His Excellency the Minister | Page 9

a report of his marriage, his dwelling minutely
described, and a pen portrait of that Adrienne, who was the passion of
his life.
"After all," continued Molina, "Madame Vaudrey must get used to it.
The Opéra! Why, it is a part of politics! The key of many a situation is
to be found in the greenroom!"
The financier laughed merrily, a laugh that had the ring of the
Turcarets' jingling crowns.
He went on to explain to his Excellency all the little mysteries of the
greenroom, as a man quite at home in this little Parisian province, and
lightly, by a word, a gesture even, he gave the minister a rapid
biography of the young girls who were laughing, jesting, romping there
before them; flitting hither and thither lightly across the boards, barely
touching them with the tips of their pink satin-shod feet.
Sulpice was surprised at everything he saw. He did not even take the
pains to conceal his surprise. Evidently it was his first visit behind the
scenes.
"Ah! your Excellency," said Molina, delighted with his rôle of cicerone,

"it is necessary to be at home here! You should come here often!
Nothing in the world can be more amusing. Here behind the scenes is a
world by itself. One can see pretty little lasses springing up like
asparagus. One sees running hither and thither a tall, thin child who
nods to you saucily and crunches nuts like a squirrel. One takes a three
months' journey, and passes a season at Vichy or at Dieppe, and when
one returns, presto! see the transformation. The butterfly has burst forth
from its cocoon. No longer a little girl, but a woman. Those saucy eyes
of old now look at you with an expression which disturbs your heart.
One might have offered, six months before, two sous' worth of
chestnuts to the child; now, however, nothing less than a coupé will
satisfy the woman. It used to jump on your knee at that time, now every
one is throwing his arms around its pretty neck. Thus from generation
to generation, one assists at the mobilization of a whole army of
recruits, who first try their weapons here, pass from here into the
regiment of veterans, build themselves a hospital in cut-stone out of
their savings, and some of them mount very high through the tips of
their toes if they are not suddenly attacked by the malady of the knee."
"Malady of the knee?" inquired Vaudrey.
"A phrase not to be found in the Dictionary of Political Economy by
Maurice Block. It is a way of saying that ill-luck has overtaken one. A
very interesting condition, this malady of the knee! It often not only
shortens the leg but the career!"
"Is this malady a frequent one at the Opéra?"
"Ah! your Excellency, how can it be helped? There are so many slips in
this pirouetting business! It is as risky as politics!"
Fat Molina shouted with laughter at this clumsy jest, and placing a
binocle upon his huge nose, which was cleft down the middle like that
of a hunting-hound, he exclaimed suddenly, turning towards the door as
he spoke:
"Eh! Marie Launay? What is she holding in her hand?"

Light, nimble and graceful in her costume of a Hindoo dancing girl, a
young girl of sixteen or seventeen summers, already betraying her
womanhood in the ardent glances half-hidden in the depths of her large,
deep-blue eyes, tripped into the greenroom, humming an air and
holding in her hand a long sheet of paper.
She shook, as if embarrassed by it, the broad necklace of large
imitation pearls that danced on her fine neck and fell on her
undeveloped bosom; and looking in search of some one among the
crowd of girls, cried out from a distance to a plump little brunette who
was talking and laughing within a circle of dress-coats at the other end
of the room:
"Eh! Anna, you have not subscribed yet!"
The brunette, freeing herself unceremoniously enough from her living
madrigals, came running lightly up to Marie Launay, who held out
towards her an aluminum pencil-case and the sheet of paper.
"What the devil is that?" asked Molina.
"Let us go and see," said Granet.
"Would it not be an indiscretion on our part?" asked Vaudrey, half
seriously.
The financier, however, was by this time at the side of the two pretty
girls, and asked the blonde what the paper contained, the names on
which her companion was spelling out.
Marie Launay, a lovely girl with little ringlets of fair hair curling low
down upon her forehead, smiled like a pretty, innocent and still timid
child, under the luring glances of the fat man, and glancing with an
expression of virgin innocence at Sulpice and Granet, who