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I do not deceive myself: Adolphe is an ordinary man, known, estimated as such: he has no other chance, as he himself says, than to take his place among the utilities of literature. He was not without wit at Viviers: but to be a man of wit at Paris, you must possess every kind of wit in formidable doses.
Adolphe has discovered that the most admirable trade is that which consists in buying a bottle of ink, a bunch of quills, and a ream of paper, at a stationer's for twelve francs and a half, and in selling the two thousand sheets in the ream over again, for something like fifty thousand francs, after having, of course, written upon each leaf fifty lines replete with style and imagination.
I got ready my look of admiration, and I saw Adolphe rapturously doffing his hat to the truly great man, who replied by the curt little nod that you vouchsafe a person with whom you have doubtless exchanged hardly four words in ten years. Adolphe had begged a look for my sake. 'Doesn't he know you? I said to my husband. 'Oh, yes, but he probably took me for somebody else, replied he.
So you will not be surprised to learn that Caroline missed every mass and had no breakfast. This hunger and thirst for Adolphe gave her a violent cramp in the stomach. She did not think of religion once during the hours of mass, nor during those of vespers. She was not comfortable when she sat, and she was very uncomfortable when she stood: Justine advised her to go to bed.
The great bonfires blazed higher and higher, and every minute the fleet was becoming a more distinct target for the savage sharpshooters. The souls of more good men were taking flight. "We have not gone more than a third of the distance," he said to Adolphe Drouillard. "At this rate can we last all the way?" The brave Creole replied: "We have to do it." But his face looked doubtful.
And then the recompense should be so full! But there was one other meeting that night, very short indeed, but not the less significant. Not long after they had all separated, just so long as to allow of the house being quiet, Adolphe, still sitting in his room, meditating on what the day had done for him, heard a low tap at his door.
Caroline, the aerial Caroline, threatens to become like Madame Deschars. In vulgar language, she is getting stout. The maid leaves her in a state of consternation. "What! am I to have, like that fat Madame Deschars, cascades of flesh a la Rubens! That Adolphe is an awful scoundrel. Oh, I see, he wants to make me an old mother Gigogne, and destroy my powers of fascination!"
You ought to write to your uncle. It was probably some breakfast or other, the result of a bet made at M'lle Malaga's." He looks slyly at Caroline, who drops her eyes to conceal her tears. "How beautiful you have made yourself this morning," Adolphe resumes. "Ah, you are a fair match for your breakfast. I don't think Ferdinand will make as good a meal as I shall," etc., etc.
"It comes so natural," the woman said with a sigh. "I was in service once in a good family before I married Adolphe. But I know that you are not one of those people who say there is no God, because I saw you kneel down and pray by Julie's bed when you thought I was asleep. I expect Adolphe home in a day or two.
Adolphe was seduced by a wish, which invariably seizes persons who are the prey of misfortune, to know how far an evil will go! to try how much damage fire will do when left to itself, the individual possessing, or thinking he possesses, the power to arrest it. This curiosity pursues us from the cradle to the grave.
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