“You shall see the man,” said Leon. “You need a hat and you shall have one gratis.”
“Is Monsieur Vital absent?” asked Bixiou, seeing no one behind the desk.
“Monsieur is correcting proof in his study,” replied the head clerk.
“Hein! what style!” said Leon to his cousin; then he added, addressing the clerk: “Could we speak to him without injury to his inspiration?”
“Let those gentlemen enter,” said a voice.
It was a bourgeois voice, the voice of one eligible to the Chamber, a powerful voice, a wealthy voice.
Vital deigned to show himself, dressed entirely in black cloth, with a splendid frilled shirt adorned with one diamond. The three friends observed a young and pretty woman sitting near the desk, working at some embroidery.
Vital is a man between thirty and forty years of age, with a natural joviality now repressed by ambitious ideas. He is blessed with that medium height which is the privilege of sound organizations. He is rather plump, and takes great pains with his person. His forehead is getting bald, but he uses that circumstance to give himself the air of a man consumed by thought. It is easy to see by the way his wife looks at him and listens to him that she believes in the genius and glory of her husband. Vital loves artists, not that he has any taste for art, but from fellowship; for he feels himself an artist, and makes this felt by disclaiming that title of nobility, and placing himself with constant premeditation at so great a distance from the arts that persons may be forced to say to him: “You have raised the construction of hats to the height of a science.”
“Have you at last discovered a hat to suit me?” asked Leon de Lora.
“Why, monsieur! in fifteen days?” replied Vital, “and for you! Two months would hardly suffice to invent a shape in keeping with your countenance. See, here is your lithographic portrait: I have studied it most carefully. I would not give myself that trouble for a prince; but you are more; you are an artist, and you understand me.”