บทที่ บทที่ 35 · THE WISDOM OF THOLOMYÈS

In the meantime, while some sang, the rest talked together tumultuously

all at once; it was no longer anything but noise. Tholomyès intervened.

“Let us not talk at random nor too fast,” he exclaimed. “Let us

reflect, if we wish to be brilliant. Too much improvisation empties the

mind in a stupid way. Running beer gathers no froth. No haste,

gentlemen. Let us mingle majesty with the feast. Let us eat with

meditation; let us make haste slowly. Let us not hurry. Consider the

springtime; if it makes haste, it is done for; that is to say, it gets

frozen. Excess of zeal ruins peach-trees and apricot-trees. Excess of

zeal kills the grace and the mirth of good dinners. No zeal, gentlemen!

Grimod de la Reynière agrees with Talleyrand.”

A hollow sound of rebellion rumbled through the group.

“Leave us in peace, Tholomyès,” said Blachevelle.

“Down with the tyrant!” said Fameuil.

“Bombarda, Bombance, and Bambochel!” cried Listolier.

“Sunday exists,” resumed Fameuil.

“We are sober,” added Listolier.

“Tholomyès,” remarked Blachevelle, “contemplate my calmness [_mon

calme_].”

“You are the Marquis of that,” retorted Tholomyès.

This mediocre play upon words produced the effect of a stone in a pool.

The Marquis de Montcalm was at that time a celebrated royalist. All the

frogs held their peace.

“Friends,” cried Tholomyès, with the accent of a man who had recovered

his empire, “Come to yourselves. This pun which has fallen from the

skies must not be received with too much stupor. Everything which falls

in that way is not necessarily worthy of enthusiasm and respect. The

pun is the dung of the mind which soars. The jest falls, no matter

where; and the mind after producing a piece of stupidity plunges into

the azure depths. A whitish speck flattened against the rock does not

prevent the condor from soaring aloft. Far be it from me to insult the

pun! I honor it in proportion to its merits; nothing more. All the most

august, the most sublime, the most charming of humanity, and perhaps

outside of humanity, have made puns. Jesus Christ made a pun on St.

Peter, Moses on Isaac, Æschylus on Polynices, Cleopatra on Octavius.

And observe that Cleopatra’s pun preceded the battle of Actium, and

that had it not been for it, no one would have remembered the city of

Toryne, a Greek name which signifies a ladle. That once conceded, I

return to my exhortation. I repeat, brothers, I repeat, no zeal, no

hubbub, no excess; even in witticisms, gayety, jollities, or plays on

words. Listen to me. I have the prudence of Amphiaraüs and the baldness

of Cæsar. There must be a limit, even to rebuses. _Est modus in rebus_.

“There must be a limit, even to dinners. You are fond of apple

turnovers, ladies; do not indulge in them to excess. Even in the matter

of turnovers, good sense and art are requisite. Gluttony chastises the

glutton, _Gula punit Gulax_. Indigestion is charged by the good God

with preaching morality to stomachs. And remember this: each one of our

passions, even love, has a stomach which must not be filled too full.

In all things the word _finis_ must be written in good season;

self-control must be exercised when the matter becomes urgent; the bolt

must be drawn on appetite; one must set one’s own fantasy to the

violin, and carry one’s self to the post. The sage is the man who knows

how, at a given moment, to effect his own arrest. Have some confidence

in me, for I have succeeded to some extent in my study of the law,

according to the verdict of my examinations, for I know the difference

between the question put and the question pending, for I have sustained

a thesis in Latin upon the manner in which torture was administered at

Rome at the epoch when Munatius Demens was quæstor of the Parricide;

because I am going to be a doctor, apparently it does not follow that

it is absolutely necessary that I should be an imbecile. I recommend

you to moderation in your desires. It is true that my name is Félix

Tholomyès; I speak well. Happy is he who, when the hour strikes, takes

a heroic resolve, and abdicates like Sylla or Origenes.”

Favourite listened with profound attention.

“Félix,” said she, “what a pretty word! I love that name. It is Latin;

it means prosper.”

Tholomyès went on:—

“Quirites, gentlemen, caballeros, my friends. Do you wish never to feel

the prick, to do without the nuptial bed, and to brave love? Nothing

more simple. Here is the receipt: lemonade, excessive exercise, hard

labor; work yourself to death, drag blocks, sleep not, hold vigil,

gorge yourself with nitrous beverages, and potions of nymphæas; drink

emulsions of poppies and agnus castus; season this with a strict diet,

starve yourself, and add thereto cold baths, girdles of herbs, the

application of a plate of lead, lotions made with the subacetate of

lead, and fomentations of oxycrat.”

“I prefer a woman,” said Listolier.

“Woman,” resumed Tholomyès; “distrust her. Woe to him who yields

himself to the unstable heart of woman! Woman is perfidious and

disingenuous. She detests the serpent from professional jealousy. The

serpent is the shop over the way.”

“Tholomyès!” cried Blachevelle, “you are drunk!”

“Pardieu,” said Tholomyès.

“Then be gay,” resumed Blachevelle.

“I agree to that,” responded Tholomyès.

And, refilling his glass, he rose.

“Glory to wine! _Nunc te, Bacche, canam!_ Pardon me ladies; that is

Spanish. And the proof of it, señoras, is this: like people, like cask.

The arrobe of Castille contains sixteen litres; the cantaro of

Alicante, twelve; the almude of the Canaries, twenty-five; the cuartin

of the Balearic Isles, twenty-six; the boot of Tzar Peter, thirty. Long

live that Tzar who was great, and long live his boot, which was still

greater! Ladies, take the advice of a friend; make a mistake in your

neighbor if you see fit. The property of love is to err. A love affair

is not made to crouch down and brutalize itself like an English

serving-maid who has callouses on her knees from scrubbing. It is not

made for that; it errs gayly, our gentle love. It has been said, error

is human; I say, error is love. Ladies, I idolize you all. O Zéphine, O

Joséphine, face more than irregular, you would be charming were you not

all askew. You have the air of a pretty face upon which some one has

sat down by mistake. As for Favourite, O nymphs and muses! one day when

Blachevelle was crossing the gutter in the Rue Guérin-Boisseau, he

espied a beautiful girl with white stockings well drawn up, which

displayed her legs. This prologue pleased him, and Blachevelle fell in

love. The one he loved was Favourite. O Favourite, thou hast Ionian

lips. There was a Greek painter named Euphorion, who was surnamed the

painter of the lips. That Greek alone would have been worthy to paint

thy mouth. Listen! before thee, there was never a creature worthy of

the name. Thou wert made to receive the apple like Venus, or to eat it

like Eve; beauty begins with thee. I have just referred to Eve; it is

thou who hast created her. Thou deservest the letters-patent of the

beautiful woman. O Favourite, I cease to address you as ‘thou,’ because

I pass from poetry to prose. You were speaking of my name a little

while ago. That touched me; but let us, whoever we may be, distrust

names. They may delude us. I am called Félix, and I am not happy. Words

are liars. Let us not blindly accept the indications which they afford

us. It would be a mistake to write to Liège 2 for corks, and to Pau for

gloves. Miss Dahlia, were I in your place, I would call myself Rosa. A

flower should smell sweet, and woman should have wit. I say nothing of

Fantine; she is a dreamer, a musing, thoughtful, pensive person; she is

a phantom possessed of the form of a nymph and the modesty of a nun,

who has strayed into the life of a grisette, but who takes refuge in

illusions, and who sings and prays and gazes into the azure without

very well knowing what she sees or what she is doing, and who, with her

eyes fixed on heaven, wanders in a garden where there are more birds

than are in existence. O Fantine, know this: I, Tholomyès, I am an

illusion; but she does not even hear me, that blond maid of Chimeras!

as for the rest, everything about her is freshness, suavity, youth,

sweet morning light. O Fantine, maid worthy of being called Marguerite

or Pearl, you are a woman from the beauteous Orient. Ladies, a second

piece of advice: do not marry; marriage is a graft; it takes well or

ill; avoid that risk. But bah! what am I saying? I am wasting my words.

Girls are incurable on the subject of marriage, and all that we wise

men can say will not prevent the waistcoat-makers and the

shoe-stitchers from dreaming of husbands studded with diamonds. Well,

so be it; but, my beauties, remember this, you eat too much sugar. You

have but one fault, O woman, and that is nibbling sugar. O nibbling

sex, your pretty little white teeth adore sugar. Now, heed me well,

sugar is a salt. All salts are withering. Sugar is the most desiccating

of all salts; it sucks the liquids of the blood through the veins;

hence the coagulation, and then the solidification of the blood; hence

tubercles in the lungs, hence death. That is why diabetes borders on

consumption. Then, do not crunch sugar, and you will live. I turn to

the men: gentlemen, make conquest, rob each other of your well-beloved

without remorse. Chassez across. In love there are no friends.

Everywhere where there is a pretty woman hostility is open. No quarter,

war to the death! a pretty woman is a _casus belli_; a pretty woman is

flagrant misdemeanor. All the invasions of history have been determined

by petticoats. Woman is man’s right. Romulus carried off the Sabines;

William carried off the Saxon women; Cæsar carried off the Roman women.

The man who is not loved soars like a vulture over the mistresses of

other men; and for my own part, to all those unfortunate men who are

widowers, I throw the sublime proclamation of Bonaparte to the army of

Italy: “Soldiers, you are in need of everything; the enemy has it.”

Tholomyès paused.

“Take breath, Tholomyès,” said Blachevelle.

At the same moment Blachevelle, supported by Listolier and Fameuil,

struck up to a plaintive air, one of those studio songs composed of the

first words which come to hand, rhymed richly and not at all, as

destitute of sense as the gesture of the tree and the sound of the

wind, which have their birth in the vapor of pipes, and are dissipated

and take their flight with them. This is the couplet by which the group

replied to Tholomyès’ harangue:—

“The father turkey-cocks so grave

Some money to an agent gave,

That master good Clermont-Tonnerre

Might be made pope on Saint Johns’ day fair.

But this good Clermont could not be

Made pope, because no priest was he;

And then their agent, whose wrath burned,

With all their money back returned.”

This was not calculated to calm Tholomyès’ improvisation; he emptied

his glass, filled, refilled it, and began again:—

“Down with wisdom! Forget all that I have said. Let us be neither

prudes nor prudent men nor prudhommes. I propose a toast to mirth; be

merry. Let us complete our course of law by folly and eating!

Indigestion and the digest. Let Justinian be the male, and Feasting,

the female! Joy in the depths! Live, O creation! The world is a great

diamond. I am happy. The birds are astonishing. What a festival

everywhere! The nightingale is a gratuitous Elleviou. Summer, I salute

thee! O Luxembourg! O Georgics of the Rue Madame, and of the Allée de

l’Observatoire! O pensive infantry soldiers! O all those charming

nurses who, while they guard the children, amuse themselves! The pampas

of America would please me if I had not the arcades of the Odéon. My

soul flits away into the virgin forests and to the savannas. All is

beautiful. The flies buzz in the sun. The sun has sneezed out the

humming bird. Embrace me, Fantine!”

He made a mistake and embraced Favourite.