"Oh! go on! You were young once, you had your fling, there is some
love-child of yours somewhere--cold, and starving, and homeless. . . .
What monsters men are! Their love doesn't last only for a day, and
then in a jiffy they forget, they don't so much as think of the child
at the breast for months. . . . Poor women!"
"But no one has ever loved me except Schmucke and my mother," poor
Pons broke in sadly.
"Oh! come, you aren't no saint! You were young in your time, and a
fine-looking young fellow you must have been at twenty. I should have
fallen in love with you myself, so nice as you are--"
"I always was as ugly as a toad," Pons put in desperately.
"You say that because you are modest; nobody can't say that you aren't
modest."
"My dear Mme. Cibot, _no_, I tell you. I always was ugly, and I never
was loved in my life."
"You, indeed!" cried the portress. "You want to make me believe at
this time of day that you are as innocent as a young maid at your time
of life. Tell that to your granny! A musician at a theatre too! Why,
if a woman told me that, I wouldn't believe her."
"Montame Zipod, you irritate him!" cried Schmucke, seeing that Pons
was writhing under the bedclothes.
"You hold your tongue too! You are a pair of old libertines. If you
were ugly, it don't make no difference; there was never so ugly a
saucepan-lid but it found a pot to match, as the saying is. There is
Cibot, he got one of the handsomest oyster-women in Paris to fall in
love with him, and you are infinitely better looking than him! You are
a nice pair, you are! Come, now, you have sown your wild oats, and God
will punish you for deserting your children, like Abraham--"
Exhausted though he was, the invalid gathered up all his strength to
make a vehement gesture of denial.
Pages:
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732