; and all these couples, joyous as they were amorous and
indefatigable, laughed, ate, and drank, with youthful and Pantagruelian
ardor, so that, during the first part of the feast, there was less
chatter than clatter of plates and glasses.

The Bacchanal Queen's countenance was less gay, but much more animated
than usual; her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes announced a feverish
excitement; she wished to drown reflection, cost what it might. Her
conversation with her sister often recurred to her, and she tried to
escape from such sad remembrances.

Jacques regarded Cephyse from time to time with passionate adoration;
for, thanks to the singular conformity of character, mind, and taste
between him and the Bacchanal Queen, their attachment had deeper and
stronger roots than generally belong to ephemeral connections founded
upon pleasure. Cephyse and Jacques were themselves not aware of all the
power of a passion which till now had been surrounded only by joys and
festivities, and not yet been tried by any untoward event.

Little Rose-Pompon, left a widow a few days before by a student, who, in
order to end the carnival in style, had gone into the country to raise
supplies from his family, under one of those fabulous pretences which
tradition carefully preserves in colleges of law and medicine--Rose
Pompon, we repeat, an example of rare fidelity, determined not to
compromise herself, had taken for a chaperon the inoffensive Ninny
Moulin.

This latter, having doffed his helmet, exhibited a bald head, encircled
by a border of black, curling hair, pretty long at the back of the head.
By a remarkable Bacchic phenomenon, in proportion as intoxication gained
upon him, a sort of zone, as purple as his jovial face, crept by degrees
over his brow, till it obscured even the shining whiteness of his crown.
Rose-Pompon, who knew the meaning of this symptom, pointed it out to the
company, and exclaimed with a loud burst of laughter: "Take care, Ninny
Moulin! the tide of the wine is coming in."

"When it rises above his head he will be drowned," added the Bacchanal
Queen.

"Oh, Queen! don't disturb me; I am meditating, answered Dumoulin, who was
getting tipsy. He held in his hand, in the fashion of an antique goblet,
a punch-bowl filled with wine, for he despised the ordinary glasses,
because of their small size.

"Meditating," echoed Rose-Pompon, "Ninny Moulin is meditating. Be
attentive!"

"He is meditating; he must be ill