"You will be very careful about cutting it?"

"Yes, yes! I must run now, or my aunt will say that I have been gossiping."

The young woman took all the volumes under her arm and went out, after casting another rapid glance in my direction.

She was succeeded by a woman with a round cap and calico wrapper. She brought back only a single book, which she laid on the desk, saying:

"Great heaven! we had hard work to finish it! I thought that we would never see the end!"

"It is true that you have had the book nearly a month."

"Oh, dear me! we don't read fast at our house; you see, as a general thing, my man reads to me while I am working; and as he still has the catarrh, he stops at every comma to cough. Never mind, it's mighty interesting. I cried hard with that poor girl who spends fifteen years in the underground dungeon, with nothing but bread and water to eat. She must have had a good stomach, I tell you, not to be sick."

"Do you want something else?"

"Yes, to be sure. Something about robbers, if you please, and about ghosts, if you have anything, because a novel with robbers and ghosts in it can't help being interesting. Oh! and then I want something with pictures, some of those lovely pictures of crimes. I am very fond of pictures, I am; and then you see, I say to myself: 'a novel that they don't spend the money to put pictures in, why it can't have Peru behind it.' Don't I hit the mark?"

"Here is something, madame, that will interest you greatly."

"What is it?"

"_The Ghosts of the Nameless Chateau_, or _The Brigands of the Abandoned Quarry_."

"Ah! what a splendid t.i.tle! what a ring there is to it! Let's look at the pictures. A man eating a skeleton. Bless my soul! that must be good.

I don't want to see any more; I'll take the _Ghosts_, and I'll go and buy some jujube paste for my husband, so that he won't cough quite so much when he's reading."

The worthy woman who loved pictures was succeeded by an elderly man who also wanted a novel. He was asked what sort of story he wanted; but it mattered little to him: he wanted it to read in bed at night, something that would put him to sleep right away. What he wanted was found at once.

After him came a lady on the decline. She brought back a volume of memoirs, and she wanted more memoirs; according to her, memoirs were the only proper thing to read. When a lady has pa.s.sed the age for making conquests, I can understand that memoirs seem instructive to her and also pleasant reading; to her the past has more charm than the present.

Being no longer able to tell us of what she does, she desires that we should be interested in what she has done; that is one way to keep people talking about her. After a life of adventures, she considers that to cease to occupy the public attention is a living death. Poor creature! I am sorry for her; she dies twice over. But see how mistaken she is! she falls into oblivion while seeking immortality; and there are some excellent mothers of families, simple, virtuous women, who nevertheless do not die altogether, for all who have known them treasure their images and their memories in the depths of their hearts.

The lady of the memoirs went away with eight octavo volumes under her arm. Next came an old gentleman powdered and musked as in the days of the Regency. He wore a little three-cornered hat which did not approach his ears, and a silk m.u.f.fler over his coat, although it was only the first of October. This gentleman nodded patronizingly to the proprietress and placed two volumes on her desk.

"What the devil did you give me this for?" he said; "it's a wretched, detestable book."

"What! didn't you like it, monsieur? Why, it has been generally praised."

"I promise you that it will not be praised by me!"

"Then monsieur does not want the sequel? There are two more volumes."

"No, indeed, I don't want the sequel. It was as much as I could do to read three pages."

"Was that enough to enable you to judge?"

"Yes, madame; I always judge by the first few lines. I want something good, something useful--a romance of the times of chivalry, for example."

"I have _Amadis de Gaule_."

"I have read that."

"_Genevieve de Cornouailles._"

"I've read it."

"The _Chevaliers du Cygne_."

"I've read it. I've read all the old books of that sort. Give me a new one."

"Why, romances of chivalry are seldom written nowadays."

"What's that! seldom written? Why aren't they written, pray? You must have some written, madame; you must order some from your novel writers."

"They say that they are no longer in vogue, monsieur."

"They don't know what they are talking about; there is nothing else so good; that is the true type of novel. But these modern authors do not understand the taste of their readers. They write books in which they aim to be bright and realistic. They draw pictures of society, as if such things could be compared with a description of a tournament! In the old days they used to write much better novels. Those of the younger Crebillon were not without merit; those of Mademoiselle de Scudery were a little too long, I admit; but _Le Sopha_, _Le Bijoux Indiscrets_, and _Angola_--those are fine stories, sparkling with delectable details!"

"If monsieur would like _L'Enfant du Carnaval_, by Pigault-Lebrun, that too is full of very amusing incidents."

"No, madame, no; I don't read such books as that. What do you take me for? That is so broad! why, there's a certain dish of spinach, which----"

"Which makes one laugh, monsieur, whereas your Angola makes one blush, or even worse."

"Madame, give me a romance of chivalry. I want to teach my grandson, and certainly that is the only sort of reading that can be at once useful and agreeable to him."

"Would monsieur like _Don Quixote_?"

"_Don Quixote_! fie, madame! your Cervantes is an impertinent fellow, a knave, a sneak, who presumes to ridicule the n.o.blest, most gallant, most revered things in the world! If that Cervantes had lived in my time, madame, I would have made him retract his _Don Quixote_, or else, by the shades of my ancestors, I swear that he would have pa.s.sed an uncomfortable quarter of an hour!"

The proprietress pretended to have a paroxysm of coughing in order to conceal her desire to laugh. As for myself, I could not contain myself, I burst out laughing and the paper fell from my hands. The man with the m.u.f.fler turned in my direction; he eyed me indignantly and put his right hand to his left side, whether in search of a sword, in order to treat me as he would have treated Miguel Cervantes, I do not know. But, instead of a weapon, his hand came into contact with nothing more than a bonbon box; he opened that, and took out two or three pastilles which he put in his mouth with a dignified air, and said to the woman:

"Come, let us have done with this. What are you going to give me, madame?"

"Perhaps monsieur is not familiar with the story of the _Quatre Fils Aymon_?"

"I have read it three times, but I shall be glad to read it again. Give me the story of the _Fils Aymon_, and I will let my grandson meditate upon it; it will not be my fault if I do not make a Richardet of him."

The gentleman put the book under his m.u.f.fler; then he flashed an angry glance at me, and probably proposed to make a very dignified exit; unfortunately, as he glanced at me, he failed to see a lady who was coming in; and when he turned, he collided with her; the lady's hat knocked off his three-cornered one, which was carefully balanced on his head. The little old man picked up his hat and pulled it over his eyes, muttering: "What are we coming to?" and went out, slamming the door so viciously that he nearly broke all the gla.s.s, which action I considered by no means worthy of an old chevalier.

The lady who had knocked off the little hat was young and rather pretty; a half veil thrown back over her hood did not conceal her features; indeed, her eyes did not indicate a person who shrank from being noticed; far from it. But there was in her dress a mixture of coquetry and slovenliness, of pretension and poverty; she had in her hand a pamphlet which she tossed upon the desk, saying:

"I have brought back the _Chevilles de Maitre Adam_; how much do I owe you?"

"Six sous, mademoiselle."

"What! six sous for a farce which I have kept only three days,--just long enough to copy my part?"

"That is the price, mademoiselle. You gave me thirty sous as security; here's twenty-four."