Les miserables (Abridged) - Victor Hugo [69]
When they had viewed the shrub, Tholomyès exclaimed, “I propose donkeys,” and making a bargain with a donkey-driver, they returned through Vanvres and Issy. At Issy, they had an adventure. The park, a National Preserve, owned at this time by the munitions manufacturer Bourguin, was by sheer good luck open. They passed through the grating, visited the statue of a hermit in his grotto, and tried the little, mysterious effects of the famous cabinet of mirrors—a wanton trap, worthy of a satyr become a millionaire, or Turcaret metamorphosed into Priapus.aa They swung stoutly in the great swing, attached to the two chestnut trees, celebrated by the Abbé de Bernis. While swinging the girls, one after the other, and making folds of flying crinoline that Greuze would have found worth his study, the Toulousian Tholomyès, who was something of a Spaniard—Toulouse is cousin to Tolosa—sang in a melancholy key, the old gallega song, probably inspired by some beautiful damsel swinging in the air between two trees.
Soy de Badaioz.
Amor me llama.
Toda mi alma
Es en mi ojos
Porque enseñas
A tus piernas.
Fantine alone refused to swing.
“I do not like that kind of affectation,” murmured Favourite, rather sharply.
They left the donkeys for a new pleasure, crossed the Seine in a boat, and walked from Passy to the Barrière de l‘Etoile. They had been on their feet, it will be remembered, since five in the morning, but bah! there is no weariness on Sunday, said Favourite; on Sunday fatigue has a holiday. Towards three o‘clock, the four couples, wild with happiness, were climbing down from the roller-coaster, a peculiar construction where sinuous contour you could see above the trees of the Champs-Elysées.
From time to time Favourite exclaimed:
“But the surprise? I want the surprise.”
“Be patient,” answered Tholomyès.
5
AT BOMBARDA’S
Having tired of the roller-coaster, they thought of dinner, and the happy eight a little weary at last, stranded on Bombarda‘s, a branch establishment, set up in the Champs- Elysées by the celebrated restaurateur, Bombarda, whose sign was then seen on the Rue de Rivoli, near the Delorme arcade.
6
A CHAPTER OF SELF-ADMIRATION
TABLE TALK and lovers’ talk equally elude the grasp; lovers’ talk is clouds, table talk is smoke.
Fameuil and Dahlia hummed airs; Tholomyès drank, Zéphine laughed, Fantine smiled. Listolier blew a wooden trumpet that he had bought at Saint Cloud. Favourite looked tenderly at Blacheville and said:
“Blacheville, I adore you.”
This brought forth a question from Blacheville:
“What would you do, Favourite, if I should leave you?”
“Me!” cried Favourite. “Oh! do not say that, even in sport! If you should leave me, I would run after you, I would scratch you, I would pull your hair, I would throw water on you, I would have you arrested.”
Blacheville smiled with the effeminate foppery of a man whose self-love is tickled. Favourite continued:
“Yes! I would call the police! I wouldn’t hold back! I would scream, for example: scoundrel!”
Blacheville, in ecstasy, leaned back in his chair, and closed both eyes with a satisfied air.
Dahlia, still eating, whispered to Favourite in the hubbub:
“Are you really so fond of your Blacheville, then?”
“I detest him,” whispered Favourite, taking up her fork. “He is stingy; I am in love with the little fellow over the way from where I live. He is a nice young man; do you know him? Anybody can see that he was born to be an actor! I love actors. As soon as he comes into the house, his mother cries out: ‘Oh, dear! my peace is all gone. There, he is going to hallo! You will split my head;’ just because he goes into the garret among the rats, into the dark corners, as high as he can go, and sings and declaims—something or other so loud that they can hear him below! He already makes twenty sous a day by copying documents for a lawyer.