My cigar was a bad one altogether—a bad one to look at and a bad one to blow. Of government manufacture, it cost five sous, and was not worth one. Its skin was as thick as an ass's hide, and no persuasion would make it draw. Like a false friend, it became quite hollow when I put the fire of trial to it; and only waxed hot and oily as it burnt on. It was a French regalia, and had nothing of French royalty about it but bad smoke. The tobacco had, I think, lost savor, as salt used to do, in passing through the monopolizing hands of the Citoyen Roi. In a word, my gorge rose at it.
I stood awhile at the foot of the zigzag, endeavoring to coax it into usefulness, for I was a family man, and had given many hostages to fortune, and dared not to be extravagant. I tried to doctor it by incisions, and by giving it draughts; but all was in vain. At last it began to unwind, and some loose ashes found their way to my eyes. I was about to throw it away in disgust, when a young Frenchman, who had passed me a moment before with a party (I knew him slightly and we had bowed), returned, and observing that my cigar seemed troublesome, asked me to try one of his.
His name was Le Brun. We had met occasionally on the pier, where in the quiet evenings I used to take refuge from the uproar of my sanctuary at home, and for awhile almost believed myself a lay bachelor lounging through France without a charming wife and eight children. He and I had succeeded well in chit-chat. The Browns, he was fond of saying, were a numerous race in England, but if he ever settled there he would be distinguished from them as The Brown. He was vain of this play on his name, and I always laughed when he produced it. I had no hesitation, therefore, when he offered me a cigar: besides, I knew that he always smoked smuggled Cubas.
We gossiped for a few moments. At length I saw him glance at my wife's parasol, which was shielding me from the sun. He said nothing, but I felt my cheek burn with a sudden sort of shame, and immediately shut it up.
"Madame will return," he said, "and Monsieur attends her."
This was not the fact. Monsieur had to return, and Madame attended him. But the observation was put in the narrative form, and if my friend gave me information which I knew to be false, I was not bound to say so. I only bowed, therefore; and he added that he was forced to join his party, and bowed too; and so we separated.
He had scarcely left me, when I thought that if I had avowed my solitary state he might have asked me to join his party, which was evidently a merry one; and I internally execrated the parasol, which had been the means of preventing this. If by any accident I should meet him again, I resolved that he should not see me with it, and without the lady; so I deposited it at a little lace-maker's, and soon after began to ascend the Côte de Grace, not without hopes of meeting the party as they returned, perhaps from Val-à-Reine.
Between each wind of the zigzag path was a flight of wooden steps, by which the adventurous might ascend directly from the bottom of the hill. At the head of some of these flights of steps were rustic seats; they were generally on the outer edge of the path, but a few were placed far back, so that the hill immediately below was unseen.
I always climbed the Côte by the steps, as I used ever and anon to lie down on the green carpet which nature has spread over each of the short ascents. On the present occasion I had not mounted far before a pleasant piece of this turf-flooring near the top of one of the little hills seduced me from my toils. I sat down, took Shelley's "Revolt of Islam" from my pocket, finished my cigar, and in consequence of reading half a dozen stanzas from the poem—fell asleep.
I woke suddenly, and as soon as I had my faculties about me, noticed that people were speaking, and in loud tones, close above me. Otherwise, all was still around. There was no wind among the little trees; a bee buzzed past me now and then, and insects hummed, but further off down the hill, and these voices sounded harsh and dissonant in the quiet air. I listened, at first mechanically. The conversation was carried on in French.