BUTSCHA DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF
At this instant Butscha, the hidden prompter of the fishing part, was requesting the secretary to say nothing about his trip to Paris, and not to interfere in any way with what he, Butscha, might do. The dwarf had already made use of an unfavorable feeling lately roused against Monsieur Mignon in Havre in consequence of his reserve and his determination to keep silence as to the amount of his fortune. The persons who were most bitter against him even declared calumniously that he had made over a large amount of property to Dumay to save it from the just demands of his associates in China. Butscha took advantage of this state of feeling. He asked the fishermen, who owed him many a good turn, to keep the secret and lend him their tongues.
They served him well. The captain of the fishing-smack told Germain that one of his cousins, a sailor, had just returned from Marseilles, where he had been paid off from the brig in which Monsieur Mignon returned to France. The brig had been sold to the account of some other person than Monsieur Mignon, and the cargo was only worth three or four hundred thousand francs at the utmost.
"Germain," said Canalis, as the valet was leaving the room, "serve champagne and claret. A member of the legal fraternity of Havre must carry away with him proper ideas of a poet's hospitality. Besides, he has got a wit that is equal to Figaro's," added Canalis, laying his hand on the dwarf's shoulder, "and we must make it foam and sparkle with champagne; you and I, Ernest, will not spare the bottle either.
Faith, it is over two years since I've been drunk," he added, looking at La Briere.
"Not drunk with wine, you mean," said Butscha, looking keenly at him, "yes, I can believe that. You get drunk every day on yourself, you drink in so much praise. Ha, you are handsome, you are a poet, you are famous in your lifetime, you have the gift of an eloquence that is equal to your genius, and you please all women,--even my master's wife. Admired by the finest sultana-valide that I ever saw in my life (and I never saw but her) you can, if you choose, marry Mademoiselle de La Bastie. Goodness! the mere inventory of your present advantages, not to speak of the future (a noble title, peerage, embassy!), is enough to make me drunk already,--like the men who bottle other men's wine."
"All such social distinctions," said Canalis, "are of little use without the one thing that gives them value,--wealth. Here we can talk as men with men; fine sentiments only do in verse."
"That depends on circumstances," said the dwarf, with a knowing gesture.
"Ah! you writer of conveyances," said the poet, smiling at the interruption, "you know as well as I do that 'cottage' rhymes with 'pottage,'--and who would like to live on that for the rest of his days?"
At table Butscha played the part of Trigaudin, in the "Maison en loterie," in a way that alarmed Ernest, who did not know the waggery of a lawyer's office, which is quite equal to that of an atelier.
Butscha poured forth the scandalous gossip of Havre, the private history of fortune and boudoirs, and the crimes committed code in hand, which are called in Normandy, "getting out of a thing as best you can." He spared no one; and his liveliness increased with the torrents of wine which poured down his throat like rain through a gutter.
"Do you know, La Briere," said Canalis, filling Butscha's glass, "that this fellow would make a capital secretary to the embassy?"
"And oust his chief!" cried the dwarf flinging a look at Canalis whose insolence was lost in the gurgling of carbonic acid gas. "I've little enough gratitude and quite enough scheming to get astride of your shoulders. Ha, ha, a poet carrying a hunchback! that's been seen, often seen--on book-shelves. Come, don't look at me as if I were swallowing swords. My dear great genius, you're a superior man; you know that gratitude is the word of fools; they stick it in the dictionary, but it isn't in the human heart; pledges are worth nothing, except on a certain mount that is neither Pindus nor Parnassus. You think I owe a great deal to my master's wife, who brought me up. Bless you, the whole town has paid her for that in praises, respect, and admiration,--the very best of coin. I don't recognize any service that is only the capital of self-love. Men make a commerce of their services, and gratitude goes down on the debit side,--that's all. As to schemes, they are my divinity. What?" he exclaimed, at a gesture of Canalis, "don't you admire the faculty which enables a wily man to get the better of a man of genius? it takes the closest observation of his vices, and his weaknesses, and the wit to seize the happy moment. Ask diplomacy if its greatest triumphs are not those of craft over force? If I were your secretary, Monsieur le baron, you'd soon be prime-minister, because it would be my interest to have you so. Do you want a specimen of my talents in that line? Well then, listen; you love Mademoiselle Modeste distractedly, and you've good reason to do so. The girl has my fullest esteem; she is a true Parisian. Sometimes we get a few real Parisians born down here in the provinces. Well, Modeste is just the woman to help a man's career. She's got THAT in her," he cried, with a turn of his wrist in the air. "But you've a dangerous competitor in the duke;
what will you give me to get him out of Havre within three days?"
"Finish this bottle," said the poet, refilling Butscha's glass.
"You'll make me drunk," said the dwarf, tossing off his ninth glass of champagne. "Have you a bed where I could sleep it off? My master is as sober as the camel that he is, and Madame Latournelle too. They are brutal enough, both of them, to scold me; and they'd have the rights of it too--there are those deeds I ought to be drawing!--" Then, suddenly returning to his previous ideas, after the fashion of a drunken man, he exclaimed, "and I've such a memory; it is on a par with my gratitude."
"Butscha!" cried the poet, "you said just now you had no gratitude;
you contradict yourself."
