Fromont and Risler, vol 2 | Page 7

woman incog. at the Bal de
l'Opera.
Upon leaving the theatre each of the partners offered his arm to his
neighbor. A box-opener, speaking to Sidonie, referred to Georges as
"your husband," and the little woman beamed with delight.
"Your husband!"
That simple phrase was enough to upset her and set in motion a
multitude of evil currents in the depths of her heart. As they passed
through the corridors and the foyer, she watched Risler and Madame
"Chorche" walking in front of them. Claire's refinement of manner
seemed to her to be vulgarized and annihilated by Risler's shuffling gait.
"How ugly he must make me look when we are walking together!" she
said to herself. And her heart beat fast as she thought what a charming,
happy, admired couple they would have made, she and this Georges

Fromont, whose arm was trembling beneath her own.
Thereupon, when the blue-lined carriage drove up to the door of the
theatre, she began to reflect, for the first time, that, when all was said,
Claire had stolen her place and that she would be justified in trying to
recover it.

CHAPTER VIII
THE BREWERY ON THE RUE BLONDEL
After his marriage Risler had given up the brewery. Sidonie would
have been glad to have him leave the house in the evening for a
fashionable club, a resort of wealthy, well-dressed men; but the idea of
his returning, amid clouds of pipe-smoke, to his friends of earlier days,
Sigismond, Delobelle, and her own father, humiliated her and made her
unhappy. So he ceased to frequent the place; and that was something of
a sacrifice. It was almost a glimpse of his native country, that brewery
situated in a remote corner of Paris. The infrequent carriages, the high,
barred windows of the ground floors, the odor of fresh drugs, of
pharmaceutical preparations, imparted to that narrow little Rue Blondel
a vague resemblance to certain streets in Basle or Zurich.
The brewery was managed by a Swiss and crowded with men of that
nationality. When the door was opened, through the smoke-laden
atmosphere, dense with the accents of the North, one had a vision of a
vast, low room with hams hanging from the rafters, casks of beer
standing in a row, the floor ankle-deep with sawdust, and on the
counter great salad-bowls filled with potatoes as red as chestnuts, and
baskets of pretzels fresh from the oven, their golden knots sprinkled
with white salt.
For twenty years Risler had had his pipe there, a long pipe marked with
his name in the rack reserved for the regular customers. He had also his
table, at which he was always joined by several discreet, quiet
compatriots, who listened admiringly, but without comprehending them,

to the endless harangues of Chebe and Delobelle. When Risler ceased
his visits to the brewery, the two last-named worthies likewise turned
their backs upon it, for several excellent reasons. In the first place, M.
Chebe now lived a considerable distance away. Thanks to the
generosity of his children, the dream of his whole life was realized at
last.
"When I am rich," the little man used to say in his cheerless rooms in
the Marais, "I will have a house of my own, at the gates of Paris, almost
in the country, a little garden which I will plant and water myself. That
will be better for my health than all the excitement of the capital."
Well, he had his house now, but he did not enjoy himself in it. It was at
Montrouge, on the road that runs around the city. "A small chalet, with
garden," said the advertisement, printed on a placard which gave an
almost exact idea of the dimensions of the property. The papers were
new and of rustic design, the paint perfectly fresh; a water-butt planted
beside a vine-clad arbor played the part of a pond. In addition to all
these advantages, only a hedge separated this paradise from another
"chalet with garden" of precisely the same description, occupied by
Sigismond Planus the cashier, and his sister. To Madame Chebe that
was a most precious circumstance. When the good woman was bored,
she would take a stock of knitting and darning and go and sit in the old
maid's arbor, dazzling her with the tale of her past splendors. Unluckily,
her husband had not the same source of distraction.
However, everything went well at first. It was midsummer, and M.
Chebe, always in his shirt-sleeves, was busily employed in getting
settled. Each nail to be driven in the house was the subject of leisurely
reflections, of endless discussions. It was the same with the garden. He
had determined at first to make an English garden of it, lawns always
green, winding paths shaded by shrubbery. But the trouble