They talked horses, turf, women, told all sorts of disagreeable stories about the morals of their masters, and then, becoming excited by the fumes of the wine, began on politics. William was a superbly uncompromising and terribly violent reactionary.
"The man for me," he cried, "is Cassagnac.
A rude lad, Cassagnac!
They are afraid of him.
How he can write!
What raps he gives!
Yes, let the dirty rascals tackle this strenuous chap if they dare!"
And suddenly, at the height of the noise, Eugenie rose, paler and with shining eyes, and rushed for the door.
The little one entered, his face wearing an expression of astonishment at sight of these unusual people, of these empty bottles, of this reckless pillage of the table.
Eugenie had saved a glass of champagne and a plate of goodies for him.
Then they both disappeared into the adjoining room.
"Oh! your little phiz, your little mouth, your big eyes!"
That night the parents' basket contained larger and better portions.
Of course these worthy people should profit by the feast. _____
William often spoke to me of Edgar, the celebrated stud-groom of the baron de Borgsheim.
He was proud to know him; he admired him almost as much as he admired Cassagnac.
Edgar and Cassagnac were the two great enthusiasms of his life. I think it would have been dangerous to joke him about them, or even to discuss them with him.
When he came home at night, late, William excused himself by saying to me,
"I was with Edgar." It seemed that to be with Edgar constituted not only an excuse, but a glory.
"Why don't you bring your famous Edgar to dinner, that I may see him?" I asked of him one day.
William was scandalized at this idea, and he declared, loftily:
"What! do you imagine that Edgar would dine with simple servants?"
It was from Edgar that William got his incomparable method of polishing his hats. Once, at the Auteuil races, Edgar was approached by the young marquis de Plerin.
"Say, my lad," begged the marquis, "how do you get your hats?"
"My hats, Monsieur the Marquis?" responded Edgar, highly flattered, for the young Plerin, a robber at the races and a trickster at the gaming-table, was then one of the most famous personalities of Parisian society.
"It is very simple; only it is like picking the winner,—you must know how. Well, this is the trick. Every morning I make my valet de chambre run for a quarter of an hour. He sweats, of course.
And the sweat contains oil.
Then, with a very fine silk handkerchief, he wipes the sweat from his brow, and rubs my hats with it. A stroke or two with the iron finishes the job. But it takes a clean and healthy man, preferably a man with nut-brown complexion,—for some blondes smell strong, and all sweats are not suitable. Last year I gave the receipt to the prince of Wales."
And, as the young marquis de Plerin thanked Edgar and slyly shook his hand, the latter added, confidently:
"Take Baladeur at seven to one. He is to be the winner, Monsieur the Marquis."
It is really funny when I think of it, but I finally came to feel flattered myself that William had such a relation. To me, too, Edgar was something admirable and inaccessible, like the emperor of Germany, Victor Hugo, or Paul Bourget.
That is why I think it advisable to fix in these pages, from all that William told me, the portrait of this more than illustrious, this historic personage.
_____ Edgar was born in London, in a frightful den, between two hiccups of whiskey. As a boy he was a vagabond, a beggar, a thief, and a jail-bird. Later, having the requisite physical deformities and the most crapulous instincts, he was pitched on for a groom. From ante-room to stable, rubbing against all the trickery, all the rapacity, all the vice prevailing among the servants of a grand establishment, he became a "lad" in the Eaton stud. And he strutted about in a Scotch cap, a yellow and black striped waistcoat, and light pantaloons, loose at the thighs, tight at the calves, and wrinkled at the knees in the form of a screw. When scarcely an adult, he looked like a little old man, with frail limbs and furrowed face, red at the cheek-bones, yellow at the temples, with worn-out and grimacing mouth, with thin hair brushed over his ears in the form of a greasy spiral. In a society which the odor of horse-dung causes to swoon with delight Edgar was already a personage less anonymous than a workingman or a peasant,—almost a gentleman. At Eaton he learned his trade thoroughly. He knows how to groom a stylish horse, how to take care of it when it is sick, and what detailed and complicated toilets are most suitable to the color of its coat. He knows the secret of the intimate washings, the refined polishings, the expert pedicurings, and the ingenious processes of make-up, by which the beasts of the race-track, like the beasts of love, are set out and beautified. In the bar-rooms he knew important jockeys, celebrated trainers, and the big-bellied baronets, and blackleg dukes and bums, who are the cream of this muck-heap and the flower of this horse-dung. Edgar would have liked to become a jockey, for he soon saw all the tricks that could be played and the money that could be made. But he had grown too large. Though his legs had remained thin and bowed, he had acquired something of a corporation. He was too heavy. So, being unable to don the jockey's coat, he decided to wear the coachman's livery. To-day Edgar is forty-three years old. He is one of the five or six English, Italian, and French stud-grooms of whom they talk in elegant society with wondering admiration. His name triumphs in the sporting papers, and even in the paragraphs of the society and literary journals. The baron de Borgsheim, his present master, is proud of him,—more proud of him than he would be of a financial operation that had ruined a hundred thousand janitors. Swelling up with an air of definitive superiority, he says: "My stud-groom!" as a collector of pictures would say: "My Rubens!" And, in fact, the lucky baron has reason to be proud, for, since he came into possession of Edgar, he has made great strides in fame and respectability. Edgar has gained for him that admission to uncompromising salons which he so long coveted. Through Edgar he has at last overcome the resistance of society to his race. At the club they talk of the famous "victory of the baron over England." The English have taken Egypt from us, but the baron has taken Edgar from the English, and that restores the equilibrium. If he had conquered the Indies, he would not have been more loudly acclaimed. This admiration is accompanied, however, by deep jealousy. They would like to get Edgar away from him, and so there goes on around Edgar all sorts of intrigues, and corrupting conspiracies, and flirtations, like those that go on around a beautiful woman. As for the newspapers, they, in their respectful enthusiasm, have reached a point where they are no longer able to tell exactly which of the two, Edgar or the baron, is the admirable stud-groom, and which the admirable financier. They confound the two in the mutual glories of one and the same apotheosis. Provided you have been curious enough to circulate among aristocratic crowds, you certainly must have met Edgar, who is one of their most precious ornaments and one who is most commonly displayed. He is a man of average height, very ugly,—that comical English ugliness,—and having an immoderately long nose, with doubly royal curves, which oscillate between the Semitic curve and the Bourbon curve. His lips, very short and turned-up, reveal black holes between decaying teeth. His complexion is lightened in the scale of the yellows, relieved at the cheek-bones with some hatchings in bright lake. Without being obese, like the majestic coachman of the olden time, he is now endowed with a comfortable and regular embonpoint which covers with fat the vulgar protuberances of his frame. And, slightly throwing out his chest, he walks with an elastic step, his elbows bent at the regulation angle. Scorning to follow the fashion, desirous rather of setting it, he dresses richly and fantastically. He has blue frock-coats, with watered-silk facings, excessively tight-fitting and too new; pantaloons of English cut that are too light; cravats that are too white; jewels that are too big; handkerchiefs that are too fragrant; shoes that are too highly polished; hats that are too shining. How long the young swells have envied Edgar the unusual and fulgurating brilliancy of his headgear! At eight o'clock in the morning, wearing a little round hat and a putty-colored overcoat as short as a jacket, with an enormous yellow rose in his button-hole, Edgar descends from his automobile, in front of the baron's mansion. The grooming is just finished. After having cast an ill-humored look around the yard, he enters the stables and begins his inspection, followed by the anxious and respectful hostlers. Nothing escapes his suspicious and sidewise glances,—a bucket not in its place, a spot on the steel chains, a scratch on the silvers and brasses. And he growls, flies into a passion, and threatens in a phlegm-choked voice, his bronchial tubes being still obstructed by the fermentation of the champagne drunk the night before. He enters each box, and passes his white-gloved hand over the manes, necks, bellies, and legs of the horses. If he finds the slightest trace of dirt on his glove, he jaws the hostlers; there is a flood of filthy words and insulting oaths, and a tempest of furious gestures. Then he examines minutely the horses' hoofs, smells of the oats in the marble mangers, feels of the litter, and long and carefully studies the form, color, and density of the dung, which never suits him. "What kind of dung do you call that, I should like to know? It is the dung of a cab-horse. Be sure that I see nothing like it to-morrow, pack of good-for-nothings that you are!" Sometimes the baron puts in an appearance, glad of a chance to talk with his stud-groom. Scarcely does he notice his master's presence. The latter's timid questions he answers with curt and snarling words. Never does he say "Monsieur the Baron." The baron, on the contrary, is almost tempted to say: "Monsieur the coachman!" Afraid that he may irritate Edgar, he does not stay long, and retires discreetly. Having finished his review of the stables, the carriage-houses, and the harness-rooms, and having given his orders in a tone of military command, Edgar gets into his automobile again, and starts rapidly for the Champs-Elysees, where at first he makes a short stop in a little bar-room, among race-track people, skunk-faced tipsters, who drop mysterious words into his ears, and show him confidential dispatches. The rest of the morning is devoted to visits to sundry trades-people, to give them new orders and receive commissions, and to horse-dealers, with whom such conversations as the following take place: "Well, Master Edgar?" "Well, Master Poolny?" "I have a buyer for the baron's bays." "They are not for sale." "Fifty pounds for you." "No." "A hundred pounds, Master Edgar." "We will see, Master Poolny." "That is not all, Master Edgar." "What else, Master Poolny?" "I have two magnificent sorrels for the baron." "We do not need them." "Fifty pounds for you." "No." "A hundred pounds, Master Edgar." "We will see, Master Poolny." A week later Edgar has spoiled the paces of the baron's bays in just the right degree, not too much or too little, and then, having demonstrated to the baron that it is high time to get rid of them, he sells them to Poolny, who sells to Edgar the two magnificent sorrels. Poolny restores the bays to good condition by sending them to pasture for three months, and two years later perhaps sells them again to the baron. At noon Edgar's work is done. He returns for lunch to his apartments in the Rue Euler, for he does not live in the baron's mansion, and never drives the baron. His apartments consist of a ground-floor, heavily upholstered in embroidered plush of the loudest shades, the walls being covered with English lithographs of hunts, steeplechases, famous cracks, and various portraits of the prince of Wales, one of which was presented to Edgar by the prince himself, and bears a dedication from him. Then there are canes, whips, stirrups, bits, and tally-ho horns, arranged in a panoply, with an enormous bust of Queen Victoria, made of polychromatic and loyalist terra cotta, in the centre, between two gilded pediments. Then, free from care, strangling in his blue frock-coats, his head covered with his radiant beacon, Edgar devotes the rest of his day to his own affairs and to his own pleasures. His affairs are numerous, for he is in partnership with a club cashier, a bookmaker, and a horse photographer, and he has three horses in training near Chantilly. Nor are his pleasures lacking; the most famous little women know the way to the Rue Euler, where, on days when they happen to be short, they are sure to find a cup of tea and five louis. In the evening, after having shown himself at the Ambassadeurs, at the Cirque, and at the Olympia, very correct in his silk-faced dress-coat, Edgar repairs to the Ancien, and there spends a long time in getting drunk, in the company of coachmen who assume the airs of gentlemen, and of gentlemen who assume the airs of coachmen. And every time that William told me one of these stories he concluded, with a voice of admiring wonder: "Oh! this Edgar! there is a man for you, indeed!" _____ My masters belonged to what it is agreed to call the high society of Paris; that is to say, Monsieur was a penniless nobleman, and nobody knew exactly where Madame came from. Many stories were afloat regarding her origin, each more disagreeable than the others.
William, very familiar with the scandals of high society, pretended that the madame was the daughter of an old coachman and an old chambermaid, who, by pinching and general misbehavior, got together a small capital, established themselves as usurers in a disreputable quarter of Paris, and rapidly made a large fortune by lending money, mainly to prostitutes and house-servants. They struck it rich, indeed!
It was certainly true that Madame, in spite of her apparent elegance and her very pretty face, had queer manners and vulgar habits that were very disagreeable.
The dirty creature was fond of boiled beef, and bacon and cabbage; and, like the cabmen, it was her delight to pour red wine into her soup.
I was ashamed of her. Often, in her quarrels with Monsieur, her anger stirred the mud that still remained in the depths of her being, not yet thoroughly cleaned by her suddenly-acquired luxury, and brought up to her lips a filthy foam of words,—ah! words that I, who am not a lady, often regret having uttered. But there you are! One does not imagine how many women there are, with angels' mouths, and starry eyes, and three-thousand-franc dresses, who, in their own houses, use coarse language, make filthy gestures, and are disgusting by their vulgarity,—in fact, strumpets of the lowest type.
"Great ladies," said William, "are like the best sauces,—it is better not to know how they are made."
William was given to these disenchanting aphorisms.
And, being all the same a very gallant man, he added, as he took me about the waist:
"A little girl like you is less flattering to a lover's vanity. But she is more serious, all the same."
I must say that Madame spent all her wrath and showered all her coarse words upon Monsieur; with us, I repeat, she was rather timid.
Moreover, amid the disorder of her house, amid all the reckless waste she tolerated, Madame showed queer streaks of avarice that were quite unexpected. She higgled with the cook over two sous spent for salad, economized in the matter of the servants' washing, raised objections to a bill of three francs, and did not rest until, after endless complaints and correspondence, and interminable negotiations, she had secured a refunding of fifteen centimes unwarrantably collected by an expressman for the transportation of a package.
Every time she took a cab, there was a quarrel with the coachman, to whom she gave no tip, and whom she even found a way of cheating. And yet she left her money about everywhere, with her jewels and her keys, on the mantels and on the furniture.
She recklessly ruined her richest costumes and her finest linen, she suffered herself to be impudently robbed by dealers in articles of luxury, and accepted with without a frown the books of the old butler, as Monsieur, for that matter, accepted those of William.
And yet God knows what frauds they contained!
Sometimes I said to William:
"Really, you pinch too much; some day you will get into trouble." To which William replied, very calmly: "Oh! let me alone; I know what I am about, and how far I can go. When one has masters as stupid as these are, it would be a crime not to take advantage of them."
But the poor fellow scarcely profited by these continual larcenies, which, in spite of the astonishing tips he had, continually went to fill the pockets of the bookmakers. _____
Monsieur and Madame had been married for five years.