The Bashful Lover Part 2

"What! the living image of _us_!--Have you been drinking, Jasmin?"

"Pardon me, monsieur le marquis, but it is my affection that carries me away! When I say we, my dear master knows very well that I mean him! In fact, it is your n.o.ble face, monsieur, your fine aquiline nose, your pretty little chin; and he will have your fine teeth, which you no longer have. I would bet that he will have them."

The old marquis could not help smiling, and he replied in a milder tone:

"The dear child!--Well, I promised you a present, and you shall have it.

I know that you are a faithful servant, my poor Jasmin, but you should be careful what you say when you are speaking of your master's son."

"The little fellow is a real Love, monsieur. Ah! if I could have suckled him, how happy I would have been!"

"I feel strong enough to go to see my wife and my son now. Come, Jasmin, escort me."

"Yes, monsieur, let us go to see our child."

The old marquis, overjoyed to be born again at seventy, rose, took his valet's arm, and tried to run to his wife's apartment; but as both master and servant were heavy of foot, their progress was confined to a rather swift walk, which did not, however, prevent them from being out of breath when they reached the marchioness's room.

Monsieur hastened forward to embrace madame, shedding tears of joy; and in his emotion, he fell upon her bed, from which they had all the difficulty in the world to raise him, because happiness changed his legs and arms to cotton. When they had succeeded in placing Monsieur de Grandvilain in a chair, he asked for a gla.s.s of madeira in order to restore his strength and put him in a condition to embrace his son.

Jasmin went again to fetch the madeira; he filled a gla.s.s for his master, and one for himself also, to drink which he retired behind a long window curtain, finding that he too needed to replenish his strength.

"And now, where is my son?" said the marquis in a trembling voice, glancing about the room.

"He will be brought to you in a moment, monsieur," said the buxom Turlurette; "the nurse is fixing him to show you."

"I don't want him to be dressed," said the marquis; "on the contrary, I want to see him naked; then I shall be better able to judge of his strength, of his const.i.tution."

"Yes, yes," said Jasmin, "we shall be very glad to see what we have made!"

"You hear, Turlurette,--tell the nurse to bring me my son as naked as a worm."

"Yes, let her bring him to us at once, like a savage, without any fig-leaf."

"Jasmin, will you be good enough to keep your tongue quiet for a moment?"

"I beg pardon, monsieur le marquis; it is my impatience to admire our dear love."

Turlurette made haste to perform her errand, and the nurse soon appeared, carrying before her a large basin, wherein the new-born child, entirely naked, moved about and stretched out at pleasure its little pink and white limbs.

The nurse handed the child to the marquis, as the keys of a city used in the old days to be presented to a conqueror.

At sight of his son, Monsieur de Grandvilain uttered a joyful cry, and put out his arms to take him; but his emotion caused another attack of faintness; he had not the strength to take the child, but fell back in his chair. Meanwhile, the nurse, thinking that the father was going to take what she held out to him, had relaxed her hold of the child and the basin alike, and both would have fallen to the floor if stout Turlurette had not luckily caught the child by the part which presented itself first to her grasp.

The bowl fell to the floor and broke into a thousand pieces. When she heard the crash, madame la marquise thought that her son was killed.

"My child! what has happened to him?"

"Nothing, madame," said Turlurette, giving the little boy to her mistress; "he didn't fall; I caught him by--I got hold of him."

"The dear love! I had a terrible fright!--Great heaven! Turlurette, what a very strange way to hold the child!"

"Bless me! it's very lucky that I caught hold of him as I did! If it hadn't been so, he might have fallen with the basin, and G.o.d knows if he wouldn't have been smashed like it."

While all this was taking place, Jasmin, seeing his master lying back in his chair, pale and trembling, hastily poured out another gla.s.s of madeira for him, and then retired behind the curtain once more.

Monsieur de Grandvilain, having recovered his strength for the third time, took the child whom Turlurette still held, and embraced him heartily; then held him up in the air, exclaiming:

"So this is my son! my heir! Corbleu! I was sure that I should have a son."

But the marchioness, fearing that her husband would faint again, and that he would then drop the child altogether, begged him to sit down beside her bed; Monsieur de Grandvilain complied, and then began to turn the child over and over, scrutinizing every part.

"What a lovely child!" he cried; "and to think that I begot him!"

"Yes, we begot him!" muttered Jasmin, who stood behind his master's chair, with the bottle of madeira in his hand, in case of an emergency.

"How plump and pink he is; what pretty little calves!"

"Faith, I haven't as much calf as that now!" said Jasmin, glancing at his own legs.

"What a pretty little round head!"

"One would swear that it was a Dutch cheese," muttered Jasmin; but luckily for him, his master did not hear his reflection that time, or it would have caused the suppression of his present for good and all.

"He is built like an Apollo!--and he has--why, it is herculean! Look, Jasmin,--see how--how he has developed already!"

"It is marvelous," said Jasmin, who, after examining the proportions of the child, made mentally the same reflection that he had made on the subject of his legs.

After Monsieur de Grandvilain had thoroughly scrutinized his son _per fas et nefas_, he handed him to his spouse, saying:

"By the way, my dear love, what shall we call him?"

"That is what I have been thinking of, my dear husband, ever since he was born."

"My son must have a n.o.ble name. My own name is Sigismond; that is a good name, but I don't like the idea of sons having their fathers' names; that leads to mistakes, until you don't know where you are."

"Listen, monsieur le marquis, the most appropriate name for the dear love would be Cherubin. What do you say to that? Isn't it a very pretty name?"

"Cherubin!" said the marquis, shaking his head; "that is very girlish; there is nothing warlike about it."

"Why, monsieur, what's the necessity of giving a warrior's name to our son? That would have been very well in Napoleon's time, but now it is no longer the fas.h.i.+on; let us call our son Cherubin, I beg you!"

"Marchioness," replied the marquis, kissing his wife's hand, "you have given me a son and I can refuse you nothing. His name shall be Cherubin; that rather reminds one of the _Mariage de Figaro_; but after all, Beaumarchais's Cherubin is an attractive little rascal; all the women dote on him, and it would not be a bad thing if our son should resemble the little page."

"Yes, yes," murmured Jasmin, who stood behind his master's chair, swaying from side to side, for the visits behind the curtain had begun to make his legs unsteady. "Yes, Cherubin is very nice; it rhymes with Jasmin."

The marquis turned, and was tempted to strike his servant; but he, finding that he had made another foolish speech, a.s.sumed such a piteous expression that his master simply said to him:

"You are impertinent beyond all bounds to-day, Jasmin!"

"I beg pardon, monsieur le marquis, it is my delight, my enthusiasm. I am so happy, that it seems to me that everything in the room is dancing."