'Long live the Bacchanal Queen,' cried Dumoulin, shaking his rattle as he retired, followed by the deputation, whilst Sleepinbuff entered the room alone.
'Jacques,' said Cephyse, 'this is my good sister.'
'Enchanted to see you,' said Jacques, cordially; 'the more so as you will give me some news of my friend Agricola. Since I began to play the rich man, we have not seen each other, but I like him as much as ever, and think him a good and worthy fellow. You live in the same house. How is he?'
'Alas, sir! he and his family have had many misfortunes. He is in prison.'
'In prison!' cried Cephyse.
'Agricola in prison! what for?' said Sleepinbuff.
'For a trifling political offence. We had hoped to get him out on bail.'
'Certainly; for five hundred francs it could be done,' said Sleepinbuff.
'Unfortunately, we have not been able; the person upon whom we relied—'
The Bacchanal Queen interrupted the speaker by saying to her lover: 'Do you hear, Jacques? Agricola in prison, for want of five hundred francs!'
'To be sure! I hear and understand all about it. No need of your winking. Poor fellow! he was the support of his mother.'
'Alas! yes, sir—and it is the more distressing, as his father has but just returned from Russia, and his mother—'
'Here,' said Sleepinbuff, interrupting, and giving Mother Bunch a purse; 'take this—all the expenses here have been paid beforehand—this is what remains of my last bag. You will find here some twenty-five or thirty Napoleons, and I cannot make a better use of them than to serve a comrade in distress. Give them to Agricola's father; he will take the necessary steps, and to-morrow Agricola will be at his forge, where I had much rather he should be than myself.'
'Jacques, give me a kiss!' said the Bacchanal Queen.
'Now, and afterwards, and again and again!' said Jacques, joyously embracing the queen.
Mother Bunch hesitated for a moment; but reflecting that, after all, this sum of money, which was about to be spent in follies, would restore life and happiness to the family of Agricola, and that hereafter these very five hundred francs, when returned to Jacques, might be of the greatest use to him, she resolved to accept this offer. She took the purse, and with tearful eyes, said to him: 'I will not refuse your kindness M. Jacques; you are so good and generous, Agricola's father will thus at least have one consolation, in the midst of heavy sorrows. Thanks! many thanks!'
'There is no need to thank me; money was made for others as well as ourselves.'
Here, without, the noise recommenced more furiously than ever, and Ninny Moulin's rattle sent forth the most doleful sounds.
'Cephyse,' said Sleepinbuff, 'they will break everything to pieces, if you do not return to them, and I have nothing left to pay for the damage. Excuse us,' added he, laughing, 'but you see that royalty has its duties.'
Cephyse deeply moved, extended her arms to Mother Bunch, who threw herself into them, shedding sweet tears.
'And now,' said she, to her sister, 'when shall I see you again?'
'Soon—though nothing grieves me more than to see you in want, out of which I am not allowed to help you.'
'You will come, then, to see me? It is a promise?'
'I promise you in her name,' said Jacques; 'we will pay a visit to you and your neighbor Agricola.'
'Return to the company, Cephyse, and amuse yourself with a light heart, for M. Jacques has made a whole family happy.'
So saying, and after Sleepinbuff had ascertained that she could go down without being seen by his noisy and joyous companions, Mother Bunch quietly withdrew, eager to carry one piece of good news at least to Dagobert; but intending, first of all, to go to the Rue de Babylone, to the garden-house formerly occupied by Adrienne de Cardoville. We shall explain hereafter the cause of this determination.
As the girl quitted the eating-house, three men plainly and comfortably dressed, were watching before it, and talking in a low voice. Soon after, they were joined by a fourth person, who rapidly descended the stairs of the tavern.
'Well?' said the three first, with anxiety.
'He is there.'
'Are you sure of it?'
'Are there two Sleepers-in-buff on earth?' replied the other. 'I have just seen him; he is togged out like one of the swell mob. They will be at table for three hours at least.'
'Then wait for me, you others. Keep as quiet as possible. I will go and fetch the captain, and the game is bagged.' So saying, one of the three men walked off quickly, and disappeared in a street leading from the square.
At this same instant the Bacchanal Queen entered the banqueting-room, accompanied by Jacques, and was received with the most frenzied acclamations from all sides.
'Now then,' cried Cephyse, with a sort of feverish excitement, as if she wished to stun herself; 'now then, friends—noise and tumult, hurricane and tempest, thunder and earthquake—as much as you please!' Then, holding out her glass to Ninny Moulin, she added: 'Pour out! pour out!'
'Long live the Queen!' cried they all, with one voice.
CHAPTER III. THE CAROUSE.
The Bacchanal Queen, having Sleepinbuff and Rose-Pompon opposite her, and Ninny Moulin on her right hand, presided at the repast, called a reveille-matin (wake-morning), generously offered by Jacques to his companions in pleasure.
Both young men and girls seemed to have forgotten the fatigues of a ball, begun at eleven o'clock in the evening, and finished at six in the morning; and all these couples, joyous as they were amorous and indefatigable, laughed, ate, and drank, with youthful and Pantagruelian ardor, so that, during the first part of the feast, there was less chatter than clatter of plates and glasses.
The Bacchanal Queen's countenance was less gay, but much more animated than usual; her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes announced a feverish excitement; she wished to drown reflection, cost what it might. Her conversation with her sister often recurred to her, and she tried to escape from such sad remembrances.
Jacques regarded Cephyse from time to time with passionate adoration; for, thanks to the singular conformity of character, mind, and taste between him and the Bacchanal Queen, their attachment had deeper and stronger roots than generally belong to ephemeral connections founded upon pleasure. Cephyse and Jacques were themselves not aware of all the power of a passion which till now had been surrounded only by joys and festivities, and not yet been tried by any untoward event.
Little Rose-Pompon, left a widow a few days before by a student, who, in order to end the carnival in style, had gone into the country to raise supplies from his family, under one of those fabulous pretences which tradition carefully preserves in colleges of law and medicine—Rose Pompon, we repeat, an example of rare fidelity, determined not to compromise herself, had taken for a chaperon the inoffensive Ninny Moulin.
This latter, having doffed his helmet, exhibited a bald head, encircled by a border of black, curling hair, pretty long at the back of the head. By a remarkable Bacchic phenomenon, in proportion as intoxication gained upon him, a sort of zone, as purple as his jovial face, crept by degrees over his brow, till it obscured even the shining whiteness of his crown. Rose-Pompon, who knew the meaning of this symptom, pointed it out to the company, and exclaimed with a loud burst of laughter: 'Take care, Ninny Moulin! the tide of the wine is coming in.'
'When it rises above his head he will be drowned,' added the Bacchanal Queen.
'Oh, Queen! don't disturb me; I am meditating, answered Dumoulin, who was getting tipsy. He held in his hand, in the fashion of an antique goblet, a punch-bowl filled with wine, for he despised the ordinary glasses, because of their small size.
'Meditating,' echoed Rose-Pompon, 'Ninny Moulin is meditating. Be attentive!'
'He is meditating; he must be ill then!'
'What is he meditating? an illegal dance?'
