Monsieur Giraud was a man of forty years of age; he had been a government clerk, a notary's clerk, a lottery collector; he had done many things, and I fancy that he had done nothing well; but he was as prying and inquisitive as a concierge, and he even pretended to be a ladies' man, although he was very ugly and his breath made his coming perceptible three yards away; which did not prevent him from speaking right into your face, the ordinary mania of people who have that infirmity.

Madame Giraud was about her husband's age. She was neither ugly nor beautiful; but unfortunately she was as pretentious as he, she always dressed like a provincial actress, and above all was determined to appear slender, at the risk of being unable to breathe.

Then there was a son of eleven, who was the very picture of his father and who still played with a Noah's ark; another son of four, who was allowed to do exactly as he pleased, and who abused the license to such an extent that there was not a whole piece of furniture in the house; and lastly, there was a little girl of eight, who a.s.sumed to play the mistress and to whip her two brothers, to show that she had already reached the age of reason. Add to these an ill-tempered dog which barked for five minutes at every new arrival, and a stout cat which always wore a collar of corks and had a plaster on its head, and you will know the whole Giraud family. I say nothing of the servant, because they changed servants every fortnight.

I do not know whether those people were rich--I am not in the habit of prying into things which do not concern me--but I do not think that they were in such comfortable circ.u.mstances as they chose to make it appear.

I have an idea that Monsieur Giraud, who tried to marry all the bachelors whom he met, exacted a commission--_droit_--for such marriages as he arranged; and it surely was not the _droit du seigneur_.[A]

[A] The _droit du seigneur_ was the privilege enjoyed by the feudal lord of first sharing the bed of every newly-married woman among his feudatories.

I reached the house. I went up to the third floor. I heard children crying and recognized the voices of Mademoiselle Josephine Giraud and her older brother. Blended with them were the strains of a piano and a flute, from which I concluded that the party was at its height.

I entered the dining room. A maid whom I did not know was filling gla.s.ses with sugar and water; I thought that she tasted it to make sure that it was good. The brother and sister were quarrelling over a piece of cake. At that moment Monsieur Giraud came from the salon, carrying in his hand a lamp with a globe; he came toward me with his lamp.

"Is it you, my dear Monsieur Blemont? Delighted to see you. Ah! why didn't you come a little earlier? Ceran just sang, and he was in fine voice; it was wonderful! And we have just had a concerted piece for the flute and piano. Two amateurs; and they played it with extraordinary fire. This infernal lamp won't burn; I don't know what's the matter with it. Come in, come in. We have a lot of people. There will be more singing. And there are some very pretty women; there are several marriageable ones, my dear fellow, and with good dowries. If you should happen to want--you know, you will have to come to it at last.--The devil take this lamp; the wick is new, too."

I entered the salon, but it was very difficult to move there; in the first place, the room was not large, and the ladies were all seated in a circle which no man was permitted to break as yet; so that one must needs be content to walk behind the ladies' chairs, at the risk of disturbing some of them, or of treading on the feet of the men who were standing in the narrow pa.s.sage. I know no greater bore than a party where the ladies are drawn up in that way, like borders in a garden, not talking with the men, and intent solely upon staring at one another from the top of the head to the soles of the feet, in order to see what they may criticise. To add to the discomfort which always prevails in such an a.s.semblage, the salon was very dimly lighted: a large lamp, the mate of the one I had seen in Giraud's hands, diffused only a vague light; and a few candles, placed at considerable distances apart on the furniture, were not sufficient to supplement the light furnished by the lamps. All this, added to the silence of the ladies and to the low whisperings in which the gentlemen ventured to indulge, imparted a touch of gloom and mystery to the function; one might have imagined oneself at Robertson's theatre during the phantasmagoria.

I spied Madame Giraud in the pa.s.sageway. She saw me too, and tried to come to me by pushing aside several gentlemen, and smiling at those who moved only half enough, so that they might have the pleasure of rubbing against her. At last we met. As I could not understand the behavior of those gentlemen, who talked in low tones as if they were at church, I ventured to inquire for the hostess's health in my ordinary voice, which drew all eyes toward me for a moment; it did not produce an ill effect however, for several young men, who probably had not dared to break the ice, at once began to talk more freely, and the mysterious whisperings became less frequent.

"If you had come sooner," said Madame Giraud, "you would have heard a fine performance. Ah! we had something very fine just now."

I was tempted to reply that it was not at all fine at present, but I did not do it; in society it is not safe to say all that one thinks; one who did so would be very unwelcome. In a moment, Madame Giraud exclaimed:

"Where on earth is Monsieur Giraud? What is he doing with his lamp? This one won't go now! How unpleasant it is!--What do you think of that young woman by the fireplace? Forty-five thousand francs in cash, and expectations. That is not to be despised. You will hear her in a moment: she is going to sing something Italian. Ah! how angry Monsieur Giraud makes me!"

At last Monsieur Giraud reappeared, proudly carrying the lamp, which diffused a brilliant light. He placed it on a table, saying:

"It will go now. There was only a little thing to fix."

"You must do the same with the other one now," said Madame Giraud, "for, as you see, that won't burn."

"Ah! that's so. Well! I'll take it out and do the same thing to it."

Madame Giraud detained her husband as he was going to take the other lamp, and said to him in an undertone, but not so low that I could not hear her:

"Just fancy that Dufloc refusing to sing!"

"The deuce! really?"

"He says that he has a cold."

"It's just spitefulness. It's because we haven't invited him to dinner."

"We must start something, however. There's no life at all in the thing."

"We had better begin the dancing right away."

"No, monsieur, it's too early."

"Then try to get Montausol and his wife to sing, or Mademoiselle Dupuis.

Arrange that, while I attend to the lamp."

The husband and wife separated, and I, taking advantage of the renewed light, thought about fulfilling my mission, and I pa.s.sed the company in review, to see if Montdidier and his chaste spouse were present.

There were in truth some very pretty women in that salon, and they would have been still more so if, instead of the yawns which they strove to dissemble, their faces had been enlivened by pleasure. There was one especially, near the piano; she was evidently unmarried. She was charming; her face betokened sweet temper and intelligence, and those are two qualities which one rarely sees in the same face. Lovely fair hair, not too light, blue eyes not too staring, a pretty mouth, a very white skin, pink cheeks, and refined taste in her dress and the arrangement of her hair; it seemed to me that there was refinement in every curl. She did not seem to be bored, which fact indicated that she was accustomed to society.

That young woman's lovely eyes caused me to lose sight of Belan and his errand. But I suddenly spied Madame Montdidier. She was talking and laughing with the lady beside her. That seemed to me a good sign: if she had had a scene with her husband, it seemed to me that she would not be in such good spirits. To be sure, in society, people are very skilful in concealing their sentiments. I determined to look for the husband; a man is less adroit in concealing what he feels. Even he who is not in love with his wife feels that his self-esteem is wounded when he is certain that he is betrayed. That feeling should be visible on the face when it is so recent. Poor husbands! how we laugh at them so long as we are bachelors! For my part, I hoped to laugh as heartily when I should be married. In the first place, I flattered myself that I should have a virtuous wife; a man should always flatter himself to that extent; and then--if--Bless my soul! is it such a terrible thing? I remembered La Fontaine's two lines:

"When one knows it, 'tis a very trifle; When one knows it not, 'tis nothing at all."

I did not discover Montdidier in that salon. I thought that he might perhaps be in the bedroom, where they were playing ecarte. I tried to go there; but it was not an easy matter. I wondered if no one would make bold to break the circle formed by those ladies, and I determined to seize the first opportunity.

The dog barked; that announced new arrivals. That dog played to perfection the part of a servant. The newcomers were ladies. So much the better; it would be necessary to break the circle in order to enlarge it. And that is what actually happened. As soon as I saw an opening, I stepped in. A young man, who was not sorry for an opportunity to approach a certain lady, followed my example; then another, and another; the old story of Panurge's sheep. The circle was definitely broken. The men mingled with the ladies; it became possible to move about, and it was to me that they owed it! I had caused a revolution in Giraud's salon; a revolution, however, that did not cause anybody's death.

I had instinctively drawn near to the attractive young woman whom I had admired at a distance. She seemed to me still more attractive at closer quarters. I forgot that Belan was waiting before a gla.s.s of sugar and water, for me to bring him life or death. It was hard for me to leave the place where I was.

But the piano began again--someone was going to sing. It seemed to me that I might remain long enough to hear the performance. It proved to be the Montausols, who were about to give us a duet. They must have been a very united couple; one of them never sang without the other. Imagine a short but enormously stout man, whose violet cheeks seemed on the point of bursting when he drew a breath, and who consequently was a frightful object when he sang in a stentorian voice that vibrated like a ba.s.s-viol. His wife was very short too, and at least as stout as her husband; she seemed to suffer terribly in her efforts to produce from her chest shrill tones that pierced the drum of the ear. The couple had a pa.s.sion for difficult pieces; they proposed to regale us with grand opera. A lady was seated at the piano. The husband glanced at his wife, puffing like a bull during the prelude; the wife looked at her husband, raising one of her hands to mark the time. Each seemed to say to the other:

"Now, stand to your guns! Let us carry this by storm! Let us deafen them!"

The recitative began; at the third measure the audience no longer knew where they were. The husband and wife hurled their notes at each other as two tennis players drive the ball with all their strength. When one of them made a mistake or lagged behind, the other's eyes flashed fire, and he or she moved his whole body in order to restore the time.

As I had not sufficient self-control to watch the two singers with a sober face, I turned my eyes toward that young woman who was close beside me; that was the best way to forget the music. She was not laughing, but I fancied that I could see that she was biting her lips.

It is a fact that one is sometimes sorely embarra.s.sed to keep a sober face in a salon. She had raised her eyes toward me; she seemed more embarra.s.sed than before, and turned her head away. Perhaps my persistent scrutiny had offended her; perhaps it was ill-bred to gaze at her so fixedly. I did not think of that. I did it, not so that she should notice me, but because I took pleasure in looking at her. I made haste to turn my eyes in another direction, to give attention to the music.

That wretched duet went on and on. The husband and wife perspired profusely. It occurred to me that they should be treated like those gymnasts to whom the spectators shout to stop when their performances become too terrifying.

I was amusing myself by watching our melomaniacs, when the lights suddenly went down; Montausol leaned over the music, and during the pauses in his part exclaimed impatiently:

"Snuff the candles, snuff the candles, I say! We can't see at all."

But the darkness was not due to the candles; it was the lamp which Giraud had fixed, which had suddenly lost all its brilliancy. Madame Giraud hastily summoned her husband, who was still busy over the other lamp. Giraud appeared with a huge pair of scissors in his hand and exclaimed:

"I don't understand it at all; it can't be the oil, for that is new."

"Papa," said the little girl, "I saw my brother Alexandre putting little lead men in the lamp yesterday."

"Parbleu! if that little rascal has been playing with the lamps, I don't wonder they won't burn. My wife lets him play with everything! Some day he'll upset my desk."

"It is impossible for me to scold my children," said Madame Giraud to the people nearest her. "As soon as they seem to be unhappy, I am ready to be ill. And then little Alexandre is so cunning, so sweet!"

The mother was interrupted by a loud noise in the reception room; the dog barked and the little girl appeared at the door of the salon, crying:

"My little brother just upset the waiter with the gla.s.ses on it."

This incident turned the whole household topsy-turvy: the mother ran to her broken gla.s.ses; the father left his lamps to try to catch his son; and little Alexandre ran between everybody's legs and finally crawled under a sofa, sticking his tongue out at his father.

The duet came to an end amid this uproar; indeed the singers had continued to sing after the other guests had ceased to pay any heed to them. So the Montausols left the piano, in evident ill humor. They took seats behind me, saying to each other: