Александр Дюма - The Conspirators

"Hum! hum," murmured the abbe; "we will do better than that, my dear chevalier."

"I am at your orders."

"Let us go down and breakfast with our good hostess, Madame Denis."

"And why do you want me to breakfast with her? Do I know her?"

"That concerns me. I shall present you as my pupil."

"But we shall get a detestable breakfast."

"Comfort yourself. I know her table."

"But this breakfast will be tiresome."

"But you will make a friend of a woman much known in the neighborhood for her good conduct, for her devotion to the government—a woman incapable of harboring a conspirator. Do you understand that?"

"If it be for the good of the cause, abbe, I sacrifice myself."

"Moreover, it is a very agreeable house, where there are two young people who play—one on the spinet, and the other on the guitar—and a young man who is an attorney's clerk; a house where you may go down on Sunday evenings to play lots."

"Go to the devil with your Madame Denis. Ah! pardon, abbe, perhaps you are her friend. In that case, imagine that I have said nothing."

"I am her confessor," replied the Abbe Brigaud, with a modest air.

"Then a thousand excuses, my dear abbe; but you are right indeed. Madame Denis is still a beautiful woman, perfectly well preserved, with superb hands and very pretty feet. Peste! I remember that. Go down first; I will follow."

"Why not together?"

"But my toilet, abbe. Would you have me appear before the Demoiselles Denis with my hair in its present state? One must try to look one's best—que diable! Besides, it is better that you should announce me: I have not a confessor's privilege."

"You are right. I will go down and announce you, and in ten minutes you will arrive—will you not?"

"In ten minutes."

"Adieu!"―"Au revoir!"

The chevalier had only told half the truth. He might have remained partly to dress, but also in the hope of seeing his beautiful neighbor, of whom he had dreamed all the night, but in vain. He remained hidden behind the curtains of his window: those of the young girl with the fair hair and the beautiful black eyes remained closed. It is true that, in exchange, he could perceive his neighbor, who, opening his door, passed out, with the same precaution as the day before, first his hand, then his head; but this time his boldness went no further, for there was a slight fog, and fog is essentially contrary to the organization of the Parisian bourgeois. Our friend coughed twice, and then, drawing in his head and his arm, re–entered his room like a tortoise into his shell. D'Harmental saw with pleasure that he might dispense with buying a barometer, and that this neighbor would render him the same service as the butterflies which come out in the sunshine, and remain obstinately shut up in their hermitages on the days when it rains.

The apparition had its ordinary effect, and reacted on poor Bathilde. Every time that D'Harmental perceived the young girl, there was in her such a sweet attraction that he saw nothing but the woman—young, beautiful, and graceful, a musician and painter—that is to say, the most delicious and complete creature he had ever met. But when, in his turn, the man of the terrace presented himself to the chevalier's gaze, with his common face, his insignificant figure—that indelible type of vulgarity which attaches to certain individuals—directly a sort of miraculous transition took place in the chevalier's mind. All the poetry disappeared, as a machinist's whistle causes the disappearance of a fairy palace. Everything was seen by a different light. D'Harmental's native aristocracy regained the ascendency. Bathilde was then nothing but the daughter of this man—that is to say, a grisette: her beauty, her grace, her elegance, even her talents, were but an accident—an error of nature—something like a rose flowering on a cabbage–stalk. The chevalier shrugged his shoulders as he stood before the glass, began to laugh, and to wonder at the impression which he had received. He attributed it to the preoccupation of his mind, to the strange and solitary situation, to everything, in fact, except its true cause—the sovereign and irresistible power of distinction and beauty. D'Harmental went down to his hostess disposed to find the Demoiselles Denis charming.

Madame Denis did not think it proper that two young persons as innocent as her daughters should breakfast with a young man who, although he had been only three days in Paris, already came in at eleven o'clock at night, and played on the harpsichord till two in the morning. In vain the Abbe Brigaud affirmed that this double infraction of the rules of her house should in no degree lower her opinion of his pupil, for whom he could answer as for himself. All he could obtain was that the young ladies should appear at the dessert; but the chevalier soon perceived that if their mother had ordered them not to be seen, she had not forbidden them to be heard, for scarcely were they at table, round a veritable devotée's breakfast, composed of a multitude of little dishes, tempting to the eye and delicious to the palate, when the sounds of a spinet were heard, accompanying a voice which was not wanting in compass, but whose frequent errors of intonation showed lamentable inexperience. At the first notes Madame Denis placed her hand on the abbe's arm, then, after an instant's silence, during which she listened with a pleased smile to that music which made the chevalier's flesh creep, "Do you hear?" she said. "It is our Athenais who is playing, and it is Emilie who sings."

The Abbe Brigaud, making signs that he heard perfectly, trod on D'Harmental's foot under the table, to hint that this was an opportunity for paying a compliment.

"Madame," said the chevalier, who understood this appeal to his politeness perfectly, "we are doubly indebted to you; for you offer us not only an excellent breakfast, but a delightful concert."

"Yes," replied Madame Denis, negligently, "it is those children: they do not know you are here, and they are practicing; but I will go and tell them to stop."

Madame Denis was going to rise.

"What, madame!" said D'Harmental, "because I come from Ravenne do you believe me unworthy to make acquaintance with the talents of the capital?"

"Heaven preserve me, monsieur, from having such an opinion of you," said Madame Denis, maliciously, "for I know you are a musician; the lodger on the third story told me so."

"In that case, madame, perhaps he did not give you a very high idea of my merit," replied the chevalier, laughing, "for he did not appear to appreciate the little I may possess."

"He only said that it appeared to him a strange time for music. But listen, Monsieur Raoul," added Madame Denis, "the parts are changed now, my dear abbe, it is our Athenais who sings, and it is Emilie who accompanies her on the guitar."

It appeared that Madame Denis had a weakness for Athenais, for instead of talking as she did when Emilie was singing, she listened from one end to the other to the romance of her favorite, her eyes tenderly fixed on the Abbe Brigaud, who, still eating and drinking, contented himself with nodding his head in sign of approbation. Athenais sang a little more correctly than her sister, but for this she made up by a defect at least equivalent in the eyes of the chevalier. Her voice was equally vulgar.

As to Madame Denis, she beat wrong time with her head, with an air of beatitude which did infinitely more honor to her maternal affection than to her musical intelligence.

A duet succeeded to the solos. The young ladies appeared determined to give their whole repertoire. D'Harmental, in his turn, sought under the table for the abbe's feet, to crush at least one, but he only found those of Madame Denis, who, taking this for a personal attention, turned graciously toward him.