The Flower Girl of The Chateau d'Eau Volume I Part 32

"Oh! you shan't escape me so, my dear; you are in my room and we are alone.--Come, don't be so cruel; but let me kiss you."

"Take care, monsieur; you think that you have a weak girl to deal with, but I am not afraid of you; you won't get anything from me, I give you fair warning; and if you try to use force, look out! I won't spare your face, that you're so proud of.--Let me alone, monsieur, I don't propose that you shall kiss me."

Jericourt paid no heed to the girl's entreaties; he attempted to pursue his enterprise, but he met with a resistance which he was far from expecting; Violette's hands were active and strong; she put one of them to her persecutor's face and dug her nails in so far that the blood flowed freely, and the pain forced the young man to relax his hold. He went to the mirror to look at himself, and exclaimed angrily:

"That's an abominable thing for you to do, mademoiselle--to scratch my face and mutilate me! only tigresses do that; it's only among the _canaille_ that such things are indulged in."

"Indeed, monsieur! So I am of the _canaille_ because I defend myself, because I don't allow monsieur to take liberties with me. Why do you pay any attention to me then? why do you degrade yourself with a dealer in flowers?"

"As if I could suspect anything of the kind! To attack a man's face--that's the worst possible form!"

"You've got no more than you deserve, monsieur; I gave you fair warning; and if you should try again to keep me, I promise you that you wouldn't get off so cheap."

"Oh! I won't keep you any longer, mademoiselle, I have had enough. You are free, but I have some scratches on my face that I shall not forget!

You will be sorry that you treated me so!"

"Oh! I am not afraid of you, monsieur, and I have proved it. When a man acts as you have done, he shouldn't threaten other people--he should try to be more decent in order to obtain forgiveness for what he has done.--Adieu, monsieur."

Violette opened the door of the salon, pa.s.sed through another small room, and opened another door; but in her haste she made a mistake; it was not the door leading to the landing, but she had almost entered the bedroom. Discovering her error, she retraced her steps, and at last found the outer door.

Meanwhile Jericourt had followed and overtaken her, and he tried again to detain her by seizing her dress; but she roughly shook him off, and with a glance that banished any desire to stop her again, she rushed out on the landing and down the stairs, without turning her head; nor did she see a young man who was then standing at his open door, directly opposite Jericourt's.

This young man, who was no other than little Astianax, uttered a cry of surprise on recognizing the girl, who pa.s.sed very near him. Having followed her with his eyes as she descended the stairs, he turned toward Jericourt, who was standing in his doorway, and said:

"It is surely she; it's the pretty flower girl of the Chateau d'Eau!--I say, neighbor, she came out of your room----"

"Why, to be sure; you must have seen her come out."

"Yes, yes, I saw her.--Aha! so the little flower girl comes to see you!

The deuce! you're a lucky man!"

"It is true, I am generally lucky with women."

"Is your face inflamed, neighbor, that you are holding your handkerchief over your cheek?"

"No, but I have a slight toothache."

"All the same, I confess that I can't get over it; Mademoiselle Violette coming out of your room! She was very red, and decidedly rumpled too!"

"Why--that was the result of our interview."

"Oh, yes! I understand. Gad! you are favored by Venus! The pretty flower girl, who made such a parade of her pride and virtue, and sent me about my business when I made impa.s.sioned speeches to her, and snubbed me when I proposed to take her to Saint-Germain by train!"

"Let this be a lesson to you, young man; it will teach you that you mustn't trust the airs these young women a.s.sume.--Au revoir, Astianax."

"Au revoir, Joconde! Don Juan! Richelieu!"

Jericourt returned to his room, saying to himself:

"Now I am sure of my revenge! Mademoiselle Violette will pay dear for the scratches she gave me!"

XVI

A DOWNFALL

Madame de Grangeville, whose place of abode Chicotin had not been able to ascertain, lived on Rue Fontaine-Saint-Georges, in a small apartment on the fourth floor of a recently-constructed house.

In houses which have just been finished, and of which the walls have not had time to dry and the paint to lose its odor, apartments are very commonly let to persons who offer to break them in, so to speak. Why are these persons very often lorettes or ballet-dancers out of employment?

Probably because those ladies know that very little pains will be taken to seek information about them, and that they will be accepted as tenants with such effects as they choose to bring. Landlords are never exacting with those tenants who are willing to "dry the walls."

The Baronne de Grangeville, however, did not belong to either of the various cla.s.ses of women who are in the habit of hiring apartments without asking the price, and who reply to those persons who remark that their rent is high: "What difference does that make to me? I never pay!"

However, from her position, her tastes and her habits, it was impossible to mistake her position in life; it was easy to see that that lady had fallen from opulence.

Her furniture still retained some traces of her former opulence: it included a dressing-table and a couch of extreme daintiness, and side by side with them, easy-chairs and common chairs that were out of style, spotted and in wretched condition. There were ample curtains, large and small, in her bedroom; there were only very small ones in her salon. The dining-room was almost bare and there was very little furniture in the kitchen, but the baroness never, or very rarely, had cooking done in her apartment; she sent out to a restaurant for her meals; that way of living is more expensive, but Madame de Grangeville had never chosen to take the trouble to calculate, or to pay any heed to her expenses; so long as she had had a regular income, she had thought of nothing but satisfying her fancies, her most trifling desires, without stopping to think whether her means were sufficient for her innumerable whims; people who have no idea of order when they are young, rarely change when they are older; with them things go as best they can; they never think of the morrow. Such people are very agreeable in society and are generally considered very generous; they have nothing of their own and everyone exclaims:

"Ah! what an excellent heart!"

I consider that only those persons have a good heart who give what they themselves possess, and who, before everything, pay their creditors and do not run into debt. If you make a present to a friend, if you open your purse to obsequious flatterers who surround you, you inflict a real injury on your tailor whom you do not pay, on the restaurant keeper whom you put off from day to day by giving him small sums on account; it is not with your money that you are generous, but with that of your creditors. There are people who distribute alms after becoming bankrupt, and who pose as benefactors of mankind. There are such people who have great reputations for kindness of heart, for whom I have very little esteem! If you scratch the surface, you soon come to the rock.

As Madame de Grangeville could not afford to keep both a lady's maid and a cook, she had dismissed the latter, whom it would have been more sensible to keep; unfortunately, she could not do without a lady's maid; she would gladly have kept her cook as well, but the latter had become tired of buying food on credit at the dealers', who also were tired of supplying goods without being paid.

When Madame Roc, that was the cook's name, went to her mistress to ask for money, she would throw herself back on her couch and hold a phial of smelling salts to her nose, crying:

"Oh! Madame Roc, have you come to talk about money again? Leave me in peace, I beg you. I have an attack of vapors already, and you will give me an attack of hysteria."

"But, madame, for dinner----"

"Don't bother me about dinner; do what you choose; I give you _carte blanche_!"

"_Carte blanche_ isn't money, and they all want money; I can't say to the butcher: 'I have _carte blanche_ to pay for your fillet.'"

"Mon Dieu! how you tire me! how you make my head ache!"

"But, madame, if I shouldn't get any dinner for you, would you like that?"

"Heavens! how you annoy me, how intolerable you are! Go away, I tell you again, and leave me!"

This little scene, which is of frequent occurrence in Paris, will give an idea of the sort of person that the Baronne de Grangeville was. When the cook had been dismissed, matters arranged themselves better with the lady's maid; she, being accustomed to flatter her mistresses in order to obtain a dress or a scarf, knew a thousand tricks to deceive creditors, to put them off the scent and send them away; and that was just the sort of lady's maid that Madame de Grangeville needed.

However, everything has an end, the patience of creditors no less than the confidence of dealers. Discovering a little late that she was likely to find herself in a very critical situation, after squandering a part of her princ.i.p.al, she sold what little she had left, and with the proceeds took it into her head to gamble on the Bourse. That was as good a way as another; it was a matter of luck, and she could still dream of wealth; for people who are devoid of order, it is a masterstroke to be able to rely on chance.

One morning, Madame de Grangeville, who had just risen and taken her chocolate _a la vanille_, told Lizida, her maid, to go out and buy a newspaper which had the quotations of railroad and manufacturing stocks.

The maid hastened to obey her mistress; the latter looked at herself in a mirror, as she tried on a very fas.h.i.+onable cap which she had worn only three times, but which did not rejuvenate her as much as she wished.