The Flower Girl of The Chateau d'Eau Volume I Part 47

"The question is decided!" muttered Chambourdin, addressing Georget; "you see, my little innocent, that my friend did not lie!"

"Oh! it is frightful! I would never have believed it! And my mother, my poor mother, whom I sacrificed for her! The good Lord is punis.h.i.+ng me for it.--Adieu, Mademoiselle Violette! I will never speak to you again!"

Having said this, Georget ran off like a mad man, and speedily disappeared.

Violette looked after him, and tears gathered in her eyes; she turned to young Astianax, and said to him simply:

"Are you quite satisfied with what you have done, monsieur?"

Astianax lowered one eye and raised the other, then took Chambourdin's arm, saying:

"Let us go."

Chambourdin glanced once more at the girl, who tried to conceal her tears with her flowers, and he said to his companion:

"She isn't of the same style of beauty at all as Madame Boutillon, but she pleases me greatly, none the less."

XXII

A BOTTLE OF ABSINTHE

Georget ran home to his mother without stopping, without drawing breath; he found her sewing, s.n.a.t.c.hed her work from her hands, and threw it aside, saying:

"Drop that, mamma, don't work any more, don't tire your eyes any more; hereafter you will be able to enjoy yourself, to be happy, to walk about all day long. Oh, yes; you are going to be very happy, I tell you! Pack up your things quick, we're going away."

Honest Mere Brunoy gazed at her son in surprise, utterly unable to understand what he said; but his wild manner, his excitement, frightened her, and she exclaimed:

"What's the matter with you, Georget? what has happened to you, my boy?

You're not in your usual condition."

"It's joy, mother; yes, it's pleasure, I tell you, good fortune; that upsets a man a little, but I shall get used to it; I will make the best of it and not think of her any more."

"You will make the best of your good fortune! you won't think of her any more! I don't understand at all! You talk of joy and of pleasure, and you have tears in your eyes, and you are as pale as death! Do you know that you don't look at all like a person who brings good news?"

"You're mistaken, mother, I am very happy; for I tell you again, you won't need to ruin your eyes any more, to wear yourself out working."

"How is that, my dear?"

"Because Monsieur Malberg--you know, that gentleman on the third floor who is so kind to us----"

"Yes, yes; well?"

"Well, we are going to his house in the country--both of us, mother, both of us. Yes, I will go with you and settle down there; I won't leave you any more; I won't come to Paris any more--never! never! oh! I have a horror of Paris!"

"What's that, my boy? Monsieur Malberg has offered you a place at his country house, too?"

"Why, yes, to be sure; I am to look after the workmen, to take care of his garden and plant it; there are eight acres of it--that's a pretty good-sized garden, eight acres! He told me that I should be at liberty to arrange it all as I pleased; and you, mother, you will have charge of the house, the linen, the furniture, the poultry yard; and he will give us a thousand francs a year for it."

"A thousand francs! Mon Dieu! why that is a fortune, my boy! It means that our future is provided for; you will not be a messenger any more.

We won't spend the thousand francs; we will save up money to buy you a subst.i.tute when you are drafted! For that is what I am always thinking about.--And was it only just now that that generous man offered to employ you at his country house?"

"Just now--oh, no! It was a long time ago, mother. If you knew--but I won't keep it from you any more; you shall know what a bad son I have been; but you will forgive me, when you know the cause. Mon Dieu! it was too much for me!"

"You, a bad son, Georget; no, that is impossible; you do yourself an injustice, my child!"

"No, for all this comfort that I offer you to-day, Monsieur Malberg proposed to me some time ago, when I spoke to you about going to his country house; it depended only on me to go there then with you, and I did not tell you that, because then I could not make up my mind to leave Paris; for--mon Dieu!--for I was in love--there! that is what I had at the bottom of my heart, and did not dare to tell you!"

"Is it possible! you in love already! Why, you won't be eighteen for two months."

"Still I have been in love a long time."

"Poor boy! then that is the reason why some days you were so sad and other days so gay! Lovers always go to extremes!--And it's all over now, is it?"

"Oh, yes! it's all over, mother; I don't propose to think of her any more; I don't propose to see her, either, for if I should see her, I should treat her as she deserves; but that wouldn't do any good, that wouldn't prevent--what has happened. You see, mother, I believed that she was so virtuous, I would have gone into the fire for her, and she deceived me."

"Did she tell you that she loved you, my boy?"

"She didn't tell me so, except with her eyes,--at least it seemed to me that I could read it there. But I deceived myself, no doubt! However, let us not talk any more about her, mother, let us not talk any more about her. Pack up your things, take only what you need for a little while, and later I will come back and fetch the rest; the most important thing now is to go."

"But, my boy, our furniture, and these lodgings--we haven't given notice."

"Don't worry about all that, we will give it later. While you are getting ready, I will go and ask Baudoin, the concierge, if Monsieur Malberg is at his country house now."

Georget left his mother and ran quickly down to the concierge. Baudoin was keeping the lodge, for his wife had drunk so much the night before that she had been taken ill, and was not in condition to leave her bed.

"Monsieur Baudoin, could you tell me if Monsieur Malberg is at his house at Nogent now, or if he is living here?" Georget asked as he entered the concierge's lodge. That functionary, who was in very ill humor at being obliged to serve as his wife's nurse, swore like several carters and said as he poured water into a cup:

"Herb tea! I think I see myself making her herb tea, the miserable drunkard! Water is what she needs, to put out the fire that she keeps kindled in her insides!"

"Will you answer me, please, Monsieur Baudoin?"

"Ah! Monsieur Georget, you see a man sorely vexed, sorely humiliated by his social position. My wife is my shame, I am not afraid to say so; she behaves like the lowest of the low! Just fancy, monsieur, that one of the chief clerks in my department--you know that I am employed in a department?"

"Yes, you are an office boy."

"Boy! good G.o.d! I wish I was a boy! But it's true that they call us office boys although we are married; and the day before yesterday one of my superiors, who is satisfied with my intelligence, made me a present of a bottle of absinthe,--as an extra--genuine Swiss absinthe, a liqueur that I am very fond of. So I came home with my bottle, but I took pains to tear off the label, and to say to Hildegarde, whose vicious tastes I know too well: 'Don't touch this bottle, don't think of tasting what there is in it; it's Chinese opium, and it would put you to sleep right away; but you'd never wake up.'--'All right, that's enough,' said Hildegarde; 'but I don't see why you take it into your head to bring poison here.' At that I says to her: 'If I choose to do it, it's none of your business, as I'm the master.' Then she made some impertinent remark, I administered a healthy punishment, and we went to bed on it.

Yesterday morning I started for my office as usual; I was delighted with my trick, and I said to myself that my absinthe was in no danger. Well, monsieur, I returned at night and what did I find? My bottle empty, no absinthe--Hildegarde had drunk it all, all, monsieur, and hadn't left me a drop! That is what I can never forgive--I didn't have a taste of it myself! As for my wife, you can judge what a state she was in, and when I undertook to reprove her, if she didn't have the cheek to answer: 'It's your fault, you villain, I poisoned myself on purpose; I wanted to get away from your hard treatment; but you lied--your poison doesn't put a body to sleep, and it ain't bad at all, and if there was any more, I'd take another drink.'

"That, Monsieur Georget, is what the wretched creature dared to say to me; and to-day she is on her back, she can't move, and I like to think that she'll never get over it!"

"Oh! that's a wicked thing to say, Monsieur Baudoin--to wish for your wife's death!"

"It's for her good, as she will not mend her ways."