The writer bowed again, but with a stiff and impatient air. Patissot perceived this, and losing his head, he added:
“What a su‑su‑su‑superb place!”
Then the spirit of the proprietor awaked in the indifferent heart of the man of letters, and smiling, he opened the window to show them the extent of the view.
There was an extensive view in all directions, including Triel, Pisse-Fontaine, Chanteloup, all the heights of Hautrie, and the Seine, as far as the eye could reach.
The two visitors, delighted, congratulated the great writer; and immediately the house was open to them. They saw everything, even to the fine kitchen, the walls of which, inlaid with tiles in blue designs, excited the wonder of the peasants.
“How did you happen to buy this place?” asked the journalist. And the romancer said that, in looking for a house to hire for a summer, he had found the little house, recently built, which was for sale at a few thousand francs, a trifle, almost nothing. He had bought it on the spot.
“But everything you have added must have cost you dear?”
The writer smiled, saying:
“Yes, considerable.”
And the two men went away.
The journalist, taking Patissot’s arm, philosophized in a slow voice: “Every general has his Waterloo,” said he. “Every Balzac has his foible, and every artist residing in the country has a desire to be a landed proprietor.”
They took the train at the station of Villaines, and in the car, Patissot mentioned in a loud voice the names of the illustrious painter and famous romancer, as if they were his friends. He even forced himself to believe that he had breakfasted with one and dined with the other.
VI
Before the Festival
The festival was approaching and the quiverings of it were already running through the streets, as ripples pass over the surface of the water when a storm is rising. The shops, adorned with flags, displayed a gaiety of dyes, and the merchants cheated about the three colors as grocers do over their candles. Hearts were wrought up, little by little. Citizens spoke in the streets, after dinner, about the festival and exchanged ideas regarding it.
“What a festival it will be, my friends, what a festival!”
“You didn’t know? All the sovereigns will come incognito, as bourgeois, to see it.”
“It seems that the Emperor of Russia has arrived; he intends to go everywhere with the Prince of Wales.”
“Oh! What a festival it will be!”
It would be a festival, certainly, what Monsieur Patissot called a great occasion; one of those indescribable tumults that for fifteen hours roll from one end of the city to another all the populace, bedizened with tinsel, a wave of perspiring people, where, side by side are tossed the stout gossip with tricolored ribbons, puffing and panting, who has grown stout behind her counter; the rickety employee, towing his wife and brat; the workingman, carrying his youngster astride his neck; the bewildered provincial, with his stupefied, idiotic physiognomy, the lightly-shaved groom still smelling of the stable. And the strangers dressed like monkeys, the English women, like giraffes, the shining-faced water-carrier, and the innumerable phalanx of little bourgeois, inoffensive citizens, amused at everything. O topsy-turvyness, backbreaking fatigue, sweat and dust, vociferations, eddies of human flesh, extermination of corns, bewilderment of all thought, frightful odors, breaths of the multitudes, wafts of garlic, give, oh, give to Monsieur Patissot all the joy his heart can contain!
Our worthy friend made his preparations for the festival after reading the proclamation of the mayor on the walls of the district.
This notice ran:
It is principally to the private decorations that I wish to call your attention. Decorate your homes, illuminate your windows, unite, club together, to give your houses and your streets a more brilliant and more artistic appearance than that of the neighboring houses and streets.
Monsieur Patissot pondered deeply over what artistic appearance he could give his own house.
A serious obstacle presented itself. His only window looked upon a court, a dark court, narrow and deep, where only the rats would see his Venetian lanterns.
He must have a public opening. He found one. On the first floor of his house lived a rich man, a noble and a royalist, whose coachman, also a reactionist, occupied a room on the sixth floor, facing the street. Monsieur Patissot supposed that, for a certain price, any conscience could be bought, and he offered five francs to this wielder of the whip to give up to him his room, from noon to midnight. The offer was accepted at once.
Then he began to busy himself about the decorations. Were three flags and four Chinese lanterns enough to give to this snuffbox an artistic physiognomy and to express all the exaltation of his soul? No, decidedly not! But, in spite of long researches and nocturnal meditations, Monsieur Patissot could not think of anything else. He consulted his neighbors, who were astounded at his inquiry. He questioned his colleagues. Everybody had purchased lanterns and flags, attaching to them tricolored decorations for the day.
Then he began to seek for an original idea. He haunted cafés, approaching the customers, but they were lacking in imagination. Then one morning he climbed to the top of an omnibus. A gentleman of respectable aspect was smoking a cigar at his side; a workingman further off puffed at his reversed pipe; two street-boys were near the coachman; and employees of all sorts were going to business for the price of three sous.
Before the shops bundles of flags were resplendent under the rising sun. Patissot turned toward his neighbor.
“This will be a fine festival,” said he. The gentleman gave a side glance and replied with an arrogant air: “It’s all the same to me!”
“You are not going to take part in it?” Patissot asked, surprised.
The other disdainfully shook his head.
“They make me sick with their festival! What is it the festival of? The government? I don’t recognize this government, Monsieur.”
But Patissot, himself an employee of the government, sternly answered:
“The government,
