《VOLUME I FANTINE BOOK THIRD.--IN THE YEAR 1817 CHAPTER VI》

A CHApTER IN WHICH THEY ADORE EACH OTHER

Chat at table, the chat of love; it is as impossible to reproduce one as the other; the chat of love is a cloud; the chat at table is smoke.

Fameuil and Dahlia were humming.Tholomyes was drinking. Zephine was laughing, Fantine smiling, Listolier blowing a wooden trumpet which he had purchased at Saint-Cloud.

Favourite gazed tenderly at Blachevelle and said:--

"Blachevelle, I adore you."

This called forth a question from Blachevelle:--

"What would you do, Favourite, if I were to cease to love you?"

"I!" cried Favourite."Ah!Do not say that even in jest! If you were to cease to love me, I would spring after you, I would scratch you, I should rend you, I would throw you into the water, I would have you arrested."

Blachevelle smiled with the voluptuous self-conceit of a man who is tickled in his self-love. Favourite resumed:--

"Yes, I would scream to the police!Ah!I should not restrain myself, not at all!Rabble!"

Blachevelle threw himself back in his chair, in an ecstasy, and closed both eyes proudly.

Dahlia, as she ate, said in a low voice to Favourite, amid the uproar:--

"So you really idolize him deeply, that Blachevelle of yours?"

"I?I detest him," replied Favourite in the same tone, seizing her fork again."He is avaricious.I love the little fellow opposite me in my house.He is very nice, that young man; do you know him? One can see that he is an actor by profession.I love actors. As soon as he comes in, his mother says to him:`Ah! mon Dieu! my peace of mind is gone.There he goes with his shouting.But, my dear, you are splitting my head!'So he goes up to rat-ridden garrets, to black holes, as high as he can mount, and there he sets to singing, declaiming, how do I know what? so that he can be heard down stairs! He earns twenty sous a day at an attorney's by penning quibbles. He is the son of a former precentor of Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-pas. Ah! he is very nice.He idolizes me so, that one day when he saw me making batter for some pancakes, he said to me:`Mamselle, make your gloves into fritters, and I will eat them.'It is only artists who can say such things as that.Ah! he is very nice. I am in a fair way to go out of my head over that little fellow. Never mind; I tell Blachevelle that I adore him--how I lie!Hey!How I do lie!"

Favourite paused, and then went on:--

"I am sad, you see, Dahlia.It has done nothing but rain all summer; the wind irritates me; the wind does not abate.Blachevelle is very stingy; there are hardly any green peas in the market; one does not know what to eat.I have the spleen, as the English say, butter is so dear! and then you see it is horrible, here we are dining in a room with a bed in it, and that disgusts me with life."

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