"It's the article in the Messager," he replied, and I had to abandon the idea of finding out anything more for the moment, as a loud ring at the bell announced the arrival of the first carriage, and it was followed by a multitude of others.
Intent upon my business, giving close attention to the proper pronunciation of the names given me and to making them ricochet from salon to salon, I thought of nothing else. It is no easy matter to announce properly people who always think that their names must be well known, so that they simply murmur them through their closed lips as they pass, and then are surprised to hear you murder them in your most sonorous tone and almost bear you a grudge for the unimpressive entrances, greeted with faint smiles, that follow a bungling announcement. The task was made even more difficult at M. Jansoulet's by the swarm of foreigners, Turks, Egyptians, Persians, Tunisians. I do not mention the Corsicans, who were also very numerous on that occasion, because, during my four years of service at the Caisse Territoriale, I have become accustomed to pronouncing those high-sounding, interminable names, always followed by the name of a place: "Paganetti of Porto-Vecchio, Bastelica of Bonifacio, Paianatchi of Barbicaglia."
I enjoyed dwelling upon those Italian syllables, giving them their full resonant value, and I could see by the stupefied expressions of those worthy islanders how surprised and delighted they were to be introduced in that fashion into the best continental society. But with the Turks, the pachas and beys and effendis, I had much more difficulty, and I must often have pronounced them awry, for M. Jansoulet, on two different occasions, sent word to me to pay more attention to the names given me, and especially to announce them more naturally. That command, uttered in a loud voice at the door of the reception-room with unnecessary brutality, annoyed me exceedingly, and prevented me—shall I confess it?—from pitying the vulgar parvenu when I learned, during the evening, what sharp thorns had found their way into his bed of roses.
From half-past ten till midnight the bell did not cease to ring, the carriages to rumble under the porch, the guests to follow on one another's heels, deputies, senators, councillors of state, municipal councillors, who acted much more as if they were attending a meeting of shareholders than an evening party in society. What did it all mean? I could not succeed in puzzling it out, but a word from Nicklauss the door-keeper opened my eyes.
"Do you notice, Monsieur Passajon," said that worthy retainer, standing in front of me, halberd in hand, "do you notice how few ladies we have?"
Pardieu! that was it. And we two were not the only ones who noticed it. At each new arrival, I heard the Nabob, who stood near the door, exclaim in consternation with the hoarse voice of a Marseillais with a cold in his head:
"Alone?"
The guest would apologize in an undertone. M-m-m-m-m-m—his wife not very well. Very sorry indeed. Then another would come; and the same question would bring the same reply.
We heard that word "alone" so much, that at last we began to joke about it in the reception-room; outriders and footmen tossed it from one to another when a new guest entered: "Alone!" And we laughed and enjoyed ourselves. But M. Nicklauss, with his extended knowledge of society, considered that the almost universal abstention of the fair sex was by no means natural.
"It must be the article in the Messager," he said.