"That I have never noticed that you were so beautiful.
Come here!" said he.
I approached, trembling a little.
Without a word he took me by the waist, and forced me to sit down beside him.
"Oh! Monsieur Xavier," I sighed, struggling, but not very vigorously.
"Stop, I beg of you. If your parents were to see you?"
But he began to laugh:
"My parents! Oh! my parents, you know,—I have supped on them."
This was a phrase that he was continually using.
When one asked him anything, he answered: "I have supped on that."
And he had supped on everything.
To gain a little time I asked him:
"There is one thing that puzzles me, Monsieur Xavier. How does it happen that one never sees you at Madame's dinners?" "You certainly don't expect me, my dear ... oh! no, you know, Madame's dinners tire me too much."
"And how is it," I insisted, "that your room is the only one in the house in which there is not a picture of the pope?"
This observation flattered him.
He answered:
"Why, my little baby, I am an Anarchist, I am.
Religion, the Jesuits, the priests,—oh! no, I have enough of them. I have supped on them. A society made up of people like papa and mamma?
Oh! you know ... none of that in mine, thank you!"
Now I felt at ease with M. Xavier, in whom I found, together with the same vices, the drawling accent of the Paris toughs.
It seemed to me that I had known him for years and years.
In his turn he asked me:
"Tell me, are you intimate with papa?"
"Your father!" I cried, pretending to be scandalized.
"Oh! Monsieur Xavier! Such a holy man!"
His laugh redoubled, and rang out loudly:
"Papa!
Oh! papa!
Why, he is intimate with all the servants here.
Then you are not yet intimate with papa?
You astonish me."
"Oh! no," I replied, laughing also. "Only he brings me the
'Fin de Siecle,' the
'Rigolo,' the
'Petites Femmes de Paris'."
That set him off in a delirium of joy, and, shaking more than ever with laughter, he cried:
"Papa! Oh! he is astonishing!"
And, being now well started, he continued in a comical tone:
"He is like mamma. Yesterday she made me another scene. I am disgracing her,—her and papa. Would you believe it? And religion, and society, and everything!
It is twisting.
Then I declared to her:
'My dear little mother, it is agreed; I will settle down to a regular life on the day when you shall have given up your lovers.'
That was a hot one, eh?
That shut her up. Oh! no, you know, they make me very tired, these authors of my being.
I have supped on their lectures. By the way, you know Fumeau, don't you?"
"No, Monsieur Xavier."
"Why, yes ... why, yes ... Anthime Fumeau?"
"I assure you that I do not."
"A fat fellow, very young, very red-faced, ultra-stylish, the finest teams in Paris. Fumeau ... an income of three millions. Tartlet the Kid?
Why, yes, you know him."