The Flower Girl of The Chateau d'Eau Volume I Part 4

"Ah! here's Georget! here's my little Georget! I am glad of that; I thought he must have been swallowed by the whale on exhibition over yonder, behind us. To be sure, I know that it isn't alive; but never mind, you might have crawled into its mouth. I say, Georget, have you seen the whale?"

"Let me alone, I don't feel like talking!"

"Well! I paid to see the whale, because as I'd never seen the sea, I said to myself: 'That will give me an idea of its inhabitants.'--But confound it! how I was sold! Just fancy--I went into a long, narrow place, like a corridor with boarded walls. I couldn't see anything, no water at all. I said to myself: 'Where in the deuce is the whale?' but there was a fellow in a sailor's suit, walking up and down the corridor, singing out at the top of his lungs: 'See, ladies and gentlemen, look, examine this rare animal! It's the first whale that's been seen in France since the Roman conquest! It was harpooned at Havre and would have been brought to Paris alive, if there had been room enough for it in a first-cla.s.s carriage!'--When I heard that, I squinted up my eyes to find the marine monster. When I first went into the corridor, I had noticed something like a pile of earth, on the floor between two boards, and I said to myself: 'It seems that they are going to plant flowers in the place to brighten it up!' But not at all: that black thing, between two boards, was the whale! I discovered it when I reached the end of the corridor, because then I saw a kind of head, with a beard, at one end of what I had taken for earth. I was mad, I tell you! I regretted my money, and I said to the sailor: 'If you'd told me beforehand that I was going to see a whale in a box, and dry as a herring, I wouldn't have come into your old barrack!'--Well, little Georget, why don't you laugh?"

"I tell you to let me alone, I don't feel like laughing!"

"Why, what under the sun is the matter with the little mummy! He's got to be as melancholy as an empty stomach for some time past! Come, I propose to cheer you up; I'll treat you to a gla.s.s at the wine merchant's on Rue Ba.s.se."

"Thanks, I am not thirsty."

"And then you will come to the theatre this evening with me. I don't mean the Dela.s.ses, or the Funambs, or the Pet.i.t-Lazare; I go to the big theatres now; I have become an habitue of the Folies-Dramatiques!

Nothing less! You see, when one has seen Mamzelle Duplessis, in _'Une Mauvaise Nuit Est Bientot Pa.s.see,'_ one doesn't care to see anything else! It is magnificent! Mamzelle Duplessis is in a night jacket embroidered with lace, like a bride preparing to retire. Dieu! how lovely she is! I dream of her every night as I go to bed! And then, Monsieur Christian, in _'La Perruque de Mon Oncle!'_ When he says: 'Ah!

fichtre! sacrebleu! hush or I will thrash you!' or something else in that line, I tell you it's amusing! I laugh until I make a show of myself! And just now Monsieur Christian pa.s.sed here--you didn't see him--the real man, the one who plays at the Folies; and he bought a bunch of violets, and smiled because I said to him: 'Monsieur Christian, do you want me to carry you?'--Ha! ha! that made him laugh!--Well, Georget, I say, Georget! you little wretch of a Georget! what in the world has somebody been doing to you, Gringalet?"

"If you call me Gringalet, I'll punch your head, do you understand?"

"Oho! how ugly the little rascal is! What have you been treading on to-day?"

"I may be small without being a Gringalet, or a wretch. I am seventeen years, eight months and ten days."

"You look as if you were about twelve or less!"

"The looks make no difference; I am not a child any more, and I don't propose to be treated like an urchin."

"Ah! you wish to be looked up to, perhaps?"

"If anyone insults me, he must fight me."

"Tell me what you have eaten this morning? You are not so ugly as this usually!"

"But you are teasing me! saying things that make me angry!"

"Then as I am in the wrong, thrash me right away and let's have it over with! But I don't propose to fight with you, because I am your friend, and I like you with all your ill-humor! Come, strike me!"

As he spoke, Chicotin Patatras--for such was the name of this last individual--coolly planted himself in front of his friend, and stooped as if he were all ready to be beaten. But when he saw that, Georget rose, his anger vanished, and he offered his hand to his comrade, saying:

"Can you think of such a thing? I, strike you! that would be pretty!

Come, it is all over, I am not angry any more; nor you either, are you?"

"Oh! I haven't been at all!"

"You see, Chicotin, there are many people who say that you are a ne'er-do-well, a brawler, and a sot; they have nicknamed you Patatras, because wherever you go, you always arrive like a bomb and turn everything topsy-turvy! But I do you justice, and I have always defended you; and if you are noisy, and if you do sometimes throw a whole company into confusion, you have a good heart all the same, and when you are fond of anybody, he can always rely on you."

"Pardi! a man is a good friend, or he isn't. A door is open or shut, one or the other! that's all I know!--Well, will you go to the Folies-Dramatiques with me to-night? I'll treat you; I have some cash; I carried a bouquet to the young lady! Ah! bless my soul! that bouquet evidently gave pleasure, for she put five francs in my hand; the gentleman had given me as much! in all, two hind wheels, six times as much as the bouquet was worth! But these lovers! tell me who else is so generous, when they are satisfied, and are in funds? 'Tis love, love, love, that makes the world go round!"

"Oh, yes! the rich lovers, they are happy enough! they can make their sweethearts handsome presents!"

"Bah! they are not the ones I envy, especially as I have noticed that the ones who are loved the best are not the ones who give the most presents! A little more pains is taken to deceive them, that's all! I see so many things, when I am doing errands, opening carriage doors, or asking for theatre checks! But the actors! Oh, the actors! when I can be employed by one of them, then I am perfectly happy! I went on the stage once, that is to say, under the stage, at the Ambigu! It's mighty amusing, I tell you, and you see a lot of things--that you don't expect to see!--But you are not listening to me, Georget. Ah! I can guess what you're thinking about, with your eyes always turned in that direction!

So it is all over, is it? You're in love for good and all!"

"Hush, Chicotin, don't say that, I beg you!"

"I say it because I see it; I don't need to be a sleep-walker to guess that! You're in love with the pretty flower girl, Mamzelle Violette!"

"I never told anybody so!"

"You don't need to tell it, it's plain enough; that's what upsets you so, and changes your whole disposition, and gives you a sour look, a dismal expression, like Monsieur Goujet of the Gaite, when he plays the traitors, the abductors who carry off young girls! Ah! how magnificent he was in _'Martin et Bamboche!'_ I was a little bit of a fellow when I saw that, but I still have the piece in my head all the same, it impressed me so. He had on a white coat, rather neat, did Monsieur Goujet; he played the part of a well-dressed son, who treated his father like the deuce!--Confound it! He isn't listening to me because I've stopped talking about the flower girl! Why, is this pa.s.sion of yours making you an idiot? As if a man ever fell in love for good at your age!

For my part, I like pretty girls too; but it doesn't make me so stupid as it does you! it never lasts more than a week! Let your beard grow, then you'll have the right to pose as a sentimental lover! Ah! now he turns as red as a turkey-c.o.c.k! What is going on? Ah! I see; because two fine gentlemen, two swells have stopped and are looking at the flower girl's wares. I suppose you'd like it if n.o.body ever bought anything of your pretty dealer? She'd do a fine business then!"

"Oh! but I know those two young men; they come very often to buy flowers of her and they always talk nonsense to her; especially the tallest one!

He actually dared one time to ask her to be his mistress! Ah! if big Chopard hadn't held me back, I'd have jumped on him; I'd have scratched him and bitten him!"

"Hoity-toity! is that the way you propose to treat Mamzelle Violette's customers? You'll give her shop a good reputation!"

"That's what Chopard said, to calm me down!"

"Besides, don't all these dandies--that is what they call these fellows--don't all these dandies talk that way to women, especially when they are pretty? It's their way; they must always play the lady-killer; if they didn't, they wouldn't be dandies! But I know one of those young men, too; the tallest one is an author,--that means a man who writes plays; his name is Jericourt; I've carried letters to his room sometimes from the other one, who isn't so tall; that one has employed me often; just now he's very attentive to an actress at the Folies, a little blonde with black eyes, who plays such parts as Rigolette,--Mademoiselle Dutaillis. I'll bet that she's the one he's going to buy a bouquet for, and then he'll take her to dinner at Bonvalet's; and when she's in the cast, they keep sending me to the theatre, to the box office, to ask how far they have got. I always ask a handsome man who is sitting inside the office, and he answers with a sly look: 'Go and tell mademoiselle that she has time enough to eat another course, provided that it isn't carp, because the bones might make her lose her cue.'"

"Oh, yes! I know well enough that it isn't the light-haired one who is dangerous to Violette; it's the other one!"

"And why should the other one be dangerous, when everyone says that the little flower girl is virtuous? You yourself told me so a hundred times."

"Certainly she is virtuous, perfectly virtuous. If she wasn't, if she was anything else, do you suppose I'd be mad over her as I am?"

"Then what difference does it make to you whether people pay her compliments and make love to her? She won't listen to them."

"Who can tell? A young girl sometimes ends by allowing herself to be deceived by all these soft speeches. They offer her dresses, jewels, entertainments, love--it's all very tempting. Look, see how that tall, scented fellow is leaning over her counter to speak to her! I don't care; no matter what happens, I am going to tell that man to act different from that!"

"Upon my word! be good enough to stay here. You don't like to see him talking with the flower girl; very good, let me fix him; I haven't been nicknamed Patatras for nothing!"

IV

TWO WELL-KNOWN YOUNG MEN

Two young men had, in fact, stopped in front of the pretty flower girl's booth; each of them was from twenty-six to twenty-eight years of age; their eccentric costumes marked them out as dandies, or at least as persons who strove to appear to be such.

Especially the shorter one, who wore plaid trousers of very bright colors, each plaid being so large that a single one extended from the thigh to the calf; his light sack coat hardly came below his waist, and when he bent forward a little, disclosed the whole seat of his trousers.

He wore on his head a broad-brimmed gray hat with a long nap; and he had stuck in one eye a small bit of gla.s.s, set in tortoise sh.e.l.l, which, when not in use, hung down over his waistcoat of buff pique, at the end of a black ribbon. He was, for all this dandified equipment, a very good-looking youth, with black eyes, a shapely aquiline nose, a small mouth with red lips, fine teeth, a pretty pink and white complexion, a little dimple in his chin, very light whiskers, a pointed beard, and with all that, a stupid expression which was not in the least misleading.

This young man had been a clerk in a business house with a salary of eight hundred francs, and a slight bonus at the end of the year; at that time, as may be imagined, his dress was much less elegant, and it was difficult for him to follow the fas.h.i.+ons. But a distant relative died, and unexpectedly left him sixty thousand francs in cash. This unhoped-for fortune, which enabled him to gratify his dearest wishes, his fondest hopes, had almost turned his brain.

First of all, he began by correcting his certificates of baptism; his name was Benoit Canard, a name which struck the ear unpleasantly, and had nothing romantic or refined about it; he adopted the name of Alfred de Saint-Arthur, which was certain to attract the attention of the ladies. When a man's name is Alfred de Saint-Arthur, he must inevitably belong to the _haute_, as the lorettes of the Breda quarter say.

Next, Alfred soon resigned his place, hired a dainty apartment, purchased a cabriolet and a horse, and patronized one of the first tailors in Paris; he affected the society of actresses, choosing those who were most talked about, and who had led their lovers into the most follies; for, although Monsieur Alfred de Saint-Arthur had some inclination for that life of dissipation, of parade and extravagances which some favorites of fortune lead, and which is excusable only in those who really have the means to support it, the thing that especially delighted the young man was to show himself, to put himself in evidence with a fas.h.i.+onable woman, to display himself in the proscenium box of a theatre, or in a caleche in the Bois du Boulogne; to make a great noise when he entered a restaurant, to declare all the private rooms inconvenient, to shout at the waiters, to find fault with everything, always to talk very loud, so that everybody might hear him, to smoke only eight sou cigars, and to see everybody turn to look at him when he was out driving.