XLVIII
"Where are you going in that rig?" said Germinie one Sunday morning to Adèle, as she passed in grand array along the corridor on the sixth floor, in front of her open door.
"Ah! there you are! I'm going to a swell wedding, my dear! There's a crowd of us—big Marie, the great bully, you know—Elisa, from 41, the two Badiniers, big and little—and men, too! In the first place, there's my dealer in sudden death. Yes, and—Oh! didn't you know—my new flame, the master-at-arms of the 24th—and a friend of his, a painter, a real Father Joy. We're going to Vincennes. Everyone carries something. We shall dine on the grass—the men will pay for the wine. And there'll be plenty of it, I promise you!"
"I'll go, too," said Germinie.
"You? nonsense! you don't go to parties any more."
"But I tell you I'll go," said Germinie, in a sharp, decided tone. "Just give me time to tell mademoiselle and put on a dress. If you'll wait I'll go and get half a lobster."
Half an hour later the two women left the house; they skirted the city wall and found the rest of the party sitting outside a café on Boulevard de la Chopinette. After taking a glass of currant wine, they entered two large cabs and rode away. When they arrived at the fortress at Vincennes they alighted and the whole party walked along the bank of the moat. As they were passing under the wall of the fort, the master-at-arms' friend, the painter, shouted to an artilleryman, who was doing sentry duty beside a cannon: "Say! old fellow, you'd rather drink one than stand guard over it, eh?"[1]
"Isn't he funny?" said Adèle to Germinie, nudging her with her elbow.
Soon they were fairly in the forest of Vincennes.