CHRISTMAS EVE

“The Christmas-eve supper![8] Oh! no, I shall never go in for that again!” Stout Henri Templier said that in a furious voice, as if some one had proposed some crime to him, while the others laughed and said: 

“What are you flying into a rage about?”

[Footnote 8:  A great institution in France, and especially in Paris, at which black puddings are an indispensable dish.—­TRANSLATOR.]

“Because a Christmas-eve supper played me the dirtiest trick in the world, and ever since I have felt an insurmountable horror for that night of imbecile gayety.”

“Tell us what it is?”

“You want to know what it was?  Very well then, just listen.

“You remember how cold it was two years ago at Christmas; cold enough to kill poor people in the streets.  The Seine was covered with ice; the pavements froze one’s feet through the soles of one’s boots, and the whole world seemed to be at the point of going to pot.

“I had a big piece of work on, and so I refused every invitation to supper, as I preferred to spend the night at my writing table.  I dined alone and then began to work.  But about ten o’clock I grew restless at the thought of the gay and busy life all over Paris, at the noise in the streets which reached me in spite of everything, at my neighbors’ preparations for supper, which I heard through the walls.  I hardly knew any longer what I was doing; I wrote nonsense, and at last I came to the conclusion that I had better give up all hope of producing any good work that night.

“I walked up and down my room; I sat down and got up again.  I was certainly under the mysterious influence of the enjoyment outside, and I resigned myself to it.  So I rang for my servant and said to her: 

“’Angela, go and get a good supper for two; some oysters, a cold partridge, some crayfish, hams and some cakes.  Put out two bottles of champagne, lay the cloth and go to bed.’

“She obeyed in some surprise, and when all was ready, I put on my great coat and went out.  A great question was to be solved:  ’Whom was I going to bring in to supper?’ My female friends had all been invited elsewhere, and if I had wished to have one, I ought to have seen about it beforehand, so I thought that I would do a good action at the same time, and I said to myself: 

“’Paris is full of poor and pretty girls who will have nothing on their table to-night, and who are on the look out for some generous fellow.  I will act the part of Providence to one of them this evening; and I will find one if I have to go into every pleasure resort, and have to question them and hunt for one till I find one to my choice.’  And I started off on my search.

“I certainly found many poor girls, who were on the look-out for some adventure, but they were ugly enough to give any man a fit of indigestion, or thin enough to freeze as they stood if they had stopped, and you all know that I have a weakness for stout women.  The more flesh they have, the better I like them, and a female colossus would drive me out of my senses with pleasure.