Mercadier, Captain of the First, installed himself, in soldier fashion, very summarily, in a house in the suburbs, where two captive cows were lowing, and where ducks and chickens waddled or strutted with uplifted claw, passing and repassing the open door of a wagon-house. Mercadier had seen a sign, "Furnished room to let," and, preceded by a lady as dragoon-like as himself, had mounted some stairs (guarded by a wooden railing and perfumed by the strong odors of a stable), and had entered a large room with a tiled floor, with walls gaily covered with paper representing (in bright blue on a white ground) Joseph Poniatowski, multiplied ad infinitum and leaping courageously into the Elster. It is probable that there was some subtle power for seduction in this bizarre decoration; for, without an instant's hesitation, without forebodings as to the almost inevitable discomfort presaged by the hard straw chairs, the stiff, neglected black walnut furniture, or the narrow bed with curtains yellowed by their years, he closed the bargain, and in a quarter of an hour he had emptied his trunk, hung his clothes, set his boots in a corner, and decorated the blue walls with a "trophy" composed of three pipes, a sabre, and a brace of pistols. That done, he sallied forth, visited the grocery and the wine-shop across the way, bought a pound of candles and a bottle of rum, returned to his room, set his purchases on the mantel-shelf, and looked around him with the air of a man well pleased. Then, according to a habit acquired in barracks and in the field, he shaved without a mirror, brushed his coat, pulled his hat over his ears, and went out in search of a café.
This visit to the café was a settled habit.
The Captain had three vices, equally balanced, and he satisfied all their claims. His vices were: Tobacco, Absinthe, and Cards. The greater part of his life had passed in cafés, and had any one denied it, he might have drawn a map of the countries where he had lived, and placed in that map all the cafés, just as they had stood when he had visited them. He was never at his ease unless seated on the smooth velvet of a café bench, before a square of green cloth, on which, as he played his games, glasses and saucers accumulated; and his cigars were never just right unless he could strike his matches on the rough underside of the marble table.
And he had never failed, having hung his sabre and his kepi on a peg, to settle down into his chair, unbutton some of the buttons of his vest, to heave a sigh and to cry out: "There, that is better!"
So now, his first care was to choose his café; and, having gone round the city, not finding just what he wished for, he fixed his critical eyes upon the café Prosper (at the angle of the Place du Marché and the rue de la Paroisse). It was not his ideal of a café. The exterior offered several details smacking too much of the province—for instance, that waiter in the black apron; the little yew trees in boxes painted green; the tables covered with white oilcloth! But the Captain liked the interior, so he took his place there. Immediately after his entrance he was rejoiced by the sound of the call-bell, pressed by the fat hand of the stout, florid cashier (dress of summer lightness; a red ribbon in her well-oiled hair). He saluted her with the gallantry of an officer (retired). He noticed that she held her place with majesty sufficient to the occasion, and that she was flanked by quaint pyramids of billiard balls. The café was bright and clean, and evenly carpeted with yellow sand. He sauntered around the room, looked into the mirrors and at the pictures, in which musketeers and ladies in riding-dress sipped champagne in landscapes full of hollyhocks. He ordered drinks. Flies were dying in his wine; but he was a soldier, habituated to witness death. As a man he was indulgent, and he ignored the very visible tragedies with a stoicism grounded by long experience in wild countries, where insects bathe in wine with a familiarity strictly provincial. Eight days later he was one of the pillars of the Café Prosper. His punctual habits were known there; the waiters anticipated his wishes. Soon he ate his meals with the proprietors of the café.
The Captain was a precious recruit for the café's habitual clients (people who were bored to death by the terrible inertia of the province); to them his arrival was a windfall. Here was a man who had seen the world—past master of all the games! He told, gaily enough, about his wars and his love affairs. He was enchanted to find people who were ignorant of his history. It would take six months to tell them of his raids, his skirmishes, his outpost duty of a dark night, his battles, his hunts, the retreat from Constantine, the capture of Bou-Mazâ, the officers' receptions, with their illimitible number of punches "au kirsch." Ah! human weakness! he was not sorry to be a little of an oracle somewhere, at least; he from whom the subs, just delivered from Saint-Cyr, had fled to escape his stories.
As a general thing his auditors were the master of the café (a fat beer-sack, silent and stupid; always in short-sleeves, and remarkable for nothing but his painted pipes), the constable, a dogged gentleman dressed like an undertaker—he was despised because he carried off the sugar that he could not use in his mazagran—the registrar, the man who wrote acrostics, truly a very sweet-tempered man, and a man of very weak constitution, who sent answers to the riddles in the illustrated journals; and, last of all, the veterinary of the county, who, in his quality of atheist and democrat, permitted himself to contradict the Captain now and then. This practitioner was a man with bushy whiskers and eyeglasses. He presided when the Radical Committee met toward election time. When the parish priest took up a little collection among the devotees of his congregation (to the end that he might decorate his church with some horrible gilded plaster statue), the veterinary wrote a letter to the "Siècle" denouncing "the cupidity of the sons of Loyola."
One evening the Captain left his cards and went out to get cigars. He had just had an animated political discussion with the veterinary. As soon as he was out of hearing the veterinary muttered some tirades, in which could be distinguished such phrases as "Sabre trailer!" "Braggart!" "Let him keep to facts!" "Smash his face for him!" etc. While the veterinary was grumbling, the Captain came back, whistling a march and twisting his cane as he had twisted his sabre. The veterinary stopped as if struck by lightning; and the incident was closed.
But this was only an incident; on the whole, the little community of the Café Prosper had few discussions. The old residents yielded peaceably to the presidency of the stranger. Mercadier's martial head, the white beard trimmed after the fashion of the Bearnais, were imposing enough; and the little city, already so proud of many things, had one thing more to boast of—her most conspicuous representative:
┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
│ MERCADIER │
│ │
│ Captain of the First Cuirassiers │
│ Army of France (Retired) │
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