The house, decorated with Moorish ornaments, had the effect of a café concert-hall, but its location gave it great value because the line of the railway, skirting the garden for its whole length, passed within twenty meters of the steps.
Within the circle of incumbent turf stood a basin of Roman cement containing goldfish, and a fountain of water, with a stream not much larger than that of a syringe, at times threw into the air microscopic rainbows at which visitors marveled.
The feeding of this irrigator was the constant occupation of Monsieur Perdrix, who frequently rose at five o’clock in the morning in order to fill the reservoir. In his shirtsleeves, his big stomach protruding, he pumped with desperation, so that on his return from the office he might have the satisfaction of seeing the fountain play, and imagining that a coolness and freshness spread from it over the garden. On the evening of the official dinner, all the guests, one after the other, went into ecstasies over the situation of the domain, and every time they heard a train coming in the distance, Monsieur Perdrix announced its destination to them: Saint-Germain, Havre, Cherbourg, or Dieppe, and they made playful signs to travelers who were looking out of the car-windows.
The entire office staff arrived first. There was Monsieur Capitaine, subchief; Monsieur Patissot, chief clerk: then Messieurs de Sombreterre and Vallin, elegant young employees, who came to the office only at their own hours; finally Monsieur Rade, celebrated throughout the whole ministry for the absurd doctrines he upheld; and the copying clerk, Monsieur Boivin.
Monsieur Rade passed for a type. Some persons treated him as a fanatic or an idealist, others as a revolutionist. All agreed that he was an awkward fellow. Already old, thin and small, with a lively eye and long thin locks, he had all his life professed the most profound contempt for the administrative duties. He was a rummager of books and a great reader, with a nature always revolting against everything, a seeker of truth and despiser of popular prejudices. He had a neat and paradoxical fashion of expressing his opinions which closed the mouths of self-satisfied imbeciles and of those who were discontented without knowing why. People said: “That old fool, Rade,” or perhaps, “That harebrained Rade,” and the slowness of his advancement seemed to bear out the successful mediocrities charged against him. The independence of his speech often made his colleagues tremble, and they sometimes wondered how he had been able to keep his place. As soon as they were at table, Monsieur Perdrix, in a well-turned little speech, thanked his collaborators, promised them his protection, the more efficacious as his power increased, and finished with an emotional peroration in which he thanked and glorified the liberal and just government that knew how to seek merit among the humble.
Monsieur Capitaine, subchief, replied in the name of the bureau, felicitated, congratulated, greeted, exalted, sang the praises of everybody; and frantic applause followed these two morsels of eloquence. After this the guests applied themselves seriously to eating.
All went well throughout the dinner, the poverty of the conversation not worrying anybody. But at the dessert a discussion arose suddenly, whereupon Monsieur Rade let himself loose, and began to pass the limits of discretion in his speech.
They were speaking of love naturally, and, a breath of chivalry intoxicating this roomful of bureaucrats, they were praising with exaltation the superior beauty of woman, her delicacy of soul, her aptitude for exquisite things, the correctness of her judgment, and the refinement of her sentiments. Monsieur Rade began to protest energetically, refusing to the so-called fair sex all the qualities attributed to it; and then in the presence of the general indignation, he quoted some authors.
“Schopenhauer, Messieurs, Schopenhauer, a great philosopher whom Germany venerates. This is what he says: ‘The intelligence of man must have been very much obscured by love to make him call beautiful that short-figured sex with narrow shoulders, large hips, and crooked legs. Its whole beauty, really, rests in the instinct of love. Instead of calling it the fair sex, it would have been more correct to call it the unaesthetic sex. Women have neither the sentiment nor the intelligence of music, any more than of poetry or of the plastic arts; among them there is only pure mimicry, pure pretense, pure affectation, cultivated from their desire to please.’ ”
“The man that said that is an imbecile!” declared Monsieur de Sombreterre.
Monsieur Rade, smiling, continued: “And Rousseau, Messieurs? Here is his opinion: ‘Women in general love no art, are skilled in none, and have no genius.’ ”
Monsieur de Sombreterre disdainfully shrugged his shoulders.
“Rousseau is as stupid as the other one, that’s all,” said he.
Monsieur Rade, still smiling, rejoined: “And Lord Byron, who nevertheless loved women, said this: ‘They ought to be well fed and well clad, but they ought not to mingle in society. They should also be instructed in religion, but should be unacquainted with poetry and politics, and read only books of piety and cooking.’ You see, Messieurs,” continued Monsieur Rade, “they all study painting and music, and yet there is not one of them who has painted a good picture, or composed a remarkable opera! Why, Messieurs? Simply because they are the sexus sequior, the second sex in all respects, made to be kept apart, and on the second plane.”
Monsieur Patissot grew angry.
“And Madame Sand, Monsieur?”
“An exception, Monsieur, an exception. I will quote to you still another passage, from the great English philosopher, Herbert Spencer. Here it is: ‘Each sex is capable, under the influence of special stimulants, of manifesting the faculties ordinarily reserved for the other. Thus, to take an extreme case, a special excitation may cause the breasts of men to give milk; in time of famine little children deprived of their mother have been known to be saved in this
