“Listen to me, messieurs! One word! I have some experience, messieurs!”
Rosanette, by tapping with her knife on a glass, succeeded eventually in restoring silence, and, addressing the knight, who had kept his helmet on, and then the postilion, whose head was covered with a hairy cap:
“Take off that saucepan of yours! and you, there, your wolf’s head! Are you going to obey me, damn you? Pray show respect to my epaulets! I am your commanding officer!”
They complied, and everyone present applauded, exclaiming, “Long live the Maréchale! long live the Maréchale!” Then she took a bottle of champagne off the stove, and poured out its contents into the cups which they successively stretched forth to her. As the table was very large, the guests, especially the women, came over to her side, and stood erect on tiptoe on the slats of the chairs, so as to form, for the space of a minute, a pyramidal group of headdresses, naked shoulders, extended arms, and stooping bodies; and over all these objects a spray of wine played for some time, for the merry-andrew and Arnoux, at opposite corners of the dining-room, each letting fly the cork of a bottle, splashed the faces of those around them.
The little birds of the aviary, the door of which had been left open, broke into the apartment, quite scared, flying round the chandelier, knocking against the windowpanes and against the furniture, and some of them, alighting on the heads of the guests, presented the appearance there of large flowers.
The musicians had gone. The piano had been drawn out of the anteroom. The Vatnaz seated herself before it, and, accompanied by the choirboy, who thumped his tambourine, she made a wild dash into a quadrille, striking the keys like a horse pawing the ground, and wriggling her waist about, the better to mark the time. The Maréchale dragged out Frederick; Hussonnet took the windmill; the longshorewoman put out her joints like a circus-clown; the merry-andrew exhibited the manoeuvres of an orangutan; the female savage, with outspread arms, imitated the swaying motion of a boat. At last, unable to go on any further, they all stopped; and a window was flung open.
The broad daylight penetrated the apartment with the cool breath of morning. There was an exclamation of astonishment, and then came silence. The yellow flames flickered, making the sockets of the candlesticks crack from time to time. The floor was strewn with ribbons, flowers, and pearls. The pier-tables were sticky with the stains of punch and syrup. The hangings were soiled, the dresses rumpled and dusty. The plaits of the women’s hair hung loose over their shoulders, and the paint, trickling down with the perspiration, revealed pallid faces and red, blinking eyelids.
The Maréchale, fresh as if she had come out of a bath, had rosy checks and sparkling eyes. She flung her wig some distance away, and her hair fell around her like a fleece, allowing none of her uniform to be seen except her breeches, the effect thus produced being at the same time comical and pretty.
The Sphinx, whose teeth chattered as if she had the ague, wanted a shawl.
Rosanette rushed up to her own room to look for one, and, as the other came after her, she quickly shut the door in her face.
The Turk remarked, in a loud tone, that M. Oudry had not been seen going out. Nobody noticed the maliciousness of this observation, so worn out were they all.
Then, while waiting for vehicles, they managed to get on their broad-brimmed hats and cloaks. It struck seven. The angel was still in the dining-room, seated at the table with a plate of sardines and fruit stewed in melted butter in front of her, and close beside her was the fishwife, smoking cigarettes, while giving her advice as to the right way to live.
At last, the cabs having arrived, the guests took their departure. Hussonnet, who had an engagement as correspondent for the provinces, had to read through fifty-three newspapers before his breakfast. The female savage had a rehearsal at the theatre; Pellerin had to see a model; and the choirboy had three appointments. But the angel, attacked by the preliminary symptoms of indigestion, was unable to rise. The medieval baron carried her to the cab.
“Take care of her wings!” cried the longshorewoman through the window.
At the top of the stairs, Mademoiselle Vatnaz said to Rosanette:
“Goodbye, darling! That was a very nice evening party of yours.”
Then, bending close to her ear: “Take care of him!”
“Till better times come,” returned the Maréchale, in drawling tones, as she turned her back.
Arnoux and Frederick returned together, just as they had come. The dealer in faïence looked so gloomy that his companion wished to know if he were ill.
“I? Not at all!”
He bit his moustache, knitted his brows; and Frederick asked him, was it his business that annoyed him.
“By no means!”
Then all of a sudden:
“You know him—Père Oudry—don’t you?”
And, with a spiteful expression on his countenance:
“He’s rich, the old scoundrel!”
After this, Arnoux spoke about an important piece of ware-making, which had to be finished that day at his works. He wanted to see it; the train was starting in an hour.
“Meantime, I must go and embrace my wife.”
“Ha! his wife!” thought Frederick. Then he made his way home to go to bed, with his head aching terribly; and, to appease his thirst, he swallowed a whole carafe of water.
Another thirst had come to him—the thirst for women, for licentious pleasure, and all that Parisian life permitted him to enjoy. He felt somewhat stunned, like a man coming out of a ship, and in the visions that haunted his first sleep, he saw the shoulders of the fishwife, the loins of the longshorewoman, the calves of the Polish lady, and the headdress of the female savage flying past him
