“All right, all right, another time then,” said the peasant good-naturedly.
And seeing Méjean approaching he thought it necessary to begin to tell him the story of the fife with three stops.
“It come to me right in the middle of the night, listening to the singing of the nightingoyle; thought I to meself: ‘How is it, Valmajour—’”
It was the same little story that he had told them in the amphitheatre: having found it successful, he cleverly clung to it, repeating it word for word. But this time his manner became less assured, a certain embarrassment gaining from moment to moment as Roumestan finished his toilet and stood before him in all the severity of his black evening clothes and enormous shirt-front of fine linen with its studs of Oriental pearls, which the valet handed him piece by piece.
Moussu Numa seemed to him to have grown taller, his head, held stiffly, solemnly, for fear of disarranging his immaculate white muslin tie, seemed lighted up by the pale beams radiating from the cross of Saint Anne around his neck and the big order of Isabella the Catholic, like a sun, pinned upon his breast. And suddenly the peasant, seized by a wave of respect and fright, realized that he stood in the presence of one of those privileged beings of the earth, that strange, almost superhuman creature, the powerful god to whom the prayers and desires and supplications of his worshippers are sent only on large stamped paper, so high up, indeed, that humbler devotees are never privileged to see him, so haughty that they only whisper his name with fear and trembling, in a sort of restrained fear and ignorant emphasis—the Minister!
Poor Valmajour! He was so upset by this idea that he hardly heard Roumestan’s kind words of farewell, asking him to come again in a fortnight when he would be installed in his new quarters at the Ministry.
“All right, all right, your Excellency.”
He backed towards the door, still dazzled by the orders and extraordinary expression of his transfigured compatriot. Numa was delighted at this sudden timidity, which was a tribute to what he henceforward called his “ministerial air,” his curling lip, his frowning brow and his severe, reserved manner.
A few moments later his Excellency was rolling towards the railway station, forgetting this tiresome episode and lulled by the gentle motion of the coupé with its bright lamps as he flew to meet his new and exalted engagements. He was already preparing the telling points in his first speech, composing his plan of campaign, his famous letter to the rectors and thinking of the excitement caused all over Europe when they should read his nomination in to-morrow’s papers, when, at the turn of the boulevard, in the light of a gas-lamp reflected in the wet asphalt, he caught sight of the taborist, his tabor hanging from his arm, deafened and frightened, waiting for an opportunity to cross the street which was at that hour, as all Paris hastened to re-enter its gates, a moving mass of carriages and wagons, while crowded omnibuses jolted swaying along and the horns of the tramway conductors sounded at intervals. In the falling shades of night and the steam of dampness which the rain threw up from the hurrying crowd, in this great jostling crowd the poor boy seemed so lost, exiled and overwhelmed by the tall, unfriendly buildings around him—he seemed so pitifully unlike the handsome Valmajour at the door of his mas, giving the rhythm to the locusts with his tabor, that Roumestan turned away his head and, for a few moments, a feeling of remorse threw a cloud over the radiant pathway of his triumph.