Ten Tales | Page 9

pass." And brusquely putting us aside with an imperious gesture, she went off with a rapid step, and disappeared in the night.
The adventure made a lively impression on me. I thought often of it, and after that, when I saw before my eyes some wretched and degraded creature, some woman of the street, trailing her light silk skirts in the flare of a gas-jet, some drunken idler leaning on the bar of a caf�� and bending his bloated face over his glass of absinthe, I have thought, "Is it possible that that being can ever have been a little child?"
Now, some little time after that rencontre--let us be careful not to indicate the date--I was taken into a gallery of the Chamber of Deputies to be present at a sensational sitting. The law that they were discussing on that day is of no importance, but it was the old and tedious story: a Ministerial candidate, formerly in the Opposition, proposed to strike a blow at some liberty--I don't know what--which he had formerly demanded with virulence and force. And, more than that, the man in power was going to forfeit his word to the tribune. In good French that is called "to betray," but in parliamentary language they employ the phrase, "accomplish a change of base." Opinion was divided, the majority uncertain; and upon his speech would depend the political future of the speaker. Therefore, on that day, the legislators were in their places, and the Chamber did not resemble, as usual, a class of noisy boys presided over by a master without authority. The lunch-counter was deserted, and the deputies of the Centre themselves were not absorbed in their personal correspondence.
The orator mounted the tribune. He had the commonplace figure of a verbose orator: bold eye, protruding lips, as enlarged by the abuse of words. He began by fingering his notes with an important air, tasting the glass of sweetened water, and settling himself in his place; then he started a babble of words without sense, with the nauseous facility of the bar; misusing vague ideas, abstract terms, and words in ly and ion, stereotyped words, and ready-made phrases. A flattering murmur greeted the end of his exordium; for the French people in general, and the political world in particular, manifest a depraved taste for that sort of eloquence. Encouraged, the fine speaker entered the heart of his subject, and cynically sang his recantation. He abjured none of his opinions, he repudiated none of his acts; he would always remain liberal (a blow on his chest), but that which was good yesterday might be dangerous to-day; truth on the other side of the Alps, error on this side. The forbearance of the Government was abused. And he threatened the assembly; became prophet; let loose the dogs of war. He even risked a bit of poetry, flourished old metaphors, which were worn out in the time of Cicero, and compared by turn, in the same phrase, his political career to a pilot, a steed, and a torch. So much poetry could only accentuate his success. There was a salvo of bravos, and the Opposition grumbled, foreseeing their defeat. Violent interruptions broke forth: furious voices recalled the orator's past life, and threw as insults his former professions in his face. He was unmoved, and stood with a disdainful air, which was very effective. Then the bravos redoubled, and he smiled vaguely, thinking, no doubt, of the proof-sheets of the Officiel, where he could by-and-by insert in the margin, without too much exaggeration, "profound sensation" and "prolonged applause." Then, when quiet was re-established, sure of his success, he affected a serene majesty. He took up again his discourse, soaring like a goose, launching out with high doctrine, citing Royer-Collard.
[Illustration]
But I heard no more. The scandalous spectacle of that political mountebank, who sacrificed eternal principles to the interests of the day, recalled to my memory the tent of the acrobats. The cold rhetoric of that harangue, vibrating with neither truth nor emotion, recalled to me the patter, learned by heart, of the powdered clown on the stage. The superb air which the orator assumed under the rain of reproaches and insults singularly resembled the indifference of the clown to the loud slaps on his face. Those sonorous phrases, whose echoes had just died away, sounded as false as a strolling band. The word "liberty" rolled like the bass-drum, "public interests" and "welfare of the State" clanged discordantly like the cymbals, and when the comedian spoke of his "patriotism" I almost heard the couac of a clarionet.
A long uproar woke me from my revery. The speech was finished, and the orator, having descended from the rostrum, was receiving congratulations. They were about to vote: the urns were being passed around, but the result was