Nothing is more natural to drunken men than ellipses. The ellipsis is the zig-zag of the phrase.
Corinthe gradually dethroned the Pot-aux-Roses. The last proprietor of the dynasty, Father Hucheloup, no longer acquainted even with the tradition, had the post painted blue.
A room on the ground floor, where the bar was situated, one on the first floor containing a billiard-table, a wooden spiral staircase piercing the ceiling, wine on the tables, smoke on the walls, candles in broad daylight,--this was the style of this cabaret. A staircase with a trap-door in the lower room led to the cellar. On the second floor were the lodgings of the Hucheloup family. They were reached by a staircase which was a ladder rather than a staircase, and had for their entrance only a private door in the large room on the first floor.
Under the roof, in two mansard attics, were the nests for the servants.
The kitchen shared the ground-floor with the tap-room.
Father Hucheloup had, possibly, been born a chemist, but the fact is that he was a cook; people did not confine themselves to drinking alone in his wine-shop, they also ate there.
Hucheloup had invented a capital thing which could be eaten nowhere but in his house, stuffed carps, which he called carpes au gras.
These were eaten by the light of a tallow candle or of a lamp of the time of Louis XVI., on tables to which were nailed waxed cloths in lieu of table-cloths. People came thither from a distance.
Hucheloup, one fine morning, had seen fit to notify passers-by of this "specialty"; he had dipped a brush in a pot of black paint, and as he was an orthographer on his own account, as well as a cook after his own fashion, he had improvised on his wall this remarkable inscription:--
CARPES HO GRAS.
One winter, the rain-storms and the showers had taken a fancy to obliterate the S which terminated the first word, and the G which began the third; this is what remained:--CARPE HO RAS.
Time and rain assisting, a humble gastronomical announcement had become a profound piece of advice.
In this way it came about, that though he knew no French, Father Hucheloup understood Latin, that he had evoked philosophy from his kitchen, and that, desirous simply of effacing Lent, he had equalled Horace. And the striking thing about it was, that that also meant: "Enter my wine-shop."
Nothing of all this is in existence now.
The Mondetour labyrinth was disembowelled and widely opened in 1847, and probably no longer exists at the present moment.
The Rue de la Chanvrerie and Corinthe have disappeared beneath the pavement of the Rue Rambuteau.
As we have already said, Corinthe was the meeting-place if not the rallying-point, of Courfeyrac and his friends.
It was Grantaire who had discovered Corinthe.
He had entered it on account of the Carpe horas, and had returned thither on account of the Carpes au gras.
There they drank, there they ate, there they shouted; they did not pay much, they paid badly, they did not pay at all, but they were always welcome.
Father Hucheloup was a jovial host.
Hucheloup, that amiable man, as was just said, was a wine-shop-keeper with a mustache; an amusing variety.
He always had an ill-tempered air, seemed to wish to intimidate his customers, grumbled at the people who entered his establishment, and had rather the mien of seeking a quarrel with them than of serving them with soup.
And yet, we insist upon the word, people were always welcome there.
This oddity had attracted customers to his shop, and brought him young men, who said to each other:
"Come hear Father Hucheloup growl."
He had been a fencing-master. All of a sudden, he would burst out laughing. A big voice, a good fellow.
He had a comic foundation under a tragic exterior, he asked nothing better than to frighten you, very much like those snuff-boxes which are in the shape of a pistol. The detonation makes one sneeze.
Mother Hucheloup, his wife, was a bearded and a very homely creature.
About 1830, Father Hucheloup died.
With him disappeared the secret of stuffed carps.
His inconsolable widow continued to keep the wine-shop. But the cooking deteriorated, and became execrable; the wine, which had always been bad, became fearfully bad. Nevertheless, Courfeyrac and his friends continued to go to Corinthe,-- out of pity, as Bossuet said.
The Widow Hucheloup was breathless and misshapen and given to rustic recollections.
She deprived them of their flatness by her pronunciation.
She had a way of her own of saying things, which spiced her reminiscences of the village and of her springtime. It had formerly been her delight, so she affirmed, to hear the loups-de-gorge (rouges-gorges) chanter dans les ogrepines (aubepines)--to hear the redbreasts sing in the hawthorn-trees.
The hall on the first floor, where "the restaurant" was situated, was a large and long apartment encumbered with stools, chairs, benches, and tables, and with a crippled, lame, old billiard-table. It was reached by a spiral staircase which terminated in the corner of the room at a square hole like the hatchway of a ship.
This room, lighted by a single narrow window, and by a lamp that was always burning, had the air of a garret.
All the four-footed furniture comported itself as though it had but three legs-- the whitewashed walls had for their only ornament the following quatrain in honor of Mame Hucheloup:--Elle etonne a dix pas, elle epouvente a deux,
Une verrue habite en son nez hasardeux;
On tremble a chaque instant qu'elle ne vous la mouche
Et qu'un beau jour son nez ne tombe dans sa bouche.[48]
[48] She astounds at ten paces, she frightens at two, a wart inhabits her hazardous nose; you tremble every instant lest she should blow it at you, and lest, some fine day, her nose should tumble into her mouth.
This was scrawled in charcoal on the wall.
Mame Hucheloup, a good likeness, went and came from morning till night before this quatrain with the most perfect tranquillity. Two serving-maids, named Matelote and Gibelotte,[49] and who had never been known by any other names, helped Mame Hucheloup to set on the tables the jugs of poor wine, and the various broths which were served to the hungry patrons in earthenware bowls. Matelote, large, plump, redhaired, and noisy, the favorite ex-sultana of the defunct Hucheloup, was homelier than any mythological monster, be it what it may; still, as it becomes the servant to always keep in the rear of the mistress, she was less homely than Mame Hucheloup.
Gibelotte, tall, delicate, white with a lymphatic pallor, with circles round her eyes, and drooping lids, always languid and weary, afflicted with what may be called chronic lassitude, the first up in the house and the last in bed, waited on every one, even the other maid, silently and gently, smiling through her fatigue with a vague and sleepy smile.
[49] Matelote:
a culinary preparation of various fishes. Gibelotte:
stewed rabbits.
Before entering the restaurant room, the visitor read on the door the following line written there in chalk by Courfeyrac:--Regale si tu peux et mange si tu l'oses.[50]
[50] Treat if you can, and eat if you dare.
BOOK TWELFTH.--CORINTHE
CHAPTER II
PRELIMINARY GAYETIES
Laigle de Meaux, as the reader knows, lived more with Joly than elsewhere.
He had a lodging, as a bird has one on a branch. The two friends lived together, ate together, slept together. They had everything in common, even Musichetta, to some extent. They were, what the subordinate monks who accompany monks are called, bini.
On the morning of the 5th of June, they went to Corinthe to breakfast.
Joly, who was all stuffed up, had a catarrh which Laigle was beginning to share.
Laigle's coat was threadbare, but Joly was well dressed.
It was about nine o'clock in the morning, when they opened the door of Corinthe.
They ascended to the first floor.
Matelote and Gibelotte received them.
"Oysters, cheese, and ham," said Laigle.
And they seated themselves at a table.
The wine-shop was empty; there was no one there but themselves.
Gibelotte, knowing Joly and Laigle, set a bottle of wine on the table.
While they were busy with their first oysters, a head appeared at the hatchway of the staircase, and a voice said:--
"I am passing by.
I smell from the street a delicious odor of Brie cheese.
I enter."
It was Grantaire.
Grantaire took a stool and drew up to the table.
At the sight of Grantaire, Gibelotte placed two bottles of wine on the table.
That made three.
"Are you going to drink those two bottles?"
Laigle inquired of Grantaire.
Grantaire replied:--
"All are ingenious, thou alone art ingenuous.
Two bottles never yet astonished a man."
The others had begun by eating, Grantaire began by drinking. Half a bottle was rapidly gulped down.
"So you have a hole in your stomach?" began Laigle again.
"You have one in your elbow," said Grantaire.
And after having emptied his glass, he added:--
"Ah, by the way, Laigle of the funeral oration, your coat is old."
"I should hope so," retorted Laigle.
"That's why we get on well together, my coat and I. It has acquired all my folds, it does not bind me anywhere, it is moulded on my deformities, it falls in with all my movements, I am only conscious of it because it keeps me warm.
Old coats are just like old friends."
"That's true," ejaculated Joly, striking into the dialogue, "an old goat is an old abi" (ami, friend).
"Especially in the mouth of a man whose head is stuffed up," said Grantaire.
"Grantaire," demanded Laigle, "have you just come from the boulevard?"
"No."
"We have just seen the head of the procession pass, Joly and I."
"It's a marvellous sight," said Joly.
"How quiet this street is!" exclaimed Laigle.
"Who would suspect that Paris was turned upside down?
How plainly it is to be seen that in former days there were nothing but convents here! In this neighborhood!
Du Breul and Sauval give a list of them, and so does the Abbe Lebeuf.
They were all round here, they fairly swarmed, booted and barefooted, shaven, bearded, gray, black, white, Franciscans, Minims, Capuchins, Carmelites, Little Augustines, Great Augustines, old Augustines--there was no end of them."
"Don't let's talk of monks," interrupted Grantaire, "it makes one want to scratch one's self."
Then he exclaimed:--
"Bouh!
I've just swallowed a bad oyster.
Now hypochondria is taking possession of me again.
The oysters are spoiled, the servants are ugly. I hate the human race.
I just passed through the Rue Richelieu, in front of the big public library.
That pile of oyster-shells which is called a library is disgusting even to think of.
What paper! What ink!
What scrawling!
And all that has been written!
What rascal was it who said that man was a featherless biped?[51] And then, I met a pretty girl of my acquaintance, who is as beautiful as the spring, worthy to be called Floreal, and who is delighted, enraptured, as happy as the angels, because a wretch yesterday, a frightful banker all spotted with small-pox, deigned to take a fancy to her! Alas! woman keeps on the watch for a protector as much as for a lover; cats chase mice as well as birds.
Two months ago that young woman was virtuous in an attic, she adjusted little brass rings in the eyelet-holes of corsets, what do you call it?
She sewed, she had a camp bed, she dwelt beside a pot of flowers, she was contented. Now here she is a bankeress.
This transformation took place last night. I met the victim this morning in high spirits.
The hideous point about it is, that the jade is as pretty to-day as she was yesterday. Her financier did not show in her face.
Roses have this advantage or disadvantage over women, that the traces left upon them by caterpillars are visible.
Ah! there is no morality on earth. I call to witness the myrtle, the symbol of love, the laurel, the symbol of air, the olive, that ninny, the symbol of peace, the apple-tree which came nearest rangling Adam with its pips, and the fig-tree, the grandfather of petticoats.
As for right, do you know what right is?
The Gauls covet Clusium, Rome protects Clusium, and demands what wrong Clusium has done to them.
Brennus answers: `The wrong that Alba did to you, the wrong that Fidenae did to you, the wrong that the Eques, the Volsci, and the Sabines have done to you.
They were your neighbors.
The Clusians are ours. We understand neighborliness just as you do.
You have stolen Alba, we shall take Clusium.'
Rome said:
`You shall not take Clusium.' Brennus took Rome.
Then he cried:
`Vae victis!'
That is what right is. Ah! what beasts of prey there are in this world!
What eagles! It makes my flesh creep."
[51] Bipede sans plume:
biped without feathers--pen.
He held out his glass to Joly, who filled it, then he drank and went on, having hardly been interrupted by this glass of wine, of which no one, not even himself, had taken any notice:--
"Brennus, who takes Rome, is an eagle; the banker who takes the grisette is an eagle.
There is no more modesty in the one case than in the other.
So we believe in nothing.
There is but one reality:
drink.
Whatever your opinion may be in favor of the lean cock, like the Canton of Uri, or in favor of the fat cock, like the Canton of Glaris, it matters little, drink.
You talk to me of the boulevard, of that procession, et caetera, et caetera. Come now, is there going to be another revolution?
This poverty of means on the part of the good God astounds me.
He has to keep greasing the groove of events every moment.
There is a hitch, it won't work.
Quick, a revolution!
The good God has his hands perpetually black with that cart-grease. If I were in his place, I'd be perfectly simple about it, I would not wind up my mechanism every minute, I'd lead the human race in a straightforward way, I'd weave matters mesh by mesh, without breaking the thread, I would have no provisional arrangements, I would have no extraordinary repertory.
What the rest of you call progress advances by means of two motors, men and events.
