“He is reading his work to us,” said Gatien to Madame Popinot-Chandier’s son.
“From the first word, ladies,” said the journalist, jumping at an opportunity of mystifying the natives, “it is evident that the brigands are in a cave. But how careless romancers of that date were as to details which are nowadays so closely, so elaborately studied under the name of ‘local color.’ If the robbers were in a cavern, instead of pointing to the sky he ought to have pointed to the vault above him.—In spite of this inaccuracy, Rinaldo strikes me as a man of spirit, and his appeal to God is quite Italian. There must have been a touch of local color in this romance. Why, what with brigands, and a cavern, and one Lamberti who could foresee future possibilities—there is a whole melodrama in that page. Add to these elements a little intrigue, a peasant maiden with her hair dressed high, short skirts, and a hundred or so of bad couplets.—Oh! the public will crowd to see it! And then Rinaldo—how well the name suits Lafont! By giving him black whiskers, tightly-fitting trousers, a cloak, a moustache, a pistol, and a peaked hat—if the manager of the Vaudeville Theatre were but bold enough to pay for a few newspaper articles, that would secure fifty performances, and six thousand francs for the author’s rights, if only I were to cry it up in my columns.
“To proceed:—
OR ROMAN REVENGE 219
The Duchess of Bracciano found
her glove. Adolphe, who had brought
her back to the orange grove, might
certainly have supposed that there
was some purpose in her forgetful-
ness, for at this moment the arbor
was deserted. The sound of the fes-
tivities was audible in the distance.
The puppet show that had been
promised had attracted all the
guests to the ballroom. Never had
Olympia looked more beautiful.
Her lover’s eyes met hers with an
answering glow, and they under-
stood each other. There was a mo-
ment of silence, delicious to their
souls, and impossible to describe.
They sat down on the same bench
where they had sat in the presence
of the Cavaliere Paluzzi and the
“Devil take it! Our Rinaldo has vanished!” cried Lousteau. “But a literary man once started by this page would make rapid progress in the comprehension of the plot. The Duchesse Olympia is a lady who could intentionally forget her gloves in a deserted arbor.”
“Unless she may be classed between the oyster and head-clerk of an office, the two creatures nearest to marble in the zoological kingdom, it is impossible to discern in Olympia—” Bianchon began.
“A woman of thirty,” Madame de la Baudraye hastily interposed, fearing some all too medical term.
“Then Adolphe must be two-and-twenty,” the doctor went on, “for an Italian woman at thirty is equivalent to a Parisian of forty.”
“From these two facts, the romance may easily be reconstructed,” said Lousteau. “And this Cavaliere Paluzzi—what a man!—The style is weak in these two passages; the author was perhaps a clerk in the Excise Office, and wrote the novel to pay his tailor!”
“In his time,” said Bianchon, “the censor flourished; you must show as much indulgence to a man who underwent the ordeal by scissors in 1805 as to those who went to the scaffold in 1793.”