CONTENTS
[I, ] [II, ] [III, ] [IV, ] [V, ] [VI, ] [VII, ] [VIII, ] [IX, ] [X, ] [XI, ] [XII, ] [XIII, ] [XIV, ] [XV, ] [XVI, ] [XVII, ] [XVIII, ] [XIX, ] [XX, ] [XXI, ] [XXII, ] [XXIII, ] [XXIV, ] [XXV, ] [XXVI, ] [XXVII, ] [XXVIII, ] [XXIX, ] [XXX, ] [XXXI, ] [XXXII, ] [XXXIII]
I
THREE YOUNG MEN
It was mid-July in the year eighteen hundred and twenty-five. The clock on the Treasury building had just struck four, and the clerks, hastily closing the drawers of their desks, replacing documents in their respective boxes and pens on their racks, lost no time in taking their hats and laying aside the work of the State, to give all their attention to private business or pleasure.
Amid the multitude of persons of all ages who thronged the long corridors, a gentleman of some twenty-seven or twenty-eight years, after arranging his knives, his pencils and his eraser much more methodically than young men are accustomed to do, and after carefully brushing his hat and coat, placed under his arm a large green portfolio, which at a little distance might have been mistaken for that of the head of a department, and assuming an affable, smiling expression, he joined the crowd that was hurrying toward the door, saluting to right and left those of his colleagues who, as they passed him, said:
"Bonjour, Robineau!"
Monsieur Robineau—we know his name now—when he was a hundred yards or more from the department, suddenly adopted an altogether different demeanor; he seemed to swell up in his coat, raised his head and ostentatiously quickened his pace; the amiable smile was replaced by a busy, preoccupied air; he held the great portfolio more closely to his side and glanced with a patronizing expression at the persons who passed him. His manner was no longer that of a simple clerk at fifteen hundred francs; it was that of a chief of bureau at least.
However, despite his haughty bearing, Robineau bent his steps toward a modest restaurant, where a dinner was served for thirty-two sous, which he considered delicious, because his means did not allow him to procure a better one. Herein, at all events, Robineau displayed great prudence; to be able to content oneself with what one has, is the best way to be happy; and since we hear the rich complain every day, the poor must needs appear to be satisfied.
But as he crossed the Palais-Royal garden on the way to his restaurant, Robineau was halted by two very fashionably dressed young men who laughingly barred his path. One, who seemed to be about twenty-four years of age, was tall and thin and stooped slightly, as tall men who are not in the military service are likely to do. Despite this trifling defect in his figure he bore himself gracefully; there was in his manners and in his slightest movements an abandon instinct with frankness, and a fascinating vivacity. His attractive face, his large blue eyes, and his golden hair, which fell gracefully about his high, aristocratic forehead, combined to make of this young man a most comely cavalier; but his pallor, the strongly marked lines under his eyes, and the customary expression of his features, denoted a young man who had taken a great deal out of life and who was already old in the matter of sensations and pleasures.
His companion was shorter and his features were less regular, but he would have been called perhaps a comelier youth. His hair was black, his eyes, albeit very dark brown, had an attractively sweet expression, and his voice and his smile finished what his eyes had begun. There was less joviality, less vivacity in his manners than in his friend’s; but he did not appear, like him, to be already sated with all the enjoyments that life offers.