'A forbidden Anacreontic attitude?'
'Yes, I am meditating,' returned Dumoulin, gravely; 'I am meditating upon wine, generally and in particular —wine, of which the immortal Bossuet'—Dumoulin had the very bad habit of quoting Bossuet when he was drunk —'of which the immortal Bossuet says (and he was a judge of good liquor): 'In wine is courage, strength joy, and spiritual fervor'—when one has any brains,' added Ninny Moulin, by way of parenthesis.
'Oh, my! how I adore your Bossuet!' said Rose-Pompon.
'As for my particular meditation, it concerns the question, whether the wine at the marriage of Cana was red or white. Sometimes I incline to one side, sometimes to the other—and sometimes to both at once.'
'That is going to the bottom of the question,' said Sleepinbuff.
'And, above all, to the bottom of the bottles,' added the Bacchanal Queen.
'As your majesty is pleased to observe; and already, by dint of reflection and research, I have made a great discovery—namely, that, if the wine at the marriage of Cana was red—'
'It couldn't 'a' been white,' said Rose-Pompon, judiciously.
'And if I had arrived at the conviction that it was neither white nor red?' asked Dumoulin, with a magisterial air.
'That could only be when you had drunk till all was blue,' observed Sleepinbuff.
'The partner of the Queen says well. One may be too athirst for science; but never mind! From all my studies on this question, to which I have devoted my life—I shall await the end of my respectable career with the sense of having emptied tuns with a historical—theological—and archeological tone!'
It is impossible to describe the jovial grimace and tone with which Dumoulin pronounced and accentuated these last words, which provoked a general laugh.
'Archieolopically?' said Rose-Pompon. 'What sawnee is that? Has he a tail? does he live in the water?'
'Never mind,' observed the Bacchanal Queen; 'these are words of wise men and conjurers; they are like horsehair bustles—they serve for filling out—that's all. I like better to drink; so fill the glasses, Ninny Moulin; some champagne, Rose-Pompon; here's to the health of your Philemon and his speedy return!'
'And to the success of his plant upon his stupid and stingy family!' added Rose-Pompon.
The toast was received with unanimous applause.
'With the permission of her majesty and her court,' said Dumoulin, 'I propose a toast to the success of a project which greatly interests me, and has some resemblance to Philemon's jockeying. I fancy that the toast will bring me luck.'
'Let's have it, by all means!'
'Well, then—success to my marriage!' said Dumoulin, rising.
These words provoked an explosion of shouts, applause, and laughter. Ninny Moulin shouted, applauded, laughed even louder than the rest, opening wide his enormous mouth, and adding to the stunning noise the harsh springing of his rattle, which he had taken up from under his chair.
When the storm had somewhat subsided, the Bacchanal Queen rose and said: 'I drink to the health of the future Madame Ninny Moulin.'
'Oh, Queen! your courtesy touches me so sensibly that I must allow you to read in the depths of my heart the name of my future spouse,' exclaimed Dumoulin. 'She is called Madame Honoree-Modeste-Messaline-Angele de la Sainte-Colombe, widow.'
'Bravo! bravo!'
'She is sixty years old, and has more thousands of francs-a-year than she has hair in her gray moustache or wrinkles on her face; she is so superbly fat that one of her gowns would serve as a tent for this honorable company. I hope to present my future spouse to you on Shrove Tuesday, in the costume of a shepherdess that has just devoured her flock. Some of them wish to convert her—but I have undertaken to divert her, which she will like better. You must help me to plunge her headlong into all sorts of skylarking jollity.'
'We will plunge her into anything you please.'
'She shall dance like sixty!' said Rose-Pompon, humming a popular tune.
'She will overawe the police.'
'We can say to them: 'Respect this lady; your mother will perhaps be as old some day!''
Suddenly, the Bacchanal Queen rose; her countenance wore a singular expression of bitter and sardonic delight. In one hand she held a glass full to the brim. 'I hear the Cholera is approaching in his seven-league boots,' she cried. 'I drink luck to the Cholera!' And she emptied the bumper.
Notwithstanding the general gayety, these words made a gloomy impression; a sort of electric shudder ran through the assemblage, and nearly every countenance became suddenly serious.
'Oh, Cephyse!' said Jacques, in a tone of reproach.
'Luck to the Cholera,' repeated the Queen, fearlessly. 'Let him spare those who wish to live, and kill together those who dread to part!'
Jacques and Cephyse exchanged a rapid glance, unnoticed by their joyous companions, and for some time the Bacchanal Queen remained silent and thoughtful.
'If you put it that way, it is different,' cried Rose-Pompon, boldly. 'To the Cholera! may none but good fellows be left on earth!'
In spite of this variation, the impression was still painfully impressive. Dumoulin, wishing to cut short this gloomy subject, exclaimed: 'Devil take the dead, and long live the living! And, talking of chaps who both live and live well, I ask you to drink a health most dear to our joyous queen, the health of our Amphitryon. Unfortunately, I do not know his respectable name, having only had the advantage of making his acquaintance this night; he will excuse me, then, if I confine myself to proposing the health of Sleepinbuff—a name by no means offensive to my modesty, as Adam never slept in any other manner. I drink to Sleepinbuff.'
'Thanks, old son!' said Jacques, gayly; 'were I to forget your name, I should call you 'Have-a-sip?' and I am sure that you would answer: 'I will.''
'I will directly!' said Dumoulin, making the military salute with one hand, and holding out the bowl with the other.
'As we have drunk together,' resumed Sleepinbuff, cordially, 'we ought to know each other thoroughly. I am Jacques Rennepont?'
'Rennepont!' cried Dumoulin, who appeared struck by the name, in spite of his half-drunkenness; 'you are Rennepont?'
'Rennepont in the fullest sense of the word. Does that astonish you?'
'There is a very ancient family of that name—the Counts of Rennepont.'
'The deuce there is!' said the other, laughing.
'The Counts of Rennepont are also Dukes of Cardoville,' added Dumoulin.
'Now, come, old fellow! do I look as if I belonged to such a family?—I, a workman out for a spree?'
'You a workman? why, we are getting into the Arabian Nights!' cried Dumoulin, more and more surprised. 'You give us a Belshazzar's banquet, with accompaniment of carriages and four, and yet are a workman? Only tell me your trade, and I will join you, leaving the Vine of the Divine to take care of itself.'
'Come, I say! don't think that I am a printer of flimsies, and a smasher!' replied Jacques, laughing.
'Oh, comrade! no such suspicion—'
'It would be excusable, seeing the rigs I run. But I'll make you easy on that point. I am spending an inheritance.'
'Eating and drinking an uncle, no doubt?' said Dumoulin, benevolently.
'Faith, I don't know.'
'What! you don't know whom you are eating and drinking?'
'Why, you see, in the first place, my father was a bone-grubber.'
'The devil he was!' said Dumoulin, somewhat out of countenance, though in general not over-scrupulous in the choice of his bottle-companions: but, after the first surprise, he resumed, with the most charming amenity: 'There are some rag-pickers very high by scent—I mean descent!'
'To be sure! you may think to laugh at me,' said Jacques, 'but you are right in this respect, for my father was a man of very great merit. He spoke Greek and Latin like a scholar, and often told me that he had not his equal in mathematics; besides, he had travelled a good deal.'
'Well, then,' resumed Dumoulin, whom surprise had partly sobered, 'you may belong to the family of the
