Part 22 (1/2)
Eugenie proposed to me that we should go before the supper; but I preferred to remain, because I expected that there would be some amusing scenes at the close of the festivity. The supper was not served as mine was; the ladies alone were seated, and the men had to stand behind them.
Madame de Beausire insisted upon having it so, because it was much less jolly than sitting at small tables.
The feast lasted a very short time. Madame de Beausire gave the signal by rising, and the other ladies had no choice but to follow her example.
I heard one old aunt mutter as she rose: ”This is ridiculous; I didn't have time to finish my chicken wing.”
As the fatal moment drew near, Madame de Beausire's eyes became more and more full of tears. At last, when the dancing drew to a close, Belan approached his Armide and suggested that they should go; whereupon Madame de Beausire rushed between them, sobbing, and threw her arms about her daughter.
”You shall not separate us, monsieur!” she cried.
Belan stood as if turned to stone before his mother-in-law. The kinsfolk surrounded them, and I heard the uncles and cousins say to one another:
”That little fellow is behaving in the most indecent way. It makes me ill to have him come into our family.”
The aunts and the old maids had led Madame de Beausire away, and she left the restaurant with her daughter, while Belan remained. He saw us and came to bid us good-night, faltering:
”I have let my wife and her mother go before, because, you know, they have to put the bride to bed; and of course I cannot be there.”
”My dear Belan, I am afraid that Madame de Beausire will make another scene to-night.”
”Oh, no! At all events, if she does, I will show my spirit.”
We drove away, and as we returned home, Eugenie and I agreed that a man is always very foolish to enter a family which thinks that it does him much honor by allying itself with him. If chance has willed that he should be born in a lower cla.s.s, he should, by his intellect or his character, show himself superior to those who try to humiliate him.
X
A QUARREL.--THE FIRST VEXATION
A few days after Belan's wedding, we received a visit from Monsieur and Madame Giraud. I divined what brought them, and in truth they were hardly seated before Giraud exclaimed:
”You must have been greatly surprised not to see us at Belan's wedding?”
”In fact,” added Madame Giraud, ”it made an impression on everybody. It was so terribly vulgar! So extraordinary! Just think of it! It was at our house that they met, and it was Giraud who took the first steps, who sounded Madame de Beausire, and who enumerated to her the young man's property and good qualities; and yet we were not invited to the breakfast, or even to the ball! It's an outrage!”
”More than that, it was indecent!” cried Giraud; ”and if my wife hadn't restrained me, I would have demanded satisfaction.”
”No, no; people would have thought that we cared about a wedding party; but thank G.o.d! we have more of them than we want. By the way, they say that that one was very dismal and tiresome!”
”Why, it was not very lively,” said Eugenie.
”Ah! yours was the lovely one, my dear Madame Blemont, and managed with such taste and such profusion! I confess that I had thirteen ices; salvers kept pa.s.sing me, and I forgot myself.”
”Yes, that was a charming wedding,” said Giraud; ”but they tell me that at Belan's there weren't enough people to form two quadrilles of twelve, and that they were almost all outlandish creatures of the last century.
And that old Beausire woman did nothing but cry. And then that night--do you know what happened?”
”No, we don't know.”
”Well, I know all about it, because I have a maid who used to live in the house where the Beausires live, and who still has friends there.
Well, that night the mother-in-law refused to leave her daughter. When the husband arrived, Madame de Beausire sobbed so that she woke the neighbors. Belan lost his temper, and they had a terrible scene; finally, in a rage, he went to bed in a little closet where they keep coal, and the next morning he came out looking like a coal heaver! Poor fellow! If he doesn't look out, those two women will shut him up in a foot-warmer, and feed him through the holes when he's a good boy.--Ha!