Array The griffin classics - The Collected Works of Honore de Balzac

“And you are called Pere Leger?” asked Georges, very seriously, as the farmer attempted to put a foot on the step.

“At your service,” replied the farmer, looking in and showing a face like that of Louis XVIII., with fat, rubicund cheeks, from between which issued a nose that in any other face would have seemed enormous. His smiling eyes were sunken in rolls of fat. “Come, a helping hand, my lad!” he said to Pierrotin.

The farmer was hoisted in by the united efforts of Pierrotin and the porter, to cries of “Houp la! hi! ha! hoist!” uttered by Georges.

“Oh! I’m not going far; only to La Cave,” said the farmer, good-humoredly.

In France everybody takes a joke.

“Take the back seat,” said Pierrotin, “there’ll be six of you.”

“Where’s your other horse?” demanded Georges. “Is it as mythical as the third post-horse.”

“There she is,” said Pierrotin, pointing to the little mare, who was coming along alone.

“He calls that insect a horse!” exclaimed Georges.

“Oh! she’s good, that little mare,” said the farmer, who by this time was seated. “Your servant, gentlemen. Well, Pierrotin, how soon do you start?”

“I have two travellers in there after a cup of coffee,” replied Pierrotin.

The hollow-cheeked young man and his page reappeared.

“Come, let’s start!” was the general cry.

“We are going to start,” replied Pierrotin. “Now, then, make ready,” he said to the porter, who began thereupon to take away the stones which stopped the wheels.

Pierrotin took Rougeot by the bridle and gave that guttural cry, “Ket, ket!” to tell the two animals to collect their energy; on which, though evidently stiff, they pulled the coach to the door of the Lion d’Argent. After which manoeuvre, which was purely preparatory, Pierrotin gazed up the rue d’Enghien and then disappeared, leaving the coach in charge of the porter.

“Ah ca! is he subject to such attacks, — that master of yours?” said Mistigris, addressing the porter.

“He has gone to fetch his feed from the stable,” replied the porter, well versed in all the usual tricks to keep passengers quiet.

“Well, after all,” said Mistigris, “‘art is long, but life is short’ — to Bichette.”

At this particular epoch, a fancy for mutilating or transposing proverbs reigned in the studios. It was thought a triumph to find changes of letters, and sometimes of words, which still kept the semblance of the proverb while giving it a fantastic or ridiculous meaning.[*]

[*] It is plainly impossible to translate many of these proverbs

and put any fun or meaning into them. — Tr.

“Patience, Mistigris!” said his master; “‘come wheel, come whoa.’”

Pierrotin here returned, bringing with him the Comte de Serizy, who had come through the rue de l’Echiquier, and with whom he had doubtless had a short conversation.

“Pere Leger,” said Pierrotin, looking into the coach, “will you give your place to Monsieur le comte? That will balance the carriage better.”

“We sha’n’t be off for an hour if you go on this way,” cried Georges. “We shall have to take down this infernal bar, which cost such trouble to put up. Why should everybody be made to move for the man who comes last? We all have a right to the places we took. What place has monsieur engaged? Come, find that out! Haven’t you a way-book, a register, or something? What place has Monsieur Lecomte engaged? — count of what, I’d like to know.”

“Monsieur le comte,” said Pierrotin, visibly troubled, “I am afraid you will be uncomfortable.”

“Why didn’t you keep better count of us?” said Mistigris. “‘Short counts make good ends.’”

“Mistigris, behave yourself,” said his master.

Monsieur de Serizy was evidently taken by all the persons in the coach for a bourgeois of the name of Lecomte.

“Don’t disturb any one,” he said to Pierrotin. “I will sit with you in front.”

“Come, Mistigris,” said the master to his rapin, “remember the respect you owe to age; you don’t know how shockingly old you may be yourself some day. ‘Travel deforms youth.’ Give your place to monsieur.”

Mistigris opened the leathern curtain and jumped out with the agility of a frog leaping into the water.

“You mustn’t be a rabbit, august old man,” he said to the count.

“Mistigris, ‘ars est celare bonum,’” said his master.

“I thank you very much, monsieur,” said the count to Mistigris’s master, next to whom he now sat.

The minister of State cast a sagacious glance round the interior of the coach, which greatly affronted both Oscar and Georges.

“When persons want to be master of a coach, they should engage all the places,” remarked Georges.

Certain now of his incognito, the Comte de Serizy made no reply to this observation, but assumed the air of a good-natured bourgeois.

“Suppose you were late, wouldn’t you be glad that the coach waited for you?” said the farmer to the two young men.

Pierrotin still looked up and down the street, whip in hand, apparently reluctant to mount to the hard seat where Mistigris was fidgeting.

“If you expect some one else, I am not the last,” said the count.

“I agree to that reasoning,” said Mistigris.

Georges and Oscar began to laugh impertinently.

“The old fellow doesn’t know much,” whispered Georges to Oscar, who was delighted at this apparent union between himself and the object of his envy.

“Parbleu!” cried Pierrotin, “I shouldn’t be sorry for two more passengers.”

“I haven’t paid; I’ll get out,” said Georges, alarmed.

“What are you waiting for, Pierrotin?” asked Pere Leger.

Whereupon Pierrotin shouted a certain “Hi!” in which Bichette and Rougeot recognized a definitive resolution, and they both sprang toward the rise of the faubourg at a pace which was soon to slacken.

The count had a red face, of a burning red all over, on which were certain inflamed portions which his snow-white hair brought out into full relief. To any but heedless youths, this complexion would have revealed a constant inflammation of the blood, produced by incessant labor. These blotches and pimples so injured the naturally noble air of the count that careful examination was needed to find in his green-gray eyes the shrewdness of the magistrate, the wisdom of a statesman, and the knowledge of a legislator. His face was flat, and the nose seemed to have been depressed into it. The hat hid the grace and beauty of his forehead. In short, there was enough to amuse those thoughtless youths in the odd contrasts of the silvery hair, the burning face, and the thick, tufted eye-brows which were still jet-black.

The count wore a long blue overcoat, buttoned in military fashion to the throat, a white cravat around his neck, cotton wool in his ears, and a shirt-collar high enough to make a large square patch of white on each cheek. His black trousers covered his boots, the toes of which were barely seen. He wore no decoration in his button-hole, and doeskin gloves concealed his hands. Nothing about him betrayed to the eyes of youth a peer of France, and one of the most useful statesmen in the kingdom.

Pere Leger had never seen the count, who, on his side, knew the former only by name. When the count, as he got into the carriage, cast the glance about him which affronted Georges and Oscar, he was, in reality, looking for the head-clerk of his notary (in case he had been forced, like himself, to take Pierrotin’s vehicle), intending to caution him instantly about his own incognito. But feeling reassured by the appearance of Oscar, and that of Pere Leger, and, above all, by the quasi-military air, the waxed moustaches, and the general look of an adventurer that distinguished Georges, he concluded that his note had reached his notary, Alexandre Crottat, in time to prevent the departure of the clerk.