Part 2 (1/2)
”You will be very careful about cutting it?”
”Yes, yes! I must run now, or my aunt will say that I have been gossiping.”
The young woman took all the volumes under her arm and went out, after casting another rapid glance in my direction.
She was succeeded by a woman with a round cap and calico wrapper. She brought back only a single book, which she laid on the desk, saying:
”Great heaven! we had hard work to finish it! I thought that we would never see the end!”
”It is true that you have had the book nearly a month.”
”Oh, dear me! we don't read fast at our house; you see, as a general thing, my man reads to me while I am working; and as he still has the catarrh, he stops at every comma to cough. Never mind, it's mighty interesting. I cried hard with that poor girl who spends fifteen years in the underground dungeon, with nothing but bread and water to eat. She must have had a good stomach, I tell you, not to be sick.”
”Do you want something else?”
”Yes, to be sure. Something about robbers, if you please, and about ghosts, if you have anything, because a novel with robbers and ghosts in it can't help being interesting. Oh! and then I want something with pictures, some of those lovely pictures of crimes. I am very fond of pictures, I am; and then you see, I say to myself: 'a novel that they don't spend the money to put pictures in, why it can't have Peru behind it.' Don't I hit the mark?”
”Here is something, madame, that will interest you greatly.”
”What is it?”
”_The Ghosts of the Nameless Chateau_, or _The Brigands of the Abandoned Quarry_.”
”Ah! what a splendid t.i.tle! what a ring there is to it! Let's look at the pictures. A man eating a skeleton. Bless my soul! that must be good.
I don't want to see any more; I'll take the _Ghosts_, and I'll go and buy some jujube paste for my husband, so that he won't cough quite so much when he's reading.”
The worthy woman who loved pictures was succeeded by an elderly man who also wanted a novel. He was asked what sort of story he wanted; but it mattered little to him: he wanted it to read in bed at night, something that would put him to sleep right away. What he wanted was found at once.
After him came a lady on the decline. She brought back a volume of memoirs, and she wanted more memoirs; according to her, memoirs were the only proper thing to read. When a lady has pa.s.sed the age for making conquests, I can understand that memoirs seem instructive to her and also pleasant reading; to her the past has more charm than the present.
Being no longer able to tell us of what she does, she desires that we should be interested in what she has done; that is one way to keep people talking about her. After a life of adventures, she considers that to cease to occupy the public attention is a living death. Poor creature! I am sorry for her; she dies twice over. But see how mistaken she is! she falls into oblivion while seeking immortality; and there are some excellent mothers of families, simple, virtuous women, who nevertheless do not die altogether, for all who have known them treasure their images and their memories in the depths of their hearts.
The lady of the memoirs went away with eight octavo volumes under her arm. Next came an old gentleman powdered and musked as in the days of the Regency. He wore a little three-cornered hat which did not approach his ears, and a silk m.u.f.fler over his coat, although it was only the first of October. This gentleman nodded patronizingly to the proprietress and placed two volumes on her desk.
”What the devil did you give me this for?” he said; ”it's a wretched, detestable book.”
”What! didn't you like it, monsieur? Why, it has been generally praised.”
”I promise you that it will not be praised by me!”
”Then monsieur does not want the sequel? There are two more volumes.”
”No, indeed, I don't want the sequel. It was as much as I could do to read three pages.”
”Was that enough to enable you to judge?”
”Yes, madame; I always judge by the first few lines. I want something good, something useful--a romance of the times of chivalry, for example.”
”I have _Amadis de Gaule_.”