Read Ebook: The Kitáb-i-Aqdas by Bah U Ll H

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Ebook has 517 lines and 29965 words, and 11 pages

"Yes, Mademoiselle. The theatres and music halls must be very objectionable--and the restaurants. I suppose the waiters would laugh at me when I went to fetch Monsieur's dinner of boiled mutton and rice."

"Yes; but if it were your duty to go with Monsieur?"

"Duty, Mademoiselle, has ever been a sacred word with me. Though but a servant, I have always revered my duty," replied the virtuous Pierre. He backed and filled for some time longer, as servants commonly do--and as some of their masters and mistresses do sometimes--but finally, in response to Mademoiselle Bouchard's pleading that he would not desert Monsieur Bouchard at this critical moment in his career, consented to brave the dangers of the gay Rue Bassano. But when Mademoiselle hinted at the horrid possibility that Monsieur Bouchard might be beguiled into sowing a late crop of wild oats, suddenly a grin flashed for a moment on Pierre's stolid countenance--flashed and disappeared so instantly that Mademoiselle Bouchard was not sure he grinned at all. If he did, however, it must have been at the notion that the staid, the correct Monsieur Bouchard could ever sow wild oats. Mademoiselle C?leste blushed faintly at the thought that she reckoned such a thing possible.

Pierre then backed out of the door, wiping two imaginary tears from his eyes. Once outside with the door shut, this miscreant did a very strange thing. He stood on one leg, whirled around with the greatest agility for his years, and softly whispered, "Houp-l?!"

That very day came the moving. The van arrived, and Monsieur Bouchard's books, papers and clothes were put into it by Pierre, who seemed to be in the deepest dejection. Mademoiselle gave him minute and tearful directions about Monsieur Paul's diet, exercise and clothing. He was to see that Monsieur Paul kept regular hours, and was to report in the Rue Clarisse the smallest infraction of the rules of living which might occur in the Rue Bassano; and Pierre promised with a fervor and glibness that would have excited the suspicions of anyone less kindly and simple-minded than good old Mademoiselle. He did indeed awaken a host of doubts in the mind of his faithful ?lise, who had not been married for thirty years without finding out a few things about men. And when he wept at telling her good-bye for a single day, she told him not to be shedding any of those crocodile tears around her.

Pierre, mounted on the van that carried away Monsieur Bouchard's belongings, drove off, looking as melancholy as he could; but as soon as he turned the corner he began whistling so merrily that the driver asked him if his uncle hadn't died and left him some money.

It was a charming evening in the middle of June, and still broad daylight at seven o'clock. But Pierre, presently lighting a lamp and drawing the shades, gave the apartment a homelike and inviting aspect.

Just as the clock struck seven Monsieur Bouchard's step was heard on the stair. Seven o'clock had been Monsieur Bouchard's hour of coming home since he was fifteen years old, and he had never varied from it three minutes in thirty-seven years. He entered the drawing-room with a new and jovial air, but when he saw Pierre his countenance turned as black as a thunder-cloud.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, curtly.

"I came, Monsieur, by Mademoiselle's orders," civilly replied Pierre.

"Mademoiselle's orders" was still a phrase to conjure by with Monsieur Bouchard. When the yoke of forty years is thrown off there is still a feeling as if it were bearing on the neck. Monsieur Bouchard threw his gloves crossly on the table and asked for his dinner.

"It will be here in five minutes, Monsieur," replied Pierre. "Will not Monsieur look about the apartment and see if I have arranged things to suit him? The pictures, for example?"

Monsieur, still sulky, rose, and the first thing his eye fell on was the prize fighter's portrait under President Loubet's.

"This is intolerable!" he said, indignantly. "Why didn't you take this prize-fighting daub down?"

"Because," readily responded Pierre, "the place where it was would be marked on the wall; and besides, I did not like to take the liberty without Monsieur's permission."

Monsieur Bouchard passed on to the next picture, that of the hero of the Grand Prix. He liked horses--in pictures, that is--and really found Courier more to his taste than "Kittens at Play." His countenance cleared, and when Pierre gravely directed him to the young lady poised on one toe and reaching skyward with the other, a faint smile actually appeared on Monsieur Bouchard's face. Then, his eye falling on the other young lady who was trying to make twelve o'clock meridian, every wrinkle on his forehead smoothed out, his mouth came open like a rat trap, and he involuntarily assumed an attitude of pleased contemplation, with his hands under his coat tails.

Suddenly, however, it flashed on him that Mademoiselle Bouchard's paid detective, in the person of Pierre, was eyeing him, and with the quickness of thought Monsieur Bouchard's appreciative smile gave way to a portentous frown, and turning to Pierre, he said, sternly:

"Take this thing away! It is reprehensible both in art and morals! I can't have it here!"

But, wonder of wonders! there stood Pierre, his mouth wide open in a silent guffaw, his left eye nearly closed. Was it possible that he was daring to wink at his master? Pierre, however, pretty soon solved the situation by putting his finger on the side of his nose--a shocking familiarity--and saying, roguishly:

"Ah, sir, I have something to say to you. I was forced, yes, actually driven, from the decorous quiet of the Rue Clarisse and the company of Mademoiselle Bouchard and my worthy ?lise and the cats, to this gay locality by my solicitude for Monsieur. That is to say, Mademoiselle thinks I was. One thing is certain--I was sent here to cake care of Monsieur. Well, it depends entirely on Monsieur how I take care of him. Do you understand, sir?"

"N--n--not exactly." Monsieur Bouchard was a little frightened. Having Pierre to mount guard over him seemed destructive of the harmless liberty and mild gaiety he had promised himself in the Rue Bassano.

Monsieur for a moment looked indignant at this impudent proposition, coming, too, as it did from a servant whom he had known as the pattern of decorum for thirty years. But only for a moment. Was it strange, after all, that thirty years of the Rue Clarisse had bred a spirit of revolt in this hitherto obedient husband and submissive servant?

Pierre, seeing evidences of yielding on the part of Monsieur, proceeded to clinch the matter.

"You see, sir, I found out you were looking at this apartment. If I had told Mademoiselle what I knew about it there'd have been a pretty kettle of fish. I doubt if Monsieur would have got away from the Rue Clarisse alive. But I didn't. I concluded the Rue Bassano was a very pleasant place to live. I like the lively tunes they play at the music halls across the street, and that theatre round the corner is convenient. But I never should have got away if I had showed how much I wanted to come. When Mademoiselle proposed it to me, I lied like a trooper. I not only lied, but I cried, at the prospect of leaving the Rue Clarisse. That settled it. A woman is like a pig. If you want to drive her to Orleans, you must head her for Strasburg. So here we are, sir, and if we don't have a livelier time here than we did in the Rue Clarisse it will be Monsieur's fault, not mine."

But Monsieur Bouchard seemed to forget all about this. He ate and drank these things as if he had forgotten all his painful experiences of forty-five years before and as if he had been brought up on champagne.

It was rather pleasant--this first quaff of liberty--having what he liked to eat and drink, and even to wear. He privately determined before finishing his dinner that he would get a new tailor next day and have some clothes made in the latest fashion.

"Have you found out the names of any persons in the house?" asked Monsieur after dinner, lighting a cigar. It was his second; in the Rue Clarisse he was limited to one.

"No one at all, sir," replied that double-dyed villain, Pierre. "It isn't judicious to know all sorts of people. I intend to forget some I know."

Monsieur Bouchard turned in his chair and looked at Pierre; the fellow really seemed changed into another man from what he had been for thirty years. But to Monsieur Bouchard the change was not displeasing. He felt a bond between himself and Pierre, stronger in the last half-hour than in the thirty years they had been master and man. They exchanged looks--it might even be said winks--and Monsieur Bouchard poured out another glass of champagne--his third. And what with the wine and the dinner, he was in that state of exhilaration which the sense of liberty newly acquired always brings.

"Monsieur won't want me any more to-night?" asked Pierre.

"No," replied Monsieur Bouchard, "but--be sure to be here at--" he meant to say at ten o'clock that night, but changed his mind and said, "seven o'clock to-morrow morning."

"Certainly, sir," answered Pierre. "I expect to be home and in bed before three."

And he said this with such a debonair manner that Monsieur Bouchard was secretly charmed, and privately determined to acquire something of the same tone.

Pierre gone, Monsieur Bouchard made himself comfortable in an easychair and began toying with a fourth cigar. How agreeable were these modern apartments, after all--everything furnished, every want anticipated--all a tenant had to do was to walk in and hang up his hat. Then his thoughts wandered to that very pretty woman who had travelled in the same train with him that day to St. Germains, and the day before to Verneuil, whither he had gone to look after some property of L?ontine's. Madame Vernet was her name--it was on her travelling bag--and she was a widow--that fact had leaked out ten seconds after he met her. But she was so very demure, so modest, not to say bashful, that she seemed more like a nun than a widow. And so timid--everything frightened her. She trembled when the guard asked her for her ticket, and clung quite desperately to Monsieur Bouchard's arm in the station at Verneuil. She had expected her aunt and uncle to meet her, and when they were not to be found, blushingly accepted Monsieur Bouchard's services in getting a cab. And that day, on stepping into the railway carriage to go to St. Germains, there was the dear little diffident thing again. She was charmed to see her friend of the day before, and explained that she was to spend the day with another uncle and aunt she had living at St. Germains. Knowing her inability to care for herself in a crowd, Monsieur Bouchard had meant to put her into a cab, as he had done the day before. But just as the train stopped he was seized by a couple of snuffy old antiquarians and hustled off by them before he could even offer to take charge of the quiet, the retiring, the clinging and helpless Madame Vernet.

Monsieur Bouchard lay back in his chair recalling her prim but pretty gray gown, her fleecy veil of gray gauze, that covered but did not conceal her charming features, and her extremely natty boots. He could not for the life of him remember whether he had mentioned to her on their first meeting that he was going to St. Germains next day. While he was cogitating this point he was rudely disturbed by the opening of the door, and Captain de Meneval walked in briskly.

Now, this good-looking captain of artillery, who had married Monsieur Bouchard's ward, L?ontine, was not exactly to Monsieur's taste. It is true he had never been able to find out anything to de Meneval's discredit--and he had looked pretty closely into the captain's affairs at the time of L?ontine's marriage. As for L?ontine herself, she was devoted to her captain and always represented him as being the kindest as well as the most agreeable of husbands. True, he was always complaining about the modest income that Papa Bouchard allowed them, but L?ontine herself was ever doing that, and urged de Meneval on in his complaints. Monsieur Bouchard was a little annoyed at de Meneval's entrance, especially as the artillery captain had adopted a hail-fellow-well-met air, highly objectionable on the part of a man toward another man who practically holds the purse-strings for number one.

Therefore, Monsieur Bouchard rather stiffly gave Captain de Meneval three fingers and offered him a chair.

"Changed your quarters, eh?" said de Meneval, looking about him. "Found the Rue Clarisse rather slow, and came off here where you can be your own man, so to speak?"

"I was not actuated by any such motive," coldly replied Monsieur Bouchard. "I came here because the rooms I had in the Rue Clarisse were cramped, and I needed to have more space, as well as to be in a more convenient quarter of Paris."

De Meneval's bright eyes had been travelling round the walls, and Monsieur Bouchard remembered, with cold chills running up and down his back, the pictures of his predecessor--that scampish young journalist, Marsac--so indiscreetly left hanging by Pierre. A shout of laughter from de Meneval, and a pointing of his stick toward the red-and-gold young ladies, showed Monsieur Bouchard that his apprehensions were not unfounded.

"Is that your selection, Papa Bouchard?" cried the reprobate captain. "Never saw them before--you must have kept them in hiding in the Rue Clarisse. I'll tell L?ontine," and the captain laughed loudly.

He had a great haw-haw of a laugh that had always been particularly annoying to Monsieur Bouchard, and this thing of calling him "Papa" Bouchard was an unwarrantable liberty. So he replied, freezingly:

"You are altogether mistaken. These extraordinary prints were left here by my predecessor, a very wild young journalist--I believe most young journalists are very wild--and they come down to-morrow. It would seriously disturb me to have those ballet pictures around."

"Well, now," said de Meneval, with an unabashed front, "I think you are too hard on the poor girls. I have known a good many of them in my life--taken them to little suppers, you know--and generally they're very hard-working, decent girls. Some of them have a husband and children to help to support. Others have dependent parents. They're unconventional--very--and like to eat and drink at somebody else's expense, but that's no great harm. Plenty of other people in much higher walks of life do the same."

"I don't care to discuss ballet girls with you, Monsieur de Meneval," remarked Monsieur Bouchard, with great dignity.

"Yes. I know that I have been honored with a good many cards of yours. Also of L?ontine's."

De Meneval paused. He had a good deal of courage, but the stony silence with which his confidences were met would have disconcerted an ogre.

"Go on, Monsieur le Capitaine," said Monsieur Bouchard, icily.

"I'm going on. You see, it is just this way--that is--" de Meneval floundered--"as I was going to say--L?ontine, you know, is perfect--it really is touching to see how she bears our enforced but unnecessary poverty. I wish I could do as well."

Here de Meneval came to a dead stop, and Monsieur Bouchard, by way of encouraging him, repeated, in the same tone:

"Go on, Monsieur le Capitaine."

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