Unconscious Comedians

“Certainly,” said Gazonal, reflectively, speaking to himself, “they must have great talent.”

“If I were to enumerate the qualities which make a man remarkable in our vocation,” said Fromenteau, whose rapid glance had enabled him to fathom Gazonal completely, “you’d think I was talking of a man of genius. First, we must have the eyes of a lynx; next, audacity (to tear into houses like bombs, accost the servants as if we knew them, and propose treachery – always agreed to); next, memory, sagacity, invention (to make schemes, conceived rapidly, never the same – for spying must be guided by the characters and habits of the persons spied upon; it is a gift of heaven); and, finally, agility, vigor. All these facilities and qualities, monsieur, are depicted on the door of the Gymnase-Amoros as Virtue. Well, we must have them all, under pain of losing the salaries given us by the State, the rue de Jerusalem, or the minister of Commerce.”

“You certainly seem to me a remarkable man,” said Gazonal.

Fromenteau looked at the provincial without replying, without betraying the smallest sign of feeling, and departed, bowing to no one, – a trait of real genius.

“Well, cousin, you have now seen the police incarnate,” said Leon to Gazonal.

“It has something the effect of a dinner-pill,” said the worthy provincial, while Gaillard and Bixiou were talking together in a low voice.

“I’ll give you an answer to-night at Carabine’s,” said Gaillard aloud, re-seating himself at his desk without seeing or bowing to Gazonal.

“He is a rude fellow!” cried the Southerner as they left the room.

“His paper has twenty-two thousand subscribers,” said Leon de Lora. “He is one of the five great powers of the day, and he hasn’t, in the morning, the time to be polite. Now,” continued Leon, speaking to Bixiou, “if we are going to the Chamber to help him with his lawsuit let us take the longest way round.”

“Words said by great men are like silver-gilt spoons with the gilt washed off; by dint of repetition they lose their brilliancy,” said Bixiou. “Where shall we go?”

“Here, close by, to our hatter?” replied Leon.

“Bravo!” cried Bixiou. “If we keep on in this way, we shall have an amusing day of it.”

“Gazonal,” said Leon, “I shall make the man pose for you; but mind that you keep a serious face, like the king on a five-franc piece, for you are going to see a choice original, a man whose importance has turned his head. In these days, my dear fellow, under our new political dispensation, every human being tries to cover himself with glory, and most of them cover themselves with ridicule; hence a lot of living caricatures quite new to the world.”

“If everybody gets glory, who can be famous?” said Gazonal.

“Fame! none but fools want that,” replied Bixiou. “Your cousin wears the cross, but I’m the better dressed of the two, and it is I whom people are looking at.”

After this remark, which may explain why orators and other great statesmen no longer put the ribbon in their buttonholes when in Paris, Leon showed Gazonal a sign, bearing, in golden letters, the illustrious name of “Vital, successor to Finot, manufacturer of hats” (no longer “hatter” as formerly), whose advertisements brought in more money to the newspapers than those of any half-dozen vendors of pills or sugarplums, – the author, moreover, of an essay on hats.

“My dear fellow,” said Bixiou to Gazonal, pointing to the splendors of the show-window, “Vital has forty thousand francs a year from invested property.”

“And he stays a hatter!” cried the Southerner, with a bound that almost broke the arm which Bixiou had linked in his.

“You shall see the man,” said Leon. “You need a hat and you shall have one gratis.”

“Is Monsieur Vital absent?” asked Bixiou, seeing no one behind the desk.

“Monsieur is correcting proof in his study,” replied the head clerk.

“Hein! what style!” said Leon to his cousin; then he added, addressing the clerk: “Could we speak to him without injury to his inspiration?”

“Let those gentlemen enter,” said a voice.

It was a bourgeois voice, the voice of one eligible to the Chamber, a powerful voice, a wealthy voice.

Vital deigned to show himself, dressed entirely in black cloth, with a splendid frilled shirt adorned with one diamond. The three friends observed a young and pretty woman sitting near the desk, working at some embroidery.

Vital is a man between thirty and forty years of age, with a natural joviality now repressed by ambitious ideas. He is blessed with that medium height which is the privilege of sound organizations. He is rather plump, and takes great pains with his person. His forehead is getting bald, but he uses that circumstance to give himself the air of a man consumed by thought. It is easy to see by the way his wife looks at him and listens to him that she believes in the genius and glory of her husband. Vital loves artists, not that he has any taste for art, but from fellowship; for he feels himself an artist, and makes this felt by disclaiming that title of nobility, and placing himself with constant premeditation at so great a distance from the arts that persons may be forced to say to him: “You have raised the construction of hats to the height of a science.”

“Have you at last discovered a hat to suit me?” asked Leon de Lora.

“Why, monsieur! in fifteen days?” replied Vital, “and for you! Two months would hardly suffice to invent a shape in keeping with your countenance. See, here is your lithographic portrait: I have studied it most carefully. I would not give myself that trouble for a prince; but you are more; you are an artist, and you understand me.”

“This is one of our greatest inventors,” said Bixiou presenting Gazonal. “He might be as great as Jacquart if he would only let himself die. Our friend, a manufacturer of cloth, has discovered a method of replacing the indigo in old blue coats, and he wants to see you as another great phenomenon, because he has heard of your saying, ‘The hat is the man.’ That speech of yours enraptured him. Ah! Vital, you have faith; you believe in something; you have enthusiasm for your work.”