Part 4 (1/2)

”Remaining all the time, sir, perfectly respectful and perfectly reserved. Good heavens! look at myself, for instance. It is to waltzing that I owe my happiness. Mme. Morin was not then Mme. Morin. I kept my eye on her, but I hesitated. She appeared thin, and--well, I'll admit that to marry a thin woman didn't suit my ideas. You know every one has his ideals. So, sir, I was still hesitating, when one evening, at the wedding of one of my friends, a very capable young man, a deputy manager of a department at the Ministry of Religion, they started a little dance. For the first waltz I asked the one who was to be my companion through life. Immediately I felt in my hand a delightful figure--one of those full but supple figures; and while waltzing, quite enchanted, I was saying to myself, 'She isn't really thin! she isn't really thin!' I took her back to her place after the waltz, and went at once to her mother to ask for her hand, which was granted me. For fourteen years I have been the happiest of men, and perhaps I shouldn't have made that marriage if I hadn't known how to waltz. You see, sir, the results of a waltz?”

”Perfectly.”

”That is not all, sir. Thanks to dancing, one discovers not only the agreeable points of a person, the fulness of her figure, the lithesomeness of her waist, but also, in a briskly led waltz, a little examination of the health and const.i.tution of a woman can be had. I remember one evening twelve or so years ago--in the Rue Le Peletier, in the old Opera-house, which has burned down--I was on the stage awaiting my cue for the dance in 'William Tell,' you know, in the third act. Two subscribers were talking quite close to me, in the wings. One of the gentlemen was an old pupil of mine. I have had so many pupils! Without wis.h.i.+ng to, I heard sc.r.a.ps of the conversation, and these two sentences struck my ear: 'Well, have you decided?' 'Oh,' replied my pupil, 'I find her very charming, but I have heard that she is weak in the lungs.'

Then, sir, I did a very unusual thing for me. I begged pardon for having heard unintentionally, and I said to my old pupil: 'I think I have guessed that a marriage is in question. Will you authorize me to give you a piece of advice--advice drawn from the practice of my profession?

Do they allow this young lady to waltz?' You know there are mothers who do not permit--”

”I know, I know.”

We had arrived at this point in that interesting conversation when the ballet ended. The bishop and myself were a.s.sailed by an actual whirlwind of skaters, and my little Westphalian peasant-girl found me where she had left me.

”I declare!” she said to me, ”so you come to confess at the opera? Give him absolution, Morin, and give it to me, too. Now then, come along to the greenroom.”

She took my arm, and we went off together, while the excellent Morin, with gravity and dignity beneath his sacred ornaments, withstood the shock of this avalanche of dancers.

THE CIRCUS CHARGER

After George had related how he had been married off at twenty-two by his aunt, the Baroness de Stilb, Paul said: ”_I_ was married off by a circus charger. I was very nearly forty years of age, and I felt so peacefully settled in my little bachelor habits that, in the best faith in the world, on all occasions, I swore by the G.o.ds never to run the great risk of marriage; but I reckoned without the circus charger.

”It was in the last days of September, 1864. I had just arrived from Baden-Baden, and my intention was to spend only twenty-four hours in Paris. I had invited four or five of my friends--Callieres, Bernheim, Frondeville, and Valreas--to my place in Poitou for the shooting season.

They were to come in the first part of October, and it needed a week to put all in order at Roche-Targe. A letter from my overseer awaited me in Paris, and the letter brought disastrous news; the dogs were well, but out of the dozen hunting horses that I had there, five, during my sojourn at Baden, had fallen sick or lame, and I found myself absolutely forced to get new horses.

”I made a tour of the Champs-Elysees sellers, who showed me as hunters a fine collection of broken--down skeletons. Average price, three thousand francs. Roulette had treated me badly of late, and I was neither in the humor, nor had I the funds, to spend in that way seven or eight hundred louis in a morning.

”It was a Wednesday, and Cheri was holding his first autumn sale. I went to the Rue de Ponthieu during the day; and there out of the lot, on chance, without inquiry, blindly, by good-luck, and from the mere declarations of the catalogue--'_Excellent hunter, good jumper, has hunted with lady rider_,' etc.--I bought eight horses, which only cost me five thousand francs. Out of eight, I said to myself, there will always be four or five who will go, and who will be good enough to serve as remounts.

”Among the horses there was one that I had bought, I must confess, particularly on account of his coat, which was beautiful. The catalogue did not attribute to him any special qualifications for hunting, but limited itself to '_Brutus, riding horse_.' He was a large dapple-gray horse, but never, I think, have I seen gray better dappled; the white coat was strewn almost regularly with beautiful black spots, which were well distributed and well marked.

”I left town the next day for Roche-Targe, and the following day, early, they announced to me that the horses had arrived. I at once went down to see them, and my first glance was at Brutus. He had been trotting in my head for forty-eight hours, that devil of a gray horse, and I had a singular desire to know what he was and of what he was capable.

”I had him taken out of the stable first. A groom led him to me with a strap. The horse had long teeth, hollows in the chest, lumpy fetlocks--in short, all the signs of respectable age; but he had powerful shoulders, a large breast, a neck which was both strong and supple, head well held, tail well placed, and an irreproachable back. It wasn't, however, all this that attracted most my attention. What I admired above all was the air with which Brutus looked at me, and with what an attentive, intelligent, and curious eye he followed my movements and gestures. Even my words seemed to interest him singularly; he inclined his head to my side as if to hear me, and, as soon as I had finished speaking, he neighed joyously in answer.

”They showed me successively the seven other horses; I examined them rapidly and absent-mindedly. They were horses like all other horses.

Brutus certainly had something in particular, and I was anxious to make in his company a short jaunt in the country. He allowed himself to be saddled, bridled, and mounted like a horse who knows his business, and so we both started in the quietest way in the world.

”I had at first ridden him with the snaffle, and Brutus had gone off at a long easy gait, with rather a stiff neck and projected head; but as soon as I let him feel the curb, he changed with extraordinary rapidity and suppleness, drawing his head back to his breast, and champing his bit noisily; then at the same time he took a short gait, which was light and even, lifting well his feet and striking the sod with the regularity of a pendulum.

”Cheri's catalogue had not lied; the horse was a good rider--too good a rider, in fact. I made him trot, then gallop; the horse at the first suggestion gave me an excellent little trot and an excellent little gallop, but always plunging to the ground and pulling my arms when I tried to lift his head. When I wished to quicken his gait, the horse broke at once. He began to rack in great style, trotting with the fore-feet and galloping with the hind ones. 'Well,' I said to myself, 'I see now; I've bought some old horse of the Saumur or Saint-Cyr school, and it's not on this beast that I'll hunt in eight days.'

”I was about to turn and go home, quite edified as to Brutus's qualities, when the report of a gun was heard twenty yards away in the woods. It was one of my keepers who was shooting a rabbit, and who received some time after a handsome present from my wife for that shot.

”I was then in the centre of the cross-roads, which formed a perfect circle of five or six yards in radius; six long green alleys came to an end at this spot. On hearing the report, Brutus had stopped short, planted himself on his four legs, with ears erect and head raised. I was surprised to find the horse so impressionable. I should have thought that after the brilliant education that very certainly he had received in his youth, Brutus must be an artillery horse, used to gun and cannon.

I drew in my legs to urge the horse on, but Brutus didn't move; I spurred him sharply twice, but Brutus didn't move; I whipped him soundly, but Brutus didn't move. I tried to back the horse, to push him to the right, to the left, but I couldn't move him in the slightest degree. Brutus seemed glued to the ground, and yet--don't you dare to laugh, and be a.s.sured that my tale is absolutely true--each time that I attempted to put the horse in motion he turned his head and looked at me with an expression which could clearly be read as impatience and surprise; then he would again become as immovable as a statue. There was evidently some misunderstanding between the horse and myself. I saw that in his eyes, and Brutus said to me, with all the clearness he could put in his expression, 'I, as a horse, am doing my duty, and it's you, as a rider, who are not doing yours!'

”I was more puzzled than embarra.s.sed. 'What extraordinary kind of a horse have I bought at Cheri's,' I said to myself, 'and why does he look at me so queerly?' I was, however, going to take strong measures--that is to say, I was preparing to whip him smartly--when another report was heard.

”Then the horse gave a jump. I thought I had the best of it, and, profiting by his bound, I tried to carry him forward with hand and knee.