The Snowball Read Online Free Page A

the King!"
    Words so curiously
à propos
could not but recall to my mind the
confusion into which my mention of Du Hallot had thrown the secretary
earlier in the day. And since they seemed also to be consistent with
the warning conveyed to me, and indeed to explain it, they should have
corroborated my worst suspicions. But a sense of something unreal and
fantastic, with which I could not grapple, continued to puzzle me in
the presence of this angry woman; and it was with no great assurance
that I said, "Do I understand then, Madame, that M. du Hallot is in
that room?"
    "M. du Hallot?" she replied, in a tone that was almost a scream. "No;
but he would be if he had taken the hint I sent him! He would be! I
will have no more secrecy, however, and no more plots. I have suffered
enough already, and now Madame shall suffer if she has not forgotten
how to blush. Are you coming out there?" she continued, once more
applying herself to the door, her face inflamed with passion. "I shall
stay! Oh, I shall stay, I assure you. Until morning if necessary!"
    "But, Madame," I said, beginning to see daylight, and finding words
with difficulty—for I already heard in fancy the King's laughter and
could conjure up the endless quips and cranks with which he would
pursue me—"your warning did not perhaps reach M. du Hallot!"
    "It reached his coach, at any rate," the scold retorted. "Another time
I will have no half-measures. But as for that," she continued, turning
on me suddenly with her arms akimbo, and the fiercest of airs, "I
would like to know what business it is of yours, Monsieur, whether it
reached him or not! I know you—you are in league with my husband! You
are here to shelter him, and this Madame du Hallot! But—"
    At that moment, however, the door at last opened; and M. Nicholas,
wearing an aspect so meek and crestfallen that I hardly knew him, came
out. He was followed by a young woman plainly dressed, and looking
almost as much frightened as himself; in whom I had no difficulty in
recognizing Felix's wife.
    "Why!" Madame Nicholas cried, her face falling. "This is not—who is
this? Who—" with increased vehemence—"is this baggage, I would like
to know?"
    "My dear," the secretary protested earnestly, spreading out his
hands—fortunately he had eyes only for his wife, and did not see
us—"this is one of your ridiculous mistakes! It is, I assure you.
This is the wife of a clerk whom I dismissed to-day, and she has been
with me begging me to reinstate her husband. That is all. That is all,
my dear. You have made this—"
    I heard no more, for, taking advantage of the obscurity of the hall,
and the preoccupation of the couple, I made hurriedly for the door,
and passing out into the darkness, found myself at once in the embrace
of the King, who, seizing me round the neck, laughed on my shoulder
till he cried, continually adjuring me to laugh also, and ejaculating
between the paroxysms, "Poor Du Hallot! Poor Du Hallot!" with many
things of the same nature, which any one acquainted with court life
may supply for himself.
    I confess I did not on my part find it so easy to laugh: partly
because I am not of so gay a disposition as that great prince, and
partly because I cannot always see the ludicrous side of events in
which I myself take part. But on the King at last assuring me that he
would not betray the secret even to La Varenne, I took comfort and
gradually reconciled myself to an episode which, unlike the more
serious events it now becomes my duty to relate, had only one result,
and that unimportant; I mean the introduction to my service of the
clerk Felix, who, proving worthy of confidence, remained with me after
the lamentable death of the King my master, and is to-day one of those
to whom I entrust the preparation of these Memoirs.
* * *