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The windows giving on the garden stood open, and a tendril of wild vine hung down on to the desk at the foot of a crucifix of old ivory, while a light breeze set the papers on it fluttering like white wings. The Abbé Bordier, his reading concluded, turned to the young man, showing a deeply lined countenance and a forehead beautifully polished by age. He took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes.
As Madame Bordier went deeper and deeper into the recesses of the malle there was a tinkling sound and she emerged with the cap that Hermia wore and looked at it with sighs followed by tears. At the appearance of each article of apparel, Madame wept anew, and Hermia listened calmly while the "great idea" was slowing being born.
But Monsieur Bordier was crying like a child, and kept on his way, without answering. The narrow corridor was now filled with hurrying, excited figures in gauze and tinsel, sham armor, and painted faces. They pressed Braith back, but he struggled and fought his way to the door. A Sergeant de Ville shouldered through the crowd. He was dragging a woman along by the arm.
Monsieur Bordier stepped before the curtain. "My friends!" he began, but his voice failed, and he only added, "C'est fini!" With hardly a word the audience moved to the exits. But Braith, turning to the right, made his way through a long, low passage and strode toward a little stage door. It was flung open and a man hurried past him. "Monsieur!" called Braith. "Monsieur!"
He had been there twenty years, and he had never before heard of such singing in comic opera. "No, no," he said, "she can't stay here. Dame! she sings!" Madame Bordier was pale and happy; her good husband was weak with joy. The members of the troupe had not yet had time to be jealous and they, too, applauded. As for the house, it was not only conquered, it was wild with enthusiasm.
With a strong effort at self-control he had reduced the number of lights to two and got the people back in their places when, with a little burst of French exclamations and laughter, everyone turned to Yvonne, and Ruth, bending over her, took both her hands. The next moment Monsieur Bordier was leading her to the piano.
She had confessed her predicament to Madame Bordier, who, after assuring herself that Hermia was not an escaping criminal, had entered with grace and even some avidity upon the bargain. Hermia wanted a blouse, skirt and hat somewhat worn. But in the act of searching in the garret of the wine-shop among the effects of a departed relative the great discovery had been made.
"And I have engaged a creature to carry it " "Meaning " "Not you behold." Markham followed her symphonic gesture. Madame Bordier approached, leading a donkey from the stable-yard, a diminutive donkey of suspicious eye and protesting ears. "She's very gentle," sighed the fairy godmother. "It hurts the heart to sell her. But as Monsieur knows the times are not what they used to be."
A scion of one of the greatest families of France, a pupil of the Abbé Bordier, attacked by phthisis in the midst of his now profitless studies and leaving school, not to enjoy life and taste the glorious pleasures only those contemn who have drained them to the dregs, but to die at a southern town in the arms of his mother whose overwhelming, but still self-conscious grief was symbolized by this pompous memorial of her sorrow.
If you stop and listen you can hear the cider trickling into the cask and Père Bordier encouraging the patient horse who circles round and round a great stone trough in which revolve two juggernauts of wooden wheels. The place reeks with the ooze and drip of crushed apples.
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