No one would go to the Rogrons’ evenings; their pretensions were stillborn. There were abundant reasons for refusing; every day was taken up by Madame Garceland, Madame Galardon, the two Julliard ladies, Madame Tiphaine, the Sous-préfet, etc. The Rogrons thought that giving dinners was all that was needed to get into society; they secured some young people who laughed at them, and some diners-out, such as are to be found in every part of the world; but serious people quite gave them up. Sylvie, alarmed at the clear loss of forty thousand francs swallowed up without any return in the house she called her dear house, wanted to recover the sum by economy. So she soon ceased to give dinners that cost from thirty to forty francs, without the wine, as they failed to realize her hope of forming a circle—a thing as difficult to create in the country as it is in Paris. Sylvie dismissed her cook, and hired a country girl for the coarser work. She herself cooked “to amuse herself.”
Thus, fourteen months after their return home, the brother and sister had drifted into a life of isolation and idleness. Her banishment from “the world” had roused in Sylvie’s soul an intense hatred of the Tiphaines, Julliards, Auffrays, and Garcelands—in short, of everybody in Provins society, which she stigmatized as a clique, with which she was on the most distant terms. She would gladly have set up a rival circle; but the second-rate citizen class was composed entirely of small tradespeople, never free but on Sundays and holidays; or of persons in ill-odor, like Vinet the lawyer and Doctor Néraud; or of rank Bonapartists, like General Gouraud; and Rogron very rashly made friends with these, though the upper set had vainly warned him against them. The brother and sister were obliged to sit together by the fire of their dining-room stove, talking over their business, the faces of their customers, and other equally amusing matters.
The second winter did not come to an end without their being almost crushed by its weight of dullness. They had the greatest difficulty in spending the hours of their day. As they went to bed at night, they thought, “One more over!” They spun out the morning by getting up late and dressing slowly. Rogron shaved himself every morning; he examined his face and described to his sister the changes he fancied he noted in it; he squabbled with the maid over the temperature of the hot water; he wandered into the garden to see if the flowers were sprouting; he ventured down to the riverbank, where he had built a summerhouse; he examined the woodwork of the house. Had it warped? Had the settling split any of the panels? Was the paint wearing well? Then he came in to discuss his anxieties as to a sick hen, or some spot where the damp had left stains, talking to his sister, who affected hurry in laying the table while she scolded the maid. The barometer was the most useful article in the house to Rogron; he consulted it for no reason, tapped it familiarly like a friend, and then said, “Vile weather!” to which his sister would reply, “Pooh, the weather is quite seasonable.” If anybody called, he would boast of the excellence of this instrument.
Their breakfast took up some little time. How slowly did these two beings masticate each mouthful. And their digestion was perfect; they had no cause to fear cancer of the stomach. By reading the Ruche and the Constitutionnel they got on to noon. They paid a third of the subscription to the Paris paper with Vinet and Colonel Gouraud. Rogron himself carried the paper to the Colonel, who lived in the Square, lodging with Monsieur Martener; the soldier’s long stories were an immense delight to him. Rogron could only wonder why the Colonel was considered dangerous. He was such an idiot as to speak to him of the ostracism under which he lived, and retail the sayings of the “clique.” God only knows what the Colonel—who feared no one, and was as redoubtable with the pistol as with the sword—had to say of “la Tiphaine” and “her Julliard,” of the ministerial officials of the upper town—“men brought over by foreigners, capable of anything to stick in their places, cooking the lists of votes at the elections to suit themselves,” and the like.
At about two o’clock Rogron sallied forth for a little walk. He was quite happy when a shopkeeper, standing at his door, stopped him with a “How d’ye do, Père Rogron?” He gossiped, and asked, “What news in the town?” heard and repeated scandal, or the tittle-tattle of Provins. He walked to the upper town, or in the sunk roads, according to the weather. Sometimes he met other old men airing themselves in like manner. Such meetings were happy events.
There were at Provins certain men who were out of conceit with the life of Paris, learned and modest men, living with their books. Imagine Rogron’s frame of mind when he listened to a supernumerary judge named Desfondrilles, more of an archaeologist than a lawyer, saying to a man of education, old Monsieur Martener, the doctor’s father, as he pointed to the valley:
“Will you tell me why the idlers of all Europe flock to Spa rather than to Provins, when the waters of Provins are acknowledged to be superior by the whole French faculty of medicine, and to have effects and an energy worthy of the medical properties of our roses?”
“What do you expect?” replied the man of the world, “it
