Part 17

"I tell you, my dear, that men ain't worth a pirouette," said Virginie, putting four eggs into her reticule; then she followed Denise, who left the room with the child, refusing Bertrand's escort.

Madame Saint-Edmond was coming upstairs with a young man at the moment that Denise, with a heavy heart and red eyes, left Dalville's apartment, leading Coco by the hand. Léonie was furiously angry with Auguste since he had left her in a swoon on the landing, to go in search of Bertrand. Having abandoned the hope of renewing her relations with him, she seized every opportunity to annoy him. That is the way in which a woman who has never loved always takes her revenge.

When she saw the peasant girl coming from Dalville's apartment, Madame Saint-Edmond stopped, looked at her with a sneer, and said to her companion:

"Ah! rather a queer rig; but she has come here to be educated, no doubt."

"What's that, what does she say?" cried Virginie, who was following Denise, and had overheard Léonie's last words; but the latter hurried upstairs.

"I don't know," said Denise; "I never saw the lady before, so she couldn't have been speaking to me."

"Oh! I know her," said Virginie, running up a few stairs and looking after Léonie. "Oh, yes! I know her. I don't advise her to put on airs. _We won't go to the forest again without paying for our dinner._"

But Madame Saint-Edmond had already entered her room and closed her door. Virginie left the house with Denise, to whom she had taken a fancy; and she fairly forced her to take her arm for the walk to the stage office.

Denise was depressed and replied briefly to the innumerable questions which Virginie asked her; but she was perfectly well able to carry on a conversation all alone. When they arrived at the office, the stage was ready to start. Virginie kissed Denise and said to her:

"Adieu, my dear! Don't be downcast like this. You're very lucky to live in the country; it's a thousand times better than this rascally Paris! You'll find more lovers in your village than you want. I say! is that the stage? It's a regular little chamber-pot like the one that goes to Saint-Denis. When I have time, I'll come and see you, and you must teach me how to make butter. Adieu, my dear girl.--Be careful, driver, and don't get upset; remember that you have a Love in your little pot."

Denise and Coco started for home less cheerful than when they set out. The event often falsifies our hopes, and we find pain where we had thought to find pleasure.

XIV

THE SCHOOL FOR PARVENUS

"Poor Denise was very downhearted when she went away," said Bertrand to Auguste on the day following the girl's trip to Paris.

"I was very sorry indeed not to be able to talk with her any longer," Dalville replied; "but it wasn't my fault--that lady was waiting for me."

"That lady! That lady might perhaps have waited a few minutes more."

"Bertrand!"

"Excuse me, lieutenant; the fact is, I was really distressed to see you hardly speak to that girl, at whose home we were treated so hospitably. Just remember the welcome they gave us, and how delighted they were to see you!"

"Oh! I haven't forgotten it."

"You didn't even thank her for her present!"

"I didn't see it. But we will go to the village soon, and I will make up for my neglect. I am to dine at Madame de la Thomassinière's to-day, Bertrand; there will be a lot of people, and a large party in the evening. Probably I shall not come home until morning. By the way, make a memorandum to the effect that I have lent a hundred louis to Monsieur le Marquis de Cligneval, who was very unlucky at cards a day or two ago, at a house where I happened to be; he is to pay me very soon."

Bertrand did not reply; but as he went to the cash-box he muttered:

"More money that we shall never see again! He's forever lending, and no one ever pays him back!"

Monsieur de la Thomassinière, whose fortune increased every day, determined to celebrate his wife's birthday by a grand demonstration. The invitations had been issued a week in advance. There was every indication that the banquet would be the most sumptuous that the speculator had ever given. He expected to have at his table marquises and chevaliers who deigned to call him their friend; poets who had promised to mention him in their works; and some old acquaintances whom he expected to overcome by the magnificence of the festivity. Monsieur and Madame Destival were in the last category.

Everybody was in motion in Monsieur de la Thomassinière's palatial mansion. The upholsterers had decorated the salons, prepared the chandeliers and candelabra. The servants flew hither and thither carrying orders; the scullions obeyed the behests of their commander. Three women were in attendance on madame, who had been at her toilet since three o'clock, and it was now five. But Athalie was fickle in her tastes: the thing that pleased her one day displeased her the next day; she had already cast aside two caps, in which she declared that she was hideously ugly; she lost her patience, raged, stamped, tore a superb piece of tulle, pulled a bouquet to pieces, scolded her women, and was on the verge of hysteria because they brought her a set of blue jewelry when she wanted violet. At last they succeeded in pacifying her by assuring her that her hair was arranged to perfection; she deigned to look at herself in the mirror, scowled at first, then smiled, and said at last:

"It is true; I look rather well."

At half-past five the guests began to arrive. Monsieur de la Thomassinière, who was a little less insolent in his own house than in other people's houses, went to meet the titled personages who had condescended to do him the honor of accepting his dinner, and deigned to bestow a smile upon those whom he had honored with an invitation.

Monsieur and Madame Destival arrived in due course. Since he had had a negro, the business agent had adopted the habit of blinking, and pretended to be very short-sighted. His wife was attired with an elegance that rivalled Athalie's own; and her intelligent eyes seemed to assume an even more malicious expression as they rested on the master and mistress of the house.

All the guests appeared at last, Auguste among them. It was a brilliant assemblage: women of fashion, dandies, men with decorations, filled the salon, where Athalie did the honors, apportioning her courtesies to the rank or wealth of their recipients. Monsieur de la Thomassinière stalked proudly through the rooms, saying:

"This affair will make a great sensation! The marquis has promised to mention it at court; there's a poet here, who's a newspaper man too, and he tells me that my name will appear in an article of at least a column! My name in an article a column long! The deuce! how popular I shall be! When Destival can give a dinner like mine, I'll agree that he can call himself somebody. Poor creatures! they are dying of envy, and I'm glad of it!"

At half-past six the company repaired to the dining-room, where the table was laid with forty covers. Monsieur Destival was seated at the lower end, between a child of six and an old deaf gentleman. He swallowed the affront, with a glance at his wife; and their eyes exchanged a meaning look in which they seemed to promise themselves a sweet revenge.

The soup had just been removed, when an uproar, evidently occasioned by people quarrelling, arose in the adjoining room.

"What does this mean? Lafleur! Jasmin! Who dares to make a disturbance in my house?" exclaimed Monsieur de la Thomassinière, calling his servants. "Send away all visitors; I am not at home to anyone; if a gold ingot should be brought to me, I wouldn't accept it now."

The servants seemed embarrassed, as if they dared not reply. Meanwhile the noise continued, and they could distinguish a woman's voice crying:

"I will go in! I tell you I'm bound to go in!"

"Have that canaille turned out of doors, Lafleur," said Monsieur de la Thomassinière angrily.

At that moment the dining-room door was violently thrown open, and a woman of some sixty years, short and stout, with a good-humored face, dressed like an orange-woman, with a round cap on her head, bounced into the room.

"Hoity-toity!" she cried; "it'd be a pretty good one if I couldn't get into my own son's house! What a set of donkeys them fellows be! Excuse me, messieurs and mesdames. Where be you, Thomas? Why don't you come and gimme a kiss, my boy? Don't you know your old mother?"

The changes of scene at the Opéra are less rapid than those that took place in that dining-room upon Mère Thomas's entrance. Monsieur de la Thomassinière was stupefied; it was as if he had been struck by a thunderbolt and was unable to move a muscle or utter a word. The resplendent Athalie turned pale, was evidently confused, and glanced at Mère Thomas with an expression indicating that she still doubted the truth of what she heard. On each guest's face could be read the amazement caused by this unexpected scene, together with a touch of irony and malicious satisfaction, which fell far short, however, of what Destival and his wife felt at that moment.

Mère Thomas, who took no notice of the demeanor of the guests, recognized her son among the persons seated at the table, and ran to him, saying:

"There he is! I know him! That's him--that's my Thomas! Oh! it's him fast enough--with his little mole under the left eye!--You ain't changed so much, my boy.--Well, why don't you kiss me? Can't you move hand or foot?"

As she spoke, the good woman seized her son's head and kissed him several times. La Thomassinière made no resistance; he acted like a man who did not know where he was, while Athalie cried:

"Mon Dieu! is it possible? Isn't this a trick she's playing on us?"

"You didn't look to see me, my boy, eh? Ah! I should say not! This is a surprise, you see; one of your good friends, he writ to me as how it'd do you good to see your mother, and told me I'd better try to get here this very day, 'cos it's your wife's birthday."

At this point the guests looked at one another, trying to divine who it was who had arranged this surprise for Monsieur de la Thomassinière; and among those who were not responsible there were some who regretted that it had not suggested itself to them. As for the master of the feast, he was still too completely crushed by the blow that had been dealt him, to attend to what his mother said; and Athalie seemed to be on the point of swooning.

"So at that," continued Mère Thomas, "I says to myself, says I: 'Off we go!' I had a bit of money put by, and that paid for my seat in the diligence, where we was packed together as tight as herrings, saving your presence, messieurs and mesdames; and here I be in Paris, where you've feathered your nest so well!"

The Marquis de Cligneval, who was seated opposite Monsieur de la Thomassinière, determined to put an end to the embarrassment of his host, upon whose purse he drew too freely not to be ready to shut his eyes to the lowly condition of his parents. So he hastened to intervene, and observed pleasantly:

"It is really very amiable on your excellent mother's part to surprise you like this. She was in such haste that she came in rather a négligé costume. But what does it matter? you are among your friends. Pray let her sit beside me; I shall be delighted to make her acquaintance. She has a most venerable face--a Greek profile. I am very fond of country people; they have such delightful dispositions."

La Thomassinière looked at the marquis with an expression which signified: "You have saved my life!" while Mère Thomas exclaimed:

"What's that he says--I came in négligé. But you're wrong, my boy; I put on my Sunday best."

"Hush! hush, mother, for heaven's sake!" whispered La Thomassinière. "Be careful; you're speaking to a marquis."

"A what? What did you say, Thomas?--But I say, where's my darter-in-law? Show her to me, my boy; wouldn't she like to give her man's mother a kiss?"

"Madame de la Thomassinière, pray embrace your mother-in-law," said Madame Destival, with a mocking glance at Athalie.

"I can't stand it any longer! I am dying!" murmured Athalie in an expiring voice; and she fell over upon Auguste, who was seated next her.

"My wife has fainted!" cried La Thomassinière, overjoyed by an incident which might divert the attention of the company; and he sprang to his feet and rushed toward his wife, who was already surrounded by several people.

"Oho! is that your wife, that bleating little minx?" exclaimed Mère Thomas. "She's ate too much, my boy; she's got the indigestion, sure enough. Just give her a drink of brandy--that'll settle her stomach."

Someone gave Athalie smelling salts; she was taken into the fresh air; but she was careful not to recover consciousness. Mère Thomas pushed away two petites-maîtresses who were aiding her daughter-in-law, saying:

"Look out, my little darlings, you're stifling the child. Bless me! if you want to bring her to right off, I know what'll do it; two or three slaps on the backsides--that'll bring a woman to in short order; it never fails."

The ladies exchanged glances and moved away from Madame Thomas, saying to one another:

"This is shocking! it is getting to be unbearable."

"She amuses me immensely, my dear."

"For my part, she makes me blush; whenever she opens her mouth I tremble for fear that some disgusting remark will come out."

"She has begun well."

"This is a hysterical attack," said La Thomassinière; "madame must be taken to her room. They always last two or three hours, at least."

"Well, well! that's very nice!" said Mère Thomas.

The hostess was taken to her room, and she vowed to herself that she would not leave it so long as Madame Thomas should be in the house.

However, for most of the guests the dinner was the most essential thing, and Madame de la Thomassinière had no sooner been taken from the dining-room than they all resumed their places at the table, with such remarks as: "It won't amount to anything; it isn't dangerous." All of which meant: "We have paid enough attention to the hostess, who thought it best to faint; now let's think of our stomachs, and not neglect any longer the delicious dishes that have been prepared for us."

La Thomassinière would gladly have followed his wife; but he realized that it would be discourteous to leave his guests, with whom he had already changed his tone. So he returned to his seat, cudgelling his brain to devise a method of imposing silence on his dear mother. Destival, meanwhile, fearing that Madame Thomas might be spirited away, offered her his hand to escort her to her seat by the marquis. Mère Thomas accepted his hand with a: "Thank 'ee, my man," and planted herself on a chair beside Monsieur de Cligneval.

"Now, my spark, I don't need your hand no more," she said to her escort; "when it comes to forks and teeth, I can go it alone, friend."

"She is overflowing with wit!" cried the marquis; "really, her repartees are delicious!"

La Thomassinière, who was afraid to raise his eyes, tried to hurry the dinner. But his guests did not support him; they were very comfortable at table and did full honor to the feast. The marquis stuffed Mère Thomas; he kept her plate constantly filled, hoping that that would stop her chatter; but she was a shrewd old girl, who could do two things at once. While she was eating, she kept repeating:

"Dieu! how good this is! What a fine _fricot_! I ain't never ate anything as tasted like this! I say, Thomas, my boy, we don't make such good fricassees to our little cabaret at the sign of the Learned Ass! Do you remember, boy?"

"Who wants some truffles? who hasn't any truffles?" cried Monsieur de la Thomassinière, trying to drown his mother's voice. But Madame Destival, who had heard every word, inquired:

"What do you say, madame? Did Monsieur de la Thomassinière ever keep a cabaret?"

"La Thomassinière!" echoed Mère Thomas, emptying her glass. "Who's that, my heart?"

"Your son, madame."

"What! don't you call yourself Thomas no more, my son? So that's what all them green monkeys stitched with gold, in your outside room, meant when they said this wa'n't where you lived! What have you dropped your father's name for, Thomas? Didn't it sound good enough for you? Let me tell you he was an honest man, who sold wine for six sous a litre without putting any drugs in it, like your swindlers in Paris!--Excuse me, friends."

"Monsieur your son calls himself La Thomassinière now," said the marquis, "from the name of an estate that he has bought. That is the custom in Paris; he hasn't changed his name but he has lengthened it a little; it's pleasanter to the ear."

"Yes, to be sure," said La Thomassinière, trying to recover his self-assurance. "When one has made a fortune as _consequential_ as mine, one is at liberty to forget. Besides, as monsieur le marquis says, it's done every day."

"Oh! that makes a difference," rejoined Mère Thomas, "if you've been a-buying estates. That's worse than the Marquis de Carabas. But for all that, my boy, you'd ought to sent for me to come to see you sooner; for I've been just a little bit homesick down to our place; it's a regular hole, and I couldn't have such a devil of a spree with the two hundred francs you send me every year."

"Mon Dieu! how outrageous!" cried a lady wearing a cap adorned by a bird-of-paradise, pushing her chair away from the table; while the gentlemen glanced at one another, laughing, and Monsieur de la Thomassinière stretched his feet under the table trying to find those of his excellent mother, who sat opposite him, and to whom he vainly made signals to urge her to be quiet.

"What struck that party?" said Mère Thomas, staring at the lady in the cap. "Is she going to faint too? What's she making faces at me for, with that tail of a kite on her head?"

"Mother, I implore you!" said La Thomassinière, moving his feet frantically.

"Down! down, I say! there's dogs under the table, boy. Here's two or three on 'em running atween my legs. Tell someone to give 'em something to eat, so they'll leave us alone. Give me a drink! Who's going to fill my glass? you, old boy?"

It was the marquis to whom this question was addressed; he took a decanter of madeira that stood before him and filled the glass of his neighbor, who always refused to drink without touching glasses.

"What's this yellow wine, my boy?"

"Madeira, madame."

"Pretty good, eh?"

"Perfect! it's the best I ever drank."

"Here's your health then, my buck; and yours, old fox!"

The last remark was addressed to Madame Thomas's left hand neighbor, an old chevalier, with his hair curled and powdered in the style in vogue during the Regency, who seemed extremely ill-pleased to be seated beside Monsieur de la Thomassinière's mother. He turned his head whenever she looked at him, and did not answer when she spoke to him. This time Madame Thomas held her glass over the old fellow's plate, so that it was impossible for him to avoid replying, and he muttered disdainfully:

"I don't drink, madame."

"Ah! you don't drink, don't you, old bean-pole? Well then, you can go without, that's all. You needn't put on so many airs; you look as pleasant as a bad clove!--Your health, my son, and yours, messieurs, mesdames, and the whole company; and yours, too, you green monkey, as didn't want to let me in."

This compliment was aimed at Lafleur. Monsieur de la Thomassinière beat his brow in despair, while the marquis repeated till he was hoarse:

"Excellent! excellent! The old patriarchal custom--to drink everybody's health. Noah's children always touched one another's glasses."

Madame Thomas tossed off the glass of madeira at a swallow; but when she had drunk it, she made a wry face and glared at the marquis, crying:

"God! what vile stuff your madeira is! Bah! it tastes like a donkey's water right in your mouth, my children!"

All the ladies cried out and hid their faces behind their napkins. The men laughed; and Madame Thomas, who saw nothing unnatural in what she had said and thought that they shared her amusement, caused her glass to be filled with another kind of wine; while her son sank back in his chair, muttering:

"I am a ruined man!"

The more Madame Thomas drank, the more loquacious she became. In vain did the marquis fill her plate, and Monsieur de la Thomassinière call to his servants: "Serve monsieur! Remove madame's plate!" the stout old lady's voice soared above those of all her fashionable neighbors, for people of fashion are not in the habit of speaking loud.

The old gentleman with the pigeon's wings, whom Madame Thomas had called a clove, could not digest that insult; he scowled terribly, tried to turn his back on his neighbor, and muttered:

"It's abominable to invite people like myself to compromise their dignity with such riff-raff! Gad! if they ever catch me here again! I am terribly distressed that I came."

For all that, the old chevalier did not go away, but ate and drank for four, by way of compensation for the annoyance that he felt.

Mère Thomas wanted some of everything, she called for all the dishes that she saw, and she would say to the marquis:

"What's that, my fine little fellow?"

"_Poulet à la Marengo_, madame."

"My soul! how it's disguised! Never mind, just pass me a wing.--And what's that black stew over yonder?"

"A salmi of partridge _aux truffes_."

"That must be heating; but give me a bit of your _salmigondis aux truffes_, I'll take the chances.--and that big dish all covered over with sauce?"

"That's a _Sultane à la Chantilly_."

"A sultana! The dear boy! does he take us for Turks, I wonder! Just give me a taste of that too, so that I'll know how those miserable dogs cook."

"You'll make yourself ill, Madame Thomas," said La Thomassinière in an undertone, horrified to see his mother's eyes grow brighter and brighter, and that she insisted on tasting all the wines as well as all the dishes.

"Get out, boy, I've got a stomach like an ostrich! Don't you remember the bet I made one day with our cousin as kept the eating house? A fine man, he was! He died three year ago, poor Chahû!"

"Lafleur! Jasmin! Comtois! take these plates away; serve the dessert, I say!"

In vain did Monsieur de la Thomassinière shout to his servants--his mother continued her narrative none the less:

"You must know, my children, that Chahû was one of the biggest eaters in all Brie; he was a chap with a big head, and he'd put down a turkey, saving your presence, just as slick as you or me'd swallow a lark. Bless my soul, if he didn't take a fancy one day to bet me that he'd eat more'n me of a rabbit stew I'd made for a mason's wedding feast. I'm a sly fox, so I took his bet; and when we'd got half through, I told him in confidence that it was cats as I'd stewed up; and at that my jackass turned up his toes and got rid of his dinner on the floor."

The ladies refused to listen to any more; they left the table and took refuge in the salon. Monsieur de la Thomassinière was beside himself; he turned red, yellow and lead-colored in turn; the perspiration stood on his brow; he poured wine in his plate and put his fork in his glass. The young men laughed heartily, Auguste with the rest, for he was of the opinion that his host well deserved this little lesson. Destival was radiant; his eyes sparkled with delight as he looked from one person to another and finally fastened his gaze on La Thomassinière. The Marquis de Cligneval looked at his host with an expression which signified: "Gad! I've done what I could; but, as you see, it's impossible to hold her back."

"Well! what makes all them pretty females go scooting off at once?" queried Mère Thomas; "be they all going to the closet together? I say, it's like the hens down our way: when one goes, the others have to follow."