He was near the Chamber of Deputies, the session was closed, all Paris was at dinner--except the man of science.
Marmus was haranguing the statues which, it must be conceded, are similar to all audiences. In France there is not an audience that is not prohibited from giving marks of approval or disapproval. Otherwise, there is not an audience that would not turn orator.
At the Iena bridge Marmus had a pain in the stomach. He heard the hoarse voice of a cab driver. Marmus thought that he was ill and let himself be ushered into the cab. He made himself comfortable in it.
When the driver asked, "Where?" Marmus replied quietly:
"Home."
"Where is your home, Monsieur?" asked the driver.
"Number three," Marmus replied.
"What street?" asked the driver.
"Ah, you are right, my friend. But this is extraordinary," he said, taking the driver into his confidence. "I have been so busy comparing the hyoides and the caracoides--yes, that's it. I will catch Sinard in the act. At the next session of the Institute he will have to yield to evidence."
The driver wrapped his ragged cloak around him. Resignedly, he was saying to himself, "I have seen many odd folks, but this one--" He heard the word "Institute."
"The Institute, Monsieur?" he asked.
"Yes, my friend, the Institute," replied Marmus.
"Well he wears the red ribbon," said the driver to himself. "Perhaps he has something to do with the Institute."
The professor, infinitely more comfortable in his cab than on the sidewalk, devoted himself entirely to solving the problem that went against his theory and would not surrender--the rascal! The cab stops at the Institute; the janitor sees the Academician and bows to him respectfully. The cab driver, his suspicions dispelled, talks with the janitor of the Institute while the illustrious professor goes--at eight in the evening--to the Academie des Sciences.
The cab driver tells the janitor where he found his fare.
"At the Iena bridge," repeats the janitor. "M. Marmus was coming back from Passy. He had dined, doubtless, with M. Planchette, one of his friends of the Academy."
"He couldn't tell me his address," says the cab driver.
"He lives in the Rue Duguay-Trouin, Number three," says the janitor.
"What a neighborhood!" exclaims the driver.
"My friend," asks of the janitor the professor who had found the door shut, "is there no meeting of the Academy to-day?"
"To-day!" exclaims the janitor. "At this hour!"
"What is the time?" asks the man of science.
"About eight o'clock," the janitor replies.
"It is late," comments M. Marmus. "Take me home, driver."
The driver goes through the quays, the Rue du Bac, falls into a tangle of wagons, returns by the Rue de Grenelle, the Croix-Rouge, the Rue Cassette, then he makes a mistake. He tries to find the Rue d'Assas, in the Rue Honore-Chevalier, in the Rue Madame, in all the impossible streets and, swearing that if he had known he would not have come so far for a hundred sous, disembarks the professor in the Rue Duguay-Trouin.
The cab driver claims an hour, for the police ordinances, that defend consumers of time in cabs from the stratagems of cab drivers, had not yet posted the walls of Paris with their protecting articles that settle in advance all difficulties.
"Very well, my friend," says M. Marmus to the cab driver. "Pay him," M. Marmus says to Madame Adolphe. "I do not feel well, my child."
"Monsieur, what did I tell you?" she exclaimed. "You have eaten too much. While you were away, I said to myself, 'It is Mme. Vernet's birthday. They will urge him at table and he will come back sick.' Well, go to bed. I will make camomile tea for you."
VII
DESSERT
The professor walked through the garden into a pavilion at one of its corners, where he lived alone in order not to be disturbed by his wife.
He went up the stairway leading to his little room, and complained so much of his pains in the stomach that Madame Adolphe filled him with camomile tea.
"Ah, here is a carriage! It is Madame returning in great anxiety, I am sure," said Madame Adolphe, giving to the professor his sixth cup of camomile tea. "Now, sir, I hope that you will be able to drink it without me. Do not let it fall all over your bed. You know how Madame would laugh. You are very happy to have a little wife who is so amiable and so joyful."
"Say nothing to her, my child," exclaimed the professor, whose features expressed a sort of childish fear.
The truly great man is always more or less a child.
VIII
THIS SHOWS THAT THE WIFE OF A MAN OF SCIENCE IS VERY UNHAPPY
"Well, good-bye. Return in the cab, it is paid for," Madame Marmus was saying when Madame Adolphe arrived at the door.
The cab had already turned the corner. Madame Adolphe, not having seen Madame Marmus's escort, said to herself:
"Poor Madame! He must be her nephew."
Madame Marmus, a little woman, lithe, graceful, mirthful, was divinely dressed and in a fashion too young for her age, counting her twenty-five years as a wife.