"That's classical," replied the lean Monsieur Toutin-Laroche with an amiable smile. "You are well acquainted with your period, my dear prefect."
The curtains parted, the piano played louder. The effect was dazzling. The electric ray fell upon a flaming splendour, which the spectators at first thought was a brazier in which bars of gold and precious stones seemingly melted. A new grotto was presented, but this one was not the cool retreat of Venus, bathed by the waters which eddied on fine pearl besprinkled sand; it must have been situated in the bowels of the earth, in some deep fiery stratum, it seemed a fissure of the ancient Hades, a crevice amid a mine of liquescent metals inhabited by Plutus. The silk, simulating the rock, displayed broad metallic lodes, layers which looked like the veins of the old world, teeming with incalculable wealth and the eternal life of the soil. On the ground, by a bold anachronism, which Monsieur Hupel de la Noue had decided on, there was an avalanche of twenty-franc pieces, louis spread out, louis piled up, a pullulation of ascending louis. On the summit of this heap of gold sat Madame de Guende as Plutus, a female Plutus, a Plutus showing her bosom, amid the broad streaks of her dress imitating all the metals. Around the god, erect or reclining, united in bunches, or blooming apart, were grouped the fairy-like efflorescences of this grotto into which the caliphs of the "Arabian Nights" had seemingly emptied their treasure. There was Madame Haffner as Gold, with a stiff skirt as resplendent as the robes of a bishop; Madame d'Espanet as Silver, shining like moonlight; Madame de Lauwerens in warm blue as a Sapphire, having beside her little Madame Daste, a smiling Turquoise, of a tender shade of blue; then were spread out the Emerald, Madame de Meinhold, and the Topaz, Madame Teissière; and lower down, Countess Vanska, lending her dark ardour to Coral, was stretched out with her arms raised and loaded with red drops, similar to some monstrous and adorable polype, which displayed a woman's flesh amid the pink and pearly openings of her shell. These ladies wore necklaces, bracelets, complete sets of jewels formed of the precious stone they represented.
The audience particularly noticed the original jewellery of Mesdames Haffner and d'Espanet, exclusively composed of little gold and little silver coins, fresh from the mint. In the foreground the drama remained the same: the nymph Echo tempted handsome Narcissus who again refused with a gesture. And the eyes of the spectators grew accustomed with delight to this yawning cavity opening amid the inflamed entrails of the earth, to this pile of gold on which the wealth of a world was wallowing.
This second tableau met with still more success than the first one. The idea appeared particularly ingenious. The boldness of the twenty-franc pieces, this stream from some modern safe, which had fallen into a corner of Grecian mythology, delighted the minds of the ladies and the financiers who were present. The words, "What a number of coins! what a quantity of gold!" sped by, amid smiles and long quivers of satisfaction; and assuredly, each of the ladies, each of the gentlemen dreamt of having all this money to her or himself, in a cellar.
"England has paid, those are your milliards," maliciously murmured Louise in Madame Sidonie's ear.
And Madame Michelin, her mouth slightly parted by delighted desire, threw back her alme's veil and fondled the gold with a sparkling glance, while the group of grave-looking men went into transports. Monsieur Toutin-Laroche, beaming, murmured a few words in the ear of the baron whose face was becoming spotted with yellow stains. But Mignon and Charrier, less discreet, said with brutal simplicity:
"Dash it all! there would be enough there to demolish all Paris and rebuild it."
The remark seemed a profound one to Saccard, who was beginning to think that Mignon and Charrier trifled with people in passing themselves off as fools. When the curtains closed again and the piano finished the triumphal march with a loud noise of notes thrown one upon the other, like final shovelfuls of crowns, the applause burst forth, louder and more prolonged.
However, in the middle of the tableau, the minister accompanied by his secretary, Monsieur de Saffré, had appeared at the door of the drawing-room. Saccard, who was impatiently watching for his brother, wished to dart to meet him. But the latter requested him by a gesture not to stir. And he softly approached the group of grave-looking men. When the curtains had closed again, and people had perceived him, a long whisper travelled through the drawing-room and all heads were turned round. The minister counterbalanced the success of the "Amours of handsome Narcissus and the nymph Echo."
"You are a poet, my dear prefect," he said, smiling to Monsieur Hupel de la Noue. "You once published a volume of verse, 'The Convolvuli,' I believe? I see that the cares of office have not exhausted your imagination."