Fromont and Risler, vol 1 | Page 6

the dessert at the
level of the guests' lips encompassed the cloth with animation, bright
colors, and light.
Ah, yes! Risler was very happy.
Except his brother Frantz, everybody he loved was there. First of all,
sitting opposite him, was Sidonie--yesterday little Sidonie, to-day his
wife. For the ceremony of dinner she had laid aside her veil; she had
emerged from her cloud. Now, above the smooth, white silk gown,
appeared a pretty face of a less lustrous and softer white, and the crown
of hair- beneath that other crown so carefully bestowed--would have
told you of a tendency to rebel against life, of little feathers fluttering
for an opportunity to fly away. But husbands do not see such things as
those.
Next to Sidonie and Frantz, the person whom Risler loved best in the
world was Madame Georges Fromont, whom he called "Madame
Chorche," the wife of his partner and the daughter of the late Fromont,
his former employer and his god. He had placed her beside him, and in
his manner of speaking to her one could read affection and deference.
She was a very young woman, of about the same age as Sidonie, but of
a more regular, quiet and placid type of beauty. She talked little, being
out of her element in that conglomerate assemblage; but she tried to

appear affable.
On Risler's other side sat Madame Chebe, the bride's mother, radiant
and gorgeous in her green satin gown, which gleamed like a shield.
Ever since the morning the good woman's every thought had been as
brilliant as that robe of emblematic hue. At every moment she said to
herself: "My daughter is marrying Fromont Jeune and Risler Aine, of
Rue des Vieilles Haudriettes!" For, in her mind, it was not Risler alone
whom her daughter took for her husband, but the whole sign of the
establishment, illustrious in the commercial annals of Paris; and
whenever she mentally announced that glorious event, Madame Chebe
sat more erect than ever, stretching the silk of the bodice until it almost
cracked.
What a contrast to the attitude of Monsieur Chebe, who was seated at a
short distance. In different households, as a general rule, the same
causes produce altogether different results. That little man, with the
high forehead of a visionary, as inflated and hollow as a ball, was as
fierce in appearance as his wife was radiant. That was nothing unusual,
by the way, for Monsieur Chebe was in a frenzy the whole year long.
On this particular evening, however, he did not wear his customary
woe- begone, lack-lustre expression, nor the full-skirted coat, with the
pockets sticking out behind, filled to repletion with samples of oil, wine,
truffles, or vinegar, according as he happened to be dealing in one or
the other of those articles. His black coat, new and magnificent, made a
fitting pendant to the green gown; but unfortunately his thoughts were
of the color of his coat. Why had they not seated him beside the bride,
as was his right? Why had they given his seat to young Fromont? And
there was old Gardinois, the Fromonts' grandfather, what business had
he by Sidonie's side? Ah! that was how it was to be! Everything for the
Fromonts and nothing for the Chebes! And yet people are amazed that
there are such things as revolutions!
Luckily the little man had by his side, to vent his anger upon, his friend
Delobelle, an old, retired actor, who listened to him with his serene and
majestic holiday countenance.
Strangely enough, the bride herself had something of that same

expression. On that pretty and youthful face, which happiness
enlivened without making glad, appeared indications of some secret
preoccupation; and, at times, the corners of her lips quivered with a
smile, as if she were talking to herself.
With that same little smile she replied to the somewhat pronounced
pleasantries of Grandfather Gardinois, who sat by her side.
"This Sidonie, on my word!" said the good man, with a laugh. "When I
think that not two months ago she was talking about going into a
convent. We all know what sort of convents such minxes as she go to!
As the saying is in our province: The Convent of Saint Joseph, four
shoes under the bed!"
And everybody at the table laughed heartily at the rustic jests of the old
Berrichon peasant, whose colossal fortune filled the place of manliness,
of education, of kindness of heart, but not of wit; for he had plenty of
that, the rascal--more than all his bourgeois fellow-guests together.
Among the very rare persons who inspired a sympathetic feeling in his
breast, little Chebe, whom he had known as an urchin, appealed
particularly to him; and she, for her part, having become rich too
recently not