The Apprentice.
The strings, see, are of sugar.
Ragueneau
[giving him a coin].
Go, drink my health! [Seeing Lise enter.] Hush! my wife. Bustle, pass on, and hide that money! [To Lise, showing her the lyre, with a conscious look.] Is it not beautiful?
Lise.
'Tis passing silly!
[She puts a pile of papers on the counter.]
Ragueneau.
Bags? Good. I thank you. [He looks at them.] Heavens! my cherished leaves! The poems of my friends! Torn, dismembered to make bags for holding biscuits and cakes!… Ah, 'tis the old tale again… Orpheus and the Bacchantes!
Lise
[drily].
And am I not free to turn at last to some use the sole thing that your wretched scribblers of halting lines leave behind them by way of payment?
Ragueneau.
Grovelling ant!… Insult not the divine grasshoppers, the sweet singers!
Lise.
Before you were the sworn comrade of all that crew, my friend, you did not call your wife ant and Bacchante!
