Part 22 (2/2)

The papers always find fault with his verses for being too melancholy.”

”What!” cried the widow, ”do they talk about him in the papers? He must know quite as much, then, as Monsieur Guerin, the public writer.”

”And a great deal more. Apply to him, madame, and you will not repent of it.”

After having explained to Rodolphe the sort of inscription in verse which she wished to place on her husband's tomb, the widow agreed to give Rodolphe ten francs if it suited her--only she must have it very soon. The poet promised she should have it the very next day.

”Oh good genius of Artemisia!” cried Rodolphe as the widow disappeared.

”I promise you that you shall be suited--full allowance of melancholy lyrics, better got up than a d.u.c.h.ess, orthography and all. Good old lady! May Heaven reward you with a life of a hundred and seven years--equal to that of a good brandy!”

”I object,” said Marcel.

”That's true,” said Rodolphe, ”I forgot that you have her hand to paint, and that so long a life would make you lose money.” And lifting his hands he gravely e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, ”Heaven, do not grant my prayer! Ah!” he continued, ”I was in jolly good luck to come here.”

”By the way,” asked Marcel, ”what did you want?”

”I recollect--and now especially that I have to pa.s.s the night in making these verses, I cannot do without what I came to ask you for, namely, first, some dinner; secondly, tobacco and a candle; thirdly, your polar-bear costume.”

”To go to the masked ball?”

”No, indeed, but as you see me here, I am as much frozen up as the grand army in retreat from Russia. Certainly my green frock-coat and Scotch-plaid trowsers are very pretty, but much too summery; they would do to live under the equator; but for one who lodges near the pole, as I do, a white bear skin is more suitable; indeed I may say necessary.”

”Take the fur!” said Marcel, ”it's a good idea; warm as a dish of charcoal; you will be like a roll in an oven in it.”

Rodolphe was already inside the animal's skin.

”Now,” said he, ”the thermometer is going to be really mad.”

”Are you going out so?” said Marcel to his friend, after they had finished an ambiguous repast served in a penny dish.

”I just am,” replied Rodolphe. ”Do you think I care for public opinion?

Besides, today is the beginning of carnival.”

He went half over Paris with all the gravity of the beast whose skin he occupied. Only on pa.s.sing before a thermometer in an optician's window he couldn't help taking a sight at it.

Having returned home not without causing great terror to his porter, Rodolphe lit his candle, carefully surrounding it with an extempore shade of paper to guard it against the malice of the winds, and set to work at once. But he was not long in perceiving that if his body was almost entirely protected from the cold, his hands were not; a terrible numbness seized his fingers which let the pen fall.

”The bravest man cannot struggle against the elements,” said the poet, falling back helpless in his chair. ”Caeser pa.s.sed the Rubicon, but he could not have pa.s.sed the Beresina.”

All at once he uttered a cry of joy from the depths of his bear-skin breast, and jumped up so suddenly as to overturn some of his ink on its snowy fur. He had an idea!

Rodolphe drew from beneath his bed a considerable ma.s.s of papers, among which were a dozen huge ma.n.u.scripts of his famous drama, ”The Avenger.”

This drama, on which he had spent two years, had been made, unmade, and remade so often that all the copies together weighed fully fifteen pounds. He put the last version on one side, and dragged the others towards the fireplace.

”I was sure that with patience I should dispose of it somehow,” he exclaimed. ”What a pretty f.a.got! If I could have foreseen what would happen, I could have written a prologue, and then I should have more fuel tonight. But one can't foresee everything.” He lit some leaves of the ma.n.u.script, in the flame of which he thawed his hands. In five minutes the first act of ”The Avenger” was over, and Rodolphe had written three verses of his epitaph.

It would be impossible to describe the astonishment of the four winds when they felt fire in the chimney.

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