“What are you saying there, my friend?” broke in Moliere, approaching the poet, whose aside he had heard.
“I say I shall never be aught but an ass,” answered La Fontaine, with a heavy sigh and swimming eyes. “Yes, my friend,” he added, with increasing grief, “it seems that I rhyme in a slovenly manner.”
“That is wrong.”
“You see! I am a puppy!”
“Who said so?”
“Parbleu! ’twas Pellisson; did you not, Pellisson?”
Pellisson, again lost in his work, took good care not to answer.
“But if Pellisson said you were a puppy,” cried Moliere, “Pellisson has gravely insulted you.”
“Do you think so?”
“Ah! I advise you, as you are a gentleman, not to leave an insult like that unpunished.”
“Oh!” exclaimed La Fontaine.
“Did you ever fight?”
“Once only, with a lieutenant in the light horse.”
“What wrong had he done you?”
“It seems he was my wife’s lover.”
“Ah! ah!” said Moliere, becoming slightly pale; but as at La Fontaine’s declaration the others had turned round, Moliere kept upon his lips the rallying smile which had so nearly died away, and continued to make La Fontaine speak,- “and what was the result of the duel?”
“The result was, that on the ground my opponent disarmed me, and then made an apology, promising never again to set foot in my house.”
“And you considered yourself satisfied?” said Moliere.
“Not at all! on the contrary, I picked up my sword. ‘I beg your pardon, Monsieur,’ I said; ‘I have not fought you because you were my wife’s lover, but because I was told I ought to fight. Now, since I have never known any peace save since you made her acquaintance, do me the pleasure to continue your visits as heretofore, or, morbleu! let us set to again.’ And so,” continued La Fontaine, “he was compelled to resume his relations with Madame, and I continue to be the happiest of husbands.”
All burst out laughing. Moliere alone passed his hand across his eyes. Why? Perhaps to wipe away a tear, perhaps to smother a sigh. Alas! we know that Moliere was a moralist, but he was not a philosopher. “It is all the same,” he said, returning to the topic of the conversation, “Pellisson has insulted you.”
“Ah, truly! I had already forgotten.”
“And I am going to challenge him on your behalf.”
“Well, you can do so, if you think it indispensable.”
“I do think it indispensable, and I am going-”
“Stay!” exclaimed La Fontaine; “I want your advice.”
“Upon what?- this insult?”
“No; tell me really now whether lumiere does not rhyme with orniere.”
“I should make them rhyme.”
“Ah! I knew you would.”
“And I have made a hundred thousand such rhymes in my time.”
“A hundred thousand!” cried La Fontaine; “four times as many as in ‘La Pucelle,’ which M. Chapelain is meditating. Is it also on this subject that you have composed a hundred thousand verses?”
“Listen to me, you eternally absent-minded creature!” said Moliere.
“It is certain,” continued La Fontaine, “that legume, for instance, rhymes with posthume.”
“In the plural, especially.”
“Yes, especially in the plural, seeing that then it rhymes not with three letters, but with four; as orniere does with lumiere. Put ornieres and lumieres in the plural, my dear Pellisson,” said La Fontaine, clapping his hand on the shoulder of his friend, whose insult he had quite forgotten, “and they will rhyme.”
“Hem!” cried Pellisson.
“Moliere says so, and Moliere is a judge of it; he declares he has himself made a hundred thousand verses.”
“Come,” said Moliere, laughing, “he is off now.”
“It is like rivage, which rhymes admirably with herbage; I would take my oath of it.”
“But-” said Moliere.
“I tell you all this,” continued La Fontaine, “because you are preparing an entertainment for Vaux, are you not?”
“Yes,- ‘Les Facheux.'”
“Ah, yes,- ‘Les Facheux’; yes, I recollect. Well, I was thinking a prologue would admirably suit your entertainment.”
“Doubtless it would suit capitally.”
“Ah! you are of my opinion?”
“So much so, that I asked you to write this prologue.”
“You asked me to write it?”
“Yes, you; and on your refusal begged you to ask Pellisson, who is engaged upon it at this moment.”