Les Misérables, page 38
CHAPTER IV--THOLOMYÈS IS SO MERRY THAT HE SINGS A SPANISH DITTY
That day was composed of dawn, from one end to the other. All natureseemed to be having a holiday, and to be laughing. The flower-beds ofSaint-Cloud perfumed the air; the breath of the Seine rustled theleaves vaguely; the branches gesticulated in the wind, bees pillaged thejasmines; a whole bohemia of butterflies swooped down upon the yarrow,the clover, and the sterile oats; in the august park of the King ofFrance there was a pack of vagabonds, the birds.
The four merry couples, mingled with the sun, the fields, the flowers,the trees, were resplendent.
And in this community of Paradise, talking, singing, running, dancing,chasing butterflies, plucking convolvulus, wetting their pink, open-workstockings in the tall grass, fresh, wild, without malice, all received,to some extent, the kisses of all, with the exception of Fantine,who was hedged about with that vague resistance of hers composed ofdreaminess and wildness, and who was in love. "You always have a queerlook about you," said Favourite to her.
Such things are joys. These passages of happy couples are a profoundappeal to life and nature, and make a caress and light spring forth fromeverything. There was once a fairy who created the fields and forestsexpressly for those in love,--in that eternal hedge-school of lovers,which is forever beginning anew, and which will last as long as thereare hedges and scholars. Hence the popularity of spring among thinkers.The patrician and the knife-grinder, the duke and the peer, the limbof the law, the courtiers and townspeople, as they used to say in oldentimes, all are subjects of this fairy. They laugh and hunt, and thereis in the air the brilliance of an apotheosis--what a transfigurationeffected by love! Notaries' clerks are gods. And the little cries,the pursuits through the grass, the waists embraced on the fly, thosejargons which are melodies, those adorations which burst forth in themanner of pronouncing a syllable, those cherries torn from one mouth byanother,--all this blazes forth and takes its place among the celestialglories. Beautiful women waste themselves sweetly. They think that thiswill never come to an end. Philosophers, poets, painters, observe theseecstasies and know not what to make of it, so greatly are they dazzledby it. The departure for Cythera! exclaims Watteau; Lancret, the painterof plebeians, contemplates his bourgeois, who have flitted away into theazure sky; Diderot stretches out his arms to all these love idyls, andd'Urfé mingles druids with them.
After breakfast the four couples went to what was then called the King'sSquare to see a newly arrived plant from India, whose name escapes ourmemory at this moment, and which, at that epoch, was attracting allParis to Saint-Cloud. It was an odd and charming shrub with a long stem,whose numerous branches, bristling and leafless and as fine as threads,were covered with a million tiny white rosettes; this gave the shrub theair of a head of hair studded with flowers. There was always an admiringcrowd about it.
After viewing the shrub, Tholomyès exclaimed, "I offer you asses!" andhaving agreed upon a price with the owner of the asses, they returnedby way of Vanvres and Issy. At Issy an incident occurred. The trulynational park, at that time owned by Bourguin the contractor, happenedto be wide open. They passed the gates, visited the manikin anchorite inhis grotto, tried the mysterious little effects of the famous cabinetof mirrors, the wanton trap worthy of a satyr become a millionaire or ofTurcaret metamorphosed into a Priapus. They had stoutly shaken the swingattached to the two chestnut-trees celebrated by the Abbé de Bernis.As he swung these beauties, one after the other, producing folds in thefluttering skirts which Greuze would have found to his taste, amid pealsof laughter, the Toulousan Tholomyès, who was somewhat of a Spaniard,Toulouse being the cousin of Tolosa, sang, to a melancholy chant, theold ballad _gallega_, probably inspired by some lovely maid dashing infull flight upon a rope between two trees:--
"Soy de Badajoz, "Badajoz is my home, Amor me llama, And Love is my name; Toda mi alma, To my eyes in flame, Es en mi ojos, All my soul doth come; Porque enseñas, For instruction meet A tuas piernas. I receive at thy feet"
Fantine alone refused to swing.
"I don't like to have people put on airs like that," muttered Favourite,with a good deal of acrimony.
After leaving the asses there was a fresh delight; they crossed theSeine in a boat, and proceeding from Passy on foot they reached thebarrier of l'Étoile. They had been up since five o'clock that morning,as the reader will remember; but _bah! there is no such thing as fatigueon Sunday_, said Favourite; _on Sunday fatigue does not work_.
About three o'clock the four couples, frightened at their happiness,were sliding down the Russian mountains, a singular edifice which thenoccupied the heights of Beaujon, and whose undulating line was visibleabove the trees of the Champs-Élysées.
From time to time Favourite exclaimed:--
"And the surprise? I claim the surprise."
"Patience," replied Tholomyès.
