Ten Tales | Page 4

idlers of the neighborhood were
astonished to see a man with a decoration--a rare thing in the
province--offer a glass of wine to the coachman at the bar of an inn
near by.

He installed himself at once. In a house in the outskirts, where two
captive cows lowed, and fowls and ducks passed and repassed through
the gate-way, a furnished chamber was to let. Preceded by a
masculine-looking woman, the Captain climbed the stair-way with its
great wooden balusters, perfumed by a strong odor of the stable, and
reached a great tiled room, whose walls were covered with a bizarre
paper representing, printed in blue on a white background and repeated
infinitely, the picture of Joseph Poniatowski crossing the Elster on his
horse. This monotonous decoration, recalling nevertheless our military
glories, fascinated the Captain without doubt, for, without concerning
himself with the uncomfortable straw chairs, the walnut furniture, or
the little bed with its yellowed curtain, he took the room without
hesitation. A quarter of an hour was enough to empty his trunk, hang
up his clothes, put his boots in a corner, and ornament the wall with a
trophy composed of three pipes, a sabre, and a pair of pistols. After a
visit to the grocer's, over the way, where he bought a pound of candles
and a bottle of rum, he returned, put his purchase on the mantle-shelf,
and looked around him with an air of perfect satisfaction. And then,
with the promptitude of the camp, he shaved without a mirror, brushed
his coat, cocked his hat over his ear, and went for a walk in the village
in search of a café.
II.
It was an inveterate habit of the Captain to spend much of his time at a
café. It was there that he satisfied at the same time the three vices
which reigned supreme in his heart--tobacco, absinthe, and cards. It
was thus that he passed his life, and he could have drawn a plan of all
the places where he had ever been stationed by their tobacco shops,
cafés, and military clubs. He never felt himself so thoroughly at ease as
when sitting on a worn velvet bench before a square of green cloth near
a heap of beer-mugs and saucers. His cigar never seemed good unless
he struck his match under the marble of the table, and he never failed,
after hanging his hat and his sabre on a hat-hook and settling himself
comfortably, by unloosing one or two buttons of his coat, to breathe a
profound sigh of relief, and exclaim,

"That is better!"
His first care was, therefore, to find an establishment which he could
frequent, and after having gone around the village without finding
anything that suited him, he stopped at last to regard with the eye of a
connoisseur the Café Prosper, situated at the corner of the Place du
Marché and the Rue de la Pavoisse.
It was not his ideal. Some of the details of the exterior were too
provincial: the waiter, in his black apron, for example, the little stands
in their green frames, the footstools, and the wooden tables covered
with waxed cloth. But the interior pleased the Captain. He was
delighted upon his entrance by the sound of the bell which was touched
by the fair and fleshy dame du comptoir, in her light dress, with a
poppy-colored ribbon in her sleek hair. He saluted her gallantly, and
believed that she sustained with sufficient majesty her triumphal place
between two piles of punch-bowls properly crowned by billiard-balls.
He ascertained that the place was cheerful, neat, and strewn evenly with
yellow sand. He walked around it, looking at himself in the glasses as
he passed; approved the panels where guardsmen and amazons were
drinking champagne in a landscape filled with red holly-hocks; called
for his absinthe, smoked, found the divan soft and the absinthe good,
and was indulgent enough not to complain of the flies who bathed
themselves in his glass with true rustic familiarity.
Eight days later he had become one of the pillars of the Café Prosper.
They soon learned his punctual habits and anticipated his wishes, while
he, in turn, lunched with the patrons of the place--a valuable recruit for
those who haunted the café, folks oppressed by the tedium of a country
life, for whom the arrival of that new-comer, past master in all games,
and an admirable raconteur of his wars and his loves, was a true stroke
of good-fortune. The Captain himself was delighted to tell his stories to
folks who were still ignorant of his repertoire. There were fully six
months before him in which to tell of his games, his feats, his battles,
the retreat of Constantine, the capture of Bou-Maza, and the officers'
receptions with the concomitant