by Eugène Sue
“Cephyse, I did not mean to hurt you — you know it well.”
“Oh! believe me,” replied the Bacchanal Queen, “gay and giddy as I am, I have sometimes moments of reflection, even in the midst of my maddest joy. Happily, such moments are rare.”
“And what do you think of, then?”
“Why, that the life I lead is hardly the thing; then resolve to ask Jacques for a small sum of money, just enough to subsist on for a year, and form the plan of joining you, and gradually getting to work again.”
“The idea is a good one; why not act upon it?”
“Because, when about to execute this project, I examined myself sincerely, and my courage failed. I feel that I could never resume the habit of labor, and renounce this mode of life, sometimes rich, as to day, sometimes precarious, — but at least free and full of leisure, joyous and without care, and at worst a thousand times preferable to living upon four francs a week. Not that interest has guided me. Many times have I refused to exchange a lover, who had little or nothing, for a rich man, that I did not like. Nor have I ever asked anything for myself. Jacques has spent perhaps ten thousand francs the last three or four months, yet we only occupy two half-furnished rooms, because we always live out of doors, like the birds: fortunately, when I first loved him, he had nothing at all, and I had just sold some jewels that had been given me, for a hundred francs, and put this sum in the lottery. As mad people and fools are always lucky, I gained a prize of four thousand francs. Jacques was as gay, and light-headed, and full of fun as myself, so we said: ‘We love each other very much, and, as long as this money lasts, we will keep up the racket; when we have no more, one of two things will happen — either we shall be tired of one another, and so part — or else we shall love each other still, and then, to remain together, we shall try and get work again; and, if we cannot do so, and yet will not part — a bushel of charcoal will do our business!’”
“Good heaven!” cried Mother Bunch, turning pale.
“Be satisfied! we have not come to that. We had still something left, when a kind of agent, who had paid court to me, but who was so ugly that I could not bear him for all his riches, knowing that I was living with Jacques asked me to — But why should I trouble you with all these details? In one word, he lent Jacques money, on some sort of a doubtful claim he had, as was thought, to inherit some property. It is with this money that we are amusing ourselves — as long as its lasts.”
“But, my dear Cephyse, instead of spending this money so foolishly, why not put it out to interest, and marry Jacques, since you love him?”
“Oh! in the first place,” replied the Bacchanal Queen, laughing, as her gay and thoughtless character resumed its ascendancy, “to put money out to interest gives one no pleasure. All the amusement one has is to look at a little bit of paper, which one gets in exchange for the nice little pieces of gold, with which one can purchase a thousand pleasures. As for marrying, I certainly like Jacques better than I ever liked any one; but it seems to me, that, if we were married, all our happiness would end — for while he is only my lover, he cannot reproach me with what has passed — but, as my husband, he would be stare to upbraid me, sooner or later, and if my conduct deserves blame, I prefer giving it to myself, because I shall do it more tenderly.”
“Mad girl that you are! But this money will not last forever. What is to be done next?”
“Afterwards! — Oh! that’s all in the moon. To-morrow seems to me as if it would not come for a hundred years. If we were always saying: ‘We must die one day or the other’ — would life be worth having?”
The conversation between Cephyse and her sister was here again interrupted by a terrible uproar, above which sounded the sharp, shrill noise of Ninny Moulin’s rattle. To this tumult succeeded a chorus of barbarous cries, in the midst of which were distinguishable these words, which shook the very windows: “The Queen! the Bacchanal Queen!”
Mother Bunch started at this sudden noise.
“It is only my court, who are getting impatient,” said Cephyse — and this time she could laugh.
“Heavens!” cried the sewing-girl, in alarm; “if they were to come here in search of you?”
“No, no — never fear.”
“But listen! do you not hear those steps? they are coming along the passage — they are approaching. Pray, sister, let me go out alone, without being seen by all these people.”
That moment the door was opened, and Cephyse, ran towards it. She saw in the passage a deputation headed by Ninny Moulin, who was armed with his formidable rattle, and followed by Rose-Pompon and Sleepinbuff.
“The Bacchanal Queen! or I poison myself with a glass of water;” cried Ninny Moulin.
“The Bacchanal Queen! or I publish my banns of marriage with Ninny Moulin!” cried little Rose-Pompon, with a determined air.
“The Bacchanal Queen! or the court will rise in arms, and carry her off by force!” said another voice.
“Yes, yes — let us carry her off!” repeated a formidable chorus.
“Jacques, enter alone!” said the Bacchanal Queen, notwithstanding these pressing summonses; then, addressing her court in a majestic tone, she added: “In ten minutes, I shall be at your service — and then for a — of a time!”
“Long live the Bacchanal Queen,” cried Dumoulin, shaking his rattle as he retired, followed by the deputation, whilst Sleepinbuff entered the room alone.
“Jacques,” said Cephyse, “this is my good sister.”
“Enchanted to see you,” said Jacques, cordially; “the more so as you will give me some news of my friend Agricola. Since I began to play the rich man, we have not seen each other, but I like him as much as ever, and think him a good and worthy fellow. You live in the same house. How is he?”
“Alas, sir! he and his family have had many misfortunes. He is in prison.”
“In prison!” cried Cephyse.
“Agricola in prison! what for?” said Sleepinbuff.
“For a trifling political offence. We had hoped to get him out on bail.”
“Certainly; for five hundred francs it could be done,” said Sleepinbuff.
“Unfortunately, we have not been able; the person upon whom we relied—”
The Bacchanal Queen interrupted the speaker by saying to her lover: “Do you hear, Jacques? Agricola in prison, for want of five hundred francs!”
“To be sure! I hear and understand all about it. No need of your winking. Poor fellow! he was the support of his mother.”
“Alas! yes, sir — and it is the more distressing, as his father has but just returned from Russia, and his mother—”
“Here,” said Sleepinbuff, interrupting, and giving Mother Bunch a purse; “take this — all the expenses here have been paid beforehand — this is what remains of my last bag. You will find here some twenty-five or thirty Napoleons, and I cannot make a better use of them than to serve a comrade in distress. Give them to Agricola’s father; he will take the necessary steps, and to-morrow Agricola will be at his forge, where I had much rather he should be than myself.”
“Jacques, give me a kiss!” said the Bacchanal Queen.
“Now, and afterwards, and again and again!” said Jacques, joyously embracing the queen.
Mother Bunch hesitated for a moment; but reflecting that, after all, this sum of money, which was about to be spent in follies, would restore life and happiness to the family of Agricola, and that hereafter these very five hundred francs, when returned to Jacques, might be of the greatest use to him, she resolved to accept this offer. She took the purse, and with tearful eyes, said to him: “I will not refuse your kindness M. Jacques; you are so good and generous, Agricola’s father will thus at least have one consolation, in the midst of heavy sorrows. Thanks! many thanks!”
“There is no need to thank me; money was made for others as well as ourselves.”
Here, without, the noise recommenced more furiously than ever, and Ninny Moulin’s rattle sent forth the most doleful sounds.
> “Cephyse,” said Sleepinbuff, “they will break everything to pieces, if you do not return to them, and I have nothing left to pay for the damage. Excuse us,” added he, laughing, “but you see that royalty has its duties.”
Cephyse deeply moved, extended her arms to Mother Bunch, who threw herself into them, shedding sweet tears.
“And now,” said she, to her sister, “when shall I see you again?”
“Soon — though nothing grieves me more than to see you in want, out of which I am not allowed to help you.”
“You will come, then, to see me? It is a promise?”
“I promise you in her name,” said Jacques; “we will pay a visit to you and your neighbor Agricola.”
“Return to the company, Cephyse, and amuse yourself with a light heart, for M. Jacques has made a whole family happy.”
So saying, and after Sleepinbuff had ascertained that she could go down without being seen by his noisy and joyous companions, Mother Bunch quietly withdrew, eager to carry one piece of good news at least to Dagobert; but intending, first of all, to go to the Rue de Babylone, to the garden-house formerly occupied by Adrienne de Cardoville. We shall explain hereafter the cause of this determination.
As the girl quitted the eating-house, three men plainly and comfortably dressed, were watching before it, and talking in a low voice. Soon after, they were joined by a fourth person, who rapidly descended the stairs of the tavern.
“Well?” said the three first, with anxiety.
“He is there.”
“Are you sure of it?”
“Are there two Sleepers-in-buff on earth?” replied the other. “I have just seen him; he is togged out like one of the swell mob. They will be at table for three hours at least.”
“Then wait for me, you others. Keep as quiet as possible. I will go and fetch the captain, and the game is bagged.” So saying, one of the three men walked off quickly, and disappeared in a street leading from the square.
At this same instant the Bacchanal Queen entered the banqueting-room, accompanied by Jacques, and was received with the most frenzied acclamations from all sides.
“Now then,” cried Cephyse, with a sort of feverish excitement, as if she wished to stun herself; “now then, friends — noise and tumult, hurricane and tempest, thunder and earthquake — as much as you please!” Then, holding out her glass to Ninny Moulin, she added: “Pour out! pour out!”
“Long live the Queen!” cried they all, with one voice.
CHAPTER III. THE CAROUSE.
THE BACCHANAL QUEEN, having Sleepinbuff and Rose-Pompon opposite her, and Ninny Moulin on her right hand, presided at the repast, called a reveille-matin (wake-morning), generously offered by Jacques to his companions in pleasure.
Both young men and girls seemed to have forgotten the fatigues of a ball, begun at eleven o’clock in the evening, and finished at six in the morning; and all these couples, joyous as they were amorous and indefatigable, laughed, ate, and drank, with youthful and Pantagruelian ardor, so that, during the first part of the feast, there was less chatter than clatter of plates and glasses.
The Bacchanal Queen’s countenance was less gay, but much more animated than usual; her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes announced a feverish excitement; she wished to drown reflection, cost what it might. Her conversation with her sister often recurred to her, and she tried to escape from such sad remembrances.
Jacques regarded Cephyse from time to time with passionate adoration; for, thanks to the singular conformity of character, mind, and taste between him and the Bacchanal Queen, their attachment had deeper and stronger roots than generally belong to ephemeral connections founded upon pleasure. Cephyse and Jacques were themselves not aware of all the power of a passion which till now had been surrounded only by joys and festivities, and not yet been tried by any untoward event.
Little Rose-Pompon, left a widow a few days before by a student, who, in order to end the carnival in style, had gone into the country to raise supplies from his family, under one of those fabulous pretences which tradition carefully preserves in colleges of law and medicine — Rose Pompon, we repeat, an example of rare fidelity, determined not to compromise herself, had taken for a chaperon the inoffensive Ninny Moulin.
This latter, having doffed his helmet, exhibited a bald head, encircled by a border of black, curling hair, pretty long at the back of the head. By a remarkable Bacchic phenomenon, in proportion as intoxication gained upon him, a sort of zone, as purple as his jovial face, crept by degrees over his brow, till it obscured even the shining whiteness of his crown. Rose-Pompon, who knew the meaning of this symptom, pointed it out to the company, and exclaimed with a loud burst of laughter: “Take care, Ninny Moulin! the tide of the wine is coming in.”
“When it rises above his head he will be drowned,” added the Bacchanal Queen.
“Oh, Queen! don’t disturb me; I am meditating, answered Dumoulin, who was getting tipsy. He held in his hand, in the fashion of an antique goblet, a punch-bowl filled with wine, for he despised the ordinary glasses, because of their small size.
“Meditating,” echoed Rose-Pompon, “Ninny Moulin is meditating. Be attentive!”
“He is meditating; he must be ill then!”
“What is he meditating? an illegal dance?”
“A forbidden Anacreontic attitude?”
“Yes, I am meditating,” returned Dumoulin, gravely; “I am meditating upon wine, generally and in particular — wine, of which the immortal Bossuet” — Dumoulin had the very bad habit of quoting Bossuet when he was drunk— “of which the immortal Bossuet says (and he was a judge of good liquor): ‘In wine is courage, strength joy, and spiritual fervor’ — when one has any brains,” added Ninny Moulin, by way of parenthesis.
“Oh, my! how I adore your Bossuet!” said Rose-Pompon.
“As for my particular meditation, it concerns the question, whether the wine at the marriage of Cana was red or white. Sometimes I incline to one side, sometimes to the other — and sometimes to both at once.”
“That is going to the bottom of the question,” said Sleepinbuff.
“And, above all, to the bottom of the bottles,” added the Bacchanal Queen.
“As your majesty is pleased to observe; and already, by dint of reflection and research, I have made a great discovery — namely, that, if the wine at the marriage of Cana was red—”
“It couldn’t ‘a’ been white,” said Rose-Pompon, judiciously.
“And if I had arrived at the conviction that it was neither white nor red?” asked Dumoulin, with a magisterial air.
“That could only be when you had drunk till all was blue,” observed Sleepinbuff.
“The partner of the Queen says well. One may be too athirst for science; but never mind! From all my studies on this question, to which I have devoted my life — I shall await the end of my respectable career with the sense of having emptied tuns with a historical — theological — and archeological tone!”
It is impossible to describe the jovial grimace and tone with which Dumoulin pronounced and accentuated these last words, which provoked a general laugh.
“Archieolopically?” said Rose-Pompon. “What sawnee is that? Has he a tail? does he live in the water?”
“Never mind,” observed the Bacchanal Queen; “these are words of wise men and conjurers; they are like horsehair bustles — they serve for filling out — that’s all. I like better to drink; so fill the glasses, Ninny Moulin; some champagne, Rose-Pompon; here’s to the health of your Philemon and his speedy return!”
“And to the success of his plant upon his stupid and stingy family!” added Rose-Pompon.
The toast was received with unanimous applause.
“With the permission of her majesty and her court,” said Dumoulin, “I propose a toast to the success of a project which greatly interests me, and has some resemblance to Philemon’s jockeying. I fancy that the toast will bring me luck.”
“Let’s have it, by all means!”
“Well, then — success to my marriage!” said Dumoulin, rising.
These words provoked an explosion of shouts, applause, and laughter. Ninny Moulin shouted, applauded, laughed even louder than the rest, opening wide his enormous mouth, and adding to the stunning noise the harsh springing of his rattle, which he had taken up from under his chair.
When the storm had somewhat subsided, the Bacchanal Queen rose and said: “I drink to the health of the future Madame Ninny Moulin.”
“Oh, Queen! your courtesy touches me so sensibly that I must allow you to read in the depths of my heart the name of my future spouse,” exclaimed Dumoulin. “She is called Madame Honoree-Modeste-Messaline-Angele de la Sainte-Colombe, widow.”
“Bravo! bravo!”
“She is sixty years old, and has more thousands of francs-a-year than she has hair in her gray moustache or wrinkles on her face; she is so superbly fat that one of her gowns would serve as a tent for this honorable company. I hope to present my future spouse to you on Shrove Tuesday, in the costume of a shepherdess that has just devoured her flock. Some of them wish to convert her — but I have undertaken to divert her, which she will like better. You must help me to plunge her headlong into all sorts of skylarking jollity.”
“We will plunge her into anything you please.”
“She shall dance like sixty!” said Rose-Pompon, humming a popular tune.
“She will overawe the police.”
“We can say to them: ‘Respect this lady; your mother will perhaps be as old some day!’”
Suddenly, the Bacchanal Queen rose; her countenance wore a singular expression of bitter and sardonic delight. In one hand she held a glass full to the brim. “I hear the Cholera is approaching in his seven-league boots,” she cried. “I drink luck to the Cholera!” And she emptied the bumper.
