"That was my only reason for coming here."
"My nephew is not now in France, monsieur; he is in Spain."
"In Spain? Do you mean it? it isn't a sell?"
Monsieur Grandcourt made a gesture of impatience, whereupon Cherami continued:
"Don't you like the word? You surprise me! It is adopted now in the best society. It's like balancé. You say: 'I have balancé So-and-so,' which means: 'I have sent him about his business.' We have enriched the French language with a lot of such locutions, more or less picturesque. Ah! the Latin tongue is much more forcible, much more complete. You can say things in Latin that you'd never dare to say in French. Look you, for example, Plautus, in his comedies,—in Casina, I believe,—makes an amorous old man say, when he thinks of his mistress:
"'Jam, Hercle, amplexari, jam osculari gestio!'
Ah! they were great jokers, those Latin and Greek authors! Write comedies now like those of Aristophanes—you'd have a warm reception! They are beginning already to find Molière too free! We are becoming very refined, very severe, in the matter of language! Does that mean that we are growing more virtuous? Frankly, I don't think it. Habits, customs, and manners change; but passions, vices, absurdities, are always the same!"
The banker's brow lost some of its wrinkles as he listened to Cherami. He scrutinized him more carefully, and said:
"How does it happen, monsieur, that, having received a good education, knowing your classics as you do, in short, being a well-informed man, you do not make use of your knowledge, to——"