CHAPTER VIII

CONVERSATION BY THE FIRESIDE

It was really for little Blanche that somebody was singing and accompanying himself on the guitar. Lovers are the most imprudent of mortals. Urbain in loving Blanche was experiencing love for the first time, for he would have scorned to have given the name of love to those momentary caprices of the fancy which are extinguished as soon as gratified; and even at the early date at which we are writing, the young men permitted themselves to have such whims; but when they loved truly that lasted in those good old times, or so they say, much longer than it does today, at least among the little shopkeepers. The great have always had their privileges, in love as in everything else.

A first love causes one to commit many imprudences; but the second time that one's heart is a.s.sailed by the tender pa.s.sion, one has a little more experience; and the third time, one knows how to hide his play. It is necessary to become habituated to everything; and if women do not invariably hold to their first love, are not invariably faithful to it, it is only that they may acquire this habituation, and it would ill become us to call it a crime in them.

But Urbain disturbed himself very little, as it will appear; he had unceasingly before his eyes the face of the enchantress he had perceived at the window, and he ardently desired to see her when there should be nothing between them. What he had heard from the gossips of the neighborhood had strengthened his hope and perhaps added to the feeling he already experienced for her, for there was something romantic in the history of the young orphan; extraordinary events inflame the imagination, and that of a lover takes fire very easily.

But before seeking to surmount the obstacles which stood in the way of gaining the one he loved it was first necessary to obtain her love, without which all his plans could avail him nothing. One may brave the jealousy of a rival, the watchfulness of a tutor, anger, vengeance, and the daggers of a thousand Arguses; but one cannot brave the indifference of the beloved object. Before that obstacle all prospects of happiness vanish. A very much smitten lover wishes to find a heart which responds to his own. That brutal love which is satisfied with the possession of the body, without caring for that of the soul, could only exist among the petty tyrants of former times, who plundered travellers and achieved the conquest of women at the point of the sword; then, putting their victims behind them on their horses, as a custom-house officer possesses himself of contraband goods, went off to enjoy themselves with their booty in the depths of their fastness, troubling themselves very little that the unhappy creatures responded to their loathsome caresses only with tears.

Today love is more delicate. Before everything, one desires to please; and with his guineas the great lord wishes to touch the heart as well as the hand of the pretty dancer; and he succeeds, because dancers generally carry their hearts in their hands.

While taking his humble meal Urbain said to himself,--

"How shall I see her? How shall I make myself known to her?

Blanche--what a pretty name! and how well it suits her! But the barber doesn't seem very tractable; his house is a veritable fortress. It is necessary, before everything, that that charming girl should know that I love her, that I adore her. This morning she listened to the musicians, and appeared to be greatly pleased with the last romance they sang. I know that romance; I'll go this evening and sing it under her window; perhaps she will show herself; perhaps at night she opens her window to take the air."

The air was a little nipping, for the season was severe; but a lover always believes it is springtime. Delighted by the idea Urbain went home to get his guitar, and waited impatiently, until the streets should be deserted, to go and serenade a woman whom he did not know.

This Spanish custom was then much in fashion in France. There are still some little towns where it is preserved, and where one may hear between ten and eleven o'clock sentimental songs accompanied by the guitar; but in the great capitals it is only the blind and the organ-grinders who sing love in the streets.

The hour propitious to lovers having arrived, Urbain went to the Rue des Bourdonnais; he had easily recognized the barber's house, having specially noted it in the morning; a feeble light which shone between the curtains of Blanche's window seemed to indicate that the young girl was not yet sleeping, and, without reflecting that the other dwellers in the house would hear him, Urbain had sung with the most tender expression he could put in his voice.

We have seen what followed on this imprudence. At the sound of bolts being drawn, the young man softly departed, and, hiding at the entrance of the Rue des Mauvaises-Paroles, he heard the threats and the swearing of Touquet.

"He's escaped," said the barber, reentering the lower room and angrily throwing his sword on the table. These words seemed to break the charm which held Rolande in his scabbard; and Chaudoreille, drawing his sword suddenly, and making it flash in the air, ran precipitately into the shop, crying,--

"And now, master singers, I'll let you see something fierce."

"Don't I tell you there's no one there," repeated Touquet, while Chaudoreille appeared to wish to draw the bolts of the door. "I made too much noise; the rascal heard me and ran off."

"Are you quite certain there's n.o.body there?" said Chaudoreille, still brandishing his sword.

"Yes, quite sure."

"I have a great inclination to go into the street and satisfy myself as to that."

"Do as you please about it; you are your own master."

"No; on reflection, I believe that would be a blunder; they may perhaps come back; it will be better to let them approach without fear; then we can fell suddenly upon them, and give them no quarter."

So saying, the chevalier put Rolande into the scabbard and returned to the lower room, where he seated himself before the fire and again filled his cup with wine, which he swallowed at one draught, to cool--so he said--his anger.

The barber strode up and down; he was strongly agitated, and appeared to have forgotten the presence of Chaudoreille, as he murmured at intervals in a gloomy voice,--

"That which I feared has happened at last! That beautiful bud has been seen, and they will all wish to cull it. They will seek to learn who she is, where she comes from; there will be a thousand remarks, a thousand inquiries, and who knows where that will lead? Bungling fellow that I am! I well had need to guard the child. I believed I had made a master stroke which would disarm all suspicion. I ought to have foreseen that one day she would be sixteen, that she would be charming, and that in order to possess her they would employ all the stratagems which I have often used on behalf of others."

"My dear fellow," said Chaudoreille, carrying to his lips for the third time a goblet filled to the brim, "my honest Touquet, if you don't want to take care of the little one any longer, give her to me, and I'll answer to you for it that no fop shall be allowed to see her face."

"What shall I give you?" said the barber, as if he had only just become aware of Chaudoreille's presence. "What are you talking about? Answer me!"

"Oh, by jingo, you were speaking of the young flower you have sheltered; I heard you very plainly."

"You heard me!" cried Touquet, seizing Chaudoreille by the arm with which he was holding his full cup; "and what did I say? What did you hear? Speak, wretch! Speak, will you?"

"Take care! you're shaking my arm. Here's my doublet all stained with wine now. What the deuce! You'll have to give me another."

"What have you heard?" repeated the barber in a threatening voice, raising his closed fist on Chaudoreille, while with the other hand he shook him so briskly by the arm that a great part of the wine covered the jaws and neck of the chevalier.

"Nothing, nothing, I swear to you," murmured the latter, lowering his eyes, so as to avoid the barber's gaze. "I only said to you that this wine has a fine bouquet, and that if you wished to give me some bottles to keep I should carefully guard it from all eyes. I believe that's what I was saying; for, in truth, you've turned me upside down with your irritable conduct, and I don't know what I'm saying."

Touquet loosened his hold of Chaudoreille's arm, as if ashamed of his hasty movements, and, resuming his calmer tone, seated himself near the latter.

"There are some things I wish to keep secret--not that they're of any great importance; and, for the matter of that, I don't think that you will ever allow yourself to prate about my affairs; you are too well aware that my dagger would at once deprive you of the organ of which you made such use."

"What the deuce do you suppose I could blab about you?" said Chaudoreille, drying his face and his clothing with his little silk handkerchief, and pinching his lips, as if doubting whether Touquet had not already cut out his tongue. "You never tell me anything about your business, and I'm not a man to invent the slightest untruth."

"I've told you what all the world knows,--that I have sheltered Blanche since she had been left an orphan at my house, and that I know no more than anyone else about her father or her family. She is now grown up and pretty. Lovers will begin to come; that's what vexes me. They'll seek to learn everything about this young girl, and a.s.suredly they won't know more about it than I am telling you. The one who was singing just now is known to me; he came into my shop this morning, and stayed two hours, in the hope that Blanche would appear. Do you hear me, Chaudoreille?"

"I hear you--if you wish me to," said the chevalier, continuing to rub his doublet; "for I don't know if I should or if I should not hear you.

That shall be as you wish."

"I wish you weren't quite so foolish," said the barber, glancing scornfully at his neighbor.

"No words of double meaning," answered Chaudoreille; "you know I don't like them. This cursed wine stains, and for the moment I don't know where to get another doublet."

"He's a mere child, a scholar, who has not yet a beard on his chin,"

said the barber after a moment's silence, which was only interrupted by the rubbing of the handkerchief on the spots impregnated by wine. "He shows the small experience he has had in love intrigues by coming to sing before my door--in order to let me know who was there. The poor boy has much need of a lesson."

"He certainly is not first-rate at the guitar.".

"I don't believe that he can be known to Blanche. No--but that romance he was singing,--it's precisely the same as the one she mentioned to me,--

My darling is all to me."

"That doesn't equal--

Thou hast lost thy fond dove too.

Zounds! what a difference in the melody!"

"No, Blanche is candor itself; she would not have spoken to me of that romance had she known the young man. Why the devil haven't you taught her something else besides that old rubbish of Louis the Twelfth's time?

If you had taught her to sing something pretty she would not have been enraptured at the first romance sung by wandering minstrels."

"What do you say? Are you talking to me?" said Chaudoreille, raising his head.

"Of course I am, since you call yourself a professor of singing."