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I preferred this to taking on some woman whom I did not know. Madame Lambquin belonged to the Odeon, where she used to take the part of the duennas. She was plain and had a common face, but she was very talented. She talked loud and was very plain-spoken. She called a spade a spade, and liked frankness and no under meaning to things.
"Well, my boy, would you like cheese, soup, or sweets?" asked Madame Lambquin. "Sweets," replied the powerful-looking fellow, smiling. Desire Bloas often talked to me about his mother, who lived near Brest.
My cook was installed in the public foyer. I had bought her an immense cooking range, so that she could make soups and herb-tea for fifty men. Her husband was chief attendant. I had given him two assistants, and Madame Guerard, Madame Lambquin, and I were the nurses. Two of us sat up at night, so that we each went to bed one night in three.
Madame Lambquin, Madame Guerard, and I, together with all the staff of the infirmary, were soon grouped anxiously and inquisitively around these glass receptacles. I told the head attendant to open the largest of the bottles, in which through the thick glass we could see an enormous piece of beef surrounded by thick, muddled-looking water.
"Ah, I beg your pardon, little Madonna," she said; "I nearly knocked you over." I pulled her towards me, and without reflecting whispered to her, "Don't dance any more, Mamma Lambquin; Chilly is dying." She was purple, but her face turned as white as chalk. Her teeth began to chatter, but she did not utter a word. "Oh, my dear Lambquin," I murmured; "I did not know I should make you so wretched."
Baron Larrey was quite sure that he had done it himself with his own gun, but I could not believe that. I noticed, though, that, in spite of our nursing and care, the wound did not heal. I bound it up in a different way, and the following day I saw that the bandage had been altered. I mentioned this to Madame Lambquin, who was sitting up that night with Madame Guerard.
I had had the presentiment of this, but the certitude of it now caused me intense grief. "I want to go," I said to Duquesnel. "Kindly tell some one to ask for my carriage." I moved towards the small drawing-room which served as a cloak-room for our wraps, and there old Madame Lambquin knocked up against me. Slightly intoxicated by the heat and the wine, she was waltzing with Talien.
Twelve days later poor Lambquin died. To the priest who gave her absolution she said, "I am dying because I listened to and believed the demon." I left the Odeon with very great regret, for I adored and still adore that theatre. It always seems as though in itself it were a little provincial town.
I had scarcely spoken to Chilly since our last scene. On the night in question he was placed at my right, and we had to get reconciled. I was seated to the right of Victor Hugo, and to his left was Madame Lambquin, who was playing the Camerara Mayor, and Duquesnel was next to Madame Lambquin.
Five minutes later this meat turned blue and then black, and the stench from it was so unbearable that I decided to throw it away. Madame Lambquin was wiser, though, and more reasonable. "No, oh no, my dear girl," she said; "in these times it will not do to throw meat away, even though it may be rotten. Let us put it in the glass bottle again and send it back to the Mairie."
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