“Ah! that is what Pellisson is doing, then? I’ faith, my dear Moliere, you speak with very good sense sometimes.”
“When?”
“When you call me absent-minded. It is a wretched defect. I will cure myself of it, and I am going to write your prologue for you.”
“But seeing that Pellisson is about it-”
“Ah, true! Double rascal that I am! Loret was indeed right in saying I was a puppy.”
“It was not Loret who said so, my friend.”
“Well, then, whoever said so, ’tis the same to me! And so your entertainment is called ‘Les Facheux’? Well, can you not make heureux rhyme with facheux?”
“If obliged, yes.”
“And even with capricieux.”
“Oh, no, no!”
“It would be hazardous, and yet why so?”
“There is too great a difference in the cadences.”
“I was fancying,” said La Fontaine, leaving Moliere for Loret,- “I was fancying-”
“What were you fancying?” said Loret, in the middle of a sentence. “Make haste!”
“You are writing the prologue to ‘Les Facheux,’ are you not?”
“No, mordieu! it is Pellisson.”
“Ah, Pellisson!” cried La Fontaine, going over to him. “I was fancying,” he continued, “that the nymph of Vaux-”
“Ah, beautiful!” cried Loret. “The nymph of Vaux! Thank you, La Fontaine; you have just given me the two concluding verses of my paper,-
Et l’on vit la nymphe de Vaux
Donner le prix a leurs travaux.”
“Good! That is something like a rhyme,” said Pellisson. “If you could rhyme like that, La Fontaine-”
“But it seems I do rhyme like that, since Loret says it is I who gave him the two lines he has just read.”
“Well, if you can rhyme so well, La Fontaine,” said Pellisson, “tell me now in what way you would begin my prologue?”
“I should say for instance, O nymphe- qui- After qui I should place a verb in the second person plural of the present indicative, and should go on thus: cette grotte profonde.”
“But the verb, the verb?” asked Pellisson.
“Pour venir admirer le plus grand roi du monde,” continued La Fontaine.
“But the verb, the verb?” obstinately insisted Pellisson. “This second person plural of the present indicative?”
“Well, then; quittez,-
O nymphe qui quittez cette grotte profonde
Pour venir admirer le plus grand roi du monde.”
“You would put qui quittez, would you?”
“Why not?”
“Qui- qui!”
“Ah, my dear fellow,” exclaimed La Fontaine, “you are a shocking pedant!”
“Without counting,” said Moliere, “that in the second verse venir admirer is very weak, my dear La Fontaine.”
“Then you see clearly that I am nothing but a poor creature,- a puppy, as you said.”
“I never said so.”
“Then, as Loret said.”
“And it was not Loret, either; it was Pellisson.”
“Well, Pellisson was right a hundred times over. But what annoys me more than anything, my dear Moliere, is that I fear we shall not have our Epicurean dresses.”
“You expected yours, then, for the fete?”
“Yes, for the fete, and then for after the fete. My housekeeper told me that my own is rather faded.”
“The devil! your housekeeper is right,- rather more than faded!”
“Ah, you see,” resumed La Fontaine; “the fact is, I left it on the floor in my room, and my cat-”
“Well, your cat-”
“She kittened upon it, which has rather altered its color.”
Moliere burst out laughing; Pellisson and Loret followed his example.
At this juncture the Bishop of Vannes appeared, with a roll of plans and parchments under his arm. As if the angel of death had chilled all gay and sprightly fancies, as if that wail form had scared away the Graces to whom Xenocrates sacrificed, silence immediately reigned through the study, and every one resumed his self-possession and his pen.
Aramis distributed the notes of invitation, and thanked them in the name of M. Fouquet. “The superintendent,” he said, “being kept to his room by business, could not come to see them, but begged them to send him some of the fruits of their day’s work, to enable him to forget the fatigue of his labor in the night.”
At these words, all settled to work. La Fontaine placed himself at a table, and set his rapid pen running over the vellum; Pellisson made a fair copy of his prologue; Moliere gave fifty fresh verses, with which his visit to Percerin had inspired him; Loret, his article on the marvellous fetes he predicted; and Aramis, laden with booty like the king of the bees,- that great black drone, decked with purple and gold,- re-entered his apartment, silent and busy. But before departing, “Remember, gentlemen,” said he, “we all leave tomorrow evening.”