Dumay, who had come to box the ears of a scribbling nobody, found himself confronted by a high functionary of the state. The salon where he was told to wait offered, as a topic for his meditations, the insignia of the Legion of honor glittering on a black coat which the valet had left upon a chair. Presently his eyes were attracted by the beauty and brilliancy of a silver-gilt cup bearing the words "Given by MADAME." Then he beheld before him, on a pedestal, a Sevres vase on which was engraved, "The gift of Madame la DAUPHINE."
These mute admonitions brought Dumay to his senses while the valet went to ask his master if he would receive a person who had come from Havre expressly to see him,--a stranger named Dumay.
"What sort of a man?" asked Canalis.
"He is well-dressed, and wears the ribbon of the Legion of honor."
Canalis made a sign of assent, and the valet retreated, and then returned and announced, "Monsieur Dumay."
When he heard himself announced, when he was actually in presence of Canalis, in a study as gorgeous as it was elegant, with his feet on a carpet far handsomer than any in the house of Mignon, and when he met the studied glance of the poet who was playing with the tassels of a sumptuous dressing-gown, Dumay was so completely taken aback that he allowed the great poet to have the first word.
"To what do I owe the honor of your visit, monsieur?"
"Monsieur," began Dumay, who remained standing.
"If you have a good deal to say," interrupted Canalis, "I must ask you to be seated."
And Canalis himself plunged into an armchair a la Voltaire, crossed his legs, raised the upper one to the level of his eye and looked fixedly at Dumay, who became, to use his own martial slang, "bayonetted."
"I am listening, monsieur," said the poet; "my time is precious,--the ministers are expecting me."
"Monsieur," said Dumay, "I shall be brief. You have seduced--how, I do not know--a young lady in Havre, young, beautiful, and rich; the last and only hope of two noble families; and I have come to ask your intentions."
Canalis, who had been busy during the last three months with serious matters of his own, and was trying to get himself made commander of the Legion of honor and minister to a German court, had completely forgotten Modeste's letter."
"I!" he exclaimed.
"You!" repeated Dumay.
"Monsieur," answered Canalis, smiling; "I know no more of what you are talking about than if you had said it in Hebrew. I seduce a young girl! I, who--" and a superb smile crossed his features. "Come, come, monsieur, I'm not such a child as to steal fruit over the hedges when I have orchards and gardens of my own where the finest peaches ripen.
All Paris knows where my affections are set. Very likely there may be some young girl in Havre full of enthusiasm for my verses,--of which they are not worthy; that would not surprise me at all; nothing is more common. See! look at that lovely coffer of ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and edged with that iron-work as fine as lace. That coffer belonged to Pope Leo X., and was given to me by the Duchesse de Chaulieu, who received it from the king of Spain. I use it to hold the letters I receive from ladies and young girls living in every quarter of Europe. Oh! I assure you I feel the utmost respect for these flowers of the soul, cut and sent in moments of enthusiasm that are worthy of all reverence. Yes, to me the impulse of a heart is a noble and sublime thing! Others--scoffers--light their cigars with such letters, or give them to their wives for curl-papers; but I, who am a bachelor, monsieur, I have too much delicacy not to preserve these artless offerings--so fresh, so disinterested--in a tabernacle of their own. In fact, I guard them with a species of veneration, and at my death they will be burned before my eyes. People may call that ridiculous, but I do not care. I am grateful; these proofs of devotion enable me to bear the criticisms and annoyances of a literary life.
When I receive a shot in the back from some enemy lurking under cover of a daily paper, I look at that casket and think,--here and there in this wide world there are hearts whose wounds have been healed, or soothed, or dressed by me!"
This bit of poetry, declaimed with all the talent of a great actor, petrified the lieutenant, whose eyes opened to their utmost extent, and whose astonishment delighted the poet.
"I will permit you," continued the peacock, spreading his tail, "out of respect for your position, which I fully appreciate, to open that coffer and look for the letter of your young lady. Though I know I am right, I remember names, and I assure you you are mistaken in thinking--"
"And this is what a poor child comes to in this gulf of Paris!" cried Dumay,--"the darling of her parents, the joy of her friends, the hope of all, petted by all, the pride of a family, who has six persons so devoted to her that they would willingly make a rampart of their lives and fortunes between her and sorrow. Monsieur," Dumay remarked after a pause, "you are a great poet, and I am only a poor soldier. For fifteen years I served my country in the ranks; I have had the wind of many a bullet in my face; I have crossed Siberia and been a prisoner there; the Russians flung me on a kibitka, and God knows what I
suffered. I have seen thousands of my comrades die,--but you, you have given me a chill to the marrow of my bones, such as I never felt before."
Dumay fancied that his words moved the poet, but in fact they only flattered him,--a thing which at this period of his life had become almost an impossibility; for his ambitious mind had long forgotten the first perfumed phial that praise had broken over his head.