Parisians in the Country Part 17

"When will the conversation begin?" Madame de Clagny asked of Dinah, as one might ask, "When do the fireworks go off?"

"I fancied we should hear some amusing stories," said Madame Popinot to her cousin, the Presidente Boirouge.

At this moment, when the good folks of Sancerre were beginning to murmur like an impatient pit, Lousteau observed that Bianchon was lost in meditation inspired by the wrapper round the proofs.

"What is it?" asked Etienne.

"Why, here is the most fascinating romance possible on some spoiled proof used to wrap yours in. Here, read it. _Olympia, or Roman Revenge_."

"Let us see," said Lousteau, taking the sheet the doctor held out to him, and he read aloud as follows:--

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cavern. Rinaldo, indignant at his companions' cowardice, for they had no courage but in the open field, and dared not venture into Rome, looked at them with scorn.

"Then I go alone?" said he. He seemed to reflect, and then he went on: "You are poor wretches. I shall proceed alone, and have the rich booty to myself.--You hear me!

Farewell."

"My Captain," said Lamberti, "if you should be captured without having succeeded?"

"G.o.d protects me!" said Rinaldo, pointing to the sky.

With these words he went out, and on his way he met the steward

"That is the end of the page," said Lousteau, to whom every one had listened devoutly.

"He is reading his work to us," said Gatien to Madame Popinot-Chandier's son.

"From the first word, ladies," said the journalist, jumping at an opportunity of mystifying the natives, "it is evident that the brigands are in a cave. But how careless romancers of that date were as to details which are nowadays so closely, so elaborately studied under the name of 'local color.' If the robbers were in a cavern, instead of pointing to the sky he ought to have pointed to the vault above him.--In spite of this inaccuracy, Rinaldo strikes me as a man of spirit, and his appeal to G.o.d is quite Italian. There must have been a touch of local color in this romance. Why, what with brigands, and a cavern, and one Lamberti who could foresee future possibilities--there is a whole melodrama in that page. Add to these elements a little intrigue, a peasant maiden with her hair dressed high, short skirts, and a hundred or so of bad couplets.--Oh! the public will crowd to see it! And then Rinaldo--how well the name suits Lafont! By giving him black whiskers, tightly-fitting trousers, a cloak, a moustache, a pistol, and a peaked hat--if the manager of the Vaudeville Theatre were but bold enough to pay for a few newspaper articles, that would secure fifty performances, and six thousand francs for the author's rights, if only I were to cry it up in my columns.

"To proceed:--

OR ROMAN REVENGE 219

The d.u.c.h.ess of Bracciano found her glove. Adolphe, who had brought her back to the orange grove, might certainly have supposed that there was some purpose in her forgetful- ness, for at this moment the arbor was deserted. The sound of the fes- tivities was audible in the distance.

The puppet show that had been promised had attracted all the guests to the ballroom. Never had Olympia looked more beautiful.

Her lover's eyes met hers with an answering glow, and they under- stood each other. There was a mo- ment of silence, delicious to their souls, and impossible to describe.

They sat down on the same bench where they had sat in the presence of the Cavaliere Paluzzi and the

"Devil take it! Our Rinaldo has vanished!" cried Lousteau. "But a literary man once started by this page would make rapid progress in the comprehension of the plot. The d.u.c.h.esse Olympia is a lady who could intentionally forget her gloves in a deserted arbor."

"Unless she may be cla.s.sed between the oyster and head-clerk of an office, the two creatures nearest to marble in the zoological kingdom, it is impossible to discern in Olympia--" Bianchon began.

"A woman of thirty," Madame de la Baudraye hastily interposed, fearing some all too medical term.

"Then Adolphe must be two-and-twenty," the doctor went on, "for an Italian woman at thirty is equivalent to a Parisian of forty."

"From these two facts, the romance may easily be reconstructed," said Lousteau. "And this Cavaliere Paluzzi--what a man!--The style is weak in these two pa.s.sages; the author was perhaps a clerk in the Excise Office, and wrote the novel to pay his tailor!"

"In his time," said Bianchon, "the censor flourished; you must show as much indulgence to a man who underwent the ordeal by scissors in 1805 as to those who went to the scaffold in 1793."

"Do you understand in the least?" asked Madame Gorju timidly of Madame de Clagny.

The Public Prosecutor's wife, who, to use a phrase of Monsieur Gravier's, might have put a Cossack to flight in 1814, straightened herself in her chair like a horseman in his stirrups, and made a face at her neighbor, conveying, "They are looking at us; we must smile as if we understood."

"Charming!" said the Mayoress to Gatien. "Pray go on, Monsieur Lousteau."

Lousteau looked at the two women, two Indian idols, and contrived to keep his countenance. He thought it desirable to say, "Attention!"

before going on as follows:--

OR ROMAN REVENGE 209

dress rustled in the silence. Sud- denly Cardinal Borborigano stood before the d.u.c.h.ess.

"His face was gloomy, his brow was dark with clouds, and a bitter smile lurked in his wrinkles.

"Madame," said he, "you are under suspicion. If you are guilty, fly. If you are not, still fly; because, whether criminal or innocent, you will find it easier to defend yourself from a distance."

"I thank your Eminence for your solicitude," said she. "The Duke of Bracciano will reappear when I find it needful to prove that he is alive."

"Cardinal Borborigano!" exclaimed Bianchon. "By the Pope's keys! If you do not agree with me that there is a magnificent creation in the very name, if at those words _dress rustled in the silence_ you do not feel all the poetry thrown into the part of Schedoni by Mrs. Radcliffe in _The Black Penitent_, you do not deserve to read a romance."

"For my part," said Dinah, who had some pity on the eighteen faces gazing up at Lousteau, "I see how the story is progressing. I know it all. I am in Rome; I can see the body of a murdered husband whose wife, as bold as she is wicked, has made her bed on the crater of a volcano. Every night, at every kiss, she says to herself, 'All will be discovered!'"

"Can you see her," said Lousteau, "clasping Monsieur Adolphe in her arms, to her heart, throwing her whole life into a kiss?--Adolphe I see as a well-made young man, but not clever--the sort of man an Italian woman likes. Rinaldo hovers behind the scenes of a plot we do not know, but which must be as full of incident as a melodrama by Pixerecourt.

Or we can imagine Rinaldo crossing the stage in the background like a figure in one of Victor Hugo's plays."

"He, perhaps, is the husband," exclaimed Madame de la Baudraye.

"Do you understand anything of it all?" Madame Piedefer asked of the Presidente.

"Why, it is charming!" said Dinah to her mother.

All the good folks of Sancerre sat with eyes as large as five-franc pieces.

"Go on, I beg," said the hostess.

Lousteau went on:--

210 OLYMPIA

"Your key----"

"Have you lost it?"

"It is in the arbor."

"Let us hasten."