"The occasion has passed, true. Good! Come, my comrade, let us descend!"
Who shall read the future? Awhile ago they had been strangers, neither intending to quit the house alive; now the pair issued from it jauntily, arm in arm. Both were in high spirits, and by the time the lamps of a café gave them welcome, and the wine gurgled gaily into the glasses, they pledged each other with a sentiment no less than fraternal.
"How I rejoice that I have met you!" exclaimed Béguinet. "To your marriage, mon vieux; to your joy! Fill up, again a glass!—there are plenty of bottles in the cellar. Mon Dieu, you are my preserver—I must embrace you. Never till now have I felt such affection for a man. This evening all was black to me; I despaired, my heart was as heavy as a cannon-ball—and suddenly the world is bright. Roses bloom before my feet, and the little larks are singing in the sky. I dance, I skip. How beautiful, how sublime is friendship!—better than riches, than youth, than the love of woman: riches melt, youth flies, woman snores. But friendship is—Again a glass! It goes well, this wine.
"Let us have a lobster! I swear I have an appetite; they make one peckish, these suicides, n'est-ce pas? I shall not be formal—if you consider it your treat, you shall pay. A lobster and another bottle! At your expense, or mine?"
"Ah, the bill all in one!" declared Tourniequot.
"Well, well," said Béguinet, "you must have your way! What a happy man I am! Already I feel twenty years younger. You would not believe what I have suffered. My agonies would fill a book. Really. By nature I am domesticated; but my home is impossible—I shudder when I enter it. It is only in a restaurant that I see a clean table-cloth. Absolutely. I pig. All Lucrèce thinks about is frivolity."
"No, no," protested Tournicquot; "to that I cannot agree."
"What do you know? You 'cannot agree'! You have seen her when she is laced in her stage costume, when she prinks and prattles, with the paint, and the powder, and her best corset on. It is I who am 'behind the scenes,' mon ami, not you. I see her dirty peignoir and her curl rags. At four o'clock in the afternoon. Every day. You 'cannot agree'!"
"Curl rags?" faltered Tournicquot.
"But certainly! I tell you I am of a gentle disposition, I am most tolerant of women's failings; it says much that I would have hanged myself rather than remain with a woman. Her untidiness is not all; her toilette at home revolts my sensibilities, but—well, one cannot have everything, and her salary is substantial; I have closed my eyes to the curl rags. However, snakes are more serious."