“We must take a carriage. Curse it! I wish it were winter; there are no closed carriages. You can get a brougham to take me to the station when we reach Struve’s, but how are we to get there? I can’t parade myself before Paris. I know,—it is the only thing we can do,—we will take an omnibus from the Boul’ Miche. We shall meet no one that we know in an omnibus.”
In the Boul’ Miche they were fortunate enough to find an omnibus just stopped and disgorging some passengers—one, moreover, that would drop them actually at Struve’s door; but they had to wait whilst three other passengers got in before them. There was a girl in a summer hat that would have brought tears to Célestin’s eyes, a priest, and a fat lady bearing a lobster tied to a string; then they found that there was only one inside place left.
“You must go outside,” said Toto.
“But, Désiré, think for a moment. I cannot possibly do this; everyone will see me. Let us wait and take the next.”
“Struve may be out if we delay,” said Toto, getting into the vehicle wearily, and, as it was starting, Gaillard was forced to mount on the outside, where he sat with his handkerchief to his face as if his nose were bleeding and his hat tilted over his eyes. Fortunately, no one saw him, though he imagined in his agony that all Paris was watching him from the sky, the housetops, the windows, and the street.
Struve was at breakfast. He had evidently been reading Pantin, for it was open before him, and he put a dish of kidneys over the damnable article in a pathetic attempt to hide it as the poet and the painter entered his room, with all the dejection of a couple of cats that have just been washed.
“We are going away,” said Gaillard.
“Sit down,” lisped Struve, jumping up. “Toto, I am very glad to see you—have a cigar, have a cigarette? Now what is all this nonsense I have heard? Gaillard, for goodness’ sake put your head straight; you are not a lily. Pelisson has been here—I know all this cursed nonsense; he has been let in by old De Nani. I always told him he would; everyone is cursing poor old Pelisson for a fool. Well, then, what matter? it will soon blow over.”
“We are going away,” said Toto, taking up Gaillard’s whine; “at least, I am—forever!”
“So,” said Struve, lighting a cigarette, “you are going away forever; and when are you coming back? Toto, for goodness’ sake, don’t think that I am joking. I know what Paris is, and for Heaven’s sake don’t go about with that long face! Laugh, laugh, and you are clad in triple brass; no one ever laughs at a man who is laughing—they always laugh with him. Laugh at Pelisson, laugh at De Nani, do as they do at the carnival ball; a jester strikes me with his bauble, I strike Jules, Jules Alphonse, and so it goes on. Don’t take this thing seriously.”