“I should hope so,” retorted Laigle.
“That’s why we get on well together, my coat and I.
It has acquired all my folds, it does not bind me anywhere, it is moulded on my deformities, it falls in with all my movements, I am only conscious of it because it keeps me warm.
Old coats are just like old friends.”
“That’s true,” ejaculated Joly, striking into the dialogue, “an old goat is an old abi” (ami, friend).
“Especially in the mouth of a man whose head is stuffed up,” said Grantaire.
“Grantaire,” demanded Laigle, “have you just come from the boulevard?”
“No.”
“We have just seen the head of the procession pass, Joly and I.”
“It’s a marvellous sight,” said Joly.
“How quiet this street is!” exclaimed Laigle.
“Who would suspect that Paris was turned upside down?
How plainly it is to be seen that in former days there were nothing but convents here!
In this neighborhood! Du Breul and Sauval give a list of them, and so does the Abbe Lebeuf.
They were all round here, they fairly swarmed, booted and barefooted, shaven, bearded, gray, black, white, Franciscans, Minims, Capuchins, Carmelites, Little Augustines, Great Augustines, old Augustines—there was no end of them.”
“Don’t let’s talk of monks,” interrupted Grantaire, “it makes one want to scratch one’s self.”
Then he exclaimed:—
“Bouh!
I’ve just swallowed a bad oyster.
Now hypochondria is taking possession of me again.
The oysters are spoiled, the servants are ugly.
I hate the human race.
I just passed through the Rue Richelieu, in front of the big public library.
That pile of oyster-shells which is called a library is disgusting even to think of.
What paper!
What ink!
What scrawling!
And all that has been written!
What rascal was it who said that man was a featherless biped?51 And then, I met a pretty girl of my acquaintance, who is as beautiful as the spring, worthy to be called Floreal, and who is delighted, enraptured, as happy as the angels, because a wretch yesterday, a frightful banker all spotted with small-pox, deigned to take a fancy to her!
Alas! woman keeps on the watch for a protector as much as for a lover; cats chase mice as well as birds.
Two months ago that young woman was virtuous in an attic, she adjusted little brass rings in the eyelet-holes of corsets, what do you call it?
She sewed, she had a camp bed, she dwelt beside a pot of flowers, she was contented.
Now here she is a bankeress.
This transformation took place last night.
I met the victim this morning in high spirits.
The hideous point about it is, that the jade is as pretty to-day as she was yesterday.
Her financier did not show in her face.
Roses have this advantage or disadvantage over women, that the traces left upon them by caterpillars are visible.
Ah! there is no morality on earth.
I call to witness the myrtle, the symbol of love, the laurel, the symbol of air, the olive, that ninny, the symbol of peace, the apple-tree which came nearest rangling Adam with its pips, and the fig-tree, the grandfather of petticoats.
As for right, do you know what right is?
The Gauls covet Clusium, Rome protects Clusium, and demands what wrong Clusium has done to them.
Brennus answers:
‘The wrong that Alba did to you, the wrong that Fiden? did to you, the wrong that the Eques, the Volsci, and the Sabines have done to you.
They were your neighbors.
The Clusians are ours.
We understand neighborliness just as you do.
You have stolen Alba, we shall take Clusium.’
Rome said:
‘You shall not take Clusium.’