Fromont and Risler, vol 2 | Page 8

of it was
that it took so long for the shrubbery to grow.
"I have a mind to make an orchard of it," said the impatient little man.
And thenceforth he dreamed of nothing but vegetables, long lines of
beans, and peach-trees against the wall. He dug for whole mornings,

knitting his brows in a preoccupied way and wiping his forehead
ostentatiously before his wife, so that she would say:
"For heaven's sake, do rest a bit--you're killing yourself."
The result was that the garden was a mixture: flowers and fruit, park
and kitchen garden; and whenever he went into Paris M. Chebe was
careful to decorate his buttonhole with a rose from his rose-bushes.
While the fine weather lasted, the good people did not weary of
admiring the sunsets behind the fortifications, the long days, the
bracing country air. Sometimes, in the evening, when the windows
were open, they sang duets; and in presence of the stars in heaven,
which began to twinkle simultaneously with the lanterns on the railway
around the city, Ferdinand would become poetical. But when the rain
came and he could not go out, what misery! Madame Chebe, a
thorough Parisian, sighed for the narrow streets of the Marais, her
expeditions to the market of Blancs- Manteaux, and to the shops of the
quarter.
As she sat by the window, her usual place for sewing and observation,
she would gaze at the damp little garden, where the volubilis and the
nasturtiums, stripped of their blossoms, were dropping away from the
lattices with an air of exhaustion, at the long, straight line of the grassy
slope of the fortifications, still fresh and green, and, a little farther on,
at the corner of a street, the office of the Paris omnibuses, with all the
points of their route inscribed in enticing letters on the green walls.
Whenever one of the omnibuses lumbered away on its journey, she
followed it with her eyes, as a government clerk at Cayenne or Noumea
gazes after the steamer about to return to France; she made the trip with
it, knew just where it would stop, at what point it would lurch around a
corner, grazing the shop-windows with its wheels.
As a prisoner, M. Chebe became a terrible trial. He could not work in
the garden. On Sundays the fortifications were deserted; he could no
longer strut about among the workingmen's families dining on the grass,
and pass from group to group in a neighborly way, his feet encased in
embroidered slippers, with the authoritative demeanor of a wealthy

landowner of the vicinity. This he missed more than anything else,
consumed as he was by the desire to make people think about him. So
that, having nothing to do, having no one to pose before, no one to
listen to his schemes, his stories, the anecdote of the accident to the
Duc d'Orleans--a similar accident had happened to him in his youth,
you remember--the unfortunate Ferdinand overwhelmed his wife with
reproaches.
"Your daughter banishes us--your daughter is ashamed of us!"
She heard nothing but that "Your daughter--your daughter--your
daughter!" For, in his anger with Sidonie, he denied her, throwing upon
his wife the whole responsibility for that monstrous and unnatural child.
It was a genuine relief for poor Madame Chebe when her husband took
an omnibus at the office to go and hunt up Delobelle--whose hours for
lounging were always at his disposal--and pour into his bosom all his
rancor against his son-in-law and his daughter.
The illustrious Delobelle also bore Risler a grudge, and freely said of
him: "He is a dastard."
The great man had hoped to form an integral part of the new household,
to be the organizer of festivities, the 'arbiter elegantiarum'. Instead of
which, Sidonie received him very coldly, and Risler no longer even
took him to the brewery. However, the actor did not complain too loud,
and whenever he met his friend he overwhelmed him with attentions
and flattery; for he had need of him.
Weary of awaiting the discerning manager, seeing that the engagement
he had longed for so many years did not come, it had occurred to
Delobelle to purchase a theatre and manage it himself. He counted
upon Risler for the funds. Opportunely enough, a small theatre on the
boulevard happened to be for sale, as a result of the failure of its
manager. Delobelle mentioned it to Risler, at first very vaguely, in a
wholly hypothetical form--"There would be a good chance to make a
fine stroke." Risler listened with his usual phlegm, saying, "Indeed, it
would be a good thing for you." And to a more direct suggestion, not
daring to answer, "No," he took refuge behind such phrases as "I will

see"--"Perhaps later"-- "I don't say no"--and finally uttered the unlucky
words