Monsieur Cherami Part 9

"You are waiting for a faithless creature, eh? That ought not to prevent your taking something to set you up. You are horribly pale; you'll be ill in a moment. When one is waiting for a perfidious female, one needs strength, courage, nerve! Come and take a plate of soup; there's a soup-kitchen close by."

"Ah! here they are! here they are! Yes, I am sure that these are they; I know it by the way I feel. Look, monsieur; do you see those carriages on the boulevard?"

"Yes, this seems to be another wedding party. Peste! this is evidently a swell affair."

"The carriages are coming here--do you see, monsieur?"

"Gla.s.s coaches, with footmen in livery!--this goes away ahead of the Blanquette party."

"They are stopping here. Come, let us go nearer."

"Yes, yes. Oh! never fear; I'll not leave you. Is your unfaithful one there?"

"f.a.n.n.y! She has married another--and I loved her so dearly!"

"Poor boy! I understand your suffering, now."

"Oh! I would like to die before her eyes."

"No nonsense! As if any man ought to die for a woman! Pshaw! there's nothing so easy to replace!"

The first carriage of this second wedding party had stopped at the door; four young men alighted, fas.h.i.+onably dressed all, and of genteel bearing. One of the four was evidently the hero of the ceremony; it was he who gave the orders, sent his groomsmen to the other carriages, or told them to whom they were to offer their arms. He was a little older than the others, apparently about thirty, and his life had evidently been well occupied, for his strongly marked, but jaded, features denoted excess of toil or of dissipation. He was a good-looking fellow, tall and slender, with an air of distinction; but there were dark rings around his great, brown eyes, his lips were thin and compressed, his smile was rather satirical than amiable, his forehead was already furrowed by numerous wrinkles, and he frowned repeatedly when he spoke with the slightest animation; his hair, which was of a glossy black and trimmed close, was already decidedly thin in front, and scarcely plentiful enough elsewhere to protect the top of his head.

"That's he! that's Auguste Monleard!" the young man to whom Cherami had attached himself murmured, with a shudder; and, as he spoke, he gripped his companion's arm in a sort of frenzy. But Cherami, far from complaining of that liberty, pa.s.sed his arm through his new acquaintance's, saying:

"Ah! that young man is Auguste Monleard, is he? Wait! wait! Monleard; I knew a Monleard, twenty years ago, but this can't be the same man. Is he the groom?"

"Yes; it is for him that she has forgotten me, thrown me aside."

"She is wrong. That young man is good-looking, but you are younger; and then, too, that fellow looks to me as if he had had a devilishly intimate acquaintance with the joys of life!--I don't impute it to him as a crime--but he'll soon have to wear a wig."

"Ah! I am strongly inclined to go and strike him across the face!"

The young man had already started to attack the bridegroom; but Cherami detained him, putting his arm about him.

"What are you going to do? make a fool of yourself? I won't allow it.

Well-bred people don't fight with their fists. If you want to fight with the groom, very good; I consent, I will even be your second; but you have plenty of time, and you must agree that this would be an ill-chosen moment."

The poor, lovelorn youth was not listening; another carriage had stopped in front of the restaurant. In that one there were ladies, among them the bride, who was easily recognizable by her head-dress of orange blossoms. She was a young woman of small stature, slender and dainty.

Her hair was brown like her eyes, which were large, fringed by long lashes, and surmounted by slight but perfectly arched eyebrows. Her mouth was small and intelligent; she rarely showed her teeth, because they were uneven. She was an attractive woman, nothing more; a man must have been deeply in love with her to declare that there was no lovelier creature on earth. But for a man who is deeply enamored, there is but the one woman on earth; consequently, she must be the fairest. The bride's most remarkable points were her hands and feet, which were extraordinarily small, and worthy to be a sculptor's model.

The groom stepped forward to offer his arm to his wife, to a.s.sist her to alight. She barely rested her hand upon it, and, light as a feather, she was already on the ground, where she seemed busily occupied in looking to see if her dress had been rumpled in the carriage.

"There she is! it is she! it is f.a.n.n.y!" murmured the young man, leaning heavily on Cherami.

"She doesn't look to me at all as if she'd been crying," was the reply.

"Mon Dieu! can it be that she will not look in this direction?"

"What's the use? She would see that you are pale and distressed, with the look of a disinterred corpse; that's no way to appear before a woman, to make her regret you."

"She would see how I suffer; she would realize that I shall die of grief!"

"I promise you that that wouldn't prevent her dancing this evening. I am a good judge of faces, and I divine that that woman has a cold disposition, heart ditto; there's very little feeling under that cover, or I am immeasurably mistaken."

Meanwhile, other ladies had left their carriages, and numerous young women, who flocked about the bride; one fastened a pin; another adjusted the folds of her veil; another remade her bouquet; and while they attended to these trivial details of the toilet, which are so momentous in a woman's eyes, especially a bride's, she glanced here and there, and soon her eyes fell upon the pale, dishevelled, heart-broken young man; for he had thrust aside all those who stood in front of him and who prevented him from gazing at his ease upon her for whom he had come here.

A faint tremor of emotion pa.s.sed over the bride's features; there was in her eyes a momentary expression of pity, of sympathy; but it did not indicate suffering on her own part; and as her husband, who had noticed her preoccupation, hurried toward her at that moment, she speedily changed her expression, a.s.sumed an amiable, joyous manner, and accepted his arm with pretty, caressing little gestures.

Thereupon the young man, whom Cherami held by the arm, could not restrain a paroxysm of rage, crying:

"Oh! this is frightful! not a glance of regret, of farewell, for me! She sees my suffering, my despair, and she smiles at that man! and she walks off on his arm, with joy and happiness in her eyes!"

X

THE YOUNGER SISTER

At that moment, one of the young women who had arrived in the bride's carriage ran hastily to him whom the wedding party made so miserable, and said to him in an undertone, but in a voice overflowing with kindness and sympathy:

"Why are you here, Gustave? Why did you come? You promised me to be brave."

"I am, mademoiselle; you see that I am--for I did not overwhelm the false creature with reproaches, here, before her husband's face, before her new relations!"

"Ah! that would have been very ill done of you; and how would it have helped you? I implore you, Gustave, be reasonable.--Do not leave him, monsieur, will you?"

The last question was addressed to Cherami, who hastened to reply:

"I! leave my dear Gustave in the state he's in now! I should think not!

What do you take me for, mademoiselle? I will cling to him as the ivy to the elm. If he should throw himself into the water, I would follow him!

But, never fear; he won't do it. Oh! I am here to look out for him; he has no more devoted friend than me."

At that moment, several voices called:

"Adolphine! Adolphine! do come!"

"They are looking for me and calling me," murmured the young woman.

"Adieu! Gustave; but if you have the slightest regard for me, you will not abandon yourself to your grief. You won't, will you? I implore you!"

And the amiable young woman, as light of foot as a gazelle, disappeared under the porte cochere, as did all the other persons whom the carriages had brought.

"There's a little woman who pleases me exceedingly!" cried Cherami; "she must be the bride's sister or cousin, at least. For my part, I think that she's prettier than the bride. Perhaps her eyes aren't as big; but they are sweet and tender and kind; and then, they are blue, which always denotes true feeling: I have studied the subject. Her hair's not as dark as the other's, but it's of a light shade of chestnut which does not lack merit. Her mouth isn't so small, but neither are her lips so thin and tightly shut as the bride's. Distrust thin lips; they're a sure sign of malignity and hypocrisy. Lastly, she is less dainty than your faithless f.a.n.n.y, but she is taller; her figure has more distinction and elegance. All in all, she is an exceedingly attractive person, this Mademoiselle Adolphine; I say _mademoiselle,_ for I suppose that she still is one. Have I guessed right?"

But Gustave was not listening to his new friend. He stood with his eyes fixed on the door through which the wedding party had pa.s.sed, apparently under the spell of a vague hallucination.

Cherami shook his arm, saying: