Among them all this particular Southern dish, codfish à la brandade, could hardly be found elsewhere in Paris except at the Produits du Midi; but it was the true article, white, carded fine, creamy, with just a touch of garlic, the way it is done at Nîmes, from which city indeed the Mèfres had it forwarded. On Thursday evening it reaches Paris at seven o’clock by the lightning express and Friday morning it is distributed throughout the city to all the good customers whose names are on the big book of the store. Nay, it is on that very commercial ledger with its tumbled leaves, smelling of spices and soiled with oil, that is inscribed the history of the conquest of Paris by the Southerners; there appear one after the other all the big fortunes, political and industrial posts, names of celebrated lawyers, deputies, ministers, and among them all especially that of Numa Roumestan, the Vendean of the South, the pillar of the altar and the throne.
For the sake of that single line on which Roumestan’s name is written the Mèfres would toss the whole book into the fire. He it is who represents best their ideas in religion, politics and everything. It is just as Mme. Mèfre says, and she is more enthusiastic than her husband:
“For that man, I tell you, anybody would imperil their eternal soul.”
They are very fond of recalling the period when Numa, already on the road to fame, did not disdain to come there himself to buy his stores. And how he did understand the way of choosing by the touch a pasty! or a sausage that sweats nicely under the knife! Then such kind-heartedness! and that imposing, handsome face! and always a compliment for Madame, a pleasant word for his “dear brother,” a caressing touch for the little Mèfres who accompanied him as far as the carriage bearing his parcels. Since his elevation to the Ministry, since those scoundrels of Reds had given him so much bother in the two Chambers, they did not see anything more of him, pécaïré! but he always remained faithful to the Produits, and it was always he who got the first distribution.
One Thursday evening about ten o’clock, when all the pots of codfish à la brandade had been wrapped and tied and placed in fine alignment on the counter, the whole Mèfre family, the shop boys, old Valmajour and all the products of the South were in full number on hand, perspiring and blowing. They were taking a rest with the peculiar air of people who have accomplished a difficult task and were “dipping a bit” with ladyfingers and biscuits steeped in thick wine or orgeat syrup—“Come now, just something mild”—for as to anything strong, Southerners do not care for that at all. Among the townspeople as in the country parts drunkenness from alcohol is almost unknown. Instinctively this race has a fear and horror of it; it feels itself intoxicated from its birth—drunk without drinking.
For it is most certainly true that the wind and the sun distil for them a terrible kind of natural alcohol whose effect is felt more or less by all those born down there. Some of them have only that little drop too much which loosens the tongue and gestures and causes one to see life rosy in color and discover sympathetic souls everywhere, which brightens the eye, widens the streets, sweeps away obstacles, doubles audacity and strengthens the timid; others who are violently affected, like the little Valmajour girl or Aunt Portal, reach at any minute the limits of a stuttering, stammering and blind delirium. To understand it one must have seen our festivals in Provence with the peasants standing up on the tables yelling and pounding with their big yellow shoes, screaming: “Waiter, dé gazeuse!” (lemon soda)—an entire village raving drunk over a few bottles of lemonade. And where is the Southerner who has not experienced those sudden prostrations of the intoxicated, those breakings-down of the whole being, right on the heels of wrath or of enthusiasm—changes as sudden as a sunburst or a shadow across a March sky?
Without possessing the delirious Southern quality of his daughter, Father Valmajour was born with a pretty lively case of it. And that evening his ladyfingers dipped in orgeat affected him with a crazy jollity which made him reel off, standing with his glass in his hand and his mouth all twisted in the middle of the shop, all the farcical performances of an old sponge who pays his scot without money. The Mèfres and their shopmen were rolling around on the flour sacks with delight:
“Oh! de ce Valmajour, pas moins!” (O! that Valmajour, what a fellow he is!)
Suddenly the liveliness of the old fellow stopped short and his gesture, like that of a jumping-jack, was brought to a dead pause by the apparition before him of a Provençal head-dress trembling with rage.
“What are you doing here, father?”