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He might, perhaps, especially at the beginning, have obtained a passably good engagement at a theatre of the third order, but Delobelle did not choose to lower himself. He preferred to wait, to struggle, as he said! And this is how he awaited the struggle.
At last, about midnight, the last Montrouge omnibus bore away the tyrannical father-in-law, and Delobelle was able to speak.
While some one went in search of Delobelle, the lame girl arranged the folds of the skirt, the bows on the shoes, and cast a final glance over her work, without laying aside her needle; she, too, was excited, poor child! by the intoxication of that festivity to which she was not invited. The great man arrived.
He is a tall, solidly built fellow with a bronzed face, a thick, red beard, and a deep voice, and is a little slow of speech. "Ah! so you don't know me, Mamma Delobelle?" "Oh! I knew you at once, Monsieur Frantz," said Desiree, very calmly, in a cold, sedate tone. "Merciful heavens! it's Monsieur Frantz." Quickly Mamma Delobelle runs to the lamp, lights it, and closes the window.
"Do not be alarmed, it is nothing," she tried to say, then sank to the floor. Mamma Delobelle would never have believed that she was so strong. To lift her daughter, take her into the room, and put her to bed was a matter of a moment; and she talked to her and kissed her. "Here you are at last. Where have you come from, you bad child? Tell me, is it true that you tried to kill yourself?
Mamma Delobelle had to work alone now, and her fingers had not the marvellous dexterity of Desiree's little hands; medicines were dear, and she would not for anything in the world have interfered with one of "the father's" cherished habits.
"Oh! mon Dieu, my poor man, what has happened?" instantly inquired Madame Delobelle, whom twenty years of exaggerated dramatic pantomime had not yet surfeited.
Father has gone to take back the work; but he will surely come home to dinner." He will surely come home to dinner! The good woman said it with a certain pride. In fact, since the failure of his managerial scheme, the illustrious Delobelle no longer took his meals abroad, even on the evenings when he went to collect the weekly earnings.
Madame Delobelle listened to them with a smiling face. One can not be an actor's wife for thirty years without becoming somewhat accustomed to these peculiar mannerisms. But one little corner of the table was separated from the rest of the party as by a cloud which intercepted the absurd remarks, the hoarse laughter, the boasting.
They stopped at a refreshment booth, in close proximity to a very noisy and numerously attended rustic festival, for there must be an audience for Delobelle, who would saunter along, absorbed by his chimera, dressed in gray, with gray gaiters, a little hat over his ear, a light top coat on his arm, imagining that the stage represented a country scene in the suburbs of Paris, and that he was playing the part of a Parisian sojourning in the country.
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