“I promise you, lieutenant, that I’d take care of all four of them, and I wouldn’t be any worse off for it either.”
“Why then do you expect me, when I am surrounded by four pretty creatures, each of whom has some peculiar charm, to give up three of them and make love to only one?”
“Parbleu! that’s true enough, lieutenant; you can’t do it; you must drink them—I mean you must love them all four; and I see now that I was wrong.”
The discussions between Bertrand and Auguste Dalville almost always ended so. Auguste was twenty-seven and had twenty thousand francs a year; his father died while he was in the cradle, and his mother was taken away from him six years before our story opens. That was the date of the beginning of Auguste’s life of dissipation; he had sought distraction from his perfectly natural grief, and had finally become unable to resist a sex in whose company he had at first sought diversion only.
Meanwhile, the ambition to wear a handsome uniform, and perhaps to earn a pair of epaulets, had led Auguste to enter the army. The country was at peace; but a young man with a good education does not remain a private. Auguste, promoted to sub-lieutenant, delighted to listen to Bertrand, who had served as corporal of voltigeurs, and had been at Austerlitz, Eylau, and Friedland. Bertrand was only forty-four: he put into the description of his battles the same fire and zeal that he had displayed in the battles themselves, and Auguste never tired of listening. The corporal’s stories excited his ardor; he regretted that he was not born a few years earlier, thinking that he might, like Bertrand, have taken part in those triumphant campaigns which will always be the glory of France.
About this time, Auguste was sent with his regiment to Pampeluna, to which the French were laying siege. Bertrand found himself under the command of the young officer, who had been made a lieutenant. But, the war at an end, Auguste quitted the military profession, and returned to Paris, to abandon himself afresh to his taste for pleasure. He proposed to Bertrand to go with him; he readily obtained his discharge and accompanied Dalville, to whom he was sincerely attached, and whom he continued to call lieutenant, partly from habit and partly from choice.
Bertrand had a mother in Paris, very old and infirm. Auguste’s first care was to settle on the poor woman a pension which placed her beyond fear of want, and enabled her to enjoy in her old age a multitude of comforts which she had never known during her life of toil and misfortune.
Thereafter Auguste was not simply a master in Bertrand’s eyes; he regarded him as his benefactor, and his affection and devotion knew no bounds. After his mother’s death, which occurred three years later, Bertrand attached himself to Auguste’s service altogether, and vowed that he would devote his life to proving his gratitude. Bertrand had had no education; he often made blunders in delivering the messages which his master entrusted to him; but Auguste always forgave him, because he was well aware of the ex-corporal’s attachment and his good heart. Bertrand, as we have seen, sometimes ventured to remonstrate with his superior officer, because, being as yet unfamiliar with the manner of life in high society, Auguste’s follies terrified him, and he was in constant dread that his intrigues would lead to serious complications; but Auguste always succeeded in allaying Bertrand’s fright, so that the latter invariably ended the conversation by saying: “I was in the wrong.”
There are many more things that I might tell you concerning the two men who have been talking together. Perhaps I ought to draw their portraits for you, and to tell you to just what type of face Auguste Dalville’s belonged. But what would be the use? Doubtless some one of his numerous conquests will have something to say about him; so that I should run the risk of unnecessary repetition by sketching him at first. We can simply presume that he was comely, as he was fortunate enough to please the ladies. “That is no reason,” you will say; “when a man has twenty thousand francs a year, that takes the place of physical charms, and conceals ugliness.”—Oh! what an idea, my dear readers! Surely no reader of the gentler sex would make such a reply; for I have too good an opinion of the ladies not to feel sure that it would take something more than twenty thousand francs to captivate them.
But the cabriolet is speeding along; we will resume our reflections at some other time.