CHAPTER VIII

I leap the _Haha_--A slit follows--The two pairs of gloves--The quadrille--Fourcade's triumph--I pick up the crumbs--The waltz--The child becomes a man.

We went along the promenade taken by all the townsfolk and by every stranger who came to visit the town: we walked under the grand, magnificent avenue of Spanish chestnut trees, all laden with flowers, as full as they could hold, right down to a tremendous wolf-leap, hollowed out of the ground, called the _Haha_: no doubt the word was derived from the exclamation it produces from walkers ignorant of its position when they suddenly come upon it.

I felt the moment had come to regain something of my lost dignity.

I was, it will be remembered, pretty clever at all kinds of physical exercise, and I could jump best of all.

"Do you see that ditch?" I said to my companion, pointing it out to her as something amazing. "Well, I can jump across it."

"Really?" she said with an indifferent air: "it looks very wide."

"It is fourteen feet wide.... I can tell you it is more than M. Miaud can do."

"He would be right not to try," she said: "what is the use of jumping it?"

I was struck dumb at the reply. When Pizarro was conquering Peru, one of his lieutenants, so I had read, when pursued by the natives, had leapt over a little river, which was 22 feet wide, by the help of his lance, which he stuck in the bottom.

I thought it a wonderful feat, and I had long dreamt of the possibility of doing a similar exploit if ever in great peril.

Now I had got as far as to be able to jump a distance of fourteen feet, with my own unaided strength and without the aid of any lance; this accomplishment of agility astonished my comrades, two or three only offering to compete with me. How was it, then, that the suggestion did not excite any enthusiasm in my fair Parisian?

I took it that her indifference arose from her incredulity.

"You shall see," I said to her.

And, without waiting for further remarks from her, with one bound, that Auriol himself might have envied, I reached the other side.

But Auriol performed his feats in wide trousers, whilst I did mine in tight breeches. When I alighted with doubled-up knees, I heard an ominous crack, and there seemed an airy feeling about my hind quarters--I had burst open the seat of my trousers.

This stroke was decisive; I could not take back my beautiful Parisian to the dancing hall, or give myself up to the least choregraphic exercise with her in the teeth of such a catastrophe; I could not tell her what had happened to me and ask to leave her for half an hour. So I made up my mind to take leave without asking; and off I set, at a mad run, without uttering a single word, or offering any explanation. I flew towards home, which was more than half a league away, through the astonished promenaders, who asked if my rapid flight through the crowd was on account of a bet, or whether I had suddenly taken leave of my senses.

I reached home almost in the same state as my father reached Jérémie when he came across an alligator and amused himself by throwing stones at it.

My poor mother was scared to see the state of excitability I was in. Breathless, voiceless, nearly suffocated, I could only respond to her questions by the disrespectful gesture the Neapolitan makes near Vesuvius when he thinks it is going to erupt; but my mother saw nothing in the gesture but the true facts of the case, namely, an appeal to her good nature to repair the accident that had happened.

Five minutes after, thanks to the quickness of a needle used to such mendings, the break in continuity had been repaired.

I gulped down a big glass of cider, which we made ourselves with dried apples, and I resumed my race back to the lawn as quickly as I had left it.

But, quick though I was, I did not succeed in reaching the dancing hall until ten minutes after my two Parisians; who were just taking their places: Mademoiselle Vittoria was going to dance with Niguet, and Mademoiselle Laurence with Miaud.

I have depicted the imaginary sorrows of Pitou in this very situation. I had but to draw them from actual experience. Throughout the whole of that quadrille I never took my eyes off the lovely Laure,--so she was called for short among her intimate friends,--at every smile she exchanged with her partner, a flush of anger and of shame rose to my forehead; I fancied I was the subject of their conversation, and that the conversation was not of a nature very flattering to my self-respect.

When the quadrille was over, Miaud led Laure back to her seat. I drew as near as I could to the bench on which the two Parisians sat, looking exquisite and beautiful in the midst of the most beautiful, most charming, and most aristocratic-looking young girls of our countryside.

I met Miaud near the centre of the space I had to cross to reach them.

"See what it is to wear breeches!" he said as he passed me, as though speaking to himself.

It may be guessed that this apostrophe did anything but soothe the feeling of dislike I had towards a man whom I already regarded in the light of a rival. But I knew what ridicule I should bring down on myself if I picked a quarrel with Miaud for such a cause, and I continued on my way.

"Here I am, Mademoiselle Laure," I said, when I stopped behind my Parisian.

"Ah! that is all right," she replied; "seeing you set off like that, I thought some accident must have happened to you!"

The conversation had taken a most embarrassing turn at the very beginning.

"Indeed, mademoiselle," I replied stammeringly, "I saw that--"

"That you had forgotten your gloves; I quite understood. You did not like to dance without gloves, and you were quite right."

I cast my eyes down to my bare hands, and I went purple. I mechanically thrust my hands into my pockets.

Alas! I had no gloves.

I stepped back and threw a wild glance round me.

Four steps from me stood a young man, named Fourcade, who had been sent from Paris to start and direct a Lancastrian school at Villers-Cotterets; he was busily engaged trying with difficulty to get into a pair of beautiful new gloves, which he had evidently purchased only a quarter of an hour previously.

Fourcade was a delightful young fellow who, in spite of the difference in age between us, had taken a fancy to me. He belonged as much to the century that had just ended as to the one we had entered upon; so he too, like myself, wore nankeen trousers and a pale blue coat.

Such a bond of similarity between us would alone have given me confidence in Fourcade, if this confidence had not already existed.

"My dear friend," I said, "will you do me an immense service?"

"What is it?"

"Give me your gloves."

"My gloves?"

"Yes, I have asked the young lady seated there, Mademoiselle Laurence, to give me a dance, and just as I went to take my place I found I had forgotten my gloves. You understand the awkwardness of the situation?"

"My dear boy, I will not say to you, 'You are luckier than being in love,' for it seems to me you are deeply in love; but I will say to you, 'My dear friend, you are in luck's way,' for I have two pairs with me."

And he drew a second pair of gloves from his pocket, as new as the first, handing me those he was trying to draw on.

Such unheard-of luxury astonished me.

"Why do you have two pair of gloves?" I asked.

"Because the first might perhaps split, as I put them on," he replied, with the utmost ingenuousness and as though surprised I should ask him such a question.

His reply staggered me;--it opened such vistas of unknown extravagance of living; there were actually people who took the precaution of having two pairs of gloves, while there were others who had not even dreamed of providing themselves with a single pair.

"Have you a _vis-à-vis_?" I asked Fourcade.

"No, I have only just come."

"Will you be mine?"

"With pleasure."

"Take your places for the quadrille!" cried the head fiddler.

I rushed up to Laure and proudly presented my gloved hand.

Fourcade invited her neighbour Vittoria, and we took our places.

Fourcade and I were the only two who wore short breeches at the ball.

We were both making our debut; Fourcade had hardly been a fortnight in Villers-Cotterets, and open-air dances did not begin before Whitsuntide.

This solemn rite, together with the appearance of both of us wearing short breeches, attracted a considerable number of looks. Our Parisians themselves stared as hard at us as anybody present.

The dance began.

I have said I was apt at all physical exercises. I had had a dancing-master just as I had had a fencing-master, by a lucky chance; my dancing-master's name was Brezette, an ex-infantry corporal, uncle of one of the prettiest girls in the town, to whom I had hitherto paid no attention.

I have made up for lost time since, and I shall have occasion to refer to her more than once.

I had therefore learnt, for my three francs per month, a rather eccentric style of dancing, but nevertheless it was not wanting in deftness or power. Fourcade led off first; Fourcade was one of Vestris' best pupils.

I repeat that people really danced at that time, and all the flourishes of choreography which are thought absurd to-day were then considered elegant.

At the first steps Fourcade took, there was an audible murmur of admiration. Those who were not dancing stood on their seats to look at him; while the dancers themselves lengthened their _chasses-croisés_ or their _traversés_, to seize an _entrechat_ or a _flic-flac._ Fourcade's debut was a triumph.

It was on this occasion that I discovered nature had endowed me with the gift of assimilation. During the short _avant-deux_ made by my _vis-à-vis_, I realised the superiority of such dancing over my own. I picked out from among the complicated twinklings of his ankles and the crossing and uncrossing of his legs those evolutions which were within my compass if simply performed, and, when my turn came to take the lead, a kindly rumour reached me, in the wake of my partner's immense success, that I was doing better than had been expected of me.

From that moment I became crazy on dancing, and the frenzy lasted until it became the fashion for young men of twenty-four or twenty-five to declare that they were too bored or too busy thinking of other things, to take part in such a pleasure as dancing.

I have begun by revealing the follies of my childhood: the reader need not be uneasy, for I am not going to hide those of my youth; I will be more courageous than Rousseau, who only confessed his vices.

As I conducted my partner back to her seat, I reaped the fruits of my triumph.

"Do you know, you dance very well," my Parisian said to me; "where did you learn?"

"Here."

"What! here in Villers-Cotterets?"

I had a great mind to reply as did the baroness in _la Fausse Agnès_, my pride in my native town being so deeply wounded, "Do you take us provincials for simpletons, then?" but I contented myself by replying in rather a sneering tone:

"Yes, here in Villers-Cotterets;" adding, with the air of a man sure of his powers:

"Do you by chance happen to waltz?"

"No, it makes me giddy; but Vittoria there loves waltzing." I turned towards the Spaniard.

"If you are not engaged for the next?" I said.

"No."

"Are you inclined to venture?"

She looked at me.

"Why, certainly!" she said smilingly.

A waltz was being played.

If I were a fair dancer, I was first-rate at the waltz. The Spanish girl discovered this at the first round we made, and she gave herself up to it completely, feeling she was being well steered and had a good partner.

"You waltz very well," she said.

"You flatter me," I responded; "hitherto I have only had chairs to waltz with."

"Chairs?" she asked.

"Yes, I learnt to waltz the year I took my first communion," I said, "and the Abbé Grégoire forbade me to waltz with girls; so my dancing-master, thinking I really must hold something in my arms, gave me a chair; I was thus enabled to take my lesson without sinfulness."

My partner stopped short; I thought she would choke with laughter.

"You really are the funniest boy, I like you very much," she said, when she could regain her faculty of speech.... "Let us waltz again."

And we plunged afresh into the whirlpool, which carried us round with it.

This, as I have said, was the first time I danced with a woman; it was the first time I breathed a woman's perfumed breath, or felt her hair touch my cheeks; the first time my eyes had been riveted on bare shoulders or my arm had clasped a round, full, supple waist. I heaved a shuddering sigh of delight.

"Well? what is the matter with you?" my partner asked, looking at me with her Spanish eyes, which shone even through her lace mantilla.

I replied, while we waltzed on unceasingly: "It is far nicer to waltz with you than with a chair."

She escaped out of my arms this time, and went to sit near her friend.

"Well, what is the matter?" asked Laurence.

"Oh! my dear, he is so comic."

"It is strange he did not strike me in that light."

"That is because you did not waltz with him," she whispered. "I assure you I think him fascinating! Come on," she continued, placing herself of her own accord on my arm, "just one more turn."

I asked nothing better: and we resumed our places.

I will say no more of my own success, but my partner made quite a sensation. Her supple quivering figure, accustomed to such dances as the cachucha and fandango, managed to put some of the voluptuous energy which is such an essential characteristic of Spanish dancing into French waltzing; some electric influence seemed to radiate from her lithe, snake-like body; she had acquired that faculty from the Andalusians, who love the waltz for its own sake; who are so graceful because they let themselves go with complete abandon, and who are so beautiful because they do not think of their beauty.

The music stopped; we still stuck to our places, I with brow contracted, my teeth showing through my open lips, with a rapt expression on my face; she graceful, panting, excited.

An immense change was coming over me: the womanly breath and hair and perfume had made a man of me in a few short minutes.

"Shall we have another waltz together?" I asked her.

"As many as you like," she replied, as she went and seated herself by her friend, who leant over and whispered something in her ear. I both listened and watched them.

"Come," said Laure, with a smile that indicated some amusement in her remonstrance, "do not take my schoolboy away from me; my uncle gave him to me, you know."

"No," the Spaniard replied, showing her white teeth, which looked quite as ready to bite as to kiss--"but you must lend him to me for the waltzes. I will return him to you for the other dances."

Behind all this I could detect a spirit of raillery; it was evident I was but a trivial plaything in the hands of these two beautiful creatures, both so different in their style of beauty. I was but a shuttlecock which they flung from battledore to battledore as they chose, caring little if the violence of their blows broke some of its feathers.

I had grown much older within the last ten minutes; for it was no longer shame that I felt--this time it was a feeling of sadness; it was not a moist blush of confusion that mounted to my temples, but a sharp sting of pain that made my heart bleed.

I had stepped into the second circle of human life; I suffered.

And yet, in spite of this pain, a mysterious hymn, an unknown song, rose from the depths of my soul; that hymn extolled pain, and for the first time cried out to the child, "Courage! you are a man!"

The boon I craved above aught else was solitude.

The musicians were playing the first bars of a quadrille; everyone sprang up to take his partner's hand. Fourcade made an interrogative sign with his head, which signified "Will you be my _vis-à-vis_ again?" I replied with a negative sign, and, as the two Parisian girls were going to take their places with two new dancers, I went away.

I could not possibly describe what passed through my mind during the hour I spent dreaming by myself. The whole of my childhood disappeared; just as towns and villages, valleys and mountains, lakes and rivers disappear in an earthquake: the present alone remained with me, an immense chaos, lit up by intermittent flashes which neither showed up the whole void nor its details: nothing seemed definite enough to get hold of, either with regard to my body or my mind. The only definite incontestably real actual thing was that during the last quarter of an hour I had fallen in love.

With whom?

With no one as yet ... but with Love.

I returned at the end of an hour.

"You are polite!" Vittoria said to me; "you asked me to waltz with you, and then you go away."

"Quite true," I replied: "I beg your pardon, I had forgotten."

"You are indeed polite!"

I smiled.

"I assure you," I said, "it was not intended for rudeness."

"Where did you go, then?"

"Do you wish to know?"

"It seems to me I have a right to know."

"Look there," I said, "do you see that beautiful dark avenue?"

"Yes--well...?"

"It is called the Avenue of _Sighs_: I came from there."

I had replied out of the simplicity of my heart; I had no intention of being clever or sentimental.

Those two failings came to me later.

"Did I not tell you how charming he was!" said Vittoria to Laure.

I did not understand how or why I was charming; so, instead of thanking the Spaniard for the compliment she had paid me, I made a face, which was greeted with shouts of laughter from both the two young girls.

I wanted to return to my Avenue of Sighs, but I had not the courage; I was already in the condition of Molière's lovers who always get as far as the door, but who never make up their minds to cross the threshold.

People were again preparing for the quadrille.

"Come," said Laure, "do not pout, young scholar; I invite you to dance this time.... Will you accept?"

"Alas! yes," I replied.

"Why alas?"

"Yes, I hear."

And I gave her my hand. The rest of the evening and part of the night passed in dancing and in waltzing. We returned home at one o'clock in the morning.

Niguet, who was above me in the lawyer's office, conducted Mademoiselle Vittoria home; I conducted Mademoiselle Laurence.

The hours that followed during the rest of that night were the most agitated I had ever spent in my previous life.

END OF VOL. I.