“All right,” he said; “tell them ’tis ready! I’m going to have it served up.”
The dancing had ceased. The women came and sat down; the men were walking about. In the centre of the drawing-room, one of the curtains stretched over a window was swelling in the wind; and the Sphinx, in spite of the observations of everyone, exposed her sweating arms to the current of air.
Where could Rosanette be? Frederick went on further to find her, even into her boudoir and her bedroom. Some, in order to be alone, or to be in pairs, had retreated into the corners. Whisperings intermingled with the shade. There were little laughs stifled under handkerchiefs, and at the sides of women’s corsages one could catch glimpses of fans quivering with slow, gentle movements, like the beating of a wounded bird’s wings.
As he entered the hothouse, he saw under the large leaves of a caladium near the jet d’eau, Delmar lying on his face on the sofa covered with linen cloth. Rosanette, seated beside him, had passed her fingers through his hair; and they were gazing into each other’s faces. At the same moment, Arnoux came in at the opposite side—that which was near the aviary. Delmar sprang to his feet; then he went out at a rapid pace, without turning round; and even paused close to the door to gather a hibiscus flower, with which he adorned his buttonhole. Rosanette hung down her head; Frederick, who caught a sight of her profile, saw that she was in tears.
“I say! What’s the matter with you?” exclaimed Arnoux.
She shrugged her shoulders without replying.
“Is it on account of him?” he went on.
She threw her arms round his neck, and kissing him on the forehead, slowly:
“You know well that I will always love you, my big fellow! Think no more about it! Let us go to supper!”
A copper chandelier with forty wax tapers lighted up the dining-room, the walls of which were hidden from view under some fine old earthenware that was hung up there; and this crude light, falling perpendicularly, rendered still whiter, amid the side-dishes and the fruits, a huge turbot which occupied the centre of the tablecloth, with plates all round filled with crayfish soup. With a rustle of garments, the women, having arranged their skirts, their sleeves, and their scarfs, took their seats beside one another; the men, standing up, posted themselves at the corners. Pellerin and M. Oudry were placed near Rosanette. Arnoux was facing her. Palazot and his female companion had just gone out.
“Goodbye to them!” said she. “Now let us begin the attack!”
And the choirboy, a facetious man with a big sign of the cross, said grace.
The ladies were scandalised, and especially the fishwife, the mother of a young girl of whom she wished to make an honest woman. Neither did Arnoux like “that sort of thing,” as he considered that religion ought to be respected.
A German clock with a cock attached to it happening to chime out the hour of two, gave rise to a number of jokes about the cuckoo. All kinds of talk followed—puns, anecdotes, bragging remarks, bets, lies taken for truth, improbable assertions, a tumult of words, which soon became dispersed in the form of chats between particular individuals. The wines went round; the dishes succeeded each other; the doctor carved. An orange or a cork would every now and then be flung from a distance. People would quit their seats to go and talk to someone at another end of the table. Rosanette turned round towards Delmar, who sat motionless behind her; Pellerin kept babbling; M. Oudry smiled. Mademoiselle Vatnaz ate, almost alone, a group of crayfish, and the shells crackled under her long teeth. The angel, poised on the piano-stool—the only place on which her wings permitted her to sit down—was placidly masticating without ever stopping.
“What an appetite!” the choirboy kept repeating in amazement, “what an appetite!”
And the Sphinx drank brandy, screamed out with her throat full, and wriggled like a demon. Suddenly her jaws swelled, and no longer being able to keep down the blood which rushed to her head and nearly choked her, she pressed her napkin against her lips, and threw herself under the table.
Frederick had seen her falling: “ ’Tis nothing!” And at his entreaties to be allowed to go and look after her, she replied slowly:
“Pooh! what’s the good? That’s just as pleasant as anything else. Life is not so amusing!”
Then, he shivered, a feeling of icy sadness taking possession of him, as if he had caught a glimpse of whole worlds of wretchedness and despair—a chafing-dish of charcoal beside a folding-bed, the corpses of the Morgue in leathern aprons, with the tap of cold water that flows over their heads.
Meanwhile, Hussonnet, squatted at the feet of the female savage, was howling in a hoarse voice in imitation of the actor Grassot:
“Be not cruel, O Celuta! this little family fête is charming! Intoxicate me with delight, my loves! Let us be gay! let us be gay!”
And he began kissing the women on the shoulders. They quivered under the tickling of his moustaches. Then he conceived the idea of breaking a plate against his head by rapping it there with a little energy. Others followed his example. The broken earthenware flew about in bits like slates in a storm; and the longshorewoman exclaimed:
“Don’t bother yourselves about it; these cost nothing. We get a present of them from the merchant who makes them!”
Every eye was riveted on Arnoux. He replied:
“Ha! about the invoice—allow me!” desiring, no doubt, to pass for not being, or for no longer being, Rosanette’s lover.
But two angry voices here made themselves heard:
“Idiot!”
“Rascal!”
“I am at your command!”
“So am I at yours!”
It was the medieval knight and the Russian postilion who were disputing, the latter having maintained that armour dispensed with bravery, while
