“That reason persuades me, dear Agathe, although I do not believe that anyone dares to speak ill of you. No matter; I will go to Madame de Belleville’s ball.”
“And I,” said Freluchon, “shall go first to the dinner, yes, and to the breakfast—to everything, and try to sit next the Baron von What’s-his-name at table. I will ply him with drink, and then I fancy that I shall hear some curious things.”
The two young men left the ladies, and as they passed Poucette, Freluchon, who attempted to ascertain whether the young peasant wore a hoop-skirt, received a kick on the shins from her clogs.
XVI
THE BLACK HEN
A gentleman, dressed in the height of fashion, alighted from the railway train and walked slowly up the steep hill leading to Chelles. As he walked along, this gentleman looked all about, pausing sometimes to admire the landscape.
“The suburbs of Paris are charming,” he said to himself; “how many people go a long distance in search of sites and points of view which are far inferior to these! But one never does justice to what is close at hand—to what one can enjoy without trouble and expense! We must needs go to Italy, where it is too hot, where most of the inns are detestable, where the living is wretched, and where there is still danger of being attacked by brigands; for it is good form to go to Italy!—Or we must needs go to Switzerland, where we freeze to death, where we destroy our respiration climbing mountains, where we walk on the edge of precipices of which the mere sight gives one vertigo, where we drink a lot without ever being hilarious, where everybody goes to bed with the hens, where the cooking doesn’t approach the French cooking. But it’s good form to go to Switzerland!—We go to England, where there is always a fog, blended with a dense smoke which makes the eyes ache; where one is expressly forbidden to indulge in any form of amusement on Sunday; where a shilling goes little farther than a sou does here; where the cooking is even worse than in Switzerland and Italy. But a trip to England cannot be dispensed with.
“And people laugh at me, forsooth, because I have always preferred Montfermeil, Ville d’Avray, Meudon, Montmorency, Enghien, Saint-Cloud, Champrosay, Saint-Germain, Vincennes, L’Isle-Adam, yes, even poor little Romainville, to England, Switzerland and Italy!
“But what do I care for their sneers? I have always had common sense enough to do what I pleased, instead of feeling compelled to do as others do, when it would have displeased or bored me to do it. The man is a great fool who, instead of following his inclinations, his tastes, his desires, says to himself: ‘But if I do this, people will laugh at me!’ especially when you consider how grateful the world is for what you do for it! Will it prevent the world from crying you down, from slandering you, from turning you to ridicule at the first opportunity? No, indeed! on the contrary, it will grasp the occasion in hot haste. Then, why incommode yourself for the world?
“O ye charming hillsides that surround Paris! I have never wearied of visiting and admiring you. I have left it to chronic tourists to fatigue themselves with long and difficult journeys, while I, at Asnières or Neuilly, feasted my eyes on the verdant islets that embellish the Seine; and at Romainville, so sneered at by people who do not know it, I have found, while walking near the fort, or on the low hills overlooking Pantin, views of an immense expanse of country, of which a native of Zurich or Lucerne would not have been ashamed.
“I have been to Villemomble, to Gagny, and many times to Couberon—too many times, indeed! for that was where that fatal episode happened. But I have never before been to Chelles. One has never seen everything! Even if you confine yourself to a radius of ten or twelve leagues around Paris, some village always escapes you.