The orator on the balcony had lashed himself up and had reached the moment of effusiveness when nothing could be heard except the final chords, accentuated in the Southern manner—“my soul”—“my blood”—“morals”—“religion”—“our country”—punctuated by the applause of that audience which was made according to his image and which he summed up in his own self both in his qualities and his vices—an effervescing South, mobile and tumultuous like a sea with many currents, each of which spoke of him!
There was a final viva and then the crowd was heard slowly passing away. Roumestan came into the room mopping his brow; intoxicated by his triumph and warmed by this endless tenderness of the whole people, he approached his wife and kissed her with a sincere effusion of sentiment. He felt himself very kind to her and as tender as on the first day of their marriage; never a bit of remorse and never a bit of rancor!
“Bé! just see how they make much of him! How they applaud your son!” Kneeling before the sofa the grand personage of Aps played with his child and touched the little fingers that seized upon everything and the little feet that kicked out into the air.
With a wrinkle on her brow Rosalie looked at him, trying to define his contradictory and inexplicable nature. Then suddenly, as if she had found something:
“Numa, what was that proverb you people use which Aunt Portal repeated the other day? ‘Joie de rue’—how was it?”
“Oh yes, I remember: ‘Gau de carriero, doulou d’oustau.’” (Happiness of the street, sorrow of the home.)
“That is it,” said she with an expression of deep thought. And, letting the words fall one by one as you drop stones into an abyss, she slowly repeated, putting the while the sorrow of her life into it, this proverb, in which an entire race has drawn its own portrait and formulated its own being:
“Happiness of the street, sorrow of the home.”
THE END.