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

"Wait! wait! I see someone yonder who can tell us better than anybody else the truth of the matter. Look, do you see that young man crossing the boulevard?"

"Monsieur Jericourt! It is he! Let me go, Chicotin, I am going to speak to him."

"Not much! What will you say to him, I should like to know?"

"I don't know; but I will force him to tell me if he is Violette's lover."

"Force him! Can one force people to tell the truth? It is necessary that that should come natural to them. Come, let's follow Monsieur Jericourt, let's not lose sight of him. When we are in a place where there are fewer people, I'll go to him and speak to him; he knows me. He don't suspect, however, that on two occasions it was him that I tried to throw down in front of the flower girl's booth; but then, that was a joke! As I have told you, I often used to do errands for him--I haven't done any for some time, I fancy that the funds are low--to his friend, the young lion Saint-Arthur. There's a fellow who's allowing himself to be stripped bare by little Dutaillis! What a number one canary he is!"

"Let us walk along faster, Chicotin; you must speak to him."

"Never fear, we won't lose sight of him. When the time comes, I'll ask him, as if it was a matter of no consequence, to tell me the truth about Mamzelle Violette; I'll tell him that I had an idea of marrying her.

Then why shouldn't he tell me the truth? What interest would the man have in deceiving me?"

"What an excellent idea, Chicotin! Yes, yes, you must speak to him; I will keep out of the way, so as not to seem interested. Oh, go at once!

go and speak to him!"

"I can't now; he's met someone, he's talking with a gentleman!"

"What a pity!"

"It only means a little delay; we will wait, we have plenty of time."

Monsieur Jericourt, the dramatic author, had in fact fallen in with one of his confreres, and the gentlemen talked together, sometimes walking a few steps, then stopping, but continuing their conversation all the time. This lasted a long while. Georget was in despair, and Chicotin said:

"It must be that they are writing a play together; there's one of them who seems to be acting it, he gesticulates when he talks as if he was on the stage."

"They don't act as if they proposed to say good-bye."

"Well! if it's a play in five acts that they're composing, and if there's any tableaux in it----"

"Oh! mon Dieu! now they're going into a cafe! That is the last straw!"

"What do you expect? We can't prevent those gentlemen from wanting to take something. Suppose we go into the cafe too and take a _pet.i.t verre?_"

"No, Monsieur Jericourt might notice us, and then he would see that we have followed him."

"You are right, and he wouldn't answer my questions; indeed, it's better that he shouldn't see you. Well, let's do sentry duty; it's a bore, but after all, in our business we often do it for others, and we can afford to be bored on our own account once in a way."

Jericourt remained more than an hour in the cafe with the person whom he had met; then they came out, talked again a long while in front of the cafe, and finally separated.

"At last!" cried Georget, as they walked along Boulevard Beaumarchais, which Jericourt had taken. "This time, Chicotin, you mustn't wait before speaking to this gentleman, until he has met somebody else."

"No, no; but still, I must choose my place. There are some places where one can talk better than others. Ah! he is turning into Rue Pas-de-la-Mule. I'll tackle him on Place Royale.--Yes, he's turning to the left. Wait here for me, Georget."

Chicotin ran after his customer, and Georget remained on the boulevard.

Five minutes pa.s.sed, which seemed an eternity to the young lover; then, as his comrade did not return, Georget went down the street to Place Royale, looked about in all directions, and finally discovered Chicotin under an arcade, talking to Jericourt, who listened with a most contemptuous expression. Georget would have liked to hear what was being said; he walked a few steps toward them, but Chicotin saw him and made a very energetic sign which meant: "Clear out."

Georget took up a position farther away; he leaned against a pillar, and waited, putting his head out from time to time to see if his friend was coming. At last he saw Chicotin walking slowly toward him, his troubled expression denoting anything but good news. Georget ran to meet his comrade, crying out:

"Well! what is his answer? Tell me at once; I have been dying of impatience for an hour!"

"His answer? It wasn't worth while following him so far to listen to that!"

"Ah! I understand; Violette is guilty!"

"Well! according to what that gentleman says, he triumphed over the flower girl. When I said to him: 'Be kind enough, monsieur, to tell me something about Mamzelle Violette's virtue, because I know someone who desires to marry her,' he began to laugh in a sneering way, saying: 'Her virtue! the flower girl's virtue! Ah! this is charming! delicious!' and then a lot of stuff that I couldn't understand at all. However, I think he saw you, for he added: 'It's for your little friend that you are asking these questions.'--I replied: 'No, monsieur, it's for myself.'--At that he began to laugh again! How mad that made me, and how I would have liked to hit him, but that wouldn't have helped matters at all! Then he said: 'Only idiots believe in the virtue of these girls who make such a parade of prudery and cruelty. Violette came to my room of her own free will, and when a pretty girl comes to my room, everybody knows what that means; my reputation is established. Say that to the clown who is in love with her.'--And with that he turned on his heel and began to sing. Ah! that fellow is a miserable villain all the same, and I don't advise him to give me any more errands to do, or I'll take pains to make a mistake! I'll carry his notes to the husbands instead of giving them to their wives, and we'll see if that will make him laugh!--Well, Georget, you are unhappy, you long to cry! Come, come!

deuce take it! Everything hasn't come to an end! You must be a man, you must show that you are no longer a little brat! As if a man should pa.s.s his life whining about a girl who has deceived him! Why, if we should cry every time a woman plays tricks on us, men would have red noses all the time, and that wouldn't be pretty. And then, after all, the girl never made you any promise, you told me so yourself; she was free to give her heart where she chose!"

Georget wiped his eyes, faltering:

"Yes, you are right, Chicotin. Violette was free, and I have no right to blame her. I am a great fool to grieve so, for after all you have told me nothing new; but you see, when I saw this morning how pale and changed she was, I imagined--oh! a lot more foolish things; and then you yourself told me that I was wrong to suspect her."

"Why, I would have put my hand in the fire over that girl's virtue! That was my idea of her!"

"Oh! I don't blame you, Chicotin; on the contrary, I love you for it."

"And where are you living now? You've left Paris."

"Yes, I am at Nogent-sur-Marne, on a beautiful place, belonging to Monsieur Malberg, a man who has been very kind to my mother and me. We want nothing there; on the contrary, we are very fortunate."

"Do wipe your eyes; come, don't cry like that!"

"I am done, I won't cry any more; I am going back to Nogent, and I shall never come to Paris again; it makes me too unhappy to see her, and to think that I mustn't love her. No, I shall not come here again. I swore that I wouldn't, when I went away before; but I will keep my oath now."

"And you will do well. I will go to see you at Nogent--that ain't against the law, is it?"

"Oh, no! do come; but you mustn't mention her to me, you mustn't tell me anything about her; I don't want to know what she is doing."

"Never fear! _bigre!_ I won't be the one to tell you things again that make you feel so bad. Come, wipe your nose and don't think any more about her. Mon Dieu! there's no lack of pretty girls, they're a kind of seed that grows everywhere, like weeds; you can find them in the suburbs as well as in Paris; I'm sure that there are plenty at Nogent, but I'll bet that you haven't looked for them yet?"

"No, I haven't thought of it."

"We'll look for them together, and I will hunt up one able to make you forget all the flower girls in Paris."

"Yes, I will love another, I will love several others!"

"That's the talk; you must love 'em in bunches! In that way, if there's one of them who plays tricks on you, you can console yourself right away with another."

"You will come, won't you, Chicotin? you promise to come? But not to talk to me about her. What difference does it make to me now whether she is pale or red, whether she is sad or merry? Mon Dieu! it's a matter of indifference to me now; I snap my fingers at her, I don't propose to take any further interest in her. When a girl behaves as she has done, she doesn't deserve anybody's interest, does she, Chicotin?"

"No, no! blow your nose again. I'll go to see you, that's agreed; you see, I'm my own master; to be sure, I have my gouty gentleman, who gives me something to do sometimes, but not every day; I haven't been able to find the Baronne de Grangeville, but that isn't my fault. By the way, some time ago weren't you also looking for somebody for your Monsieur Malberg? It was Violette who told me that one day when----"

"Violette! Violette! Did she mention me to you?"

"Ah! what a stupid turkey I am! Here I am talking about her now! I wish I'd bitten my tongue out!"

"Mon Dieu! it isn't a crime, after all, Chicotin. Besides, it must have been long ago, when she loved me a little, when she was fond of me; for she was, I am perfectly sure of it."