He reads the newspapers, doesn't he?
Well, my instructions are to put them always in the same place, on the same table.
I always go at the same hour and shave him myself; and don't I tremble!
The cook would forfeit the annuity of a thousand crowns that he is to come into after my lord's death, if breakfast is not served inconciliably at ten o'clock precisely.
The menus are drawn up for the whole year round, day after day.
My Lord the Marquis has not a thing to wish for.
He has strawberries whenever there are any, and he has the earliest mackerel to be had in Paris.
The programme is printed every morning. He knows his dinner by rote.
In the next place, he dresses himself at the same hour, in the same clothes, the same linen, that I always put on the same chair, you understand?
I have to see that he always has the same cloth; and if it should happen that his coat came to grief (a mere supposition), I should have to replace it by another without saying a word about it to him.
If it is fine, I go in and say to my master:
"'You ought to go out, sir.' "He says Yes, or No.
If he has a notion that he will go out, he doesn't wait for his horses; they are always ready harnessed; the coachman stops there inconciliably, whip in hand, just as you see him out there.
In the evening, after dinner, my master goes one day to the Opera, the other to the Ital——no, he hasn't yet gone to the Italiens, though, for I could not find a box for him until yesterday.
Then he comes in at eleven o'clock precisely, to go to bed.
At any time in the day when he has nothing to do, he reads—he is always reading, you see—it is a notion he has.
My instructions are to read the Journal de la Librairie before he sees it, and to buy new books, so that he finds them on his chimney-piece on the very day that they are published.
I have orders to go into his room every hour or so, to look after the fire and everything else, and to see that he wants nothing.
He gave me a little book, sir, to learn off by heart, with all my duties written in it—a regular catechism!
In summer I have to keep a cool and even temperature with blocks of ice and at all seasons to put fresh flowers all about.
He is rich!
He has a thousand francs to spend every day; he can indulge his fancies!
And he hadn't even necessaries for so long, poor child!
He doesn't annoy anybody; he is as good as gold; he never opens his mouth, for instance; the house and garden are absolutely silent.
In short, my master has not a single wish left; everything comes in the twinkling of an eye, if he raises his hand, and instanter.
Quite right, too. If servants are not looked after, everything falls into confusion.
You would never believe the lengths he goes about things.
His rooms are all—what do you call it?—er—er—en suite.
Very well; just suppose, now, that he opens his room door or the door of his study; presto! all the other doors fly open of themselves by a patent contrivance; and then he can go from one end of the house to the other and not find a single door shut; which is all very nice and pleasant and convenient for us great folk!
But, on my word, it cost us a lot of money!
And, after all, M. Porriquet, he said to me at last:
"'Jonathan, you will look after me as if I were a baby in long clothes,' Yes, sir, 'long clothes!' those were his very words.
'You will think of all my requirements for me.' I am the master, so to speak, and he is the servant, you understand?
The reason of it?
Ah, my word, that is just what nobody on earth knows but himself and God Almighty.
It is quite inconciliable!"
"He is writing a poem!" exclaimed the old professor.
"You think he is writing a poem, sir?
It's a very absorbing affair, then!
But, you know, I don't think he is.
He often tells me that he wants to live like a vergetation; he wants to vergetate.
Only yesterday he was looking at a tulip while he was dressing, and he said to me:
"'There is my own life—I am vergetating, my poor Jonathan.' Now, some of them insist that that is monomania.
It is inconciliable!"
"All this makes it very clear to me, Jonathan," the professor answered, with a magisterial solemnity that greatly impressed the old servant, "that your master is absorbed in a great work.
He is deep in vast meditations, and has no wish to be distracted by the petty preoccupations of ordinary life.
A man of genius forgets everything among his intellectual labors.
One day the famous Newton——"
"Newton?—oh, ah!
I don't know the name," said Jonathan.