Read Ebook: Gerfaut — Volume 4 by Bernard Charles De

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Ebook has 587 lines and 28355 words, and 12 pages

"It is a pity," he exclaimed, in the midst of his triumph, as he glanced disdainfully up and down the table, "it really is a pity, gentlemen, to listen to your conversation. One could imagine nothing more commonplace- prosaic or bourgeois. Would it not please you to indulge in a discussion of a little higher order?

Let us join hands, and talk of poetry and art. I am thirsting for an artistic conversation; I am thirsting for wit and intelligence."

"You must drink if you are thirsty," said the notary, filling his glass to the brim.

The artist emptied it at one draught, and continued in a languishing voice as he gazed with a loving look at his fat neighbor.

"I will begin our artistic conversation: 'Knowest thou the land where the orange-flower blooms?'"

"It is warmer than ours," replied the notary, who was not familiar with Mignon's song; and, beginning to laugh maliciously, he gave a wink at his neighbors as if to say:

"I have settled him now."

Marillac leaned toward him with the meekness of a lamb that presents his head to the butcher, and sympathetically pressed his hands.

"O poet!" he continued, "do you not feel, as I do at the twilight hour and in the eventide, a vague desire for a sunny, perfumed, southern life? Will you not bid adieu to this sterile country and sail away to a land where the blue sky is reflected in the blue sea? Venice! the Rialto, the Bridge of Sighs, Saint Mark! Rome! the Coliseum and Saint Peter-- But I know Italy by heart; let us go instead to Constantinople. I am thirsting for sultanas and houris; I am thirsting--"

"Good gracious! why do you not drink if you are thirsty?"

"Gladly. I never say no to that. I scorn love in a nightcap; I adore danger. Danger is life to me.

I dote on silken ladders as long as Jacob's, on citadels worth scaling; on moonlight evenings, bearded husbands, and all that sort of thing--I would love a bed composed of five hundred poniards; you understand me, poet--"

"I beg of you, do not make him drink any more," said Gerfaut to the notary.

"You are right not to wish to drink any more, Octave, I was about to advise you not to. You have already drunk to excess to-day, and I am afraid that it will make you ill; your health is so weak--you are not a strong man like me. Fancy, gentlemen, Monsieur le Vicomte de Gerfaut, a native of Gascony, a roue by profession, a star of the first magnitude in literature, is afflicted by nature with a stomach which has nothing in common with that of an ostrich; he has need to use the greatest care. So we have him drink seltzer-water principally, and feed him on the white meat of the chicken. Besides, we keep this precious phenomenon rolled up between two wool blankets and over a kettle of boiling water. He is a great poet; I myself am a very great poet."

"And I also, I hope," said the notary.

"Gentlemen, formerly there were poets who wrote only in verse; nowadays they revel in prose. There are some even who are neither prose nor verse writers, who have never confided their secret to anybody, and who selfishly keep their poetry to themselves. It is a very simple thing to be a poet, provided you feel the indescribable intoxication of the soul, and understand the inexpressible afflatus that bubbles over in your large brain, and your noble heart throbs under your left breast--"

"He is as drunk as a fool," said M. de Camier, loud enough for him to hear.

"Old man," said he, "you are the one who is drunk. Besides the word drunk is not civil; if you had said intoxicated I should not have objected."

Loud shouts of laughter burst forth from the party. He threw a threatening glance around him, as if he were seeking some one upon whom to vent his anger, and, placing his hand upon his hip, assumed the pose of a bully.

"Softly, my good fellows!" said he, "if any of you pretend that I am drunk, I declare to him that he lies, and I call him a misantrophe, a vagabond, an academician!" he concluded, with a loud burst of laughter; for he thought that the jesters would be crushed by this last heavy weapon.

Marillac's voice burst out more loudly than ever, and Octave's reply was not heard.

"It is simply astounding. They are all as drunk as fools, and yet they pretend that it is I who am drunk. Very well! I defy you all; who among you wishes to argue with me? Will you discuss art, literature, politics, medicine, music, philosophy, archiology, jurisprudence, magnetism--"

"Jurisprudence!" exclaimed the thick voice of the public prosecutor, who was aroused from his stupor by this magic word; "let us talk jurisprudence."

"Would you like," said Marillac, without stopping at this interruption, "that I should improvise a discourse upon the death penalty or upon temperance? Would you like me to tell you a story?"

"A story, yes, a story!" they all exclaimed in unison.

"Speak out, then; order what story you like; it will cost you nothing," replied the artist, rubbing his hands with a radiant air. "Would you like a tale from the Middle Ages? a fairy, an eastern, a comical, or a private story? I warn you that the latter style is less old-fashioned than the others."

"Let us have it, then, by all means," said all the drunken voices.

"Very well. Now would you like it to be laid in Spain, Arabia, or France?"

"France!" exclaimed the prosecutor.

"I am French, you are French, he is French. You shall have a French story."

Marillac leaned his forehead upon his hands, and his elbows upon the table, as if to gather his scattered ideas. After a few moments' reflection, he raised his head and looked first at Gerfaut, then at Bergenheim, with a peculiar smile.

"It would be very original," said he, in a low voice as if replying to his own thoughts.

"The story!" exclaimed one of the party, more impatient than the rest.

"Here it is," replied the artist. "You all know, gentlemen, how difficult it always is to choose a title. In order not to make you wait, I have chosen one which is already well known. My story is to be called 'The husband, the wife, and the lover.' We are not all single men here, and a wise proverb says that one must never speak--"

In spite of his muddled brain, the artist did not finish his quotation. A remnant of common-sense made him realize that he was treading upon dangerous ground and was upon the point of committing an unpardonable indiscretion. Fortunately, the Baron had paid no attention to his words; but Gerfaut was frightened at his friend's jabbering, and threw him a glance of the most threatening advice to be prudent. Marillac vaguely understood his mistake, and was half intimidated by this glance; he leaned before the notary and said to him, in a voice which he tried to make confidential, but which could be heard from one end of the table to the other:

"Be calm, Octave, I will tell it in obscure words and in such a way that he will not see anything in it. It is a scene for a drama that I have in my mind."

"You will make some grotesque blunder, if you go on drinking and talking," replied Gerfaut, in an anxious voice. "Hold your tongue, or else come away from the table with me."

"When I tell you that I will use obscure words," replied the artist; "what do you take me for? I swear to you that I will gloss it over in such a way that nobody will suspect anything."

"The story! the story!" exclaimed several, who were amused by the incoherent chattering of the artist.

"Here it is," said the latter, sitting upright in his char,; and paying no heed to his friend's warnings. "The scene takes place in a little court in Germany--Eh!" said he, looking at Gerfaut and maliciously winking his eye--"do you not think that is glossed over?"

"Not in a German court, you said it was to be a French story," said the public prosecutor, disposed to play the critic toward the orator who had reduced him to silence.

"Well, it is a French story, but the scene is laid in Germany," he replied, coolly." Do you desire to teach me my profession? Understand that nothing is more elastic than a German court; the story-teller can introduce there whoever he likes; I may bring in the Shah of Persia and the Emperor of China if I care to. However, if you prefer the court of Italy, it is the same thing to me."

This conciliating proposal remained without response. Marillac continued raising his eyes in such a way that nothing but the whites could be seen, and as if he were searching for his words in the ceiling.

"The Princess Borinski was walking slowly in the mysterious alley on the borders of the foaming torrent "

"Borinski! she is a Pole, then?" interrupted M. de Camier.

"Oh! go to the devil, old man! Do not interrupt me," exclaimed the artist, impatiently.

"That is right. Silence now."

"You have the floor," said several voices at once.

"--She was pale, and she heaved convulsive sighs and wrung her soft, warm hands, and a white pearl rolled from her dark lashes, and--"

"Why do you begin all your phrases with 'and?'" asked the public prosecutor, with the captiousness of an inexorable critic.

"Because it is biblical and unaffected. Now let me alone," replied Marillac, with superb disdain. "You are a police-officer; I am an artist; what is there in common between you and me? I will continue: And he saw this pensive, weeping woman pass in the distance, and he said to the Prince: 'Borinski, a bit of root in which my foot caught has hurt my limb, will you suffer me to return to the palace? And the Prince Borinski said to him, 'Shall my men carry you in a palanquin?' and the cunning Octave replied--"

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