1.F.3.6. A CHAPTER IN WHICH THEY ADORE EACH OTHER
CHAT at table, the chat of love; it is as impossible to reproduce
one as the other; the chat of love is a cloud; the chat
at table is smoke.
Fameuil and Dahlia were humming. Tholomyes was drinking.
Zephine was laughing, Fantine smiling, Listolier blowing
a wooden trumpet which he had purchased at Saint-Cloud.
Favourite gazed tenderly at Blachevelle and said: —
"Blachevelle, I adore you."
This called forth a question from Blachevelle: —
"What would you do, Favourite, if I were to cease to love
you?"
"I!" cried Favourite. "Ah! Do not say that even in jest!
If you were to cease to love me, I would spring after you, I
would scratch you, I should rend you, I would throw you into
the water, I would have you arrested."
Blachevelle smiled with the voluptuous self-conceit of a
man who is tickled in his self-love. Favourite resumed: —
"Yes, I would scream to the police! Ah! I should not restrain
myself, not at all! Rabble!"
Blachevelle threw himself back in his chair, in an ecstasy,
and closed both eyes proudly.
Dahlia, as she ate, said in a low voice to Favourite, amid
the uproar: —
"So you really idolize him deeply, that Blachevelle of
yours?"
"I? I detest him," replied Favourite in the same tone,
seizing her fork again. "He is avaricious. I love the little
fellow opposite me in my house. He is very nice, that young
man; do you know him? One can see that he is an actor by
profession. I love actors. As soon as he comes in, his mother
says to him: 'Ah! mon Dieu! my peace of mind is gone.
There he goes with his shouting. But, my dear, you are splitting
my head!' So he goes up to rat-ridden garrets, to black
holes, as high as he can mount, and there he sets to singing,
declaiming, how do I know what? so that he can be heard
down stairs! He earns twenty sous a day at an attorney's by
penning quibbles. He is the son of a former precentor of
Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas. Ah! he is very nice. He idolizes
me so, that one day when he saw me making batter for some
pancakes, he said to me:
'Mamselle, make your gloves into
fritters, and I will eat them.' It is only artists who can say
such things as that. Ah! he is very nice. I am in a fair way
to go out of my head over that little fellow. Never mind; I
tell Blachevelle that I adore him — how I lie! Hey! How I
do lie!"
Favourite paused, and then went on: —
"I am sad, you see, Dahlia. It has done nothing but rain
all summer; the wind irritates me; the wind does not abate.
Blachevelle is very stingy; there are hardly any green peas in
the market; one does not know what to eat. I have the spleen,
as the English say, butter is so dear! and then you see it is
horrible, here we are dining in a room with a bed in it, and
that disgusts me with life."