us; we shall stick in that rut, and neither God nor
the devil can get us out of it. I will, however,
give you some advice, and good advice is an egg in
the hand. There is in this town a retired banker
in whose wisdom I have—I, particularly—the
greatest confidence. If you can obtain his support,
I will add mine. If your proposals have real
merit, if we are convinced of the advantage of your
enterprise, the approval of Monsieur Margaritis (which
carries with it mine) will open to you at least twenty
rich houses in Vouvray who will be glad to try your
specifics.”
When Madame Vernier heard the name of the lunatic
she raised her head and looked at her husband.
“Ah, precisely; my wife intends to call on Madame
Margaritis with one of our neighbors. Wait a
moment, and you can accompany these ladies—
You can pick up Madame Fontanieu on your way,”
said the wily dyer, winking at his wife.
To pick out the greatest gossip, the sharpest tongue,
the most inveterate cackler of the neighborhood!
It meant that Madame Vernier was to take a witness
to the scene between the traveller and the lunatic
which should keep the town in laughter for a month.
Monsieur and Madame Vernier played their part so well
that Gaudissart had no suspicions, and straightway
fell into the trap. He gallantly offered his
arm to Madame Vernier, and believed that he made, as
they went along, the conquest of both ladies, for
those benefit he sparkled with wit and humor and undetected
puns.
The house of the pretended banker stood at the entrance
to the Valley Coquette. The place, called La
Fuye, had nothing remarkable about it. On the
ground floor was a large wainscoted salon, on either
side of which opened the bedroom of the good-man and
that of his wife. The salon was entered from
an ante-chamber, which served as the dining-room
and communicated with the kitchen. This lower
door, which was wholly without the external charm
usually seen even in the humblest dwellings in Touraine,
was covered by a mansard story, reached by a stairway
built on the outside of the house against the gable
end and protected by a shed-roof. A little garden,
full of marigolds, syringas, and elder-bushes, separated
the house from the fields; and all around the courtyard
were detached buildings which were used in the vintage
season for the various processes of making wine.
Margaritis was seated in an arm-chair covered with
yellow Utrecht velvet, near the window of the salon,
and he did not stir as the two ladies entered with
Gaudissart. His thoughts were running on the casks
of wine. He was a spare man, and his bald head,
garnished with a few spare locks at the back of it,
was pear-shaped in conformation. His sunken eyes,
overtopped by heavy black brows and surrounded by
discolored circles, his nose, thin and sharp like the
blade of a knife, the strongly marked jawbone, the
hollow cheeks, and the oblong tendency of all these
lines, together with his unnaturally long and flat
chin, contributed to give a peculiar expression to
his countenance,—something between that
of a retired professor of rhetoric and a rag-picker.
