“White eyes, do you say? No doubt they are inlaid on the bronze. Perhaps it will be some Roman statue.”
“Roman! that’s it. M. de Peyrehorade said that she’s a Roman. Ah! I can see you’re a scholar like himself.”
“Is she complete, in good preservation?”
“Yes, sir. She wants nothing. She’s even finer and better finished than the bust of Louis-Philippe at the Town-house in painted plaster. But, for all that, I don’t like the idol’s face. She looks wicked ... and she is wicked.”
“Wicked! What wickedness has she done to you?”
“Not to me exactly; but you’ll see. We were breaking our backs to make her stand upright, even M. de Peyrehorade, who was also pulling at the rope, though he has not much more strength than a chicken, honest man! After a good deal of trouble we get her straight. I was picking up a piece of tile to prop her, when, crash! there she falls in a heap on her back. I shouted, ‛Look out below, there!’ But not quick enough, though, for Jean Coll had not time to pull away his leg.”
“And was he hurt?”
“Broken as clean as a pipe-shank, his poor leg! Zounds, when I saw that, my, I was furious! I wanted to put my pick through the idol, but M. de Peyrehorade prevented me. He gave money to Jean Coll, but for all that he has been in bed a fortnight since it happened to him, and the doctor says that he’ll never walk as well with that leg as with the other. It’s a pity for him, for he was our best runner and, next to the young gentleman, our trickiest tennis-player. M. Alphonse de Peyrehorade was sorry about it, for it was Coll he used to play with. My word, it was good to see how they returned the balls. Paf! Paf! They never once touched the ground.”
Talking thus, we entered Ille, and soon I found myself in presence of M. de Peyrehorade. He was a little old man, still fresh and lively, powdered, red-nosed, with a jovial and roguish air. Before opening M. de P.’s letter, he had installed me in front of a well-spread table, and had presented me to his wife and son as an illustrious archæologist, who was to rescue Roussillon from the oblivion in which it had been left by the indifference of savants.
All the time that I was eating with a good appetite—for nothing makes one so sharp-set as the keen air of the mountains—I was examining my hosts. I have said something about M. de Peyrehorade; I ought to add that he was vivacity itself. He talked, ate, got up, ran to his library, brought me books, showed me prints, filled my glass; he was never two minutes at rest. His wife, a little too stout, like most Catalan women when they are over forty, struck me as a double-dyed provincial, occupied solely with the cares of her household. Although the supper was enough for six persons at least, she ran to the kitchen, made them kill pigeons and fry miliasses, and opened I don’t know how many pots of preserves. In an instant the table was crowded with dishes and bottles, and I should assuredly have died of indigestion, if I had even tasted everything that they offered me. Nevertheless, at each dish that I refused, there were fresh excuses. They were afraid I should find myself very uncomfortable at Ille. In the country there are so few resources, and Parisians are so hard to please!