"You push things too far," retorted Saint-Clair, "but I am willing to accept all the consequences of my proposition. For example, if I were hump-backed, instead of blowing out my brains I would make conquests. In the first place, I would try my wiles on those who are generally tender-hearted; then on those women—and there are many of them—who set up for being original—eccentric, as they say in England. To begin with, I should describe my pitiful condition, and point out that I was the victim of Nature's cruelty. I should try to move them to sympathy with my lot, I should let them suspect that I was capable of a passionate love. I should kill one of my rivals in a duel, and I should pretend to poison myself with a feeble dose of laudanum. After a few months they would not notice my deformity, and then I should be on the watch for the first signs of affection. With women who aspire to originality conquest is easy. Only persuade them that it is a hard-and-fast rule that a deformed person can never have a love affair, they will immediately then wish to prove the opposite."
"What a Don Juan!" cried Jules.
"As we have not had the misfortune of being born deformed," said Colonel Beaujeu, "we had better get our legs broken, gentlemen."
"I fully agree with Saint-Clair," said Hector Roquantin, who was only three and a half feet high. "We constantly see beautiful and fashionable women giving themselves to men whom you fine fellows would never dream of."
"Hector, just ring the bell for another bottle, will you?" said Thémines casually.
The dwarf got up and everyone smiled, recalling the fable of the fox without a tail.
"As for me," said Thémines, renewing the conversation, "the longer I live, the more clearly I see that the chief singularity which attracts even the most obdurate, is passable features"—and he threw a complaisant glance in a mirror opposite—"passable features and good taste in dress," and he filliped a crumb of bread off his coat.
"Bah!" cried the dwarf, "with good looks and a coat by Staub, there are plenty of women to be had for a week at a time, but we should be tired of them at the second meeting. More than that is needed to win what is called love.... You must...."
"Stop!" interrupted Thémines. "Do you want an apt illustration? You all know what kind of man Massigny was. Manners like an English groom, and no more conversation than his horse.... But he was as handsome as Adonis, and could tie his cravat like Brummel. Altogether he was the greatest bore I have ever met."
"He almost killed me with weariness," said Colonel Beaujeu. "Only think, I once had to travel two hundred leagues with him!"