Among these birds of passage one alone remained stationary, more from force of childish habit than from anything else, for Bompard and Roumestan were born in the same street at Aps. Bompard was an institution in the house, found there in a place of honor when the bride came home. He was a cadaverous creature with Don Quixote’s head and a big eagle’s nose and eyes like balls of agate set in a pitted, saffron-colored complexion that looked like Cordova leather; it was lined and seamed with the wrinkles one sees only in the faces of clowns and jesters which are forced constantly into contortions.
Bompard had never been a comedian, however. Numa had found him again in the chorus of the opera where he had sung for a short time. Beyond this, it was impossible to say what was real in the shifting sands of that career. He had been everywhere, seen everything and practised all trades. No great man or great event could be mentioned without his saying: “He is a friend of mine,” or “I was present at the time,” and then would follow a long story to prove his assertion.
In piecing together these fragments of his history most astonishing chronological conclusions were arrived at; thus, at the same date Bompard led a company of Polish and Caucasian deserters at the siege of Sebastopol and was choir-master to the King of Holland and very close to the king’s sister, for which latter indiscretion he was imprisoned for six months in the fortress at The Hague—which did not prevent him at the same time from making a forced march from Laghouat to Gadamès through the great African desert.
He told these wonderful tales with rare gestures, in a solemn tone, using a strong Southern accent, but with a continual twitching and contortion of his features as trying to the eyes as the shifting of the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope.
The present life of Bompard was as mysterious as his past. How and where did he live? And on what? He was forever talking of wonderful schemes for making money, such as a new and cheap manner of asphalting one corner of Paris, or, all of a sudden, he was deep in the discovery of an infallible remedy for the phylloxera and was only waiting for a letter from the Minister to receive the prize of one hundred thousand francs in order to be in funds to pay his bill at the little dairy where he took his meals, whose managers he had almost driven insane with his false hopes and extravagant dreams.
This crazy Southerner was Roumestan’s delight. He took him about, making a butt of him, egging him on, warming him up and exciting his folly. If Numa stopped in the street to speak to any one, Bompard stepped aside with a dignified air as if about to light a cigar. At funerals or first nights he was always turning up to ask every one in the most impressive haste: “Have you seen Roumestan anywhere?” He came to be as well known as Numa himself. This type of parasite is not uncommon in Paris; each great man has a Bompard dragging at his heels, who walks on in his shadow and comes to have a kind of personality reflected from that of his patron. It was a mere chance that Roumestan’s Bompard really had a personality of his own, not a reflection of his master. Rosalie detested this intruder on her happiness, always between her and her husband, appropriating to himself the few precious moments that might have been hers alone. The two old friends always talked a patois that seemed to set her apart and laughed uproariously at untranslatable local jokes. What she particularly disliked about him was the necessity he was under of telling lies. At first she had believed these inventions, so unsuspicious was her true and candid nature, whose greatest charm was its harmony in word and thought, a combination that was audible in the crystalline clearness and steadiness of her musical voice.
“I do not like him—he tells lies,” she said in deep disgust to Roumestan, who only laughed. To defend his friend, he said:
“No, he’s not a liar; he’s only gifted with a vivid imagination. He is a sleeper awake who talks out his dreams. My country is full of just such people. It is the effect of the sun and the accent. There is my Aunt Portal—and even I myself—if I did not have myself well in hand—”
She placed her little hand over his mouth:
“Hush, hush! I could not love you if you came from that side of Provence!”