FullReads

“Well, the tragic is not lacking in your play,” said Gazonal.

“It is six o’clock. Before we take you to see Odry in ‘Les Saltimbauques’ to-night,” said Leon to Gazonal, “we must go and pay a visit to Madame Cadine,–an actress whom your committee-man Massol cultivates, and to whom you must therefore pay the most assiduous court.”

“And as it is all important that you conciliate that power, I am going to give you a few instructions,” said Bixiou. “Do you employ workwomen in your manufactory?”

“Of course I do,” replied Gazonal.

“That’s all I want to know,” resumed Bixiou. “You are not married, and you are a great–“

“Yes!” cried Gazonal, “you’ve guessed my strong point, I’m a great lover of women.”

“Well, then! if you will execute the little manoeuvre which I am about to prescribe for you, you will taste, without spending a farthing, the sweets to be found in the good graces of an actress.”

When they reached the rue de la Victoire where the celebrated actress lived, Bixiou, who meditated a trick upon the distrustful provincial, had scarcely finished teaching him his role; but Gazonal was quick, as we shall see, to take a hint.

The three friends went up to the second floor of a rather handsome house, and found Madame Jenny Cadine just finishing dinner, for she played that night in an afterpiece at the Gymnase. Having presented Gazonal to this great power, Leon and Bixiou, in order to leave them alone together, made the excuse of looking at a piece of furniture in another room; but before leaving, Bixiou had whispered in the actress’s ear: “He is Leon’s cousin, a manufacturer, enormously rich; he wants to win a suit before the Council of State against his prefect, and he thinks it wise to fascinate you in order to get Massol on his side.”

All Paris knows the beauty of that young actress, and will therefore understand the stupefaction of the Southerner on seeing her. Though she had received him at first rather coldly, he became the object of her good graces before they had been many minutes alone together.

“How strange!” said Gazonal, looking round him disdainfully on the furniture of the salon, the door of which his accomplices had left half open, “that a woman like you should be allowed to live in such an ill-furnished apartment.”

“Ah, yes, indeed! but how can I help it? Massol is not rich; I am hoping he will be made a minister.”

“What a happy man!” cried Gazonal, heaving the sigh of a provincial.

“Good!” thought she. “I shall have new furniture, and get the better of Carabine.”

“Well, my dear!” said Leon, returning, “you’ll be sure to come to Carabine’s to-night, won’t you?–supper and lansquenet.”

“Will monsieur be there?” said Jenny Cadine, looking artlessly and graciously at Gazonal.

“Yes, madame,” replied the countryman, dazzled by such rapid success.

“But Massol will be there,” said Bixiou.

“Well, what of that?” returned Jenny. “Come, we must part, my treasures; I must go to the theatre.”

Gazonal gave his hand to the actress, and led her to the citadine which was waiting for her; as he did so he pressed hers with such ardor that Jenny Cadine exclaimed, shaking her fingers: “Take care! I haven’t any others.”

When the three friends got back into their own vehicle, Gazonal endeavoured to seize Bixiou round the waist, crying out: “She bites! You’re a fine rascal!”

“So women say,” replied Bixiou.

At half-past eleven o’clock, after the play, another citadine took the trio to the house of Mademoiselle Seraphine Sinet, better known under the name of Carabine,–one of those pseudonyms which famous lorettes take, or which are given to them; a name which, in this instance, may have referred to the pigeons she had killed.

Carabine, now become almost a necessity for the banker du Tillet, deputy of the Left, lived in a charming house in the rue Saint- Georges. In Paris there are many houses the destination of which never varies; and the one we now speak of had already seen seven careers of courtesans. A broker had brought there, about the year 1827, Suzanne du Val-Noble, afterwards Madame Gaillard. In that house the famous Esther caused the Baron de Nucingen to commit the only follies of his life. Florine, and subsequently, a person now called in jest “the late Madame Schontz,” had scintillated there in turn. Bored by his wife, du Tillet bought this modern little house, and there installed the celebrated Carabine, whose lively wit and cavalier manners and shameless brilliancy were a counterpoise to the dulness of domestic life, and the toils of finance and politics.