stealthily looked in the large mirrors at the new
lyres embroidered in gold on the collar of his tunic. They fascinated
him by their glitter, and half intoxicated by the doubtful champagne
that he had drunk during dinner, and by the glasses of chartreuse and of
Bavarian beer which he had imbibed afterwards, and excited by the songs,
he was indulging in his usual dreams of success.

He saw himself on the platform of a public garden, standing before his
musicians in a flood of light, and he fancied already that he could hear
the whispers of women, and feel the caress of their look upon him.

He would be invited even into the drawing-rooms of the _Faubourg Saint
Germain_, which was so difficult of access. With his handsome, pale
face, and his wonderful manner of playing Chopin's music, he would
penetrate every where, and perhaps some romantic heiress would fall in
love with him, and consent to forget that he was only a poor musician,
the son of small shopkeepers, who were still in trade at Bayeux.

Lieutenant Varache, who was stirring the punch, shrugged his shoulders,
and continued in a bantering voice:

"Yes, Monsieur Parisel, they are sure to ask you whether you have just
joined the regiment, or whether you have a mistress ..."

"What do I know?"

"But they say that you have, and that her eyes grow so bright when she
speaks to you, that a man would forfeit three months' pay for a glance
of them, by Jove!"

Another traced her likeness in a few words, and described her as if she
had been some knick-knack for sale at an auction. Her hair came low on
her forehead like a golden net, her skin was dazzlingly white, while her
bright eyes threw out glances that were like those flashes of summer
lightning which dart across the sky on a calm night in June.

Her delicate figure, and she did not look very strong, recalled a plant
that has grown too rapidly. She was a droll creature, on the whole, who
at times looked as if she had made a mistake in the door, who buried
herself in the shade, hid herself, and did not surrender either her
heart or her body, and only left the impression of a statue on the bed
in which she slept, who appeared delighted with the ignoble business she
carried on, and who allured men, and surpassed the common streetwalkers
in shamelessness.

Parisel, however, was not listening to them any longer.

He was terribly vexed at meeting with such a common-place adventure at
the first start, and to come ac