"Is it at the church the procession is to be formed?" the physician asked his wife.
"It is at the church."
"At three o'clock?"
"At three o'clock."
"The professors will be there?"
"Yes, they will accompany the lady-sponsors."
The next persons to stop were the ladies Paille. Then, came the Monecus, father and daughter. But as he was going to breakfast alone with his friend Gontran at the Casino Café, he slowly made his way up to it. Paul, who had arrived the night before, had not had an interview with his comrade for the past month; and he was longing to tell him many boulevard stories—stories about gay women and houses of pleasure.
They remained chattering away till half past two when Petrus Martel came to inform them that people were on their way to the church.
"Let us go and look for Christiane," said Gontran.
"Let us go," returned Paul.
They found her standing on the steps of the new hotel. She had the hollow cheeks and the swarthy complexion of pregnant women; and her figure indicated a near accouchement.
"I was waiting for you," she said. "William is gone on before us. He has so many things to do to-day."
She cast toward Paul Bretigny a glance full of tenderness, and took his arm. They went quietly on their way, avoiding the stones.
She kept repeating: "How heavy I am! How heavy I am! I am no longer able to walk. I am so much afraid of falling!"
He did not reply, and carefully held her up, without seeking to meet her eyes which she turned toward him incessantly.
In front of the church, a dense crowd was awaiting them.
Andermatt cried: "At last! at last! Come, make haste. See, this is the order: two choir-boys, two chanters in surplices, the cross, the holy water, the priest, then Christiane with Professor Cloche, Mademoiselle Louise with Professor Remusot, and Mademoiselle Charlotte with Professor Mas-Roussel. Next come the members of the Board, the medical body, then the public. This is understood. Forward!"
The ecclesiastical staff thereupon left the church, taking their places at the head of the procession. Then a tall gentleman with white hair brushed back over his ears, the typical "scientist," in accordance with the academic form, approached Madame Andermatt, and saluted her with a low bow.
When he had straightened himself up again, with his head uncovered, in order to display his beautiful, scientific head, and his hat resting on his thigh with an imposing air as if he had learned to walk at the Comédie Française, and to show the people his rosette of officer of the Legion of Honor, too big for a modest man.
He began to talk: "Your husband, Madame, has been speaking to me about you just now, and about your condition which gives rise to some affectionate disquietude. He has told me about your doubts and your hesitations as to the probable moment of your delivery."
She reddened to the temples, and she murmured: "Yes, I believed that I would be a mother a very long time before the event. Now I can't tell either—I can't tell either——"
She faltered in a state of utter confusion.
A voice from behind them said: "This station has a very great future before it. I have already obtained surprising effects."
It was Professor Remusot addressing his companion, Louise Oriol. This gentleman was small, with yellow, unkempt hair, and a frock-coat badly cut, the dirty look of a slovenly savant.
Professor Mas-Roussel, who gave his arm to Charlotte Oriol, was a handsome physician, without beard or mustache, smiling, well-groomed, hardly turning gray as yet, a little fleshy, and, with his smooth, clean-shaven face, resembling neither a priest nor an actor, as was the case with Doctor Latonne.
Next came the members of the Board, with Andermatt at their head, and the tall hats of old Oriol and his son towering above them.
Behind them came another row of tall hats, the medical body of Enval, among whom Doctor Bonnefille was not included, his place, indeed, being taken by two new physicians, Doctor Black, a very short old man almost a dwarf, whose excessive piety had surprised the whole district since the day of his arrival; then a very good-looking young fellow, very much given to flirtation, and wearing a small hat, Doctor Mazelli, an Italian attached to the person of the Duc de Ramas—others said, to the person of the Duchesse.
And behind them could be seen the public, a flood of people—bathers, peasants, and inhabitants of the adjoining towns.
The ceremony of blessing the springs was very short. The Abbé Litre sprinkled them one after the other with holy water, which made Doctor Honorat say that he was going to give them new properties with chloride of sodium. Then all the persons specially invited entered the large reading-room, where a collation had been served.
Paul said to Gontran: "How pretty the little Oriol girls have become!"
"They are charming, my dear fellow."
"You have not seen M. le President?" suddenly inquired the ex-jailer overseer.
"Yes, he is over there, in the corner."
"Père Clovis is gathering a big crowd in front of the door."
Already, while moving in the direction of the springs for the purpose of having them blessed, the entire procession had filed off in front of the old invalid, cured the year before, and now again more paralyzed than ever. He would stop the visitors on the road and the last-comers as a matter of choice, in order to tell them his story:
"These waters here, you see, are no good—they cure, 'tis true, but you relapse again afterward, and after this relapse you're half a corpse. As for me, my legs were better before, and here I am now with my arms gone in consequence of the cure. And my legs, they're iron, but iron that you have to cut before it bends."
Andermatt, filled with vexation, had tried to prosecute him in a court of justice and to get him sent to jail for having depreciated the waters of Mont Oriol and having attempted extortion. But he had not succeeded in obtaining a conviction or in shutting the old fellow's mouth.
The moment he was informed that the old vagabond was babbling before the door of the establishment, he rushed out to make Clovis keep silent.
At the side of the highroad, in the center of an excited crowd, he heard angry voices. People pressed forward to listen and to see. Some ladies asked: "What is this?" Some men replied: "'Tis an invalid, whom the waters here have finished." Others believed that an infant had just been squashed. It was also said that a poor woman had got an attack of epilepsy.
Andermatt broke through the crowd, as he knew how to do, by violently pushing his little round stomach between the stomachs of other people. "It proves," Gontran remarked, "the superiority of balls to points."
Père Clovis, sitting on the ditch, whined about his pains, recounted his sufferings in a sniveling tone, while standing in front of him, and separating him from the public, the Oriols, father and son, exasperated, were hurling insults and threats at him as loudly as ever they could.
"That's not true," cried Colosse. "This fellow is a liar, a sham, a poacher, who runs all night through the wood."
But the old fellow, without getting excited, kept reiterating in a high, piercing voice which was heard above the vociferations of the two Oriols: "They've killed me, my good monchieus, they've killed me with their water. They bathed me in it by force last year. And here I am at this moment—here I am!"
Andermatt imposed silence on all, and stooping toward the impotent man, said to him, looking into the depths of his eyes: "If you are worse, it is your own fault, mind. If you listen to me, I undertake to cure you, I do, with fifteen or twenty baths at most. Come and look me up at the establishment in an hour, when the people have all gone away, my good father. In the meantime, hold your tongue."
The old fellow had understood. He became silent, then, after a pause, he answered: "I'm always willing to give it a fair trial. You'll see."
Andermatt caught the two Oriols by the arms and quickly dragged them away; while Père Clovis remained stretched on the grass between his crutches, at the side of the road, blinking his eyes under the rays of the sun.
The puzzled crowd kept pressing round him. Some gentlemen questioned him, but he did not reply, as though he had not heard or understood; and as this curiosity, futile just now, ended by fatiguing him, he began to sing, bareheaded, in a voice as false as it was shrill, an interminable ditty in an unintelligible dialect.
The crowd ebbed away gradually. Only a few children remained standing a long time in front of him, with their fingers in their noses, contemplating him.
Christiane, exceedingly tired, had gone in to take a rest. Paul and Gontran walked about through the new park in the midst of the visitors. Suddenly they saw the company of players, who had also deserted the old Casino, to attach themselves to the growing fortunes of the new.
Mademoiselle Odelin, who had become quite fashionable, was leaning as she walked on the arm of her mother, who had assumed an air of importance. M. Petitnivelle, of the Vaudeville, appeared very attentive to these ladies, who followed M. Lapalme of the Grand Theater of Bordeaux, arguing with the musicians just as of old, themaestroSaint Landri, the pianist Javel, the flautist Noirot, and the double-bass Nicordi.
On perceiving Paul and Gontran, Saint Landri rushed toward them. He had, during the winter, got a very small musical composition performed in a very small out-of-the-way theater; but the newspapers had spoken of him with a certain favor, and he now treated Massenet, Beyer, and Gounod contemptuously.
He stretched forth both hands with an outburst of friendly regard, and immediately proceeded to repeat what he had been saying to those gentlemen of the orchestra over whom he was the conductor.
"Yes, my dear friend, it is finished, finished, finished, the hackneyed style of the old school. The melodists have had their day. This is what people cannot understand. Music is a new art, melody is its first lisping. The ignorant ear loves the burden of a song. It takes a child's pleasure, a savage's pleasure in it. I may add that the ears of the people or of the ingenuous public, the simple ears, will always love little songs, airs, in a word. It is an amusement similar to that in which the frequenters ofcaféconcerts indulge. I am going to make use of a comparison in order to make myself understood. The eye of the rustic loves crude colors and glaring pictures; the eye of the intelligent representative of the middle class who is not artistic loves shades benevolently pretentious and affecting subjects; but the artistic eye, the refined eye, loves, understands, and distinguishes the imperceptible modulations of a single tone, the mysterious harmonies of light touches invisible to most people.
"It is the same with literature. Doorkeepers like romances of adventure, the middle class like novels which appeal to the feelings; while the real lovers of literature care only for the artistic books which are incomprehensible to the others. When an ordinary citizen talks music to me I feel a longing to kill him. And when it is at the opera, I ask him: 'Are you capable of telling me whether the third violin has made a false note in the overture of the third act? No. Then be silent. You have no ear. The man who does not understand, at the same time, the whole and all the instruments separately in an orchestra has no ear, and is no musician. There you are! Good night!'"
He turned round on his heel, and resumed: "For an artist all music is in a chord. Ah! my friend, certain chords madden me, cause a flood of inexpressible happiness to penetrate all my flesh. I have to-day an ear so well exercised, so finished, so matured, that I end by liking even certain false chords, just like a virtuoso whose fully-developed taste amounts to a form of depravity. I am beginning to be a vitiated person who seeks for extreme sensations of hearing. Yes, my friends, certain false notes. What delights! What perverse and profound delights! How this moves, how it shakes the nerves! how it scratches the ear—how it scratches! how it scratches!"
He rubbed his hands together rapturously, and he hummed: "You shall hear my opera—my opera—my opera. You shall hear my opera."
Gontran said: "You are composing an opera?"
"Yes, I have finished it." But the commanding voice of Petrus Martel resounded:
"You understand perfectly! A yellow rocket, and off you go!"
He was giving orders for the fireworks. They joined him, and he explained his arrangements by showing with his outstretched arm, as if he were threatening a hostile fleet, stakes of white wood on the mountain above the gorge, on the opposite side of the valley.
"It is over there that they are to be shot out. I told my pyrotechnist to be at his post at half past eight. The very moment the spectacle is over, I will give the signal from here by a yellow rocket, and then he will illuminate the opening piece."
The Marquis made his appearance: "I am going to drink a glass of water," he said.
Paul and Gontran accompanied him, and again descended the hill. On reaching the establishment, they saw Père Clovis, who had got there, sustained by the two Oriols, followed by Andermatt and by the doctor, and making, every time he trailed his legs on the ground, contortions suggestive of extreme pain.
"Let us go in," said Gontran, "this will be funny."
The paralytic was placed sitting in an armchair. Then Andermatt said to him: "Here is what I propose, old cheat that you are. You are going to be cured immediately by taking two baths a day. And the moment you walk you'll have two hundred francs."
The paralytic began to groan: "My legs, they are iron, my good Monchieu!"
Andermatt made him hold his tongue, and went on: "Now, listen! You shall again have two hundred francs every year up to the time of your death—you understand—up to the time of your death, if you continue to experience the salutary effect of our waters."
The old fellow was in a state of perplexity. The continuous cure was opposed to his plan of action. He asked in a hesitating tone: "But when—when it is closed up—this box of yours—if this should take hold of me again—I can do nothing then—I—seeing that it will be shut up—your water——"
Doctor Latonne interrupted him, and, turning toward Andermatt, said: "Excellent! excellent! We'll cure him every year. This will be even better, and will show the necessity of annual treatment, the indispensability of returning hither. Excellent—this is perfectly clear!"
But the old man repeated afresh: "It will not suit this time, my good Monchieu. My legs, they're iron, iron in bars."
A new idea sprang up in the doctor's mind: "If I got him to try a course of seated walking," he said, "I might hasten the effect of the waters considerably. It is an experiment worth trying."
"Excellent idea," returned Andermatt, adding: "Now, Père Clovis, take yourself off, and don't forget our agreement."
The old fellow went away still groaning; and, when evening came on, all the directors of Mont Oriol came back to dine, for the theatrical representation was announced to take place at half past seven.
The great hall of the new Casino was the place where they were to dine. It was capable of holding a thousand persons.
At seven o'clock the visitors who had not numbered seats presented themselves. At half past seven the hall was filled, and the curtain was raised for the performance of a vaudeville in two acts, which preceded Saint Landri's operetta, interpreted by vocalists from Vichy, who had given their services for the occasion.
Christiane in the front row, between her brother and her husband, suffered a great deal from the heat. Every moment she repeated: "I feel quite exhausted! I feel quite exhausted!"
After the vaudeville, as the operetta was opening, she was becoming ill, and turning round to her husband, said: "My dear Will, I shall have to leave. I am suffocating!"
The banker was annoyed. He was desirous above everything in the world that thisfêteshould be a success, from start to finish, without a single hitch. He replied:
"Make every effort to hold out. I beg of you to do so! Your departure would upset everything. You would have to pass through the entire hall!"
But Gontran, who was sitting along with Paul behind her, had overheard. He leaned toward his sister: "You are too warm?" said he.
"Yes, I am suffocating."
"Good. Stay! You are going to have a laugh."
There was a window near. He slipped toward it, got upon a chair, and jumped out without attracting hardly any notice. Then he entered thecafé, which was perfectly empty, stretched his hand out under the bar where he had seen Petrus Martel conceal the signal-rocket, and, having filched it, he ran off to hide himself under a group of trees, and then set it on fire. The swift yellow sheaf flew up toward the clouds, describing a curve, and casting across the sky a long shower of flame-drops. Almost instantaneously a terrible detonation burst forth over the neighboring mountain, and a cluster of stars sent flying sparks through the darkness of the night.
Somebody exclaimed in the hall where the spectators were gathered, and where at the moment Saint Landri's chords were quivering: "They're letting off the fireworks!"
The spectators who were nearest to the door abruptly rose to their feet to make sure about it, and went out with light steps. All the rest turned their eyes toward the windows, but saw nothing, for they were looking at the Limagne. People kept asking: "Is it true? Is it true?"
The impatient assembly got excited, hungering above everything for simple amusements. A voice from outside announced: "It is true! The firework's are let off!"
Then, in a second everyone in the hall was standing up. They rushed toward the door; they jostled against each other; they yelled at those who obstructed their egress: "Hurry on! hurry on!"
The entire audience, in a short time, had emerged into the park. Saint Landri alone, in a state of exasperation continued beating time in front of his distracted orchestra. Meanwhile, fiery suns succeeded Roman candles in the midst of detonations.
Suddenly, a formidable voice sent forth thrice this wild exclamation: "Stop, in God's name! Stop, in God's name! Stop, in God's name!"
And, as an immense Bengal fire next illuminated the mountain and lighted up in red to the right and blue to the left, the enormous rocks and trees, Petrus Martel could be seen standing on one of the vases of imitation marble that decorated the terrace of the Casino, bareheaded, with his arms in the air, gesticulating and howling.
Then, the great illumination being extinguished, nothing could be seen any longer save the real stars. But immediately another rocket shot up, and Petrus Martel, jumping on the ground, exclaimed: "What a disaster! what a disaster! My God, what a disaster!"
And he passed through the crowd with tragic gestures, with blows of his fist in the empty air, furious stampings of his feet, always repeating: "What a disaster! My God, what a disaster!"
Christiane had taken Paul's arm to get a seat in the open air, and kept looking with delight at the rockets which ascended into the sky.
Her brother came up to her suddenly, and said: "Hey, is it a success? Do you think it is funny?"
She murmured: "What, it is you?"
"Why, yes, it is I. Is it good, hey?"
She began to laugh, finding it really amusing. But Andermatt arrived in a state of great mental distress. He did not understand how such a blow could have come. The rocket had been stolen from the bar to give the signal agreed upon. Such an infamy could only have been perpetrated by some emissary of the old Company, some agent of Doctor Bonnefille!
And he repeated: "'Tis maddening, positively maddening. Here are fireworks worth two thousand three hundred francs destroyed, entirely destroyed!"
Gontran replied: "No, my dear fellow, on a proper calculation, the loss does not mount up to more than a quarter; let us put it at a third, if you like; say seven hundred and sixty-six francs. Your guests will, therefore, have enjoyed fifteen hundred and thirty-four francs' worth of rockets. This truly is not bad."
The banker's anger turned against his brother-in-law. He caught him roughly by the arm: "Gontran, I want to talk seriously to you. Since I have a hold of you, let us take a turn in the walks. Besides, I have five minutes to spare."
Then, turning toward Christiane: "I place you in charge of our friend Bretigny, my dear; but don't remain a long time out—take care of yourself. You might catch cold, you know. Be careful! be careful!"
She murmured: "Never fear, dear."
So Andermatt carried off Gontran. When they were alone, at a little distance from the crowd, the banker stopped: "My dear fellow, 'tis about your financial position that I want to talk."
"About my financial position?"
"Yes, you know it well, your financial position."
"No. But you ought to know it for me, since you lent money to me."
"Well, yes, I do know it, and 'tis for that reason I want to talk to you."
"It seems to me, to say the least of it, that the moment is ill chosen—in the midst of a display of fireworks!"
"The moment, on the contrary, is very well chosen. I am not talking to you in the midst of a display of fireworks, but before a ball."
"Before a ball? I don't understand."
"Well, you are going to understand. Here is your position: you have nothing except debts; and you'll never have anything but debts."
Gontran gravely replied: "You tell me that a little bluntly."
"Yes, because it is necessary. Listen to me! You have eaten up the share which came to you as a fortune from your mother. Let us say no more about that."
"Let us say no more about it."
"As for your father, he possesses a yearly income of thirty thousand francs, say, a capital of about eight hundred thousand francs. Your share, later on, will, therefore, be four hundred thousand francs. Now you owe me—me, personally—one hundred and ninety thousand francs. You owe money besides to usurers."
Gontran muttered in a haughty tone: "Say, to Jews."
"Be it so, to Jews, although among the number there is a churchwarden from Saint Sulpice who made use of a priest as an intermediary between himself and you—but I will not cavil about such trifles. You owe, then, to various usurers, Israelites or Catholics, nearly as much. Let us put it at a hundred and fifty thousand at the lowest estimate. This makes a total of three hundred and forty thousand francs, on which you are paying interest, always borrowing, except with regard to mine, which you do not pay."
"That's right," said Gontran.
"So then, you have nothing more left."
"Nothing, indeed—except my brother-in-law."
"Except your brother-in-law, who has had enough of lending money to you."
"What then?"
"What then, my dear fellow? The poorest peasant living in one of these huts is richer than you."
"Exactly—and next?"
"Next—next—? If your father were to die tomorrow, you would no longer have any resource to get bread—to get bread, mind you—except to take a post as a clerk in my house. And this again would only be a means of disguising the pension which I should be allowing you."
Gontran, in a tone of irritation, said: "My dear William, these things bore me. I know them, besides, just as well as you do, and, I repeat, the moment is ill chosen to remind me about them—with—with so little diplomacy."
"Allow me, let me finish. You can only extricate yourself from it by a marriage. Now, you are a wretched match, in spite of your name, which sounds well without being illustrious. In short, it is not one of those which an heiress, even a Jewish one, buys with a fortune. Therefore, we must find you a wife acceptable and rich—which is not very easy——"
Gontran interrupted him: "Give her name at once—that is the best way."
"Be it so—one of Père Oriol's daughters, whichever you prefer. And this is why I wanted to talk to you before the ball."
"And now explain yourself at greater length," returned Gontran, coldly.
"It is very simple. You see the success I have obtained at the start with this station. Now if I had in my hands, or rather if we had in our hands all the land which this cunning peasant has kept for himself, I could turn it into gold. To speak only of the vineyards which lie between the establishment and the hotel and between the hotel and the Casino, I would pay a million francs for them to-morrow—I, Andermatt. Now, these vineyards and others all round the knoll will be the dowries of these girls. The father told me so again a short time since, not without an object, perhaps. Well, if you were willing, we could do a big stroke of business there, the two of us."
Gontran muttered, with a thoughtful air: "'Tis possible. I'll think over it."
"Do think over it, my dear boy, and don't forget that I never speak of things that are not very sure, or without having given matters every consideration, and realized all the possible consequences and all the decided advantages."
But Gontran, lifting up his arm, as if he had suddenly forgotten all that his brother-in-law had been saying to him: "Look! How beautiful that is!"
The bunch of rockets flamed up, in imitation of a burning palace on which a blazing flag had inscribed on it "Mont Oriol" in letters of fire perfectly red and, right opposite to it, above the plain, the moon, red also, seemed to have come out to contemplate this spectacle. Then, when the palace, after it had been burning for some minutes, exploded like a ship which is blown up, flinging toward the wide heavens fantastic stars which burst in their turn, the moon remained all alone, calm and round, on the horizon.
The public applauded wildly, exclaiming: "Hurrah! Bravo! bravo!"
Andermatt, all of a sudden, said: "Let us go and open the ball, my dear boy. Are you willing to dance the first quadrille face to face with me?"
"Why, certainly, my dear brother-in-law."
"Who have you thought of asking to dance with you? As for me, I have bespoken the Duchesse de Ramas."
Gontran answered in a tone of indifference: "I will ask Charlotte Oriol."
They reascended. As they passed in front of the spot where Christiane was resting with Paul Bretigny, they did not notice the pair. William murmured: "She has followed my advice. She went home to go to bed. She was quite tired out to-day." And he advanced toward the ballroom which the attendants had been getting ready during the fireworks.
But Christiane had not returned to her room, as her husband supposed. As soon as she realized that she was alone with Paul she said to him in a very low tone, while she pressed his hand:
"So then you came. I was waiting for you for the past month. Every morning I kept asking myself, 'Shall I see him to-day?' and every night I kept saying to myself, 'It will be to-morrow then.' Why have you delayed so long, my love?"
He replied with some embarrassment: "I had matters to engage my attention—business."
She leaned toward him, murmuring: "It was not right to leave me here alone with them, especially in my state."
He moved his chair a little away from her.
"Be careful! We might be seen. These rockets light up the whole country around."
She scarcely bestowed a thought on it; she said: "I love you so much!" Then, with sudden starts of joy: "Ah! how happy I feel, how happy I feel at finding that we are once more together, here! Are you thinking about it? What joy, Paul! How we are going to love one another again!"
She sighed, and her voice was so weak that it seemed a mere breath.
"I feel a foolish longing to embrace you, but it is foolish—there!—foolish. It is such a long time since I saw you!"
Then, suddenly, with the fierce energy of an impassioned woman, to whom everything should give way: "Listen! I want—you understand—I want to go with you immediately to the place where we said adieu to one another last year! You remember well, on the road from La Roche Pradière?"
He replied, stupefied: "But this is senseless! You cannot walk farther. You have been standing all day. This is senseless; I will not allow it."
She had risen to her feet, and she said: "I am determined on it! If you do not accompany me, I'll go alone!"
And pointing out to him the moon which had risen: "See here! It was an evening just like this! Do you remember how you kissed my shadow?"
He held her back: "Christiane—listen—this is ridiculous—Christiane!"
She did not reply, and walked toward the descent leading to the vineyards. He knew that calm will which nothing could divert from its purpose, the graceful obstinacy of these blue eyes, of that little forehead of a fair woman that could not be stopped; and he took her arm to sustain her on her way.
"Supposing we are seen, Christiane?"
"You did not say that to me last year. And then, everyone is at thefête. We'll be back before our absence can be noticed."
It was soon necessary to ascend by the stony path. She panted, leaning with her whole weight on him, and at every step she said:
"It is good, it is good, to suffer thus!"
He stopped, wishing to bring her back. But she would not listen to him.
"No, no. I am happy. You don't understand this, you. Listen! I feel it leaping in me—our child—your child—what happiness. Give me your hand."
She did not realize that he—this man—was one of the race of lovers who are not of the race of fathers. Since he discovered that she was pregnant, he kept away from her, and was disgusted with her, in spite of himself. He had often in bygone days said that a woman who has performed the function of reproduction is no longer worthy of love. What raised him to a high pitch of tenderness was that soaring of two hearts toward an inaccessible ideal, that entwining of two souls which are immaterial—all those artificial and unreal elements which poets have associated with this passion. In the physical woman he adored the Venus whose sacred side must always preserve the pure form of sterility. The idea of a little creature which owed its birth to him, a human larva stirring in that body defiled by it and already grown ugly, inspired him with an almost unconquerable repugnance. Maternity had made this woman a brute. She was no longer the exceptional being adored and dreamed about, but the animal that reproduces its species. And even a material disgust was mingled in him with these loathings of his mind.
How could she have felt or divined this—she whom each movement of the child she yearned for attached the more closely to her lover? This man whom she adored, whom she had every day loved a little more since the moment of their first kiss, had not only penetrated to the bottom of her heart, but had given her the proof that he had also entered into the very depths of her flesh, that he had sown his own life there, that he was going to come forth from her, again becoming quite small. Yes, she carried him there under her crossed hands, himself, her good, her dear, her tenderly beloved one, springing up again in her womb by the mystery of nature. And she loved him doubly, now that she had him in two forms—the big, and the little one as yet unknown, the one whom she saw, touched, embraced, and could hear speaking to her, and the one whom she could up to this only feel stirring under her skin. They had by this time reached the road.
"You were waiting for me over there that evening," said she. And she held her lips out to him.
He kissed them, without replying, with a cold kiss.
She murmured for the second time: "Do you remember how you embraced me on the ground. We were like this—look!"
And in the hope that he would begin it all over again she commenced running to get some distance away from him. Then she stopped, out of breath, and waited, standing in the middle of the road. But the moon, which lengthened out her profile on the ground, traced there the protuberance of her swollen figure. And Paul, beholding at his feet the shadow of her pregnancy, remained unmoved at sight of it, wounded in his poetic sense with shame, exasperated that she was not able to share his feelings or divine his thoughts, that she had not sufficient coquetry, tact, and feminine delicacy to understand all the shade which give such a different complexion to circumstances; and he said to her with impatience in his voice:
"Look here, Christiane! This child's play is ridiculous."
She came back to him moved, saddened, with outstretched arms, and, flinging herself on his breast:
"Ah! you love me less. I feel it! I am sure of it!"
He took pity on her, and, encircling her head with his arms, he imprinted two long sweet kisses on her eyes.
Then in silence they retraced their steps. He could find nothing to say to her; and, as she leaned on him, exhausted by fatigue, he quickened his pace so that he might no longer feel against his side the touch of this enlarged figure. When they were near the hotel, they separated, and she went up to her own apartment.
The orchestra at the Casino was playing dance-music; and Paul went to look at the ball. It was a waltz; and they were all waltzing—Doctor Latonne with the younger Madame Paille, Andermatt with Louise Oriol, handsome Doctor Mazelli with the Duchesse de Ramas, and Gontran with Charlotte Oriol. He was whispering in her ear in that tender fashion which denotes a courtship begun; and she was smiling behind her fan, blushing, and apparently delighted.
Paul heard a voice saying behind him: "Look here! look here at M. de Ravenel whispering gallantries to my fair patient."
He added, after a pause: "And there is a pearl, good, gay, simple, devoted, upright, you know, an excellent creature. She is worth ten of the elder sister. I have known them since their childhood—these little girls. And yet the father prefers the elder one, because she is more—more like him—more of a peasant—less upright—more thrifty—more cunning—and more—more jealous. Ah! she is a good girl, all the same. I would not like to say anything bad of her; but, in spite of myself, I compare them, you understand—and, after having compared them, I judge them—there you are!"
The waltz was coming to an end; Gontran went to join his friend, and, perceiving the doctor:
"Ah! tell me now—there appears to me to be a remarkable increase in the medical body at Enval. We have a Doctor Mazelli who waltzes to perfection and an old little Doctor Black who seems on very good terms with Heaven."
But Doctor Honorat was discreet. He did not like to sit in judgment on his professional brethren.
The burning question now was that of the physicians at Enval. They had suddenly made themselves the masters of the district, and absorbed all the attention and all the enthusiasm of the inhabitants. Formerly the springs flowed under the authority of Doctor Bonnefille alone, in the midst of the harmless animosities of restless Doctor Latonne and placid Doctor Honorat.
Now, it was a very different thing. Since the success planned during the winter by Andermatt had quite taken definite shape, thanks to the powerful co-operation of Professors Cloche, Mas-Roussel, and Remusot, who had each brought there a contingent of two or three hundred patients at least, Doctor Latonne, inspector of the new establishment, had become a big personage, specially patronized by Professor Mas-Roussel, whose pupil he had been, and whose deportment and gestures he imitated.
Doctor Bonnefille was scarcely ever talked about any longer. Furious, exasperated, railing against Mont Oriol, the old physician remained the whole day in the old establishment with a few old patients who had kept faithful to him.
In the minds of some invalids, indeed, he was the only person that understood the true properties of the waters; he possessed, so to speak, their secret, since he had officially administered them from the time the station was first established.
Doctor Honorat barely managed to retain his practice among the natives of Auvergne. With the moderate income he derived from this source he contented himself, keeping on good terms with everybody, and consoled himself by much preferring cards and wine to medicine. He did not, however, go quite so far as to love his professional brethren.
Doctor Latonne would, therefore, have continued to be the great soothsayer of Mont Oriol, if one morning there had not appeared a very small man, nearly a dwarf, whose big head sunk between his shoulders, big round eyes, and big hands combined to produce a very odd-looking individual. This new physician, M. Black, introduced into the district by Professor Remusot immediately excited attention by his excessive devotion. Nearly every morning, between two visits, he went into a church for a few minutes, and he received communion nearly every Sunday. The curé soon got him some patients, old maids, poor people whom he attended for nothing, pious ladies who asked the advice of their spiritual director before calling on a man of science, whose sentiments, reserve, and professional modesty, they wished to know before everything else.
Then, one day, the arrival of the Princess de Maldebourg, an old German Highness, was announced—a very fervent Catholic, who on the very evening when she first appeared in the district, sent for Doctor Black on the recommendation of a Roman cardinal. From that moment he was the fashion. It was good taste, good form, the correct thing, to be attended by him. He was the only doctor, it was said, who was a perfect gentleman—the only one in whom a woman could repose absolute confidence.
And from morning till evening this little man with the bulldog's head, who always spoke in a subdued tone in every corner with everybody, might be seen rushing from one hotel to the other. He appeared to have important secrets to confide or to receive, for he could constantly be met holding long mysterious conferences in the lobbies with the masters of the hotels, with his patients' chambermaids, with anyone who was brought into contact with the invalids. As soon as he saw any lady of his acquaintance in the street, he went straight up to her with his short, quick step, and immediately began to mumble fresh and minute directions, after the fashion of a priest at confession.
The old women especially adored him. He would listen to their stories to the end without interrupting them, took note of all their observations, all their questions, and all their wishes.
He increased or diminished each day the proportion of water to be consumed by his patients, which made them feel perfect confidence in the care taken of them by him.
"We stopped yesterday at two glasses and three-quarters," he would say; "well, to-day we shall only take two glasses and a half, and to-morrow three glasses. Don't forget! To-morrow, three glasses. I am very, very particular about it!"
And all the patients were convinced that he was very particular about it, indeed.
In order not to forget these figures and fractions of figures, he wrote them down in a memorandum-book, in order that he might never make a mistake. For the patient does not pardon a mistake of a single half-glass. He regulated and modified with equal minuteness the duration of the daily baths in virtue of principles known only to himself.
Doctor Latonne, jealous and exasperated, disdainfully shrugged his shoulders, and declared: "This is a swindler!" His hatred against Doctor Black had even led him occasionally to run down the mineral waters. "Since we can scarcely tell how they act, it is quite impossible to prescribe every day modifications of the dose, which any therapeutic law cannot regulate. Proceedings of this kind do the greatest injury to medicine."
Doctor Honorat contented himself with smiling. He always took care to forget, five minutes after a consultation, the number of glasses which he had ordered. "Two more or less," said he to Gontran in his hours of gaiety, "there is only the spring to take notice of it; and yet this scarcely incommodes it!" The only wicked pleasantry that he permitted himself on his religious brother-physician consisted in describing him as "the doctor of the Holy Sitting-Bath." His jealousy was of the prudent, sly, and tranquil kind.
He added sometimes: "Oh, as for him, he knows the patient thoroughly; and this is often better than to know the disease!"
But lo! there arrived one morning at the hotel of Mont Oriol a noble Spanish family, the Duke and Duchess of Ramas-Aldavarra, who brought with her her own physician, an Italian, Doctor Mazelli from Milan. He was a man of thirty, a tall, thin, very handsome young fellow, wearing only mustaches. From the first evening, he made a conquest of thetable d'hôte, for the Duke, a melancholy man, attacked with monstrous obesity, had a horror of isolation, and desired to take his meals in the same dining-room as the other patients. Doctor Mazelli already knew by their names almost all the frequenters of the hotel; he had a kindly word for every man, a compliment for every woman, a smile even for every servant.
Placed at the right-hand side of the Duchess, a beautiful woman of between thirty-five and forty, with a pale complexion, black eyes, blue-black hair, he would say to her as each dish came round:
"Very little," or else, "No, not this," or else, "Yes, take some of that." And he would himself pour out the liquid which she was to drink with very great care, measuring exactly the proportions of wine and water which he mingled.
He also regulated the Duke's food, but with visible carelessness. The patient, however, took no heed of his advice, devoured everything with bestial voracity, drank at every meal two decanters of pure wine, then went tumbling about in a chaise for air in front of the hotel, and began whining with pain and groaning over his bad digestion.
After the first dinner, Doctor Mazelli, who had judged and weighed all around him with a single glance, went to join Gontran, who was smoking a cigar on the terrace of the Casino, told his name, and began to chat. At the end of an hour, they were on intimate terms. Next day, he got himself introduced to Christiane just as she was leaving the bath, won her good-will after ten minutes' conversation, and brought her that very day into contact with the Duchess, who no longer cared for solitude.
He kept watch over everything in the abode of the Spaniards, gave excellent advice to the chef about cooking, excellent hints to the chambermaid on the hygiene of the head in order to preserve in her mistress's hair its luster, its superb shade, and its abundance, very useful information to the coachman about veterinary medicine; and he knew how to make the hours swift and light, to invent distractions, and to pick up in the hotels casual acquaintances but always prudently chosen.
The Duchess said to Christiane, when speaking of him: "He is a wonderful man, dear Madame. He knows everything; he does everything. It is to him that I owe my figure."
"How, your figure?"
"Yes, I was beginning to grow fat, and he saved me with his regimen and his liqueurs."
Moreover, Mazelli knew how to make medicine itself interesting; he spoke about it with such ease, with such gaiety, and with a sort of light scepticism which helped to convince his listeners of his superiority.
"'Tis very simple," said he; "I don't believe in remedies—or rather I hardly believe in them. The old-fashioned medicine started with this principle—that there is a remedy for everything. God, they believe, in His divine bounty, has created drugs for all maladies, only He has left to men, through malice, perhaps, the trouble of discovering these drugs. Now, men have discovered an incalculable number of them without ever knowing exactly what disease each of them is suited for. In reality there are no remedies; there are only maladies. When a malady declares itself, it is necessary to interrupt its course, according to some, to precipitate it, according to others, by some means or another. Each school extols its own method. In the same case, we see the most antagonistic systems employed, and the most opposed kinds of medicine—ice by one and extreme heat by the other, dieting by this doctor and forced nourishment by that. I am not speaking of the innumerable poisonous products extracted from minerals or vegetables, which chemistry procures for us. All this acts, 'tis true, but nobody knows how. Sometimes it succeeds, and sometimes it kills."
And, with much liveliness, he pointed out the impossibility of certainty, the absence of all scientific basis as long as organic chemistry, biological chemistry had not become the starting-point of a new medicine. He related anecdotes, monstrous errors of the greatest physicians, and proved the insanity and the falsity of their pretended science.
"Make the body discharge its functions," said he. "Make the skin, the muscles, all the organs, and, above all, the stomach, which is the foster-father of the entire machine, its regulator and life-warehouse, discharge their functions."
He asserted that, if he liked, by nothing save regimen, he could make people gay or sad, capable of physical work or intellectual work, according to the nature of the diet which he imposed on them. He could even act on the faculties of the brain, on the memory, the imagination, on all the manifestations of intelligence. And he ended jocosely with these words:
"For my part, I nurse my patients with massage and curaçoa."
He attributed marvelous results to massage, and spoke of the Dutchman Hamstrang as of a god performing miracles. Then, showing his delicate white hands:
"With those, you might resuscitate the dead."
And the Duchess added: "The fact is that he performs massage to perfection."
He also lauded alcoholic beverages, in small proportions to excite the stomach at certain moments; and he composed mixtures, cleverly prepared, which the Duchess had to drink, at fixed hours, either before or after her meals.
He might have been seen each morning entering the Casino Café about half past nine and asking for his bottles. They were brought to him fastened with little silver locks of which he had the key. He would pour out a little of one, a little of another, slowly into a very pretty blue glass, which a very correct footman held up respectfully.
Then the doctor would give directions: "See! Bring this to the Duchess in her bath, to drink it, before she dresses herself, when coming out of the water."
And when anyone asked him through curiosity: "What have you put into it?" he would answer: "Nothing but refined aniseed-cordial, very pure curaçoa, and excellent bitters."
This handsome doctor, in a few days, became the center of attraction for all the invalids. And every sort of device was resorted to, in order to attract a few opinions from him.
When he was passing along through the walks in the park, at the hour of promenade, one heard nothing but that exclamation of "Doctor" on all the chairs where sat the beautiful women, the young women, who were resting themselves a little between two glasses of the Christiane Spring. Then, when he stopped with a smile on his lip, they would draw him aside for some minutes into the little path beside the river. At first, they talked about one thing or another; then discreetly, skillfully, coquettishly, they came to the question of health, but in an indifferent fashion as if they were touching on sundry topics.
For this medical man was not at the disposal of the public. He was not paid by them, and people could not get him to visit them at their own houses. He belonged to the Duchess, only to the Duchess. This situation even stimulated people's efforts, and provoked their desires. And, as it was whispered positively that the Duchess was jealous, very jealous, there was a desperate struggle between all these ladies to get advice from the handsome Italian doctor. He gave it without forcing them to entreat him very strenuously.
Then, among the women whom he had favored with his advice arose an interchange of intimate confidences, in order to give clear proof of his solicitude.
"Oh! my dear, he asked me questions—but such questions!"
"Very indiscreet?"
"Oh! indiscreet! Say frightful. I actually did not know what answers to give him. He wanted to know things—but such things!"
"It was the same way with me. He questioned me a great deal about my husband!"
"And me, also—together with details so—so personal! These questions are very embarrassing. However, we understand perfectly well that it is necessary to ask them."
"Oh! of course. Health depends on these minute details. As for me, he promised to perform massage on me at Paris this winter. I have great need of it to supplement the treatment here."
"Tell me, my dear, what do you intend to do in return? He cannot take fees."
"Good heavens! my idea was to present him with a scarf-pin. He must be fond of them, for he has already two or three very nice ones."
"Oh! how you embarrass me! The same notion was in my head. In that case I'll give him a ring."
And they concocted surprises in order to please him, thought of ingenious presents in order to touch him, graceful pleasantries in order to fascinate him. He became the "talk of the day," the great subject of conversation, the sole object of public attention, till the news spread that Count Gontran de Ravenel was paying his addresses to Charlotte Oriol with a view to marrying her. And this at once led to a fresh outburst of deafening clamor in Enval.
Since the evening when he had opened with her the inaugural ball at the Casino, Gontran had tied himself to the young girl's skirts. He publicly showed her all those little attentions of men who want to please without hiding their object; and their ordinary relations assumed at the same time a character of gallantry, playful and natural, which seemed likely to lead to love.
They saw one another nearly every day, for the two girls had conceived feelings of strong friendship toward Christiane, into which, no doubt, there entered a considerable element of gratified vanity. Gontran suddenly showed a disposition to remain constantly at his sister's side; and he began to organize parties for the morning and entertainments for the evening, which greatly astonished Christiane and Paul. Then they noticed that he was devoting himself to Charlotte; he gaily teased her, paid her compliments without appearing to do so, and manifested toward her in a thousand ways that tender care which tends to unite two beings in bonds of affection. The young girl, already accustomed to the free and familiar manners of this gay Parisian youth, did not at first see anything remarkable in these attentions; and, abandoning herself to the impulses of her honest and confiding heart, she began to laugh and enjoy herself with him as she might have done with a brother.
Now, she had returned home with her elder sister, after an evening party at which Gontran had several times attempted to kiss her in consequence of forfeits due by her in a game of "fly-pigeon," when Louise, who had appeared anxious and nervous for some time past, said to her in an abrupt tone:
"You would do well to be a little careful about your deportment. M. Gontran is not a suitable companion for you."
"Not a suitable companion? What has he done?"
"You know well what I mean—don't play the ninny! In the way you're going on, you would soon compromise yourself; and if you don't know how to watch over your conduct, it is my business to see after it."
Charlotte, confused, and filled with shame, faltered: "But I don't know—I assure you—I have seen nothing——"
Her sister sharply interrupted her: "Listen! Things must not go on this way. If he wants to marry you, it is for papa—for papa to consider the matter and to give an answer; but, if he only wants to trifle with you, he must desist at once!"
Then, suddenly, Charlotte got annoyed without knowing why or with what. She was indignant at her sister having taken it on herself to direct her actions and to reprimand her; and, in a trembling voice, and with tears in her eyes, she told her that she should not have interfered in what did not concern her. She stammered in her exasperation, divining by a vague but unerring instinct the jealousy that had been aroused in the embittered heart of Louise.
They parted without embracing one another, and Charlotte wept when she got into bed, as she thought over things that she had never foreseen or suspected.
Gradually her tears ceased to flow, and she began to reflect. It was true, nevertheless, that Gontran's demeanor toward her had altered. She had enjoyed his acquaintance hitherto without understanding him. She understood him now. At every turn he kept repeating to her pretty compliments full of delicate flattery. On one occasion he had kissed her hand. What were his intentions? She pleased him, but to what extent? Was it possible by any chance that he desired to marry her? And all at once she imagined that she could hear somewhere in the air, in the silent night through whose empty spaces her dreams were flitting, a voice exclaiming, "Comtesse de Ravenel."
The emotion was so vivid that she sat up in the bed; then, with her naked feet, she felt for her slippers under the chair over which she had thrown her clothes, and she went to open the window without consciousness of what she was doing, in order to find space for her hopes. She could hear what they were saying in the room below stairs, and Colosse's voice was raised: "Let it alone! let it alone! There will be time enough to see to it. Father will arrange that. There is no harm up to this. 'Tis father that will do the thing."
She noticed that the window in front of the house, just below that at which she was standing, was still lighted up. She asked herself: "Who is there now? What are they talking about?" A shadow passed over the luminous wall. It was her sister. So then, she had not yet gone to bed. Why? But the light was presently extinguished; and Charlotte began to think about other things that were agitating her heart.
She could not go to sleep now. Did he love her? Oh! no; not yet. But he might love her, since she had caught his fancy. And if he came to love her much, desperately, as people love in society, he would certainly marry her.
Born in a house of vinedressers, she had preserved, although educated in the young ladies' convent at Clermont, the modesty and humility of a peasant girl. She used to think that she might marry a notary, perhaps, or a barrister or a doctor; but the ambition to become a real lady of high social position, with a title of nobility attached to her name had never entered her mind. Even when she had just finished the perusal of some love-story, and was musing over the glimpse presented to her of such a charming prospect for a few minutes, it would speedily Vanish from her soul just as chimeras vanish. Now, here was this unforeseen, inconceivable thing, which had been suddenly conjured up by some words of her sister, apparently drawing near her after the fashion of a ship's sail driven onward by the wind.
Every time she drew breath, she kept repeating with her lips: "Comtesse de Ravenel." And the shades of her dark eyelashes, as they closed in the night, were illuminated with visions. She saw beautiful drawing-rooms brilliantly lighted up, beautiful women greeting her with smiles, beautiful carriages waiting before the steps of a château, and grand servants in livery bowing as she passed.
She felt heated in her bed; her heart was beating. She rose up a second time in order to drink a glass of water, and to remain standing in her bare feet for a few moments on the cold floor of her apartment.
Then, somewhat calmed, she ended by falling asleep. But she awakened at dawn, so much had the agitation of her heart passed into her veins.
She felt ashamed of her little room with its white walls, washed with water by a rustic glazier, her poor cotton curtains, and some straw-chairs which never quitted their place at the two corners of her chest of drawers.
She realized that she was a peasant in the midst of these rude articles of furniture which bespoke her origin. She felt herself lowly, unworthy of this handsome, mocking young fellow, whose fair hair and laughing face had floated before her eyes, had disappeared from her vision and then come back, had gradually engrossed her thoughts, and had already found a place in her heart.
Then she jumped out of bed and ran to look for her glass, her little toilette-glass, as large as the center of a plate; after that, she got into bed again, her mirror between her hands; and she looked at her face surrounded by her hair which hung loose on the white background of the pillow.
Presently she laid down on the bedclothes the little piece of glass which reflected her lineaments, and she thought how difficult it would be for such an alliance to take place, so great was the distance between them. Thereupon a feeling of vexation seized her by the throat. But immediately afterward she gazed at her image, once more smiling at herself in order to look nice, and, as she considered herself pretty, the difficulties disappeared.
When she went down to breakfast, her sister, who wore a look of irritation, asked her:
"What do you propose to do to-day?"
Charlotte replied unhesitatingly: "Are we not going in the carriage to Royat with Madame Andermatt?"
Louise returned: "You are going alone, then; but you might do something better, after what I said to you last night."
The younger sister interrupted her: "I don't ask for your advice—mind your own business!"
And they did not speak to one another again.
Père Oriol and Jacques came in, and took their seats at the table. The old man asked almost immediately: "What are you doing to-day, girls?"
Charlotte said without giving her sister time to answer: "As for me, I am going to Royat with Madame Andermatt."
The two men eyed her with an air of satisfaction; and the father muttered with that engaging smile which he could put on when discussing any business of a profitable character: "That's good! that's good!"
She was more surprised at this secret complacency which she observed in their entire bearing than at the visible anger of Louise; and she asked herself, in a somewhat disturbed frame of mind: "Can they have been talking this over all together?"
As soon as the meal was over, she went up again to her room, put on her hat, seized her parasol, threw a light cloak over her arm, and she went off in the direction of the hotel, for they were to start at half past one.
Christiane expressed her astonishment at finding that Louise had not come.
Charlotte felt herself flushing as she replied: "She is a little fatigued; I believe she has a headache."
And they stepped into the landau, the big landau with six seats, which they always used. The Marquis and his daughter remained at the lower end, while the Oriol girl found herself seated at the opposite side between the two young men.
They passed in front of Tournoel; they proceeded along the foot of the mountain, by a beautiful winding road, under the walnut and chestnut-trees. Charlotte several times felt conscious that Gontran was pressing close up to her, but was too prudent to take offense at it. As he sat at her right-hand side, he spoke with his face close to her cheek; and she did not venture to turn round to answer him, through fear of touching his mouth, which she felt already on her lips, and also through fear of his eyes, whose glance would have unnerved her.
He whispered in her ear gallant absurdities, laughable fooleries, agreeable and well-turned compliments.
Christiane scarcely uttered a word, heavy and sick from her pregnancy. And Paul appeared sad, preoccupied. The Marquis alone chatted without unrest or anxiety, in the sprightly, graceful style of a selfish old nobleman.
They got down at the park of Royat to listen to the music, and Gontran, offering Charlotte his arm, set forth with her in front. The army of bathers, on the chairs, around the kiosk, where the leader of the orchestra was keeping time with the brass instruments and the violins, watched the promenaders filing past. The women exhibited their dresses by stretching out their legs as far as the bars of the chairs in front of them, and their dainty summer head-gear made them look more fascinating.
Charlotte and Gontran sauntered through the midst of the people who occupied the seats, looking out for faces of a comic type to find materials for their pleasantries.
Every moment he heard some one saying behind them: "Look there! what a pretty girl!" He felt flattered, and asked himself whether they took her for his sister, his wife, or his mistress.
Christiane, seated between her father and Paul, saw them passing several times, and thinking they exhibited too much youthful frivolity, she called them over to her to soberize them. But they paid no attention to her, and went on vagabondizing through the crowd, enjoying themselves with their whole hearts.
She said in a whisper to Paul Bretigny: "He will finish by compromising her. It will be necessary that we should speak to him this evening when he comes back."
Paul replied: "I had already thought about it. You are quite right."
They went to dine in one of the restaurants of Clermont-Ferrand, those of Royat being no good, according to the Marquis, who was a gourmand, and they returned at nightfall.
Charlotte had become serious, Gontran having strongly pressed her hand, while presenting her gloves to her, before she quitted the table. Her young girl's conscience was suddenly troubled. This was an avowal! an advance! an impropriety! What ought she to do? Speak to him? but about what? To be offended would be ridiculous. There was need of so much tact in these circumstances. But by doing nothing, by saying nothing, she produced the impression of accepting his advances, of becoming his accomplice, of answering "yes" to this pressure of the hand.
And she weighed the situation, accusing herself of having been too gay and too familiar at Royat, thinking just now that her sister was right, that she was compromised, lost! The carriage rolled along the road. Paul and Gontran smoked in silence; the Marquis slept; Christiane gazed at the stars; and Charlotte found it hard to keep back her tears—for she had swallowed three glasses of champagne.
When they had got back, Christiane said to her father: "As it is dark, you have to see this young girl home."
The Marquis, without delay, offered her his arm, and went off with her.
Paul laid his hands on Gontran's shoulders, and whispered in his ear: "Come and have five minutes' talk with your sister and myself."
And they went up to the little drawing-room communicating with the apartments of Andermatt and his wife.
When they were seated, Christiane said: "Listen! M. Paul and I want to give you a good lecture."
"A good lecture! But about what? I'm as wise as an image for want of opportunities."
"Don't trifle! You are doing a very imprudent and very dangerous thing without thinking on it. You are compromising this young girl."
He appeared much astonished. "Who is that? Charlotte?"
"Yes, Charlotte!"
"I'm compromising Charlotte?—I?"
"Yes, you are compromising her. Everyone here is talking about it, and this evening again in the park at Royat you have been very—very light. Isn't that so, Bretigny?"
Paul answered: "Yes, Madame, I entirely share your sentiments."
Gontran turned his chair around, bestrode it like a horse, took a fresh cigar, lighted it, then burst out laughing.
"Ha! so then I am compromising Charlotte Oriol?"
He waited a few seconds to see the effect of his words, then added: "And who told you I did not intend to marry her?"
Christiane gave a start of amazement.
"Marry her? You? Why, you're mad!"
"Why so?"
"That—that little peasant girl!"
"Tra! la! la! Prejudices! Is it from your husband you learned them?"
As she made no response to this direct argument, he went on, putting both questions and answers himself:
"Is she pretty?—Yes! Is she well educated?—Yes! And more ingenuous, more simple, and more honest than girls in good society. She knows as much as another, for she can speak both English and the language of Auvergne—that makes two foreign languages. She will be as rich as any heiress of the Faubourg Saint-Germain—as it was formerly called (they are now going to christen it Faubourg Sainte-Deche)—and finally, if she is a peasant's daughter, she'll be only all the more healthy to present me with fine children. Enough!"
As he had always the appearance of laughing and jesting, Christiane asked hesitatingly: "Come! are you speaking seriously?"
"Faith, I am! She is charming, this little girl! She has a good heart and a pretty face, a genial character and a good temper, rosy cheeks, bright eyes, white teeth, ruby lips, and flowing tresses, glossy, thick, and full of soft folds. And then her vinedressing father will be as rich as Croesus, thanks to your husband, my dear sister. What more do you want? The daughter of a peasant! Well, is not the daughter of a peasant as good as any of those money-lenders' daughters who pay such high prices for dukes with doubtful titles, or any of the daughters born of aristocratic prostitution whom the Empire has given us, or any of the daughters with double sires whom we meet in society? Why, if I did marry this girl I should be doing the first wise and rational act of my life!"
Christiane reflected, then, all of a sudden, convinced, overcome, delighted, she exclaimed:
"Why, all you have said is true! It is quite true, quite right! So then you are going to marry her, my little Gontran?"
It was he who now sought to moderate her ardor. "Not so quick—not so quick—let me reflect in my turn. I only declare that, if I did marry her, I would be doing the first wise and rational act of my life. That does not go so far as saying that I will marry her; but I am thinking over it; I am studying her, I am paying her a little attention to see if I can like her sufficiently. In short, I don't answer 'yes' or 'no,' but it is nearer to 'yes' than to 'no.'"
Christiane turned toward Paul: "What do you think of it, Monsieur Bretigny?"
She called him at one time Monsieur Bretigny, and at another time Bretigny only.
He, always fascinated by the things in which he imagined he saw an element of greatness, by unequal matches which seemed to him to exhibit generosity, by all the sentimental parade in which the human heart masks itself, replied: "For my part I think he is right in this. If he likes her, let him marry her; he could not find better."
But, the Marquis and Andermatt having returned, they had to talk about other subjects; and the two young men went to the Casino to see whether the gaming-room was still open.
From that day forth Christiane and Paul appeared to favor Gontran's open courtship of Charlotte.
The young girl was more frequently invited to the hotel by Christiane, and was treated in fact as if she were already a member of the family. She saw all this clearly, understood it, and was quite delighted at it. Her little head throbbed like a drum, and went building fantastic castles in Spain. Gontran, in the meantime had said nothing definite to her; but his demeanor, all his words, the tone that he assumed with her, his more serious air of gallantry, the caress of his glance seemed every day to keep repeating to her: "I have chosen you; you are to be my wife."
And the tone of sweet affection, of discreet self-surrender, of chaste reserve which she now adopted toward him, seemed to give this answer: "I know it, and I'll say 'yes' whenever you ask for my hand."
In the young girl's family, the matter was discussed in confidential whispers. Louise scarcely opened her lips now except to annoy her with hurtful allusions, with sharp and sarcastic remarks. Père Oriol and Jacques appeared to be content.