"What an acrobat!" whispered Butscha to Latournelle, after listening
to a magnificent tirade on the Catholic religion and the happiness of
having a pious wife,--served up in response to a remark by Madame
Mignon.
Modeste's eyes were blindfolded as it were; Canalis's elocution and
the close attention which she was predetermined to pay to him
prevented her from seeing that Butscha was carefully noting the
declamation, the want of simplicity, the emphasis that took the place
of feeling, and the curious incoherencies in the poet's speech which
led the dwarf to make his rather cruel comment. At certain points of
Canalis's discourse, when Monsieur Mignon, Dumay, Butscha, and
Latournelle wondered at the man's utter want of logic, Modeste admired
his suppleness, and said to herself, as she dragged him after her
through the labyrinth of fancy, "He loves me!" Butscha, in common with
the other spectators of what we must call a stage scene, was struck
with the radiant defect of all egoists, which Canalis, like many men
accustomed to perorate, allowed to be too plainly seen. Whether he
understood beforehand what the person he was speaking to meant to say,
whether he was not listening, or whether he had the faculty of
listening when he was thinking of something else, it is certain that
Melchior's face wore an absent-minded look in conversation, which
disconcerted the ideas of others and wounded their vanity.
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