The Queen Pedauque Part 16

"Sir," said my dear tutor, "I quite agree with you; there is no practical utility in it, and by it the course of the world will not be changed in the slightest. But making clearer by annotations and comments this treatise, which that Greek compiled for his sister Theosebia--"

Catherine interrupted him by singing in a high-pitched voice:

"Je veux en depit des jaloux Qu'on fa.s.se duc mon epoux La.s.se de le voir secretairev Laire lan laire."

And my tutor continued:

"--I contribute to the treasure of knowledge gathered by erudite men, and bring forward one stone of my own for a monument to true history, which is a better one than the chronicles of war and treaties; for, sir, the n.o.bility of man--"

Catherine continued to sing:

"Je sais bien qu'on murmurera Que Paris nous chansonnera Mais tant pis pour le sot vulgaire Laire lan laire."

And my dear tutor went on:

"--is thought. And concerning that, it is not indifferent to know what idea the Egyptians had formed of the nature of metals and the qualities of the primitive substance."

The Abbe Jerome Coignard, having come to the end of his discourse, emptied a big gla.s.s of wine, while Catherine sang:

"Par l'epee ou par le fourreau Devenir due est toujours beau Il n'importe le maniere Laire lan laire."

"Abbe," said M. d'Anquetil, "you do not drink, and in spite of such abstinence you lose your reason. In Italy, during the War of Succession, I was under the orders of a brigadier who translated Polybius. But he was an idiot. Why translate Zosimus?"

"If you want my true reason," replied the abbe, "because I find some sensuality in it."

"That's something like!" protested M. d'Anquetil. "But in what can M.

Tournebroche, who at this moment is caressing my mistress, a.s.sist you?"

"With the knowledge of Greek I have given him."

M. d'Anquetil turned round to me and said:

"What, sir, you know Greek! You are not then a gentleman?"

"No, sir," I replied, "I am not. My father is the banner-bearer of the Guild of Parisian Cooks."

"Well, under such conditions it is impossible for me to kill you. Kindly accept my excuses. But, abbe, you don't drink. You imposed upon me.

I believed you to be a real good tippler, and wished you to become my chaplain as soon as I could set up my own establishment."

However, M. Coignard did drink all that the bottle contained, and Catherine, inclining to me, whispered in my ear:

"Jacques, I feel that I shall never love anyone but you."

These words, spoken by a really fine woman clad in no other wrapper than a chemise, troubled me to the extreme. Catherine ended by fuddling me entirely, by making me drink out of her own gla.s.s, an action pa.s.sing un.o.bserved in the confusion of a supper which had overheated the heads of us all.

M. d'Anquetil knocked off the neck of a bottle on the corner of the table and filled our b.u.mpers; from this moment on, I cannot give a reliable account of what was said and done around me. One incident I remember: Catherine treacherously emptying her gla.s.s into her lover's neck, between the nape and the collar of his coat; and M. d'Anquetil retorting by pouring the contents of two or three bottles over the girl.

Wearing nothing beyond her chemise, it changed Catherine into a kind of mythological figure of a humid species like nymphs and naiads. She cried herself into a rage and twisted in convulsions.

At that very moment, in the silence of the night, we heard knocks at the house door. We became suddenly motionless and dumb, like people bewitched.

The knocks soon redoubled in strength and frequency. M. d'Anquetil was the first to break the silence by questioning himself aloud, swearing horribly the while, who the deuce the pesterers could be. My good tutor, to whom the most ordinary circ.u.mstances often inspired admirable maxims, rose and said with unction and gravity:

"What does it matter whose hand knocks so violently at closed doors for a vulgar, perhaps ridiculous, reason? Do not let us seek to know, and consider them as knocking on the door of our hardened and corrupted souls. At each knock let us say to ourselves: This one is to give us notice to amend and think on the salvation we neglect in the turmoil of our pleasures, that other one is to remind us of eternity. In that way we shall draw the utmost profit out of an incident which, after all, is as paltry as it is frivolous."

"You're humorous, abbe," said M. d'Anquetil; "to judge by the st.u.r.diness of their knocks, they'll burst the door open."

And as a fact the knocker resounded like thunder.

"They are robbers," exclaimed the soaked girl. "Jesus! We shall be ma.s.sacred; it is our chastis.e.m.e.nt for having sent away the little friar.

Many times I have told you. M. d'Anquetil, that misfortune comes to houses from which a Capuchin has been driven.'

"Hear the stupid!" replied M. d'Anquetil. "That d.a.m.ned monk makes her believe any imbecility he chooses to dish her up. Thieves would be more polite, or at least more discreet. I rather think it is the watch."

"The watch! Worse and worse," said Catherine.

"Bah!" M. d'Anquetil exclaimed, "we'll lick them."

My dear tutor took the precaution to put one bottle in one of his pockets, and as an equipoise another bottle in the other pocket. The house shook all over from the furious knocks. M. d'Anquetil, whose military qualities were aroused by the knocker's onslaught, after reconnoitring, exclaimed:

"Ah! Ah! Ah! Do you know who knocks? It is M. de la Gueritude with his full-bottomed periwig and two big flunkeys carrying lighted torches."

"That's not possible," said Catherine, "at this very moment he is in bed with his old woman."

"Then it is his ghost," said M. d'Anquetil. "And the ghost also wears his periwig, which is so ridiculous that any self-respecting spectre would refuse to copy it."

"Do you speak the truth, and not jeer at me?" asked Catherine. "Is it really M. de la Gueritude?"

"It's himself, Catherine, if I may believe my own eyes."

"Then I am lost!" exclaimed the poor girl. "Women are indeed unhappy!

They are never left in peace. What will become of me? Would you not hide, gentlemen, in some of the cupboards?"

"That could be done," said M. Jerome Coignard, "as far as we are concerned, but how are we to hide all those empty bottles, mostly smashed, or at least broken necked; the remains of that demijohn M.

d'Anquetil threw at me; that tablecloth; those plates, candelabra and mademoiselle's chemise, which in its soaked state is nothing but a transparent veil encircling her beauty?"

"It is true," said Catherine, "yonder idiot has drenched my chemise, and I am catching cold. But listen. Perhaps M. d'Anquetil could hide in the top room, and I would make the abbe my uncle and Jacques my brother."

"No good at all," said M. d'Anquetil. "I'll go myself and kindly ask M.

de la Gueritude to have supper with us."

We urged him, all of us--my tutor, Catherine and I--to keep quiet; we entreated him, hung on his neck. It was useless. He got hold of a candelabra and descended the stairs. Trembling we followed him.

He unlocked the door. M. de la Gueritude was there, exactly as M.

d'Anquetil had described him, with his periwig, between two flunkeys bearing torches. M. d'Anquetil saluted with the utmost correctness and said:

"Accord us the favour to come in, sir. You'll find some persons as amiable as singular. Tournebroche, to whom Mam'selle Catherine throws kisses from the window, and a priest who believes in G.o.d."

Wherewith he bowed respectfully.

M. de la Gueritude was of the dry sort, very tall, and little inclined to the enjoyment of a joke. That of M. d'Anquetil provoked him strongly, and his anger rose when he saw my good tutor, one bottle in hand and two peeping out of his pockets, and by the look of Catherine with her wet chemise sticking to her body.