A Distinguished Provincial in Paris by Honoré de Balzac (great novels .TXT) 📖

totals of the bills always before his eyes, and to look upon the splendors about him as so much jewelry imprudently withdrawn from the case.

"And I shall be obliged to do as much for Florentine!" old Cardot's eyes seemed to say.

Lucien at once began to understand Lousteau's indifference to the state of his garret. Etienne was the real king of these festivals; Etienne enjoyed the use of all these fine things. He was standing just now on the hearthrug with his back to the fire, as if he were the master of the house, chatting with the manager, who was congratulating du Bruel.

"Copy, copy!" called Finot, coming into the room. "There is nothing in the box; the printers are setting up my article, and they will soon have finished."

"We will manage," said Etienne. "There is a fire burning in Florine's boudoir; there is a table there; and if M. Matifat will find us paper and ink, we will knock off the newspaper while Florine and Coralie are dressing."

Cardot, Camusot, and Matifat disappeared in search of quills, penknives, and everything necessary. Suddenly the door was flung open, and Tullia, one of the prettiest opera-dancers of the day, dashed into the room.

"They agree to take the hundred copies, dear boy!" she cried, addressing Finot; "they won't cost the management anything, for the chorus and the orchestra and the _corps de ballet_ are to take them whether they like it or not; but your paper is so clever that nobody will grumble. And you are going to have your boxes. Here is the subscription for the first quarter," she continued, holding out a couple of banknotes; "so don't cut me up!"

"It is all over with me!" groaned Finot; "I must suppress my abominable diatribe, and I haven't another notion in my head."

"What a happy inspiration, divine Lais!" exclaimed Blondet, who had followed the lady upstairs and brought Nathan, Vernou and Claude Vignon with him. "Stop to supper, there is a dear, or I will crush thee, butterfly as thou art. There will be no professional jealousies, as you are a dancer; and as to beauty, you have all of you too much sense to show jealousy in public."

"Oh dear!" cried Finot, "Nathan, Blondet, du Bruel, help friends! I want five columns."

"I can make two of the play," said Lucien.

"I have enough for one," added Lousteau.

"Very well; Nathan, Vernou, and du Bruel will make the jokes at the end; and Blondet, good fellow, surely will vouchsafe a couple of short columns for the first sheet. I will run round to the printer. It is lucky that you brought your carriage, Tullia."

"Yes, but the Duke is waiting below in it, and he has a German Minister with him."

"Ask the Duke and the Minister to come up," said Nathan.

"A German? They are the ones to drink, and they listen too; he shall hear some astonishing things to send home to his Government," cried Blondet.

"Is there any sufficiently serious personage to go down to speak to him?" asked Finot. "Here, du Bruel, you are an official; bring up the Duc de Rhetore and the Minister, and give your arm to Tullia. Dear me! Tullia, how handsome you are to-night!"

"We shall be thirteen at table!" exclaimed Matifat, paling visibly.

"No, fourteen," said a voice in the doorway, and Florentine appeared. "I have come to look after 'milord Cardot,'" she added, speaking with a burlesque English accent.

"And besides," said Lousteau, "Claude Vignon came with Blondet."

"I brought him here to drink," returned Blondet, taking up an inkstand. "Look here, all of you, you must use all your wit before those fifty-six bottles of wine drive it out. And, of all things, stir up du Bruel; he is a vaudevillist, he is capable of making bad jokes if you get him to concert pitch."

And Lucien wrote his first newspaper article at the round table in Florine's boudoir, by the light of the pink candles lighted by Matifat; before such a remarkable audience he was eager to show what he could do.

THE PANORAMA-DRAMATIQUE.

First performance of the _Alcalde in a Fix_, an imbroglio in three
acts.--First appearance of Mademoiselle Florine.--Mademoiselle
Coralie.--Vignol.

People are coming and going, walking and talking, everybody is
looking for something, nobody finds anything. General hubbub. The
Alcalde has lost his daughter and found his cap, but the cap does
not fit; it must belong to some thief. Where is the thief? People
walk and talk, and come and go more than ever. Finally the Alcalde
finds a man without his daughter, and his daughter without the
man, which is satisfactory for the magistrate, but not for the
audience. Quiet being resorted, the Alcalde tries to examine the
man. Behold a venerable Alcalde, sitting in an Alcalde's great
armchair, arranging the sleeves of his Alcalde's gown. Only in
Spain do Alcaldes cling to their enormous sleeves and wear plaited
lawn ruffles about the magisterial throat, a good half of an
Alcalde's business on the stage in Paris. This particular Alcalde,
wheezing and waddling about like an asthmatic old man, is Vignol,
on whom Potier's mantle has fallen; a young actor who personates
old age so admirably that the oldest men in the audience cannot
help laughing. With that quavering voice of his, that bald
forehead, and those spindle shanks trembling under the weight of a
senile frame, he may look forward to a long career of decrepitude.
There is something alarming about the young actor's old age; he is
so very old; you feel nervous lest senility should be infectious.
And what an admirable Alcalde he makes! What a delightful, uneasy
smile! what pompous stupidity! what wooden dignity! what judicial
hesitation! How well the man knows that black may be white, or
white black! How eminently well he is fitted to be Minister to a
constitutional monarch! The stranger answers every one of his
inquiries by a question; Vignol retorts in such a fashion, that
the person under examination elicits all the truth from the
Alcalde. This piece of pure comedy, with a breath of Moliere
throughout, puts the house in good humor. The people on the stage
all seemed to understand what they were about, but I am quite
unable to clear up the mystery, or to say wherein it lay; for the
Alcalde's daughter was there, personified by a living, breathing
Andalusian, a Spaniard with a Spaniard's eyes, a Spaniard's
complexion, a Spaniard's gait and figure, a Spaniard from top to
toe, with her poniard in her garter, love in her heart, and a
cross on the ribbon about her neck. When the act was over, and
somebody asked me how the piece was going, I answered, "She wears
scarlet stockings with green clocks to them; she has a little
foot, no larger than _that_, in her patent leather shoes, and the
prettiest pair of ankles in Andalusia!" Oh! that Alcalde's
daughter brings your heart into your mouth; she tantalizes you so
horribly, that you long to spring upon the stage and offer her
your thatched hovel and your heart, or thirty thousand livres per
annum and your pen. The Andalusian is the loveliest actress in
Paris. Coralie, for she must be called by her real name, can be a
countess or a _grisette_, and in which part she would be more
charming one cannot tell. She can be anything that she chooses;
she is born to achieve all possibilities; can more be said of a
boulevard actress?

With the second act, a Parisian Spaniard appeared upon the scene,
with her features cut like a cameo and her dangerous eyes. "Where
does she come from?" I asked in my turn, and was told that she
came from the greenroom, and that she was Mademoiselle Florine;
but, upon my word, I could not believe a syllable of it, such
spirit was there in her gestures, such frenzy in her love. She is
the rival of the Alcalde's daughter, and married to a grandee cut
out to wear an Almaviva's cloak, with stuff sufficient in it for a
hundred boulevard noblemen. Mlle. Florine wore neither scarlet
stockings with green clocks, nor patent leather shoes, but she
appeared in a mantilla, a veil which she put to admirable uses,
like the great lady that she is! She showed to admiration that the
tigress can be a cat. I began to understand, from the sparkling
talk between the two, that some drama of jealousy was going on;
and just as everything was put right, the Alcalde's stupidity
embroiled everybody again. Torchbearers, rich men, footmen,
Figaros, grandees, alcaldes, dames, and damsels--the whole company
on the stage began to eddy about, and come and go, and look for
one another. The plot thickened, again I left it to thicken; for
Florine the jealous and the happy Coralie had entangled me once
more in the folds of mantilla and basquina, and their little feet
were twinkling in my eyes.

I managed, however, to reach the third act without any mishap. The
commissary of police was not compelled to interfere, and I did
nothing to scandalize the house, wherefore I begin to believe in
the influence of that "public and religious morality," about which
the Chamber of Deputies is so anxious, that any one might think
there was no morality left in France. I even contrived to gather
that a man was in love with two women who failed to return his
affection, or else that two women were in love with a man who
loved neither of them; the man did not love the Alcalde, or the
Alcalde had no love for the man, who was nevertheless a gallant
gentleman, and in love with somebody, with himself, perhaps, or
with heaven, if the worst came to the worst, for he becomes a
monk. And if you want to know any more, you can go to the
Panorama-Dramatique. You are hereby given fair warning--you must
go once to accustom yourself to those irresistible scarlet
stockings with the green clocks, to little feet full of promises,
to eyes with a ray of sunlight shining through them, to the subtle
charm of a Parisienne disguised as an Andalusian girl, and of an
Andalusian masquerading as a Parisienne. You must go a second time
to enjoy the play, to shed tears over the love-distracted grandee,
and die of laughing at the old Alcalde. The play is twice a
success. The author, who writes it, it is said, in collaboration
with one of the great poets of the day, was called before the