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

“So those Dalmatians spoke our language, did they?” said the count. “I observe you relate the scene as if it happened yesterday.”

Schinner was nonplussed.

“Riot has but one language,” said the astute statesman Mistigris.

“Well,” continued Schinner, “when I was brought into court in presence of the magistrates, I learned that the cursed corsair was dead, poisoned by Zena. I’d liked to have changed linen then. Give you my word, I knew nothing of that melodrama. It seems the Greek girl put opium (a great many poppies, as monsieur told us, grow about there) in the pirate’s grog, just to make him sleep soundly and leave her free for a little walk with me, and the old duenna, unfortunate creature, made a mistake and trebled the dose. The immense fortune of that cursed pirate was really the cause of all my Zena’s troubles. But she explained matters so ingenuously that I, for one, was released with an injunction from the mayor and the Austrian commissary of police to go back to Rome. Zena, who let the heirs of the Uscoque and the judges get most of the old villain’s wealth, was let off with two years’ seclusion in a convent, where she still is. I am going back there some day to paint her portrait; for in a few years, you know, all this will be forgotten. Such are the follies one commits at eighteen!”

“And you left me without a sou in the locanda at Venice,” said Mistigris. “And I had to get from Venice to Rome by painting portraits for five francs apiece, which they didn’t pay me. However, that was my halcyon time. I don’t regret it.”

“You can imagine the reflections that came to me in that Dalmatian prison, thrown there without protection, having to answer to Austrians and Dalmatians, and in danger of losing my head because I went twice to walk with a woman. There’s ill-luck, with a vengeance!”

“Did all that really happen to you?” said Oscar, naively.

“Why shouldn’t it happen to him, inasmuch as it had already happened during the French occupation of Illyria to one of our most gallant officers of artillery?” said the count, slyly.

“And you believed that artillery officer?” said Mistigris, as slyly to the count.

“Is that all?” asked Oscar.

“Of course he can’t tell you that they cut his head off, — how could he?” said Mistigris. “‘Dead schinners tell no tales.’”

“Monsieur, are there farms in that country?” asked Pere Leger. “What do they cultivate?”

“Maraschino,” replied Mistigris, — ”a plant that grows to the height of the lips, and produces a liqueur which goes by that name.”

“Ah!” said Pere Leger.

“I only stayed three days in the town and fifteen in prison,” said Schinner, “so I saw nothing; not even the fields where they grow the maraschino.”

“They are fooling you,” said Georges to the farmer. “Maraschino comes in cases.”

“‘Romances alter cases,’” remarked Mistigris.

CHAPTER V. THE DRAMA BEGINS

Pierrotin’s vehicle was now going down the steep incline of the valley of Saint-Brice to the inn which stands in the middle of the large village of that name, where Pierrotin was in the habit of stopping an hour to breathe his horses, give them their oats, and water them. It was now about half-past one o’clock.

“Ha! here’s Pere Leger,” cried the inn-keeper, when the coach pulled up before the door. “Do you breakfast?”

“Always once a day,” said the fat farmer; “and I’ll break a crust here and now.”

“Give us a good breakfast,” cried Georges, twirling his cane in a cavalier manner which excited the admiration of poor Oscar.

But that admiration was turned to jealousy when he saw the gay adventurer pull out from a side-pocket a small straw case, from which he selected a light-colored cigar, which he proceeded to smoke on the threshold of the inn door while waiting for breakfast.

“Do you smoke?” he asked of Oscar.

“Sometimes,” replied the ex-schoolboy, swelling out his little chest and assuming a jaunty air.

Georges presented the open case to Oscar and Schinner.

“Phew!” said the great painter; “ten-sous cigars!”

“The remains of those I brought back from Spain,” said the adventurer. “Do you breakfast here?”

“No,” said the artist. “I am expected at the chateau. Besides, I took something at the Lion d’Argent just before starting.”

“And you?” said Georges to Oscar.

“I have breakfasted,” replied Oscar.

Oscar would have given ten years of his life for boots and straps to his trousers. He sneezed, he coughed, he spat, and swallowed the smoke with ill-disguised grimaces.

“You don’t know how to smoke,” said Schinner; “look at me!”

With a motionless face Schinner breathed in the smoke of his cigar and let it out through his nose without the slightest contraction of feature. Then he took another whiff, kept the smoke in his throat, removed the cigar from his lips, and allowed the smoke slowly and gracefully to escape them.

“There, young man,” said the great painter.

“Here, young man, here’s another way; watch this,” said Georges, imitating Schinner, but swallowing the smoke and exhaling none.

“And my parents believed they had educated me!” thought Oscar, endeavoring to smoke with better grace.

But his nausea was so strong that he was thankful when Mistigris filched his cigar, remarking, as he smoked it with evident satisfaction, “You haven’t any contagious diseases, I hope.”

Oscar in reply would fain have punched his head.

“How he does spend money!” he said, looking at Colonel Georges. “Eight francs for Alicante and the cheese-cakes; forty sous for cigars; and his breakfast will cost him — ”

“Ten francs at least,” replied Mistigris; “but that’s how things are. ‘Sharp stomachs make short purses.’”

“Come, Pere Leger, let us drink a bottle of Bordeaux together,” said Georges to the farmer.

“Twenty francs for his breakfast!” cried Oscar; “in all, more than thirty-odd francs since we started!”

Killed by a sense of his inferiority, Oscar sat down on a stone post, lost in a revery which did not allow him to perceive that his trousers, drawn up by the effect of his position, showed the point of junction between the old top of his stocking and the new “footing,” — his mother’s handiwork.

“We are brothers in socks,” said Mistigris, pulling up his own trousers sufficiently to show an effect of the same kind, — ”‘By the footing, Hercules.’”

The count, who overheard this, laughed as he stood with folded arms under the porte-cochere, a little behind the other travellers. However nonsensical these lads might be, the grave statesman envied their very follies; he liked their bragging and enjoyed the fun of their lively chatter.

“Well, are you to have Les Moulineaux? for I know you went to Paris to get the money for the purchase,” said the inn-keeper to Pere Leger, whom he had just taken to the stables to see a horse he wanted to sell to him. “It will be queer if you manage to fleece a peer of France and a minister of State like the Comte de Serizy.”

The person thus alluded to showed no sign upon his face as he turned to look at the farmer.

“I’ve done for him,” replied Pere Leger, in a low voice.

“Good! I like to see those nobles fooled. If you should want twenty thousand francs or so, I’ll lend them to you — But Francois, the conductor of Touchard’s six o’clock coach, told me that Monsieur Margueron was invited by the Comte de Serizy to dine with him to-day at Presles.”

“That was the plan of his Excellency, but we had our own little ways of thwarting it,” said the farmer, laughing.