Frederique Volume I Part 16

The waiters did their utmost to restore peace, testifying that Balloquet had dined upstairs with some most respectable gentlemen.

I succeeded in forcing my way through the crowd. I saw a number of grotesque faces, which would not have been out of place in the _Charivari's_ caricatures. Most of the men had retained beneath their gala dress the vulgur or stupid air which the finest coat cannot conceal. They were all very hot against poor Balloquet, who was as red as a cherry and gesticulating in the midst of them like one possessed. A stout man of some fifty years, whose eyes looked as if they were made of gla.s.s, they were so expressionless and so protruding, held him by the arm and kept repeating:

"You don't get off like this, _bigre_! You either belong here or you don't, that's all! Proofs! proofs! I want proofs!"

A tall, fair-haired young man, with a weak, stupid face, and hair brushed flat over his forehead almost to his eyebrows, seemed to be threatening Balloquet, as he said:

"And what did you do to my wife? tell me that! Did you or didn't you?

Petronille ain't capable of lying about it. She told me you pinched her!

That's a pretty way to do--pinch the bride, when you don't belong in the party! If you'd been invited to the wedding--but that wouldn't be any excuse."

"I was dancing, monsieur le marie; my hand may have gone astray. If I did pinch her anywhere, I thought it was part of the figure, and----"

"Oh! that's a good one! that don't seem reasonable!"

"But, monsieur, you don't understand."

"You don't get off like that, _bigre_!" cried the fat man with the gla.s.sy eyes; "proofs! proofs! proofs!"

At that moment, to add to the uproar, a corpulent dame of at least sixty years of age, with a flat nose, smeared with snuff, her face encircled by a flaxen false front, the curls of which, artistically grouped in terraces, made her look as if she wore whiskers, and overladen with flowers, ribbons, lace, and false jewelry, appeared in the midst of the men, crying in a shrill voice:

"I don't want Pamphile to fight! I forbid him to fight! What's it all about? You shan't fight, Pamphile--I'd sooner fight myself, in my son's place. O my son, I'm your mother, or I ain't your mother! Monsieur's an intruder, a villain, a blackguard. Throw him out of doors! Call the watch!"

"No, madame, I am not a villain," retorted Balloquet, glaring savagely at the old woman, who was bedizened like a circus horse; "and I'll prove it."

"Go back to the ballroom, Madame Girie; this is no place for you; we don't need a woman's help to settle this business."

"I tell you, I don't want my son to fight!--Come, Pamphile, come back with me; don't get mixed up in this row."

"Oh! do let me alone, mamma! Go back with the other ladies."

"No! no! I don't want you to fight because monsieur pinched your wife.

Mon Dieu! what a terrible thing! In the first place, Petronille had no business to tell you of it. G.o.d! if the late Girie had fought every time anyone pinched me! But I didn't tell him! I took good care not to complain! I was too fond of my husband to do that; and he--oh! he loved his lovely blonde! You ought to hand monsieur over to the watch.--Watch!

watch!"

Madame Girie persisted in shrieking: "Watch!" waving her arms, striking everybody within reach, and increasing the confusion immeasurably by trying to restore peace.

It was at that moment that I succeeded in reaching Balloquet's side, and released him from the man with the gla.s.sy eyes.

"What's all this, messieurs?" I exclaimed.--"What has happened to you, my dear Balloquet? Why are all these people so incensed with you?"

Balloquet uttered a cry of joy at sight of me, and cast a haughty glance at his adversaries, saying:

"You see that I didn't lie to you, messieurs; here's my friend, who is a guest at the other wedding and has come in search of me.--Isn't it true, Rochebrune, that you have come to fetch me, and that I am Arthur Balloquet, medical pract.i.tioner, and that I am not the sort of man to be turned out of doors?"

"Proofs! proofs! proofs!"

"I don't want my son to fight!--Listen to your mother, Pamphile!"

"You pinched Petronille; I stick to that!"

"But I made a mistake!"

"Watch!"

"In G.o.d's name, Madame Girie, be good enough to hold your tongue!"

A small man, whom I had not yet seen, as he was hidden by the crowd, succeeded in pa.s.sing his perfectly curled blonde head under Madame Girie's ear rings, and said, gesticulating freely after the manner of Mr. Punch, for he bore a strong resemblance to a marionette:

"Allow me! allow me! we must try to understand each other. Monsieur says he came to my cousin Pamphile Girie's wedding party by mistake; but a mistake like that don't last an hour, and monsieur's been with us more than an hour. I noticed him; he drank punch every minute; he made more noise than all the rest of the company, and I said to myself: 'That man's a _boute-en-train_![A] Oh! he's a famous _boute-en-train_!' But monsieur must have discovered that he didn't know us; that the bride and groom were not the ones who invited him. It seems to me that that's good, logical reasoning. I'm a logical man!"

The little automaton was not such a fool as one would have supposed at first sight. Balloquet was at a loss for a reply to his speech. I made haste to take the floor.

"Messieurs, my friend Arthur Balloquet has not deceived you; he is a most estimable physician, and incapable of offending you intentionally.

He mistook the salon, that is all; you must not see anything more in the affair than there really is in it."

"And I was so comfortable where I was," said Balloquet, "that I could not make up my mind to go away."

This compliment allayed the ferocity of the vitreous-eyed gentleman.

However, he was about to repeat his demand for proofs, when, on turning his head, he saw Monsieur Guillardin, who had come out to ascertain the cause of the uproar, accompanied by Madame Dauberny. She came to my side and whispered:

"I presume that your friend Balloquet has been putting his foot in it?"

As I said yes with my eyes, we heard a cry of surprise:

"Why, there's Monsieur Guillardin--my landlord!"

"Himself, Monsieur Bocal. What are you doing here, pray?"

"What am I doing? Why, I am marrying my daughter Petronille to Monsieur Girie here.--Come forward, Girie; come, I say, and speak to my landlord, to whom I sent cards, I am sure."

The tall, fair-haired youth came forward with the loutish air that never left him, and bowed sheepishly to Monsieur Guillardin. This incident produced a fortunate diversion; attention was diverted from Balloquet, although Madame Girie continued to mutter:

"Oh! if my son should fight, I should be sick three times over! But he shan't go out, or, if he does, I'll follow him! I'm capable of anything where Pamphile's concerned. When he ain't home at eleven o'clock or twelve, I go and sit at the window, and there I sit all night, till he comes home. When I hear a horse, I says: 'There's my son.'--Sometimes I don't have anything on but three undervests and two chemises! but I don't care; I snap my fingers at the risk of catching cold!"

But n.o.body listened to Madame Girie. Monsieur Guillardin, having acknowledged the salutations of Monsieur Bocal and long-legged Pamphile, said to the former:

"Faith! my dear monsieur, this is a curious coincidence. I'm here for the same purpose that you are."

"I don't understand."

"I have married my daughter to-day, and we're celebrating the occasion right beside you here."

"Is that so? can it be possible? This other wedding party is yours? I mean, that you're marrying your daughter--no, giving her in marriage?"

"Yes, monsieur," interposed Madame Dauberny; "and I have been waiting a long while for Monsieur Balloquet to ask me to dance. I told him that I should be at Mademoiselle Guillardin's wedding."

Balloquet stared in amazement when that lady, whom he did not know, called him by name; but he replied at once: