The Bashful Lover Part 6

"Why, yes, he really is, madame," cried the stout girl, after smelling the child. "That old idiot of a Jasmin is responsible for all this; he's a sot himself, and he would like to make everybody drink, even a nursing child. If you take my advice, madame, you will give the child some syrup of ipecac. That will make him throw up the wine; it will purge him."

"No, Turlurette, no! I am afraid of doing my son an injury, and of angering monsieur le marquis. But I am going to give the dear little fellow some a.s.s's milk, and that will correct the ill effects of the wine."

The a.s.s's milk was offered to the child in the bottle. Little Cherubin drank it without objection, for he had an excellent disposition; he accepted whatever was offered him, so that the important thing was to offer him what would be good for him.

This system of nourishment was continued for several days. The marquis gave his son wine to drink and madame gave him a.s.s's milk. The child was very red when he left his father's hands, but he became very pale again with his mother. They soon discovered that the dear boy was out of order, and stout Turlurette added the syringe to all the other remedies; and Jasmin, determined at all risks to fatten the little Grandvilain, gave him a piece of pie crust, or a slice of sausage, as soon as he was left alone with him.

Before little Cherubin had been on this diet of a.s.s's milk, pie crust and syringes a month, instead of growing fat, he was in a shocking condition. The marchioness wept, and Monsieur de Grandvilain decided to send for a doctor. After examining the child and learning all that they had been doing to nourish him, the doctor exclaimed in a very severe tone:

"Allow me to inform you that, if you go on like this, in a week you will not have any child."

The marchioness sobbed, the marquis turned green, and they both cried in one breath:

"What must we do, doctor, to restore our child's health?"

"What must you do? Why give him a nurse, a good nurse, and send him into the country with her, and leave him there a long while, a very long while; that's what you must do, and at once, this very day; you have no time to waste if you want to preserve the life of this child."

The tone in which the doctor spoke admitted no reply; luckily their love for the child was above all self-esteem, so they were fain to agree that they had done wrong, and to obey in all haste.

The marquis sent all his people in search of a nurse. The marchioness herself went about among her acquaintances, asking for information and advice; but the time pa.s.sed, and those who were well recommended could not be obtained at once. As evening approached, they had not succeeded in finding a nurse; the marchioness and her husband embraced their child and had no idea what to give him, as they dared not continue to feed him as they had been doing.

Suddenly Jasmin appeared with a fresh, buxom, red-cheeked peasant woman, exclaiming:

"I have found what we want, I think; if she doesn't bring our little one back to life, faith, I will have nothing more to do with it."

The nurse whom Jasmin had brought had such an attractive face and seemed to enjoy such excellent health that they were prepossessed in her favor.

Madame de Grandvilain uttered a joyful cry and handed her child to the peasant woman, who presented her bosom to him; he took it greedily, like one who had found what he needed.

The marquis tapped Jasmin on the shoulder, saying:

"You are an invaluable fellow! How did you go to work to discover this excellent nurse?"

"How did I go to work, monsieur? Why, I just went to the office, on Rue Sainte-Apolline, and asked for a nurse; I saw nurses of all colors, and I chose this one. That's all the difficulty there was about it."

What Jasmin had done was the simplest thing to do, but ordinarily the simplest thing is what n.o.body thinks of doing.

Little Cherubin's nurse was from Gagny, and as the doctor's orders were definite, she returned to her village the next morning, carrying with her a superb layette, money, gifts, strict orders, and her little nursling.

V

THE VILLAGE OF GAGNY

Gagny is a pretty village near Villemonble, of which it is a sort of continuation, and is a little nearer Paris than Montfermeil. When I say that it is a pretty village, I do not mean by that that the streets are very straight and well paved, and that all the houses have a uniform, comfortable, or even elegant aspect; in that case, it would resemble a small provincial town, and would not be the country with its picturesqueness and its freedom from constraint.

What I like in a village is the mixture of architectural styles, the very irregularity of the buildings, which is such a pleasant change from the monotony of the streets of a capital. What I like to see in a village is the farmhouse and all its outbuildings, the pond in which ducks are splashing, the dung-heap with the hens pecking about it; and then the cottage of the well-to-do peasant, who has had his shutters painted green, and who allows the vines to climb all about the windows; the thatched roof of a laborer not far from the fine house of a wealthy bourgeois; the charming villa of one of our Parisian celebrities; the humble dwelling of the market gardener; the schoolhouse, the church and its belfry; and in the midst of all these, tall trees, paths bordered by hedges of elderberry or wild fruit; hens and roosters strutting fearlessly before the house; ruddy-cheeked, merry, healthy children playing in the middle of the streets or squares, with nothing to fear from carriages and omnibuses; and even the odor of the cow barn, when I pa.s.s by a dairyman's place; because all these remind you that you are really in the country; and when you truly love the country, you have a sense of well-being, a feeling of happiness, the effects of which you at once realize without any need to try to explain them--effects which you owe to the pure air which you breathe, to the rustic scenes which rest your eyes, and to the pleasant freedom which you enjoy!

Gagny offers you all these things. Situated as it is near Raincy, the forest of Bondy, and the lovely woods of Montfermeil, and only a short distance from the Marne, whose banks are delightful, especially near Nogent and Gournay,--in whichever direction you turn your steps when you leave the village, you find charming walks and beautiful views. The neighborhood is embellished by some lovely estates: Maison Rouge, Maison Blanche, and the pretty little chateau of L'Horloge, flanked by towers and battlements, which represents in miniature--but in a highly flattered miniature--the abodes of the ancient feudal lords. Such is the village of Gagny, which sees every day one more beautiful and comfortable house built in its neighborhood, where, during the summer, charming women from Paris, artists, scholars or tradesmen, come to seek repose from the constant activity of the capital.

I observe that I have been describing Gagny as it is to-day, whereas it was in the year 1819 that little Cherubin, son of the Marquis de Grandvilain, was taken there. But after all, the aspect of the village has not changed, except for some fine houses which did not then exist, but which are universally admired to-day.

Let us make the acquaintance first of all of the villagers to whose house our hero was taken.

You know that the nurse who had carried Cherubin away was a buxom peasant with a fresh round face, and a solid figure, whose corsets indicated a sufficient supply of food for four marquises and as many plebeians; but what you do not know is that her name was Nicole Frimousset, that she was twenty-eight years old, and had three little boys, and a husband who drove her to despair, although he was a model of obedience and submission to her will.

Jacquinot Frimousset was of the same age as his wife; he was a stout, well-built fellow, with broad shoulders and a st.u.r.dy, shapely leg; his round red face, his heavy eyebrows, his bright black eyes, his white, even teeth would have done credit to a gentleman from the city.

Frimousset was a handsome youth, and seemed to give promise of becoming a husband capable of fulfilling all the duties which marriage imposes.

Peasant women are not insensible to physical advantages; indeed it is said that there are ladies--very great ladies--who attach much value to such bagatelles.

Nicole, who had some property, and a dowry of goodly proportion, could not lack aspirants; she selected Jacquinot Frimousset, and all the women in the village exclaimed that Nicole was not squeamish; which meant doubtless that they too would have been glad to marry Frimousset. But there is an old proverb which declares that appearances are deceitful.

There are many people who do not choose to believe in proverbs! Those people make a great mistake. Erasmus said:

"Of all forms of knowledge, there is none older than that of proverbs; they were like so many symbols which formed the philosophical code of the early ages; they are the compendium of human verities."

Aristotle agreed with Erasmus; he thought that proverbs were the remains of the old philosophy destroyed by the wearing effect of time; and that, these sentences having been preserved by reason of their conciseness, far from disdaining them, we should reflect upon them with care, and search after their meaning.

Chrysippus and Cleanthes wrote at great length in favor of proverbs.

Theophrastus composed a whole volume upon that subject. Among the famous men who have discussed it are Aristides and Clearchus, disciples of Aristotle; and Pythagoras wrote symbols which Erasmus ranks with proverbs; and Plutarch, in his _Apothegms_, collected the wise remarks of the Greeks.

We might proceed to cite all the authors of modern times who have written in favor of proverbs, but that would carry us too far, and we fancy that you will prefer to return to Cherubin's nurse.

Nicole had never heard of Erasmus, or of Aristotle; we have met people in the city who have no knowledge concerning those philosophers, and are none the worse off for that. As a general rule, we should not carry the study of antiquity too far; what we know about the past often prevents us from being well informed concerning what is going on to-day.

Nicole soon perceived that when she married Jacquinot she did not feather her nest very well. The handsome peasant was lazy, careless; in short, a do-nothing in every sense of the term. Three days after her marriage, Nicole sighed when she was congratulated upon her choice.

But Frimousset had that rustic cunning which knows how to disguise its inclinations, its faults, beneath an air of good-humor and frankness which deceives many people. His wife was lively, active, hard-working; it required very little time for him to learn her character. Far from thwarting her in anything, Frimousset seemed to be the most docile, the most compliant husband in the village; but he carried his servility to a point which finally irritated Nicole, and that was the very thing he counted upon.

For instance, in the morning, while his wife was attending to the housework, Jacquinot, after eating a hearty breakfast, would say to her:

"What do you want me to do now, Nicole?"

And Nicole would reply quickly:

"It seems to me that there's work enough to do! There's our field to plow, and the stones and stumps to be taken out of the piece by the road, and the garden to be planted. Ain't that work enough?"

"Yes, yes!" Frimousset would reply, shaking his head; "I know well enough that it ain't work that's lacking; but where shall I begin--in the field, or the pasture, or the garden? I am waiting for you to tell me; you know very well that I want to do just what you want me to."

"My word! what nonsense! Don't you know enough to know what there's most hurry about?"

"Why no! Don't I tell you that I want you to give me orders as to what I shall do; I want to do my best to please you, my little wife."

"Do whatever you want to, and let me alone."

Frimousset would ask no further questions; when by dint of being submissive he had irritated his wife, she never failed to say: "Do whatever you please and let me alone." Thereupon Nicole's husband would go off to the wine-shop and pa.s.s the day there. Nicole would look in vain for him in the pasture and the garden, and at night, when he came home to supper she would ask: