He stopped, then added all of a sudden:
“Pooh! the future is big with great things!”
And, drumming a battle-march on the windowpanes, he declaimed some verses of Barthélemy, which ran thus:
“ ‘That dread Assembly shall again appear,
Which, after forty years, fills you with fear,
Marching with giant stride and dauntless soul’7
—I don’t know the rest of it! But ’tis late; suppose we go?”
And he went on setting forth his theories in the street.
Frederick, without listening to him, was looking at certain materials and articles of furniture in the shopwindows which would be suitable for his new residence in Paris; and it was, perhaps, the thought of Madame Arnoux that made him stop before a secondhand dealer’s window, where three plates made of fine ware were exposed to view. They were decorated with yellow arabesques with metallic reflections, and were worth a hundred crowns apiece. He got them put by.
“For my part, if I were in your place,” said Deslauriers, “I would rather buy silver plate,” revealing by this love of substantial things the man of mean extraction.
As soon as he was alone, Frederick repaired to the establishment of the celebrated Pomadère, where he ordered three pairs of trousers, two coats, a pelisse trimmed with fur, and five waistcoats. Then he called at a bootmaker’s, a shirtmaker’s, and a hatter’s, giving them directions in each shop to make the greatest possible haste. Three days later, on the evening of his return from Havre, he found his complete wardrobe awaiting him in his Parisian abode; and impatient to make use of it, he resolved to pay an immediate visit to the Dambreuses. But it was too early yet—scarcely eight o’clock.
“Suppose I went to see the others?” said he to himself.
He came upon Arnoux, all alone, in the act of shaving in front of his glass. The latter proposed to drive him to a place where they could amuse themselves, and when M. Dambreuse was referred to, “Ah, that’s just lucky! You’ll see some of his friends there. Come on, then! It will be good fun!”
Frederick asked to be excused. Madame Arnoux recognised his voice, and wished him good day, through the partition, for her daughter was indisposed, and she was also rather unwell herself. The noise of a soup-ladle against a glass could be heard from within, and all those quivering sounds made by things being lightly moved about, which are usual in a sickroom. Then Arnoux left his dressing-room to say goodbye to his wife. He brought forward a heap of reasons for going out:
“You know well that it is a serious matter! I must go there; ’tis a case of necessity. They’ll be waiting for me!”
“Go, go, my dear! Amuse yourself!”
Arnoux hailed a hackney-coach:
“Palais Royal, No. 7 Montpensier Gallery.” And, as he let himself sink back in the cushions:
“Ah! how tired I am, my dear fellow! It will be the death of me! However, I can tell it to you—to you!”
He bent towards Frederick’s ear in a mysterious fashion:
“I am trying to discover again the red of Chinese copper!”
And he explained the nature of the glaze and the little fire.
On their arrival at Chevet’s shop, a large hamper was brought to him, which he stowed away in the hackney-coach. Then he bought for his “poor wife” pineapples and various dainties, and directed that they should be sent early next morning.
After this, they called at a costumer’s establishment; it was to a ball they were going.
Arnoux selected blue velvet breeches, a vest of the same material, and a red wig; Frederick a domino; and they went down the Rue de Laval towards a house the second floor of which was illuminated by coloured lanterns.
At the foot of the stairs they heard violins playing above.
“Where the deuce are you bringing me to?” said Frederick.
“To see a nice girl! don’t be afraid!”
The door was opened for them by a groom; and they entered the anteroom, where paletots, mantles, and shawls were thrown together in a heap on some chairs. A young woman in the costume of a dragoon of Louis XIV’s reign was passing at that moment. It was Mademoiselle Rosanette Bron, the mistress of the place.
“Well?” said Arnoux.
“ ’Tis done!” she replied.
“Ah! thanks, my angel!”
And he wanted to kiss her.
“Take care, now, you foolish man! You’ll spoil the paint on my face!”
Arnoux introduced Frederick.
“Step in there, Monsieur; you are quite welcome!”
She drew aside a door-curtain, and cried out with a certain emphasis:
“Here’s my lord Arnoux, girl, and a princely friend of his!”
Frederick was at first dazzled by the lights. He could see nothing save some silk and velvet dresses, naked shoulders, a mass of colours swaying to and fro to the accompaniment of an orchestra hidden behind green foliage, between walls hung with yellow silk, with pastel portraits here and there and crystal chandeliers in the style of Louis XVI’s period. High lamps, whose globes of roughened glass resembled snowballs, looked down on baskets of flowers placed on brackets in the corners; and at the opposite side, at the rear of a second room, smaller in size, one could distinguish, in a third, a bed with twisted posts, and at its head a Venetian mirror.
The dancing stopped, and there were bursts of applause, a hubbub of delight, as Arnoux was seen advancing with his hamper on his head; the eatables contained in it made a lump in the centre.
“Make way for the lustre!”
Frederick raised his eyes: it was the lustre of old Saxe that had adorned the shop attached to the office of L’Art Industriel. The memory of former days was brought back to his mind. But a foot-soldier of the line in undress, with that silly expression of countenance ascribed by tradition to conscripts, planted himself right in front of him, spreading out his two arms in order to emphasise his astonishment, and, in spite of the hideous black moustaches, unusually pointed, which disfigured his face,
