Parisian Points of View Part 4

"Remaining all the time, sir, perfectly respectful and perfectly reserved. Good heavens! look at myself, for instance. It is to waltzing that I owe my happiness. Mme. Morin was not then Mme. Morin. I kept my eye on her, but I hesitated. She appeared thin, and--well, I'll admit that to marry a thin woman didn't suit my ideas. You know every one has his ideals. So, sir, I was still hesitating, when one evening, at the wedding of one of my friends, a very capable young man, a deputy manager of a department at the Ministry of Religion, they started a little dance. For the first waltz I asked the one who was to be my companion through life. Immediately I felt in my hand a delightful figure--one of those full but supple figures; and while waltzing, quite enchanted, I was saying to myself, 'She isn't really thin! she isn't really thin!' I took her back to her place after the waltz, and went at once to her mother to ask for her hand, which was granted me. For fourteen years I have been the happiest of men, and perhaps I shouldn't have made that marriage if I hadn't known how to waltz. You see, sir, the results of a waltz?"

"Perfectly."

"That is not all, sir. Thanks to dancing, one discovers not only the agreeable points of a person, the fulness of her figure, the lithesomeness of her waist, but also, in a briskly led waltz, a little examination of the health and const.i.tution of a woman can be had. I remember one evening twelve or so years ago--in the Rue Le Peletier, in the old Opera-house, which has burned down--I was on the stage awaiting my cue for the dance in 'William Tell,' you know, in the third act. Two subscribers were talking quite close to me, in the wings. One of the gentlemen was an old pupil of mine. I have had so many pupils! Without wishing to, I heard sc.r.a.ps of the conversation, and these two sentences struck my ear: 'Well, have you decided?' 'Oh,' replied my pupil, 'I find her very charming, but I have heard that she is weak in the lungs.'

Then, sir, I did a very unusual thing for me. I begged pardon for having heard unintentionally, and I said to my old pupil: 'I think I have guessed that a marriage is in question. Will you authorize me to give you a piece of advice--advice drawn from the practice of my profession?

Do they allow this young lady to waltz?' You know there are mothers who do not permit--"

"I know, I know."

We had arrived at this point in that interesting conversation when the ballet ended. The bishop and myself were a.s.sailed by an actual whirlwind of skaters, and my little Westphalian peasant-girl found me where she had left me.

"I declare!" she said to me, "so you come to confess at the opera? Give him absolution, Morin, and give it to me, too. Now then, come along to the greenroom."

She took my arm, and we went off together, while the excellent Morin, with gravity and dignity beneath his sacred ornaments, withstood the shock of this avalanche of dancers.

THE CIRCUS CHARGER

After George had related how he had been married off at twenty-two by his aunt, the Baroness de Stilb, Paul said: "_I_ was married off by a circus charger. I was very nearly forty years of age, and I felt so peacefully settled in my little bachelor habits that, in the best faith in the world, on all occasions, I swore by the G.o.ds never to run the great risk of marriage; but I reckoned without the circus charger.

"It was in the last days of September, 1864. I had just arrived from Baden-Baden, and my intention was to spend only twenty-four hours in Paris. I had invited four or five of my friends--Callieres, Bernheim, Frondeville, and Valreas--to my place in Poitou for the shooting season.

They were to come in the first part of October, and it needed a week to put all in order at Roche-Targe. A letter from my overseer awaited me in Paris, and the letter brought disastrous news; the dogs were well, but out of the dozen hunting horses that I had there, five, during my sojourn at Baden, had fallen sick or lame, and I found myself absolutely forced to get new horses.

"I made a tour of the Champs-Elysees sellers, who showed me as hunters a fine collection of broken--down skeletons. Average price, three thousand francs. Roulette had treated me badly of late, and I was neither in the humor, nor had I the funds, to spend in that way seven or eight hundred louis in a morning.

"It was a Wednesday, and Cheri was holding his first autumn sale. I went to the Rue de Ponthieu during the day; and there out of the lot, on chance, without inquiry, blindly, by good-luck, and from the mere declarations of the catalogue--'_Excellent hunter, good jumper, has hunted with lady rider_,' etc.--I bought eight horses, which only cost me five thousand francs. Out of eight, I said to myself, there will always be four or five who will go, and who will be good enough to serve as remounts.

"Among the horses there was one that I had bought, I must confess, particularly on account of his coat, which was beautiful. The catalogue did not attribute to him any special qualifications for hunting, but limited itself to '_Brutus, riding horse_.' He was a large dapple-gray horse, but never, I think, have I seen gray better dappled; the white coat was strewn almost regularly with beautiful black spots, which were well distributed and well marked.

"I left town the next day for Roche-Targe, and the following day, early, they announced to me that the horses had arrived. I at once went down to see them, and my first glance was at Brutus. He had been trotting in my head for forty-eight hours, that devil of a gray horse, and I had a singular desire to know what he was and of what he was capable.

"I had him taken out of the stable first. A groom led him to me with a strap. The horse had long teeth, hollows in the chest, lumpy fetlocks--in short, all the signs of respectable age; but he had powerful shoulders, a large breast, a neck which was both strong and supple, head well held, tail well placed, and an irreproachable back. It wasn't, however, all this that attracted most my attention. What I admired above all was the air with which Brutus looked at me, and with what an attentive, intelligent, and curious eye he followed my movements and gestures. Even my words seemed to interest him singularly; he inclined his head to my side as if to hear me, and, as soon as I had finished speaking, he neighed joyously in answer.

"They showed me successively the seven other horses; I examined them rapidly and absent-mindedly. They were horses like all other horses.

Brutus certainly had something in particular, and I was anxious to make in his company a short jaunt in the country. He allowed himself to be saddled, bridled, and mounted like a horse who knows his business, and so we both started in the quietest way in the world.

"I had at first ridden him with the snaffle, and Brutus had gone off at a long easy gait, with rather a stiff neck and projected head; but as soon as I let him feel the curb, he changed with extraordinary rapidity and suppleness, drawing his head back to his breast, and champing his bit noisily; then at the same time he took a short gait, which was light and even, lifting well his feet and striking the sod with the regularity of a pendulum.

"Cheri's catalogue had not lied; the horse was a good rider--too good a rider, in fact. I made him trot, then gallop; the horse at the first suggestion gave me an excellent little trot and an excellent little gallop, but always plunging to the ground and pulling my arms when I tried to lift his head. When I wished to quicken his gait, the horse broke at once. He began to rack in great style, trotting with the fore-feet and galloping with the hind ones. 'Well,' I said to myself, 'I see now; I've bought some old horse of the Saumur or Saint-Cyr school, and it's not on this beast that I'll hunt in eight days.'

"I was about to turn and go home, quite edified as to Brutus's qualities, when the report of a gun was heard twenty yards away in the woods. It was one of my keepers who was shooting a rabbit, and who received some time after a handsome present from my wife for that shot.

"I was then in the centre of the cross-roads, which formed a perfect circle of five or six yards in radius; six long green alleys came to an end at this spot. On hearing the report, Brutus had stopped short, planted himself on his four legs, with ears erect and head raised. I was surprised to find the horse so impressionable. I should have thought that after the brilliant education that very certainly he had received in his youth, Brutus must be an artillery horse, used to gun and cannon.

I drew in my legs to urge the horse on, but Brutus didn't move; I spurred him sharply twice, but Brutus didn't move; I whipped him soundly, but Brutus didn't move. I tried to back the horse, to push him to the right, to the left, but I couldn't move him in the slightest degree. Brutus seemed glued to the ground, and yet--don't you dare to laugh, and be a.s.sured that my tale is absolutely true--each time that I attempted to put the horse in motion he turned his head and looked at me with an expression which could clearly be read as impatience and surprise; then he would again become as immovable as a statue. There was evidently some misunderstanding between the horse and myself. I saw that in his eyes, and Brutus said to me, with all the clearness he could put in his expression, 'I, as a horse, am doing my duty, and it's you, as a rider, who are not doing yours!'

"I was more puzzled than embarra.s.sed. 'What extraordinary kind of a horse have I bought at Cheri's,' I said to myself, 'and why does he look at me so queerly?' I was, however, going to take strong measures--that is to say, I was preparing to whip him smartly--when another report was heard.

"Then the horse gave a jump. I thought I had the best of it, and, profiting by his bound, I tried to carry him forward with hand and knee.

But no; he stopped short after his bound, and again planted himself on the ground more energetically and more resolutely than the first time.

Ah, then I grew angry, and my whip came into play; I grasped it firmly and began to strike the horse with all my strength to the right and left. But Brutus, he too lost patience, and, instead of the cold and immovable opposition that at first he had shown, I met with furious retaliations, strange springs, bucking, extraordinary rearing, fantastic whirling; and in the midst of this battle, while the infatuated horse bounded and reared, while I, exasperated, struck with vigor the leather pommel with my broken whip, Brutus still found time to give me glances not only of surprise and impatience, but also of anger and indignation. While I was asking the horse for the obedience which he refused me, it is certain that he expected from me something that I was not doing.

"How did it end? To my shame, to my great shame, I was pitifully unhorsed by an incomparable feat! Brutus understood, I think, that he would not get the better of me by violence, and judged it necessary to try cunning; after a pause which was most certainly a moment of reflection, the horse rose up, head down, upright on his fore-feet, with the skill, the calm, and the perfect equilibrium of a clown who walks on his hands. Thus I tumbled into the sand, which, by good-luck, was thick in that spot.

"I tried to get up. I screamed and fell back ridiculously, flat on my stomach, on my nose. At the slightest movement I felt as though a knife ran through my left leg. It's a slight matter, however--the rupture of a slender sinew; but though slight, the injury was none the less painful.

I succeeded, nevertheless, in turning over and sitting up; but just when, while rubbing my eyes, filled with sand, I was beginning to ask myself what in the midst of this tumult had become of my miserable dapple-gray, I saw over my head a large horse's hoof descending. Then this large hoof pressed, with a certain gentleness, however, on my chest, and pushed me delicately back on the ground, on my back this time.

"I was greatly discouraged; and feeling incapable of another effort, I remained in that position, continuing to ask myself what sort of a horse I had bought at Cheri's, closing my eyes, and awaiting death.

"Suddenly I heard a curious trampling around me; a quant.i.ty of little hard things struck me on the face. I opened my eyes, and perceived Brutus, who, with his fore-feet and hind-legs, was trying with incredible activity and prodigious skill to bury me in the sand. He was doing his best, poor beast, and from time to time he stopped to gaze at his work; then, raising his head, he neighed and began his work again.

That lasted for a good three or four minutes, after which Brutus, judging me doubtless sufficiently interred, placed himself very respectfully on his knees before my tomb--on his knees, literally on his knees! He was saying, I suppose, a little prayer. I looked at him. It interested me extremely.

"His prayer finished, Brutus made a slight bow, went off a few steps, stopped, then, beginning to gallop, made at least twenty times the circuit of the open s.p.a.ce in the middle of which he had buried me.

Brutus galloped very well, with even stride, head well held, on the right foot, making around me a perfect circle. I followed him with my eyes, but it made me uneasy to see him go round and round and round. I had the strength to cry 'Stop! stop!' The horse stopped and seemed embarra.s.sed, without doubt asking himself what there was still to be done; but he perceived my hat, which in my fall had got separated from me, and at once made a new resolution: he walked straight to the hat, seized it in his teeth, and galloped off, this time by one of the six alleys that led from my tomb.

"Brutus got farther and farther away, and disappeared; I remained alone.

I was puzzled, positively puzzled. I shook off the little coating of dust which covered me, and without getting up, by the help of my two arms and right leg--to move my left leg was not to be thought of--I succeeded in dragging myself to a little gra.s.sy slope on the edge of one of the alleys. Once there, I could sit down, after a fashion, and I began to shout with all the strength of my lungs, 'Hi, there! hi! hi, there!' No answer. The woods were absolutely deserted and still. The only thing to be done was to wait till some one pa.s.sed by to aid me.

"For half an hour I had been in that hateful position when I perceived in the distance, at the very end of the same alley by which he had gone off, Brutus coming back, with the same long gallop he had used in going.

A great cloud of dust accompanied the horse. Little by little, in that cloud, I perceived a tiny carriage--a pony-carriage; then in that little pony-carriage a woman, who drove herself, and behind the woman a small groom.

"A few moments later Brutus, covered with foam, stopped before me, let my hat drop at my feet and neighed, as though to say, 'I've done my duty; here is help.' But I no longer bothered myself about Brutus and the explanations that he made me. My only thoughts were for the fairy who was to relieve me, and who, after lightly jumping from her little carriage, was coming quickly towards me. Besides, she, too, was examining me curiously, and all at once we both exclaimed, at the same time:

"'Mme. de Noriolis!'

"'M. de La Roche-Targe!'

"A little while ago George spoke to us of his aunt, and mentioned how she had married him quite young, at one stroke, without giving him time to reflect or breathe. I, too, have an aunt, and between us for a number of years there has been a perpetual battle. 'Marry.' 'I don't want to marry.' 'Do you want young girls? There is Mademoiselle A, Mademoiselle B, Mademoiselle C.' 'I don't want to marry.' 'Do you want widows? There is Madame D, Madame E, Madame F.' 'I don't want to marry.'

"Mme. de Noriolis figured always in the first rank in the series of widows, and I noticed that my aunt put stress, with evident favoritism, on all the good points and advantages that I should find in that marriage. She didn't have to tell me that Mme. de Noriolis was very pretty--any one could see that; or that she was very rich--I knew it already. But she explained to me that M. de Noriolis was an idiot, who had had the merit of making his wife perfectly miserable, and that thus it would be very easy for the second husband to make himself very much loved.

"Then, when she had discoursed at length on the virtues, graces, and merits of Mme. de Noriolis, my aunt, who is clever and knows my weakness, pulled out of her desk a topographical map, and spread it out with care on the table.

"It was the map of the district of Chatellerault, a very correct and minute map, that my aunt had gone herself to the military station to buy, with the view of convincing me that I ought to marry Mme. de Noriolis. The places of Noriolis and of La Roche-Targe were scarcely three kilometers apart in that map. My aunt, with her own hands, had drawn a line of red ink, and slily united the two places, and she forced me to look at her little red line, saying to me, 'Two thousand acres without a break, when the places of Noriolis and La Roche-Targe are united; what a chance for a hunter!'

"I closed my eyes, so strong was the temptation, and repeated my refrain, 'I don't want to marry.' But I was afraid, seriously afraid; and when I met Mme. de Noriolis I always saw her surrounded, as by a halo, by the little red line of my aunt, and I said to myself: 'A charming, and clever, and sensible woman, whose first husband was an idiot, and this and that, and two thousand acres without a break. Run away, wretch, run away, since you don't wish to marry.'

"And I ran away! But this time by what means could I run away? I was there, miserable, in the gra.s.s, covered with sand, with my hair in disorder, my clothes in rags, and my unfortunate leg stiff. And Mme. de Noriolis came nearer, looking spick and span--always in the halo of the little red line--and said to me:

"'You, M. de La Roche-Targe, is it you? What are you doing there? What has happened to you?'

"I frankly confessed my fall.

"'At least you are not wounded?'