Chapter Chapter 32 · THOLOMYÈS IS SO MERRY THAT HE SINGS A SPANISH DITTY

That day was composed of dawn, from one end to the other. All nature

seemed to be having a holiday, and to be laughing. The flower-beds of

Saint-Cloud perfumed the air; the breath of the Seine rustled the

leaves vaguely; the branches gesticulated in the wind, bees pillaged

the jasmines; a whole bohemia of butterflies swooped down upon the

yarrow, the clover, and the sterile oats; in the august park of the

King of France there was a pack of vagabonds, the birds.

The four merry couples, mingled with the sun, the fields, the flowers,

the trees, were resplendent.

And in this community of Paradise, talking, singing, running, dancing,

chasing butterflies, plucking convolvulus, wetting their pink,

open-work stockings in the tall grass, fresh, wild, without malice, all

received, to some extent, the kisses of all, with the exception of

Fantine, who was hedged about with that vague resistance of hers

composed of dreaminess and wildness, and who was in love. “You always

have a queer look about you,” said Favourite to her.

Such things are joys. These passages of happy couples are a profound

appeal to life and nature, and make a caress and light spring forth

from everything. There was once a fairy who created the fields and

forests expressly for those in love,—in that eternal hedge-school of

lovers, which is forever beginning anew, and which will last as long as

there are hedges and scholars. Hence the popularity of spring among

thinkers. The patrician and the knife-grinder, the duke and the peer,

the limb of the law, the courtiers and townspeople, as they used to say

in olden times, all are subjects of this fairy. They laugh and hunt,

and there is in the air the brilliance of an apotheosis—what a

transfiguration effected by love! Notaries’ clerks are gods. And the

little cries, the pursuits through the grass, the waists embraced on

the fly, those jargons which are melodies, those adorations which burst

forth in the manner of pronouncing a syllable, those cherries torn from

one mouth by another,—all this blazes forth and takes its place among

the celestial glories. Beautiful women waste themselves sweetly. They

think that this will never come to an end. Philosophers, poets,

painters, observe these ecstasies and know not what to make of it, so

greatly are they dazzled by it. The departure for Cythera! exclaims

Watteau; Lancret, the painter of plebeians, contemplates his bourgeois,

who have flitted away into the azure sky; Diderot stretches out his

arms to all these love idyls, and d’Urfé mingles druids with them.

After breakfast the four couples went to what was then called the

King’s Square to see a newly arrived plant from India, whose name

escapes our memory at this moment, and which, at that epoch, was

attracting all Paris to Saint-Cloud. It was an odd and charming shrub

with a long stem, whose numerous branches, bristling and leafless and

as fine as threads, were covered with a million tiny white rosettes;

this gave the shrub the air of a head of hair studded with flowers.

There was always an admiring crowd about it.

After viewing the shrub, Tholomyès exclaimed, “I offer you asses!” and

having agreed upon a price with the owner of the asses, they returned

by way of Vanvres and Issy. At Issy an incident occurred. The truly

national park, at that time owned by Bourguin the contractor, happened

to be wide open. They passed the gates, visited the manikin anchorite

in his grotto, tried the mysterious little effects of the famous

cabinet of mirrors, the wanton trap worthy of a satyr become a

millionaire or of Turcaret metamorphosed into a Priapus. They had

stoutly shaken the swing attached to the two chestnut-trees celebrated

by the Abbé de Bernis. As he swung these beauties, one after the other,

producing folds in the fluttering skirts which Greuze would have found

to his taste, amid peals of laughter, the Toulousan Tholomyès, who was

somewhat of a Spaniard, Toulouse being the cousin of Tolosa, sang, to a

melancholy chant, the old ballad _gallega_, probably inspired by some

lovely maid dashing in full flight upon a rope between two trees:—

“Soy de Badajoz,

Amor me llama,

Toda mi alma,

Es en mi ojos,

Porque enseñas,

A tuas piernas.

“Badajoz is my home,

And Love is my name;

To my eyes in flame,

All my soul doth come;

For instruction meet

I receive at thy feet”

Fantine alone refused to swing.

“I don’t like to have people put on airs like that,” muttered

Favourite, with a good deal of acrimony.

After leaving the asses there was a fresh delight; they crossed the

Seine in a boat, and proceeding from Passy on foot they reached the

barrier of l’Étoile. They had been up since five o’clock that morning,

as the reader will remember; but _bah! there is no such thing as

fatigue on Sunday_, said Favourite; _on Sunday fatigue does not work_.

About three o’clock the four couples, frightened at their happiness,

were sliding down the Russian mountains, a singular edifice which then

occupied the heights of Beaujon, and whose undulating line was visible

above the trees of the Champs-Élysées.

From time to time Favourite exclaimed:—

“And the surprise? I claim the surprise.”

“Patience,” replied Tholomyès.