am selling them."
"A green monkey?"
"No. A picture by Raphael."
"What maggot is that in your brain?"
"Josepha makes me sick with her pictures," said Carabine. "I want some
better than hers."
Du Tillet came with the Brazilian, the hero of the feast; the Duc
d'Herouville followed with Josepha. The singer wore a plain velvet gown,
but she had on a necklace worth a hundred and twenty thousand francs,
pearls hardly distinguishable from her skin like white camellia petals.
She had stuck one scarlet camellia in her black hair--a patch--the
effect was dazzling, and she had amused herself by putting eleven rows
of pearls on each arm. As she shook hands with Jenny Cadine, the actress
said, "Lend me your mittens!"
Josepha unclasped them one by one and handed them to her friend on a
plate.
"There's style!" said Carabine. "Quite the Duchess! You have robbed the
ocean to dress the nymph, Monsieur le Duc," she added turning to the
little Duc d'Herouville.
The actress took two of the bracelets; she clasped the other twenty on
the singer's beautiful arms, which she kissed.
Lousteau, the literary cadger, la Palferine and Malaga, Massol,
Vauvinet, and Theodore Gaillard, a proprietor of one of the most
important political newspapers, completed the party. The Duc
d'Herouville, polite to everybody, as a fine gentleman knows how to be,
greeted the Comte de la Palferine with the particular nod which, while
it does not imply either esteem or intimacy, conveys to all the world,
"We are of the same race, the same blood--equals!"--And this greeting,
the shibboleth of the aristocracy, was invented to be the despair of the
upper citizen class.
Carabine placed Combabus on her left, and the Duc d'Herouville on her
right. Cydalise was next to the Brazilian, and beyond her was Bixiou.
Malaga sat by the Duke.
Oysters appeared at seven o'clock; at eight they were drinking iced
punch. Every one is familiar with the bill of fare of such a banquet. By
nine o'clock they were talking as people talk after forty-two bottles of
various wines, drunk by fourteen persons. Dessert was on the table, the
odious dessert of the month of April. Of all the party, the only one
affected by the heady atmosphere was Cydalise, who was humming a tune.
None of the party, with the exception of the poor country girl, had lost
their reason; the drinkers and the women were the experienced _elite_ of
the society that sups. Their wits were bright, their eyes g
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