Les Dieux ont soif. English Read online

  X

  On Saturday at seven in the morning the _citoyen_ Blaise, in a blackcocked-hat, scarlet waistcoat, doe-skin breeches, and boots with yellowtops, rapped with the handle of his riding-whip at the studio door. The_citoyenne_ Gamelin was in the room in polite conversation with the_citoyen_ Brotteaux, while Evariste stood before a bit of looking-glassknotting his high white cravat.

  "A pleasant journey, Monsieur Blaise!" the _citoyenne_ greeted him."But, as you are going to paint landscapes, why don't you take MonsieurBrotteaux, who is a painter?"

  "Well, well," said Jean Blaise, "will you come with us, _citoyen_Brotteaux?"

  On being assured he would not be intruding, Brotteaux, a man of asociable temper and fond of all amusements, accepted the invitation.

  The _citoyenne_ Elodie had climbed the four storeys to embrace the widowGamelin, whom she called her good mother. She was in white from head tofoot, and smelt of lavender.

  An old two-horsed travelling _berline_ stood waiting in the Place, withthe hood down. Rose Thevenin occupied the back seat with JulienneHasard. Elodie made the actress sit on the right, took the left-handplace herself and put the slim Julienne between the two of them.Brotteaux settled himself, back to the horses, facing the _citoyenne_Thevenin; Philippe Dubois, opposite the _citoyenne_ Hasard; Evaristeopposite Elodie. As for Philippe Desmahis, he planted his athleticfigure on the box, on the coachman's left, and proceeded to amaze thatworthy with a traveller's tale about a country in America where thetrees bore chitterlings and saveloys by way of fruit.

  The _citoyen_ Blaise, who was a capital rider, took the road onhorseback, going on in front to escape the dust from the _berline_.

  As the wheels rattled merrily over the suburban roads the travellersbegan to forget their cares, and at sight of the green fields and treesand sky, their minds turned to gay and pleasant thoughts. Elodie dreamedshe was surely born to rear poultry with Evariste, a country justice, tohelp her, in some village on a river bank beside a wood. The roadsideelms whirled by as they sped along. Outside the villages the peasants'mastiffs dashed out to intercept the carriage and barked at the horses,while a fat spaniel, lying in the roadway, struggled reluctantly to itsfeet; the fowls scattered and fled; the geese in a close-packed bandwaddled slowly out of the way. The children, with their fresh morningfaces, watched the company go by. It was a hot day and a cloudless sky.The parched earth was thirsting for rain. They alighted just outsideVillejuif. On their way through the little town, Desmahis went into afruiterer's to buy cherries for the overheated _citoyennes_. Theshop-keeper was a pretty woman, and Desmahis showed no signs ofreappearing. Philippe Dubois shouted to him, using the nickname hisfriends constantly gave him:

  "Ho there! Barbaroux!... Barbaroux!"

  At this hated name the passers-by pricked up their ears and facesappeared at every window. Then, when they saw a young and handsome manemerge from the shop, his jacket thrown open, his neckerchief flyingloose over a muscular chest, and carrying over his shoulder a basket ofcherries and his coat at the end of a stick, taking him for theproscribed girondist, a posse of _sansculottes_ laid violent hands onhim. Regardless of his indignant protests, they would have haled him tothe town-hall, had not old Brotteaux, Gamelin, and the three young womenborne testimony that the _citoyen_ was named Philippe Desmahis, acopper-plate engraver and a good Jacobin. Even then the suspect had toshow his _carte de civisme_, which he had in his pocket by great goodluck, for he was very heedless in such matters. At this price he escapedfrom the hands of these patriotic villagers without worse loss than oneof his lace ruffles, which had been torn off; but this was a trifleafter all. He even received the apologies of the National Guards who hadhustled him the most savagely and who now spoke of carrying him intriumph to the Hotel de Ville.

  A free man again and with the _citoyennes_ Elodie, Rose, and Juliennecrowding round him, Desmahis looked at Philippe Dubois--he did not likethe man and suspected him of having played him a practical joke--with awry smile, and towering above him by a whole head:

  "Dubois," he told him, "if you call me Barbaroux again, I shall call youBrissot; he is a little fat man with a silly face, greasy hair, an oilyskin and damp hands. They'll be perfectly sure you are the infamousBrissot, the people's enemy; and the good Republicans, filled withhorror and loathing at sight of you, will hang you from the nearestlamp-post. You hear me?"

  The _citoyen_ Blaise, who had been watering his horse, announced that hehad arranged the affair, though it was quite plain to everybody that ithad been arranged without him.

  The company got in again, and as they drove on, Desmahis informed thecoachman that in this same plain of Longjumeau several inhabitants ofthe Moon had once come down, in shape and colour much like frogs, onlyvery much bigger. Philippe Dubois and Gamelin talked about their art.Dubois, a pupil of Regnault, had been to Rome, where he had seenRaphael's tapestries, which he set above all the masterpieces of theworld. He admired Correggio's colouring, Annibale Caracci's invention,Domenichino's drawing, but thought nothing comparable in point of stylewith the pictures of Pompeio Battoni. He had been in touch at Rome withMonsieur Menageot and Madame Lebrun, who had both pronounced against theRevolution; so the less said of them the better. But he spoke highly ofAngelica Kauffmann, who had a pure taste and a fine knowledge of theAntique.

  Gamelin deplored that the apogee of French painting, belated as it was,for it only dated from Lesueur, Claude and Poussin and corresponded withthe decadence of the Italian and Flemish schools, had been succeeded byso rapid and profound a decline. This he attributed to the degradedstate of manners and to the Academy, which was the expression of thatstate. But the Academy had been happily abolished, and under theinfluence of new canons, David and his school were creating an artworthy of a free people. Among the young painters, Gamelin, without atrace of envy, gave the first place to Hennequin and Topino-Lebrun.Philippe Dubois preferred his own master Regnault to David, and foundedhis hopes for the future of painting on that rising artist Gerard.

  Meantime Elodie complimented the _citoyenne_ Thevenin on her red velvettoque and white gown. The actress repaid the compliment bycongratulating her two companions on their toilets and advising them howto do better still; the thing, she said, was to be more sparing inornaments and trimmings.

  "A woman can never be dressed too simply," was her dictum. "We see thison the stage, where the costume should allow every pose to beappreciated. That is its true beauty and it needs no other."

  "You are right, my dear," replied Elodie. "Only there is nothing moreexpensive in dress than simplicity. It is not always out of bad taste weadd frills and furbelows; sometimes it is to save our pockets."

  They discussed eagerly the autumn fashions,--frocks entirely plain andshort-waisted.

  "So many women disfigure themselves through following the fashion!"declared Rose Thevenin. "In dressing every woman should study her ownfigure."

  "There is nothing beautiful save draperies that follow the lines of thefigure and fall in folds," put in Gamelin. "Everything that is cut outand sewn is hideous."

  These sentiments, more appropriate in a treatise of Winckelmann's thanin the mouth of a man talking to Parisiennes, met with the scorn theydeserved, being entirely disregarded.

  "For the winter," observed Elodie, "they are making quilted gowns inLapland style of taffeta and muslin, and coats _a la Zulime_,round-waisted and opening over a stomacher _a la Turque_."

  "Nasty cheap things," declared the actress, "you can buy them readymade. Now I have a little seamstress who works like an angel and is notdear; I'll send her to see you, my dear."

  So they prattled on trippingly, eagerly discussing and appraisingdifferent fine fabrics--striped taffeta, self-coloured china silk,muslin, gauze, nankeen.

  And old Brotteaux, as he listened to them, thought with a pensivepleasure of these veils that hide women's charms and changeincessantly,--how they last for a few years to be renewed eternally likethe flowers of the field. And his eyes, as they wandered from the threepretty wom
en to the cornflowers and the poppies in the wheat, were wetwith smiling tears.

  They reached Orangis about nine o'clock and stopped before the inn, the_Auberge de la Cloche_, where the Poitrines, husband and wife, offeredaccommodation for man and beast. The _citoyen_ Blaise, who had repairedany disorder in his dress, helped the _citoyennes_ to alight. Afterordering dinner for midday, they all set off, preceded by theirpaintboxes, drawing-boards, easels, and parasols, which were carried bya village lad, for the meadows near the confluence of the Orge and theYvette, a charming bit of country giving a view over the verdant plainof Longjumeau and bounded by the Seine and the woods ofSainte-Genevieve.

  Jean Blaise, the leader of the troop of artists, was bandying funnystories with the _ci-devant_ financier, tales that brought in withoutrhyme or reason Verboquet the Open-handed, Catherine Cuissot the pedlar,the demoiselles Chaudron, the fortune-teller Galichet, as well ascharacters of a later time like Cadet-Rousselle and Madame Angot.

  Evariste, inspired with a sudden love of nature, as he saw a troop ofharvesters binding their sheaves, felt the tears rise to his eyes, whilevisions of concord and affection filled his heart. For his part,Desmahis was blowing the light down of the seeding dandelions into the_citoyennes'_ hair. All three loved posies, as town-bred girls alwaysdo, and were busy in the meadows plucking the mullein, whose blossomsgrow in spikes close round the stem, the campanula, with its littleblue-bells hanging in rows one above another, the slender twigs of thescented vervain, wallwort, mint, dyer's weed, milfoil--all the wildflowers of late summer. Jean-Jacques had made botany the fashion amongtownswomen, so all three knew the name and symbolism of every flower. Asthe delicate petals, drooping for want of moisture, wilted in her handsand fell in a shower about her feet, the _citoyenne_ Elodie sighed:

  "They are dying already, the poor flowers!"

  All set to work and strove to express nature as they saw her; but eachsaw her through the eyes of a master. In a short time Philippe Duboishad knocked off in the style of Hubert Robert a deserted farm, a clumpof storm-riven trees, a dried-up torrent. Evariste Gamelin found alandscape by Poussin ready made on the banks of the Yvette. PhilippeDesmahis was at work before a pigeon-cote in the picaresque manner ofCallot and Duplessis. Old Brotteaux who piqued himself on imitating theFlemings, was drawing a cow with infinite care. Elodie was sketching apeasant's hut, while her friend Julienne, who was a colourman'sdaughter, set her palette. A swarm of children pressed about her,watching her paint, whom she would scold out of her light at intervals,calling them pestering gnats and giving them lollipops. The _citoyenne_Thevenin, picking out the pretty ones, would wash their faces, kiss themand put flowers in their hair. She fondled them with a gentle air ofmelancholy, because she had missed the joy of motherhood,--as well as toheighten her fascinations by a show of tender sentiment and to practiseherself in the art of pose and grouping.

  She was the only member of the party neither drawing nor painting. Shedevoted her attention to learning a part and still more to charming hercompanions, flitting from one to another, book in hand, a bright,entrancing creature.

  "No complexion, no figure, no voice, no nothing," declared thewomen,--and she filled the earth with movement, colour and harmony.Faded, pretty, tired, indefatigable, she was the joy of the expedition.A woman of ever-varying moods, but always gay, sensitive, quick-temperedand yet easy-going and accommodating, a sharp tongue with the mostpolished utterance, vain, modest, true, false, delightful; if RoseThevenin enjoyed no triumphant success, if she was not worshipped as agoddess, it was because the times were out of joint and Paris had nomore incense, no more altars for the Graces. The _citoyenne_ Blaiseherself, who made a face when she spoke of her and used to call her "mystep-mother," could not see her and not be subjugated by such an arrayof charms.

  They were rehearsing _Les Visitandines_ at the Theatre Feydeau, and Rosewas full of self-congratulation at having a part full of "naturalness."It was this quality she strove after, this she sought and this shefound.

  "Then we shall not see 'Pamela'?" asked Desmahis.

  The Theatre de la Nation was closed and the actors packed off to theMadelonnettes and to Pelagie.

  "Do you call that liberty?" cried Rose Thevenin, raising her beautifuleyes to heaven in indignant protest.

  "The players of the Theatre de la Nation are aristocrats, and the_citoyen_ Francois' piece tends to make men regret the privileges of thenoblesse."

  "Gentlemen," said Rose Thevenin, "have you patience to listen only tothose who flatter you?"

  As midday approached everybody began to feel pangs of hunger and thelittle band marched back to the inn.

  Evariste walked beside Elodie, smilingly recalling memories of theirfirst meetings:

  "Two young birds had fallen out of their nests on the roof on to thesill of your window. You brought the little creatures up by hand; one ofthem lived and in due time flew away. The other died in the nest ofcotton-wool you had made him. 'It was the one I loved best,' I rememberyou said. That day, Elodie, you were wearing a red bow in your hair."

  Philippe Dubois and Brotteaux, a little behind the rest, were talking ofRome, where they had both been, the latter in '72, the other towards thelast days of the Academy. Brotteaux indeed had never forgotten thePrincess Mondragone, to whom he would most certainly have poured outhis plaints but for the Count Altieri, who always followed her like hershadow. Nor did Philippe Dubois fail to mention that he had been invitedto dine with Cardinal de Bernis and that he was the most obliging hostin the world.

  "I knew him," said Brotteaux, "and I may add without boasting that I wasfor some while one of his most intimate friends; he had a taste for lowsociety. He was an amiable man, and for all his affectation of tellingfairy tales, there was more sound philosophy in his little finger thanin the heads of all you Jacobins, who are for making us virtuous andGod-fearing by Act of Parliament. Upon my word I prefer oursimple-minded theophagists who know not what they say nor yet what theydo, to these mad law-menders, who make it their business to guillotineus in order to render us wise and virtuous and adorers of the SupremeBeing who has created them in His likeness. In former days I used tohave Mass said in the Chapel at Les Ilettes by a poor devil of a Curewho used to say in his cups: 'Don't let's speak ill of sinners; we liveby 'em, we priests, unworthy as we are!' You must agree, sir, thisprayer-monger held sound maxims of government. We should adopt hisprinciples, and govern men as being what they are and not what we shouldlike them to be."

  Rose Thevenin had meantime drawn closer to the old man. She knew he hadlived on a grand scale, and the thought of this gilded the _ci-devant_financier's present poverty, which she deemed less humiliating as beingdue to general causes, the result of the public bankruptcy. She saw inhim, with curiosity not unmixed with respect, the survival of one ofthose open-handed millionaires of whom her elder comrades of the stagespoke with sighs of unfeigned regret. Besides, the old fellow in hisplum-coloured coat, so threadbare and so well brushed, pleased her byhis agreeable address.

  "Monsieur Brotteaux," she said to him, "we know how once upon a time, ina noble park, on moonlight nights, you would slip into the shade ofmyrtle groves with actresses and dancing-girls to the far-off shrillingof flutes and fiddles.... Alas! they were more lovely, were they not,your goddesses of the Opera and the Comedie-Francaise, than we ofto-day, we poor little National actresses?"

  "Never think it, Mademoiselle," returned Brotteaux, "but believe me, ifone like you had been known in those days, she would have moved alone,as sovereign queen without a rival (little as she would have desiredsuch solitude), in the park you are obliging enough to form soflattering a picture of...."

  It was quite a rustic inn, this Hotel de la Cloche. A branch of hollyhung over the great waggon doors that opened on a courtyard where fowlswere always pecking about in the damp soil. On the far side of thisstood the house itself, consisting of a ground floor and one storeyabove, crowned by a high-pitched tiled roof and with walls almost hiddenunder old climbing rose-trees covered with
blossom. To the right,trimmed fruit-trees showed their tops above the low garden wall. To theleft was the stable, with an outside manger and a barn supported bywooden pillars. A ladder leaned against the wall. Here again, under ashed crowded with agricultural implements and stumps of trees, a whitecock was keeping an eye on his hens from the top of a broken-downcabriolet. The courtyard was enclosed on this side by cow-sheds, infront of which rose in mountainous grandeur a dunghill which at thismoment a girl as broad as she was long, with straw-coloured hair, wasturning over with a pitchfork. The liquid manure filled her sabots andbathed her bare feet, and you could see the heels rise out of her shoesevery now and then as yellow as saffron. Her petticoats were kilted andrevealed the filth on her enormous calves and thick ankles. WhilePhilippe Desmahis was staring at her, surprised and tickled by thewhimsicalities of nature in framing this odd example of breadth withoutlength, the landlord shouted:

  "Ho, there! Tronche, my girl! go fetch some water!"

  She turned her head, showing a scarlet face and a vast mouth in whichone huge front tooth was missing. It had needed nothing less than abull's horn to effect a breach in that powerful jaw. She stood theregrinning, pitchfork on shoulder. Her sleeves were rolled up and herarms, as thick as another woman's thighs, gleamed in the sun.

  The table was laid in the farm kitchen, where a brace of fowls wasroasting,--they were almost done to a turn,--under the hood of the openfireplace, above which hung two or three old fowling-pieces by way ofornament. The bare whitewashed room, twenty feet long, was lighted onlythrough the panes of greenish glass let into the door and by a singlewindow, framed in roses, near which the grandmother sat turning herspinning-wheel. She wore a coif and a lace frilling in the fashion ofthe Regency. Her gnarled, earth-stained fingers held the distaff. Fliesclustered about her lids without her trying to drive them away. As achild in her mother's arms, she had seen Louis XIV go by in his coach.

  Sixty years ago she had made the journey to Paris. In a weak sing-songvoice she told the tale to the three young women, standing in front ofher, how she had seen the Hotel de Ville, the Tuileries and theSamaritaine, and how, when she was crossing the Pont-Royal, a bargeloaded with apples for the Marche du Mail had broken up, the apples hadfloated down the current and the river was all red with the rosy-cheekedfruit.

  She had been told of the changes that had occurred of late in thekingdom, and in particular of the coil there was betwixt the cures whohad taken the oath and the nonjuring cures. She knew likewise there hadbeen wars and famines and portents in the sky. She did not believe theKing was dead. They had contrived his escape, she _would_ have it, by asubterranean passage, and had handed over to the headsman in his stead aman of the common people.

  At the old woman's feet, in his wicker cradle, Jeannot, the last born ofthe Poitrines, was cutting his teeth. The _citoyenne_ Thevenin liftedthe cradle and smiled at the child, which moaned feebly, worn out withfeverishness and convulsions. It must have been very ill, for they hadsent for the doctor, the _citoyen_ Pelleport, who, it is true, being adeputy-substitute to the Convention, asked no payment for his visits.

  The _citoyenne_ Thevenin, an innkeeper's daughter herself, was in herelement; not satisfied with the way the farm-girl had washed the platesand dishes, she gave an extra wipe to the crockery and glass, an extrapolish to the knives and forks. While the _citoyenne_ Poitrine wasattending to the soup, which she tasted from time to time as a good cookshould, Elodie was cutting up into slices a four-pound loaf hot from theoven. Gamelin, when he saw what she was doing, addressed her:

  "A few days ago I read a book written by a young German whose name Ihave forgotten, and which has been very well translated into French. Init you have a beautiful young girl named Charlotte, who, like you,Elodie, was cutting bread and butter, and like you, cutting itgracefully, and so prettily that at the sight the young Werther fell inlove with her."

  "And it ended in their marrying?" asked Elodie.

  "No," replied Evariste; "it ended in Werther's death by violence."

  They dined well, they were all very hungry; but the fare wasindifferent. Jean Blaise complained bitterly; he was a great trenchermanand made it a rule of conduct to feed well; and no doubt what urged himto elaborate his gluttony into a system was the general scarcity. Inevery household the Revolution had overturned the cooking pot. Thecommon run of citizens had nothing to chew upon. Clever folks like JeanBlaise, who made big profits amid the general wretchedness, went to thecookshop where they showed their astuteness by stuffing themselves torepletion. As for Brotteaux who, in this year II of liberty, was livingon chestnuts and bread-crusts, he could remember having supped at Grimodde la Reyniere's at the near end of the Champs Elysees. Eager to win therepute of an accomplished gourmand he reeled off, sitting there beforeDame Poitrine's bacon and cabbages, a string of artful kitchen recipesand wise gastronomic maxims. Presently, when Gamelin protested that aRepublican scorns the pleasures of the table, the old financier, alwaysa lover of antiquity, gave the young Spartan the true recipe for thefamous black broth.

  After dinner, Jean Blaise, who never forgot business, set his itinerantacademy to make studies and sketches of the inn, which struck him asquite romantic in its dilapidation. While Philippe Desmahis and PhilippeDubois were drawing the cow-houses the girl Tronche came out to feed thepigs. The _citoyen_ Pelleport, officer of health, who at the same momentappeared at the door of the farm kitchen where he had been bestowing hisprofessional services on the Poitrine baby, stepped up to the artistsand after complimenting them on their talents, which were an honour tothe whole nation, pointed to the Tronche girl in the middle of herporkers:

  "You see that creature," he said, "it is not one girl, it is two girls.I speak by the letter, understand that. I was amazed at theextraordinary massiveness of her bony framework and I examined her, todiscover she had most of the bones in duplicate--in each thigh twofemurs welded together, in each shoulder a double humerus. Some of hermuscles are likewise in duplicate. It is a case, in my view, of a pairof twins associated or rather confounded together. It is an interestingphenomenon. I notified Monsieur Saint-Hilaire of the facts, and hethanked me. It is a monster you see before you, _citoyens_. The peoplehere call her 'the girl Tronche'; they should say 'the girls Tronches,'for there are two of them. Nature has these freaks.... Good evening,_citoyens_; we shall have a storm to-night...."

  After supper by candle-light, the Academy Blaise adjourned to thecourtyard where they were joined by a son and daughter of the house ina game of blindman's-buff, in which the young folks, both men and women,displayed a feverish energy sufficiently accounted for by the highspirits proper to their age without seeking an explanation in the wildand precarious times in which they lived. When it was quite dark, JeanBlaise proposed children's games in the farm kitchen. Elodie suggestedthe game of "hunt my heart," and this was agreed to unanimously. Underthe girl's direction Philippe Desmahis traced in chalk, on differentpieces of furniture, on doors and walls, seven hearts, that is to sayone less than there were players, for old Brotteaux had obliginglyjoined the rest. They danced round in a ring singing "La Tour, prendsgarde!" and at a signal from Elodie, each ran to put a hand on a heart.Gamelin in his absent-minded clumsiness was too late to find one vacant,and had to pay a forfeit, the little knife he had bought for six sous atthe fair of Saint-Germain and with which he had cut the loaf for hismother in her poverty. The game went on, and one after the other Blaise,Elodie, Brotteaux and Rose Thevenin failed to touch a heart; each paid aforfeit in turn--a ring, a reticule, a little morocco-bound book, abracelet. Then the forfeits were raffled on Elodie's lap, and eachplayer had to redeem his property by showing his societyaccomplishments--singing a song or reciting a poem. Brotteaux chose thespeech of the patron saint of France in the first canto of the_Pucelle_:

  "Je suis Denis et saint de mon metier, J'aime la Gaule,..."[2]

  The _citoyen_ Blaise, though a far less well-read man, replied withouthesitation with Richemond's ripost:

  "Monsieur le
Saint, ce n'etait pas la peine D'abandonner le celeste domaine...."[3]

  At that time everybody was reading and re-reading with delight themasterpiece of the French Ariosto; the most serious of men smiled overthe loves of Jeanne and Dunois, the adventures of Agnes and Monrose andthe exploits of the winged ass. Every man of cultivation knew by heartthe choice passages of this diverting and philosophical poem. EvaristeGamelin himself, stern-tempered as he was, when he recovered histwopenny knife from Elodie's lap, recited the going down of Grisbourdoninto hell, with a good deal of spirit. The _citoyenne_ Thevenin sangwithout accompaniment Nina's ballad:

  "_Quand le bien-aime reviendra._"

  Desmahis sang to the tune of _La Faridondaine_:

  "Quelques-uns prirent le cochon De ce bon saint Antoine, Et lui mettant un capuchon, Ils en firent un moine. Il n'en coutait que la facon...."[4]

  All the same Desmahis was in a pensive mood. For the moment he wasardently in love with all the three women with whom he was playingforfeits, and was casting burning looks of soft appeal at each in turn.He loved Rose Thevenin for her grace, her supple figure, her cleveracting, her roving glances, and her voice that went straight to a man'sheart; he loved Elodie, because he recognized instinctively her richendowment of temperament and her kind, complaisant humour; he lovedJulienne Hasard, despite her colourless hair, her pale eyelashes, herfreckles and her thin bust, because, like Dunois in Voltaire's_Pucelle_, he was always ready, in his generosity, to give the leastengaging a token of love--and the more so in this instance because sheappeared to be for the moment the most neglected, and therefore the mostamenable to his attentions. Without a trace of vanity, he was never sureof these being agreeable; nor yet was he ever sure of their not being.So he never omitted to offer them on the chance. Taking advantage of theopportunities offered by the game of forfeits, he made some tenderspeeches to Rose Thevenin, who showed no displeasure, but could hardlysay much in return under the jealous eyes of the _citoyen_ Jean Blaise.He spoke more warmly still to the _citoyenne_ Elodie, whom he knew to bepledged to Gamelin, but he was not so exacting as to want a heart all tohimself. Elodie could never care for him; but she thought him a handsomefellow and did not altogether succeed in hiding the fact from him.Finally, he whispered his most ardent vows in the ear of the _citoyenne_Hasard, which she received with an air of bewildered stupefaction thatmight equally express abject submission or chill indifference. AndDesmahis did not believe she was indifferent to him.

  The inn contained only two bedrooms, both on the first floor and openingon the same landing. That to the left, the better of the two, boasted aflowered paper and a looking-glass the size of a man's hand, the giltframe of which had been blackened by generations of flies since the dayswhen Louis XIV was a child. In it, under sprigged muslin curtains, stoodtwo beds with down pillows, coverlets and counterpanes. This room wasreserved for the three _citoyennes_.

  When the time came to retire, Desmahis and the _citoyenne_ Hasard, eachholding a bedroom candlestick, wished each other good-night on thelanding. The amorous engraver quickly passed a note to the colourman'sdaughter, beseeching her to come to him, when everybody was asleep, inthe garret, which was over the _citoyennes'_ chamber.

  With judicious foresight, he had taken care in the course of the day tostudy the lie of the land and explore the garret in question, which wasfull of strings of onions, apples and pears left there to ripen with aswarm of wasps crawling over them, chests and old trunks. He had evennoticed an old bed of sacking, decrepit and now disused, as far as hecould see, and a palliasse, all ripped up and jumping with fleas.

  Facing the _citoyennes'_ room was another of very modest dimensionscontaining three beds, where the men of the party were to sleep, in suchcomfort as they might. But Brotteaux, who was a Sybarite, betook himselfto the barn to sleep among the hay. As for Jean Blaise, _he_ haddisappeared. Dubois and Gamelin were soon asleep. Desmahis went to bed;but no sooner had the silence of night, like a stagnant pool, envelopedthe house, than the engraver got up and climbed the wooden staircase,which creaked under his bare feet. The door of the garret stood ajar.From within came a breath of stifling hot air, mingled with the acridsmell of rotting fruit. On the broken-down bed of sacking lay the girlTronche, fast asleep with her mouth open.

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

  Desmahis returned to his room, where he slept soundly and peacefullytill daybreak.

  On the morrow, after a last day's work, the itinerant Academy took theroad back to Paris. When Jean Blaise paid mine host in assignats, the_citoyen_ Poitrine complained bitterly that he never saw what he called"square money" nowadays, and promised a fine candle to the beggar who'dbring back the "yellow boys" again.

  He offered the _citoyennes_ their pick of flowers. At his orders, thegirl Tronche mounted on a ladder in her sabots and kilted skirts, givinga full view of her noble, much-bespattered calves, and was indefatigablein cutting blossoms from the climbing roses that covered the wall. Fromher huge hands the flowers fell in showers, in torrents, in avalanches,into the laps of Elodie, Julienne, and Rose Thevenin, who held out theirskirts to catch them. The carriage was full of them. The whole party,when they got back at nightfall, carried armfuls home, and theirsleeping and waking were perfumed with their fragrance.

  FOOTNOTES:

  [2]

  "I am Denis, and sainthood is my trade, I love the land of Gaul,... etc."

  [3]

  "Well, well, sir Saint, 'twas hardly worth your pains Thus to forsake the heavenly domains...."

  [4]

  "Some ribalds took the pig, Of the good St. Anthony, And clapping a cowl on's head, They made the brute a monk. 'Twas all a matter of dress...."