But the salamander remembers there are some whom she dominated, until they groveled like slaves at her feet; even the great Russian nobleman turned pale when she dictated to him archly and with the voice of an angel the price of his freedom.
“Poor fool! he shot himself the next day,” mused the salamander.
Yes, and even the adamant old banker in Paris, crabbed, stern, unrelenting to his debtors—shivered in his boots and ended in signing away half his fortune to her, and moved his family into a permanent chateau in the country, where he keeps himself busy with his shooting and his books.
As it grows late, the taverne becomes more and more animated.
Every one is talking and having a good time. The room is bewildering in gay color, the hum of conversation is everywhere, and as there is a corresponding row of tables across the low, narrow room, friendly greetings and often conversations are kept up from one side to the other. The dinner, as it progresses, assumes the air of a big family party of good bohemians. The French do not bring their misery with them to the table. To dine is to enjoy oneself to the utmost; in fact the French people cover their disappointment, sadness, annoyances, great or petty troubles, under a masque of “blague,” and have such an innate dislike of sympathy or ridicule that they avoid it by turning everything into “blague.”
This veneer is misleading, for at heart the French are sad. Not to speak of their inmost feelings does not, on the other hand, prevent them at times from being most confidential. Often, the merest exchange of courtesies between those sharing the same compartment in a train, or a seat on a “bus,” seems to be a sufficient introduction for your neighbor to tell you where he comes from, where he is going, whether he is married or single, whom his daughter married, and what regiment his son is in. These little confidences often end in his offering you half his bottle of wine and extending to you his cigarettes.
LES BEAUX MAQUEREAUX