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Translator: Clara Bell and Others
A PRINCE OF BOHEMIA
Translated by Clara Bell and others
DEDICATION
To Henri Heine.
I inscribe this to you, my dear Heine, to you that represent in Paris the ideas and poetry of Germany, in Germany the lively and witty criticism of France; for you better than any other will know whatsoever this Study may contain of criticism and of jest, of love and truth.
DE BALZAC.
A PRINCE OF BOHEMIA
"My dear friend," said Mme. de la Baudraye, drawing a pile of manuscript from beneath her sofa cushion, "will you pardon me in our present straits for making a short story of something which you told me a few weeks ago?"
"Anything is fair in these times. Have you not seen writers serving up their own hearts to the public, or very often their mistress' hearts when invention fails? We are coming to this, dear; we shall go in quest of adventures, not so much for the pleasure of them as for the sake of having the story to tell afterwards."
"After all, you and the Marquise de Rochefide have paid the rent, and I do not think, from the way things are going here, that I ever pay yours."
"Who knows? Perhaps the same good luck that befell Mme. de Rochefide may come to you."
"Do you call it good luck to go back to one's husband?"
"No; only great luck. Come, I am listening."
And Mme. de la Baudraye read as follows:
"Yes, I have them."
"I count the young man in question in that group of our acquaintances which we are wont to style our friends. He comes of a good family; he is a man of infinite parts and ill-luck, full of excellent dispositions and most charming conversation; young as he is, he is seen much, and while awaiting better things, he dwells in Bohemia. Bohemianism, which by rights should be called the doctrine of the Boulevard des Italiens, finds its recruits among young men between twenty and thirty, all of them men of genius in their way, little known, it is true, as yet, but sure of recognition one day, and when that day comes, of great distinction. They are distinguished as it is at carnival time, when their exuberant wit, repressed for the rest of the year, finds a vent in more or less ingenious buffoonery.
"Today, when Charles Edward de la Palferine's name is mentioned, not three persons in a hundred know the history of his house. But the Bourbons have actually left a Foix-Grailly to live by his easel.
"The one thing wanting in one of the cleverest skits of our time," said the Marquise.
"You can form your own opinion of La Palferine from a few characteristic touches," continued Nathan. "He once came upon a friend of his, a fellow-Bohemian, involved in a dispute on the boulevard with a bourgeois who chose to consider himself affronted. To the modern powers that be, Bohemia is insolent in the extreme. There was talk of calling one another out.
"'One moment,' interposed La Palferine, as much Lauzun for the occasion as Lauzun himself could have been. 'One moment. Monsieur was born, I suppose?'
"'What, sir?'
"'Yes, are you born? What is your name?'
"'Godin.'
"'Godin, eh!' exclaimed La Palferine's friend.
"'One moment, my dear fellow,' interrupted La Palferine. 'There are the Trigaudins. Are you one of them?'
"Astonishment.
"'My respects to madame,' added the friend.
"Another day La Palferine was walking with a friend who flung his cigar end in the face of a passer-by. The recipient had the bad taste to resent this.
"'You have stood your antagonist's fire,' said the young Count, 'the witnesses declare that honor is satisfied.'
"La Palferine owed his tailor a thousand francs, and the man instead of going himself sent his assistant to ask for the money. The assistant found the unfortunate debtor up six pairs of stairs at the back of a yard at the further end of the Faubourg du Roule. The room was unfurnished save for a bed , a table, and such a table! La Palferine heard the preposterous demand--'A demand which I should qualify as illegal,' he said when he told us the story, 'made, as it was, at seven o'clock in the morning.'
"'Go,' he answered, with the gesture and attitude of a Mirabeau, 'tell your master in what condition you find me.'
"In every position into which chance has thrown La Palferine, he has never failed to rise to the occasion. All that he does is witty and never in bad taste; always and in everything he displays the genius of Rivarol, the polished subtlety of the old French noble. It was he who told that delicious anecdote of a friend of Laffitte the banker. A national fund had been started to give back to Laffitte the mansion in which the Revolution of 1830 was brewed, and this friend appeared at the offices of the fund with, 'Here are five francs, give me a hundred sous change!'--A caricature was made of it.--It was once La Palferine's misfortune, in judicial style, to make a young girl a mother. The girl, not a very simple innocent, confessed all to her mother, a respectable matron, who hurried forthwith to La Palferine and asked what he meant to do.
"'Why, madame,' said he, 'I am neither a surgeon nor a midwife.'
"She collapsed, but three or four years later she returned to the charge, still persisting in her inquiry, 'What did La Palferine mean to do?'
"'Well, madame,' returned he, 'when the child is seven years old, an age at which a boy ought to pass out of women's hands'--an indication of entire agreement on the mother's part--'if the child is really mine'--another gesture of assent--'if there is a striking likeness, if he bids fair to be a gentleman, if I can recognize in him my turn of mind, and more particularly the Rusticoli air; then, oh--ah!'--a new movement from the matron--'on my word and honor, I will make him a cornet of--sugar-plums!'
"Look here, my dear Nathan, what farrago of nonsense is this?" asked the Marquise in bewilderment.
"Madame la Marquise," returned Nathan, "you do not know the value of these 'precious' phrases; I am talking Sainte-Beuve, the new kind of French.--I resume. Walking one day arm in arm with a friend along the boulevard, he was accosted by a ferocious creditor, who inquired:
"'Are you thinking of me, sir?'
"'Not the least in the world,' answered the Count.
"Remark the difficulty of the position. Talleyrand, in similar circumstances, had already replied, 'You are very inquisitive, my dear fellow!' To imitate the inimitable great man was out of the question.--La Palferine, generous as Buckingham, could not bear to be caught empty-handed. One day when he had nothing to give a little Savoyard chimney-sweeper, he dipped a hand into a barrel of grapes in a grocer's doorway and filled the child's cap from it. The little one ate away at his grapes; the grocer began by laughing, and ended by holding out his hand.
"'Oh, fie! monsieur,' said La Palferine, 'your left hand ought not to know what my right hand doth.'
"With his adventurous courage, he never refuses any odds, but there is wit in his bravado. In the Passage de l'Opera he chanced to meet a man who had spoken slightingly of him, elbowed him as he passed, and then turned and jostled him a second time.
"'You are very clumsy!'
"'On the contrary; I did it on purpose.'
"The young man pulled out his card. La Palferine dropped it. 'It has been carried too long in the pocket. Be good enough to give me another.'
"On the ground he received a thrust; blood was drawn; his antagonist wished to stop.
"'You are wounded, monsieur!'
"His antagonist kept his bed for six months.
"That will do," said the Marquise; "you are giving me a mental shower bath."
"That will do!" repeated Mme. de Rochefide, with an authoritative gesture. "You are setting my nerves on edge."
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