“Good God! what can be the matter? What has happened? Does he want to speak with that angel of hell, who is to him a guardian angel, and who lives in an attic between those of Europe and Asie?”
Tormented by such reflections, Esther scarcely listened to the music. Still less, it may be believed, did she listen to the Baron, who held one of his “Anchel’s” hands in both his, talking to her in his horrible Polish-Jewish accent, a jargon which must be as unpleasant to read as it is to hear spoken.
“Esther,” said he, releasing her hand, and pushing it away with a slight touch of temper, “you do not listen to me.”
“I tell you what, Baron, you blunder in love as you gibber in French.”
“Der teufel!”
“I am not in my boudoir here, I am at the opera. If you were not a barrel made by Huret or Fichet, metamorphosed into a man by some trick of nature, you would not make so much noise in a box with a woman who is fond of music. I don’t listen to you? I should think not! There you sit rustling my dress like a cockchafer in a paper-bag, and making me laugh with contempt. You say to me, ‘You are so pretty, I should like to eat you!’ Old simpleton! Supposing I were to say to you, ‘You are less intolerable this evening than you were yesterday—we will go home?’—Well, from the way you puff and sigh—for I feel you if I don’t listen to you—I perceive that you have eaten an enormous dinner, and your digestion is at work. Let me instruct you—for I cost you enough to give some advice for your money now and then—let me tell you, my dear fellow, that a man whose digestion is so troublesome as yours is, is not justified in telling his mistress that she is pretty at unseemly hours. An old soldier died of that very folly ‘in the arms of Religion,’ as Blondet has it.
“It is now ten o’clock. You finished dinner at du Tillet’s at nine o’clock, with your pigeon the Comte de Brambourg; you have millions and truffles to digest. Come to-morrow night at ten.”
“Vat you are cruel!” cried the Baron, recognizing the profound truth of this medical argument.
“Cruel!” echoed Esther, still looking at Lucien. “Have you not consulted Bianchon, Desplein, old Haudry?—Since you have had a glimpse of future happiness, do you know what you seem like to me?”
“No—vat?”