"No, no! on the contrary, you leap like a chamois! But it occurred to me as I watched you going through your steps, that you might imitate your wife much better by going to the Opéra ball with us."
"Oh! upon my word!—you surely don't mean it, Monsieur Edmond! I, go to the Opéra ball—with the burden of grief that I have on my heart!"
"Why, that is an additional reason: it will dissipate your grief."
"Oh! never! on the contrary, nothing can dissipate it, and——"
Freluchon planted himself in front of Chamoureau and said, assuming a very solemn expression:
"Look you, my dear fellow, do you expect to fool us much longer with your inconsolable grief?"
The widower stood thunderstruck and stammered:
"What's that! fool you! What does this mean? For what reason do you ask me that, Freluchon?"
"For the reason that, when a man really has a great sorrow in his heart, he doesn't laugh and sing and dance as you have just been doing; nor does he know where one should go to eat snipe à la provençale."
"All that was in memory of Eléonore, and——"