," said Felix to Madame Thuillier. "I'll be a member of the Academy of Sciences; I'll make some great discovery, and win her hand by force of fame.""Ah!" thought the poor woman to herself, "I ought to have had a gentle, peaceful, learned man like that. I might have slowly developed in a life of quietness. It was not thy will, O God! but, I pray thee, unite and bless these children; they are made for one another."And she sat there, pensive, listening to the racket made by her sister-in-law--a ten-horse power at work--who now, lending a hand to her two servants, cleared the table, taking everything out of the dining-room to accommodate the dancers, vociferating, like the captain of a frigate on his quarter-deck when taking his ship into action:
"Have you plenty of raspberry syrup?" "Run out and buy some more orgeat!" "There's not enough glasses. Where's the 'eau rougie'? Take those six bottles of 'vin ordinaire' and make more. Mind that Coffinet, the porter, doesn't get any." "Caroline, my girl, you are to wait at the sideboard; you'll have tongue and ham to slice in case they dance till morning. But mind, no waste! Keep an eye on everything. Pass me the broom; put more oil in those lamps; don't make blunders. Arrange the remains of the dessert so as to make a show on the sideboard; ask my sister to come and help us. I'm sure I don't know what she's thinking about, that dawdle! Heavens, how slow she is!
Here, take away these chairs, they'll want all the room they can get."The salon was full of Barniols, Collevilles, Phellions, Laudigeois, and many others whom the announcement of a dance at the Thuilliers', spread about in the Luxembourg between two and four in the afternoon, the hour at which the bourgeoisie takes its walk, had drawn thither.
"Are you ready, Brigitte?" said Colleville, bolting into the dining-room; "it is nine o'clock, and they are packed as close as herrings in the salon. Cardot, his wife and son and daughter and future son-in-law have just come, accompanied by that young Vinet; the whole faubourg Saint Antoine is debouching. Can't we move the piano in here?"Then he gave the signal, by tuning his clarionet, the joyous sounds of which were greeted with huzzas from the salon.
It is useless to describe a ball of this kind. The toilets, faces, and conversations were all in keeping with one fact which will surely suffice even the dullest imagination; they passed round, on tarnished and discolored trays, common tumblers filled with wine, "eau rougie,"and "eau sucree." The trays on which were glasses of orgeat and glasses of syrup and water appeared only at long intervals. There were five card-tables and twenty-five players, and eighteen dancers of both sexes. At one o'clock in the morning, all present--Madame Thuillier, Mademoiselle Brigitte, Madame Phellion, even Phellion himself--were dragged into the vivacities of a country-dance, vulgarly called "La Boulangere," in which Dutocq figured with a veil over his head, after the manner of the Kabyl. The servants who were waiting to escort their masters home, and those of the household, were audience to this performance; and after the interminable dance had lasted one whole hour it was proposed to carry Brigitte in triumph when she gave the announcement that supper was served. This circumstance made her see the necessity of hiding a dozen bottles of old burgundy. In short, the company had amused themselves so well, the matrons as well as the young girls, that Thuillier found occasion to say:--"Well, well, this morning we little thought we should have such a fete to-night.""There's never more pleasure," said the notary Cardot, "than in just such improvised balls. Don't talk to me of parties where everybody stands on ceremony."This opinion, we may remark, is a standing axiom among the bourgeoisie.
"Well, for my part," said Madame Minard, "I prefer the dignified old ways.""We didn't mean that for you, madame; your salon is the chosen haunt of pleasure," said Dutocq.
When "La Boulangere" came to an end, Theodose pulled Dutocq from the sideboard where he was preparing to eat a slice of tongue, and said to him:--"Let us go; we must be at Cerizet's very early in the morning; we ought both of us to think over that affair; it is not so easy to manage as Cerizet seems to imagine.""Why not?" asked Dutocq, bringing his slice of tongue to eat in the salon.
"Don't you know the law?"
"I know enough of it to be aware of the dangers of the affair. If that notary wants the house and we filch it from him, there are means by which he can recover it; he can put himself into the skin of a registered creditor. By the present legal system relating to mortgages, when a house is sold at the request of creditors, if the price obtained for it at auction is not enough to pay all debts, the owners have the right to bid it in and hold it for a higher sum; now the notary, seeing himself caught, may back out of the sale in that way.""Well," said la Peyrade, "it needs attention.""Very good," replied Dutocq, "we'll go and see Cerizet."These words, "go and see Cerizet," were overheard by Minard, who was following the two associates; but they offered no meaning to his mind.
The two men were so outside of his own course and projects that he heard them without listening to them.
"This has been one of the finest days in our lives," said Brigitte to her brother, when she found herself alone with him in the deserted salon, at half-past two in the morning. "What a distinction! to be thus selected by your fellow-citizens!""Don't be mistaken about it, Brigitte; we owe it all, my child, to one man.""What man?"
"To our friend, la Peyrade."