In the Days of My Youth Part 35

Josephine sniffed at it as if she were taking snuff, and p.r.o.nounced it perfect. Just then the opera began. I withdrew into the shade, and Josephine was silenced for a while in admiration of the scenery and the dresses. By and by, she began to yawn.

"Ah, _mon Dieu!_" said she, "when will they have done singing? I have not heard a word all this time."

"But everything is sung, _ma chere_, in an opera."

"What do you mean? Is there no play?"

"This is the play; only instead of speaking their words, they sing them."

Josephine shrugged her shoulders.

"Ah, bah!" said she. "How stupid! I had rather have seen the _Closerie des Genets_ at the Graiete, if that is to be the case the whole evening.

Oh, dear! there is such a pretty lady come into the opposite box, in such a beautiful blue _glace_, trimmed with black velvet and lace!"

"Hush! you must not talk while they are singing!"

"_Tiens!_ it is no pleasure to come out and be dumb. But do just see the lady in the opposite box! She looks exactly as if she had walked out of a fashion-book."

"My dear child, I don't care one pin to look at her," said I, preferring to keep as much out of sight as possible. "To admire your pretty face is enough for me."

Josephine squeezed my hand affectionately.

"That is just as Emile used to talk to me," said she.

I felt by no means flattered.

"_Regardez done!_" said she, pulling me by the sleeve, just as I was standing up, a little behind her chair, looking at the stage. "That lady in the blue _glace_ never takes her eyes from our box! She points us out to the gentleman who is with her--do look!"

I turned my gla.s.s in the direction to which she pointed, and recognised Madame de Marignan!

I turned hot and cold, red and white, all in one moment, and shrank back like a snail that has been touched, or a sea-anemone at the first dig of the naturalist.

"Does she know you?" asked Josephine.

"I--I--probably--that is to say--I have met her in society."

"And who is the gentleman?"

That was just what I was wondering. It was not Delaroche. It was no one whom I had ever seen before. It was a short, fat, pale man, with a bald head, and a ribbon in his b.u.t.ton-hole.

"Is he her husband?" pursued Josephine.

The suggestion flashed upon me like a revelation. Had I not heard that M. de Marignan was coming home from Algiers? Of course it was he. No doubt of it. A little vulgar, fat, bald man.... Pshaw, just the sort of a husband that she deserved!

"How she looks at me!" said Josephine.

I felt myself blush, so to speak, from head to foot.

"Good Heavens! my dear girl," I exclaimed, "take your elbows off the front of the box!"

Josephine complied, with a pettish little grimace.

"And, for mercy's sake, don't hold your head as if you feared it would tumble off!"

"It is the flowers," said she. "They tickle the back of my neck, whenever I move my head. I am much more comfortable in my cap."

"Never mind. Make the best of it, and listen to this song."

It was the great tenor ballad of the evening. The house was profoundly silent; the first wandering chords of a harp were heard behind the scenes; and Duprez began. In the very midst of one of his finest and tenderest _sostenuto_ pa.s.sages, Josephine sneezed--and such a sneeze!

you might have heard it out in the lobbies. An audible t.i.tter ran round the house. I saw Madame de Marignan cover her face with her handkerchief, and yield to an irrepressible fit of laughter. As for the tenor, he cast a withering glance up at the box, and made a marked pause before resuming his song. Merciful powers! what crime had I committed that I should be visited with such a punishment as this?

"Wretched girl!" I exclaimed, savagely, "what have you done?"

"Done, _mon ami!_" said Josephine, innocently. "Why, I fear I have taken cold."

I groaned aloud.

"Taken cold!" I muttered to myself. "Would to Heaven you had taken prussic acid!"

"_Qu'est ce que c'est?"_ asked she.

But it was not worth while to reply. I gave myself up to my fate. I determined to remonstrate no more. I flung myself on a seat at the back of the box, and made up my mind to bear all that might yet be in store for me. When she openly ate a stick of _sucre d'orge_ after this, I said nothing. When she applauded with both hands, I endured in silence. At length the performance came to a close and the curtain fell. Madame de Marignan had left before the last act, so I ran no danger of encountering her on the way out; but I was profoundly miserable, nevertheless. As for Josephine, she, poor child, had not enjoyed her evening at all, and was naturally out of temper. We quarrelled tremendously in the cab, and parted without having made it up. It was all my own fault. How could I be such a fool as to suppose that, with a few shreds and patches of finery, I could make a fine lady of a grisette?

CHAPTER XXII.

HIGH ART IN THE QUARTIER LATIN.

"But, my dear fellow, what else could you have expected? You took Mam'selle Josephine to the _Opera Comique. Eh bien!_ you might as well have taken an oyster up Mount Vesuvius. Our fair friend was out of her element. _Voila tout_."

"Confound her and her element!" I exclaimed with a groan. "What the deuce _is_ her element--the Quartier Latin?"

"The Quartier Latin is to some extent her habitat--but then Mam'selle Josephine belongs to a genus of which you, _cher_ Monsieur Arbuthnot, are deplorably ignorant--the genus grisette. The grisette from a certain point of view is the _chef-d'oeuvre_ of Parisian industry; the bouquet of Parisian civilization. She is indigenous to the _mansarde_ and the _pave_--bears no transplantation--flourishes in _the premiere balconie_, the suburban _guingette_, and the Salle Valentinois; but degenerates at a higher elevation. To improve her is to spoil her. In her white cap and muslin gown, the Parisian grisette is simply delicious. In a smart bonnet, a Cashmere and a brougham, she is simply detestable. Fine clothes vulgarize her. Fine surroundings demoralize her. Lodged on the sixth story, rich in the possession of a cuckoo-clock, a canary, half a dozen pots of mignonette, and some bits of cheap furniture in imitation mahogany, she has every virtue and every fault that is charming in woman--childlike gaiety; coquetry; thoughtless generosity; the readiest laugh, the readiest tear, and the warmest heart in the world. Transplant her to the Chaussee d'Antin, instil the taste for diamonds, truffles, and Veuve Clicquot, and you poison her whole nature. She becomes false, cruel, greedy, prodigal of your money, parsimonious of her own--a vampire--a ghoul--the hideous thing we call in polite parlance a _Fille de Marbre."_

Thus, with much gravity and emphasis, spoke Herr Franz Muller, lying on his back upon a very ricketty sofa, and smoking like a steam-engine. A cup of half-cold coffee, and a bottle of rum three parts emptied stood beside him on the floor. These were the remains of his breakfast; for it was yet early in the morning of the day following my great misadventure at the Opera Comique, and I had sought him out at his lodgings in the Rue Clovis at an hour when the Quartier Latin was for the most part in bed.

"Josephine, at all events, is not of the stuff that _Filles de Marbre_ are made of," I said, smiling.

"Perhaps not--_mais, que voulez-vous?_ We are what we are. A grisette makes a bad fine lady. A fine lady would make a still worse grisette.

The Archbishopric of Paris is a most repectable and desirable preferment; but your humble servant, for instance, would hardly suit the place,"

"And the moral of this learned and perspicuous discourse?"

"_Tiens_! the moral, is--keep our fair friend in her place. Remember that a dinner at thirty sous in the Palais Royal, or a fete with fireworks at Mabille, will give her ten times more pleasure than the daintiest repast you could order at the Maison Doree, or the choicest night of the season at either opera house. And how should it be otherwise? One must understand a thing to be able to enjoy it; and I'll be sworn Mam'selle Josephine was infinitely more bored last night than yourself."