There is a silence as of the dead. Then the long procession of trailing trains begins to cross the drawing-room and settle itself once more into the rows of chairs. The women have that despairing face one sees on captives who are returned to prison after an hour’s walk in the open fields. And so the concertos and symphonies follow each other, note after note. Handsome Mayol begins again to draw out that intangible note of his and Mme. Vauters to touch again the loosened cords of her voice. All of a sudden a sign of life appears, a movement of curiosity, just as it was a little while ago when the small Mlle. Bachellery made her entrance. It is the tabor-player Valmajour, the apparition of that proud peasant, his soft felt hat over one ear, his red belt around his waist and his plainsman’s jacket on one shoulder. It was an idea of Audiberte’s, an instinct in her natural feminine taste, to dress him in this way in order to give him greater effect in the midst of all the black coats. Well, well, at last, this at least is new and unexpected—this long tabor which hangs to the arm of the musician, the little fife on which his fingers move hither and yon, and the charming airs to the double music whose movement, rousing and lively, gives a moire-like shiver of awakening to the satin of those lovely shoulders! That worn-out public is delighted with these songs of morning, so fresh and embalmed with country fragrances—these ballads of Old France.
“Bravo! Bravo! Encore!”
And when, with a large and victorious rhythm which the orchestra accompanies in a low note, he attacks the “March of Turenne,” deepening and supporting his somewhat shrill instrument, the success is wild. He has to come back twice, ten times, being applauded first of all by Numa, whom this solitary success has warmed completely and who now takes credit to himself for this “fancy of the ladies.” He tells them how he discovered this genius, explains the great mystery of the fife with three holes and gives various details concerning the ancient castle of the Valmajours.
“Then he really is called Valmajour?”
“Certainly—belongs to the Princes des Baux—he is the last of the line.”
And so this legend starts, scatters, expands, enlarges and becomes at last a regular novel by George Sand.
“I have the parshemints at my house,” corroborates Bompard in a tone which permits of no question.
But in the midst of all this worldly enthusiasm more or less fabricated there is one little heart which is moved, one young head which is completely intoxicated and takes all these bravos and fables seriously. Without speaking a word, without even applauding, her eyes fixed and lost, her long, supple figure following in the balancing motion of a dream the bars of the heroic march, Hortense finds herself once more down there in Provence on the high terrace overlooking the sun-baked plain, whilst her musician plays for her a morning greeting, as if to one of those ladies in the Courts of Love, and then sticks her pomegranate flower on his tabor with a savage grace. This recollection moves her delightfully, and leaning her head on her sister’s shoulder she murmurs very low: “O, how happy I am!” uttering it with a deep and true accent which Rosalie does not notice at once, but which later on shall become more definite in her memory and shall haunt her like the stammered news of some misfortune.
“Eh! bé! My good Valmajour, didn’t I tell you? What a success!—eh?” cried Roumestan in the little drawing-room where a stand-up supper was being served for the performers. As to this success, the other stars of the concert considered it a bit exaggerated. Mme. Vauters, who was seated in readiness to leave while she waited for her carriage, concealed her spite in a great big cape of lace filled with violent perfumes, while handsome Mayol, standing in front of the buffet, showing in his back his slack nerves and weariness by a peculiar gesture, tore to pieces with the greatest ferocity a poor little plover and imagined that he had the tabor-player under his knife. But little Bachellery did not stoop to any such bad temper. In the midst of a group of young fops, laughing, fluttering and digging her little white teeth into a ham sandwich, like a schoolboy assailed by the hunger of a growing child, she played her game of infancy. She tried to make music on Valmajour’s fife.
“Just see, M’sieur le ministre!”