Part 16 (1/2)
”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: