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Page 10
"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."
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