“Never fear.”
I had taken a few steps when I felt someone grasp me from behind; it was Bélan again; he had run after me, and he said most earnestly:
“My dear Blémont, I trust that this adventure will cause you to reflect seriously, that it will reform you as it will me. We must mend our ways, my friend. For my own part, I swear on the faith of Ferdinand Bélan, that the loveliest woman in Paris, if she is not free——”
I did not wait for the end of the little man’s sermon; I smiled and left him, and walked up the street toward Monsieur Giraud’s.
III
THE GIRAUD FAMILY
Monsieur Giraud’s was a most amusing household; there was nothing extraordinary about it, however, for the absurdities that one met with there are common in society; but in order to be comical, things never need to be extraordinary.
Monsieur Giraud was a man of forty years of age; he had been a government clerk, a notary’s clerk, a lottery collector; he had done many things, and I fancy that he had done nothing well; but he was as prying and inquisitive as a concierge, and he even pretended to be a ladies’ man, although he was very ugly and his breath made his coming perceptible three yards away; which did not prevent him from speaking right into your face, the ordinary mania of people who have that infirmity.
Madame Giraud was about her husband’s age. She was neither ugly nor beautiful; but unfortunately she was as pretentious as he, she always dressed like a provincial actress, and above all was determined to appear slender, at the risk of being unable to breathe.
Then there was a son of eleven, who was the very picture of his father and who still played with a Noah’s ark; another son of four, who was allowed to do exactly as he pleased, and who abused the license to such an extent that there was not a whole piece of furniture in the house; and lastly, there was a little girl of eight, who assumed to play the mistress and to whip her two brothers, to show that she had already reached the age of reason. Add to these an ill-tempered dog which barked for five minutes at every new arrival, and a stout cat which always wore a collar of corks and had a plaster on its head, and you will know the whole Giraud family. I say nothing of the servant, because they changed servants every fortnight.
I do not know whether those people were rich—I am not in the habit of prying into things which do not concern me—but I do not think that they were in such comfortable circumstances as they chose to make it appear. I have an idea that Monsieur Giraud, who tried to marry all the bachelors whom he met, exacted a commission—droit—for such marriages as he arranged; and it surely was not the droit du seigneur.[A]