Fromont and Risler | Page 5

concentrated of his novels, with never a divergence, never a break,
in its development. And of the theme--legitimate marriage contra
common-law--what need be said except that he handled it in a manner
most acceptable to the aesthetic and least offensive to the moral sense?
L'Immortel is a satire springing from personal reasons; L'Evangeliste
and Rose et Ninette--the latter on the divorce problem--may be classed
as clever novels; but had Daudet never written more than 'Fromont et
Risler', 'Tartarin sur les Alces', and 'Port Tarascon', these would keep
him in lasting remembrance.

We must not omit to mention also many 'contes' and his 'Trente ans de
Paris (A travers ma vie et mes livres), Souvenirs d'un Homme de lettres
(1888), and Notes sur la Vie (1899)'.
Alphonse Daudet died in Paris, December 16, 1897
LECONTE DE LISLE de l'Academie Francaise.

FROMONT AND RISLER
CHAPTER I
A WEDDING-PARTY AT THE CAFE VEFOUR
"Madame Chebe!"
"My boy--"
"I am so happy!"
This was the twentieth time that day that the good Risler had said that
he was happy, and always with the same emotional and contented
manner, in the same low, deep voice-the voice that is held in check by
emotion and does not speak too loud for fear of suddenly breaking into
violent tears.
Not for the world would Risler have wept at that moment--imagine a
newly- made husband giving way to tears in the midst of the
wedding-festival! And yet he had a strong inclination to do so. His
happiness stifled him, held him by the throat, prevented the words from
coming forth. All that he could do was to murmur from time to time,
with a slight trembling of the lips, "I am happy; I am happy!"
Indeed, he had reason to be happy.
Since early morning the poor man had fancied that he was being
whirled along in one of those magnificent dreams from which one fears

lest he may awake suddenly with blinded eyes; but it seemed to him as
if this dream would never end. It had begun at five o'clock in the
morning, and at ten o'clock at night, exactly ten o'clock by Vefour's
clock, he was still dreaming.
How many things had happened during that day, and how vividly he
remembered the most trivial details.
He saw himself, at daybreak, striding up and down his bachelor
quarters, delight mingled with impatience, clean-shaven, his coat on,
and two pairs of white gloves in his pocket. Then there were the
wedding-coaches, and in the foremost one--the one with white horses,
white reins, and a yellow damask lining--the bride, in her finery,
floated by like a cloud. Then the procession into the church, two by two,
the white veil in advance, ethereal, and dazzling to behold. The organ,
the verger, the cure's sermon, the tapers casting their light upon jewels
and spring gowns, and the throng of people in the sacristy, the tiny
white cloud swallowed up, surrounded, embraced, while the
bridegroom distributed hand-shakes among all the leading tradesmen of
Paris, who had assembled to do him honor. And the grand crash from
the organ at the close, made more solemn by the fact that the church
door was thrown wide open, so that the whole street took part in the
family ceremony--the music passing through the vestibule at the same
time with the procession--the exclamations of the crowd, and a
burnisher in an ample lute-string apron remarking in a loud voice, "The
groom isn't handsome, but the bride's as pretty as a picture." That is the
kind of thing that makes you proud when you happen to be the
bridegroom.
And then the breakfast at the factory, in a workroom adorned with
hangings and flowers; the drive in the Bois--a concession to the wishes
of his mother-in-law, Madame Chebe, who, being the petty Parisian
bourgeoise that she was, would not have deemed her daughter legally
married without a drive around the lake and a visit to the Cascade.
Then the return for dinner, as the lamps were being lighted along the
boulevard, where people turned to look after the wedding-party, a
typical well-to-do bourgeois wedding-party, as it drove up to the grand

entrance at Vefour's with all the style the livery horses could command.
Risler had reached that point in his dream.
And now the worthy man, dazed with fatigue and well-being, glanced
vaguely about that huge table of twenty-four covers, curved in the
shape of a horseshoe at the ends, and surrounded by smiling, familiar
faces, wherein he seemed to see his happiness reflected in every eye.
The dinner was drawing near its close. The wave of private
conversation flowed around the table. Faces were turned toward one
another, black sleeves stole behind waists adorned with bunches of
asclepias, a childish face laughed over a fruit ice, and