Paul and His Dog Volume I Part 12

"Lovely masker, my hand went astray involuntarily."

"Look out that it don't go astray again in that direction."

"I only did it to find out----"

"Whether I wore steel skirts, eh?"

"Exactly."

"Well, I don't need such things; I'm plump enough not to wear subst.i.tutes.--What in the world's the matter with your boots?"

"Nothing. They're too big; they keep falling."

"Why didn't you wear hoop-skirts on your legs? they wouldn't be out of the way."

"Are you free, pretty domino, or under the control of a husband?"

"What makes you ask me that? Do you want to marry me?"

"Why, when one desires to form a loving intimacy, isn't it natural to find out, first of all, the situation of the person one desires?"

"Aha! so you desire me, my tall hidalgo! in that case, you are going to treat me and my friend to a stick of candy; if you don't, I won't allow you to desire me."

"Oh, yes! candy!" cried the shepherdess. "Besides, I promised to take some home to my little brother. And then, all the women have a stick in their hands. It takes the place of a fan; it looks very nice."

Chamoureau considered that the ladies who go to the Opera ball are decidedly gluttonous, but it was impossible to draw back.

They were near the other buffet at that moment; the pink domino and the shepherdess selected a stick of candy each, and they did not take the smallest.

"How much?" asked the Spaniard.

"Ten francs."

"What! ten francs for candy?"

"A hundred sous each for the sticks the ladies took; two make ten francs."

"Come, my n.o.ble friend, pay up!" laughed the pink domino. "You certainly don't mean to haggle, do you? You'll make one believe you're not a n.o.ble Castilian at all, and that you learned all you know of Spain in Vaugirard!"

"No, no, I am not haggling!" said Chamoureau, making a horrible grimace under his false nose. "But I'm afraid I haven't the change."

"We'll change a note for you, monsieur."

While our widower took his purse from under his belt and inspected the contents, the shepherdess said to the pink domino in an undertone:

"My dear, there's our men over yonder, by the door, where we agreed.

They're looking for us, no doubt."

"In that case, let's be off, while that tall donkey has his false nose in his purse."

Chamoureau changed a forty-franc piece to pay for his candy, and, when he had received his change, turned to where the two women had stood, flattering himself that his gallantry ent.i.tled him to the most delicious reward. But instead of the pink domino, his false nose almost came in contact with the eye of a mustachioed individual, who said to him very sharply:

"For heaven's sake, be careful! Sapristi! do you take my face for a full moon, that you try to bury your nose in it?"

Chamoureau made no reply; he was busily engaged in looking for his conquest; but in vain did he gaze in every direction: his two ladies had vanished.

In his amazement, our Spaniard applied to the woman at the desk.

"Do you know which way they went?"

"Who, monsieur?"

"The two ladies who were with me just now and whom I treated to candy at a hundred sous a stick."

"No, monsieur."

"But they were right here, by my side, only a moment ago. I don't understand it at all!"

A crowd of young men and dominos rushed up to the buffet, pus.h.i.+ng Chamoureau aside and shouting:

"Come, off you go, Spaniard! You've had enough to drink; make room for others!"

"I beg your pardon, messieurs, I am looking for a lady."

"Go to the deuce! You won't find your lady! Ohe! what a phiz! Ah! now he's losing his boots! Look out, or you'll lose your nose next! Ha! ha!

what a ridiculous figure! Oh! that nose!"

At a masked ball, as soon as a few people begin to jeer at a person in disguise, the crowd collects and swells the chorus; and as the widower was a decidedly laughable figure in his ornate costume, and with his false nose and moustaches, bursts of laughter arose on all sides as he pa.s.sed, and he was followed by people who shouted in his ears:

"Oh! that nose! Look at that Spaniard's nose!"

"That man has been deceived by women."

"He must have made a fool of himself for them."

"Don't you see that monsieur is a foreigner who has come to France to study refined manners?"

"No, no; he's a joker, who made a bet that he would look more like an a.s.s than anybody else at the ball."

"Well, he has won! he has won!"

All these remarks were accompanied by loud laughter which made Chamoureau frantic.

To escape the ovation with which he was honored in the foyer, he rushed through one of the doors, sought the place where the crowd was most dense, and succeeded in reaching the corridor. He went up one flight, and as he neared the top, tore off his false nose.

"I'll take it off," he thought; "if I don't they'll recognize me by it and never stop following me. There--now that I no longer have that nose, I like to think that I shall not be noticed. But it's a very singular thing: I come here masked, or practically so, so that no one may know who I am, and I have to take off my mask to avoid being recognized!--After all, I was suffocating with that nose and those moustaches. I am much more comfortable this way.--But I can't understand the conduct of my two ladies. I treat them to punch and enormous sticks of candy, and they leave me! they disappear without saying a word to me!

Perhaps they saw their husbands, or lovers whose jealousy they fear.

They dreaded a scene if they were discovered with me. That must have been the reason for their disappearance. I fancy they didn't belong to the first society. Their language was a little free, and the shepherdess's especially wasn't the purest French; but the pink domino had a very neat figure--and no hoop-skirts! I shall find her again, I hope.--With all this I have lost Freluchon and Monsieur Edmond.--But they adore the monster galop, and I am sure of finding them when the time comes for that.--But five gla.s.ses of punch at a franc a gla.s.s, five francs, and ten for candy,--fifteen francs in all! that's rather high for an intrigue that is hardly begun! If she had even given me an a.s.signation for to-morrow! I should have exacted that before handing over the candy."