apprentices. Mademoiselle Euphémie could not control her outbursts of
laughter, and the corpulent Julienne cried:
"But it would have been much more convenient for eating, if they'd had a
box with a salon. There must be plates and glasses in those boxes."
"They even have a kitchen at one side," said tall Laura, "with
everything you need to roast a joint."
"Oh! what fun it must be to see a play and turn the spit at the same
time!"
"Mon Dieu! how you do chatter to-day, mesdemoiselles! If this nonsense
goes on, we shan't be able to deliver our orders."
"Talking don't prevent sewing, mademoiselle."
"We haven't any reason to be dismal," said the girl with the affected
manners.--"By the way, mesdemoiselles, I saw our old comrade Léonie
yesterday. She had the arm of a man who didn't have any style at
all--and who was dressed like a messenger!"
"Ah! some women have such vile taste!"
"They stoop so low!"
"There are some who wouldn't blush to love a bootblack."
"A messenger and a bootblack are the same thing."
"Do you think so, Euphémie?"
"To be sure; when you want to have your shoes polished, you go up to a
messenger and put your foot on his _crochets_, and he's obliged to
polish 'em right away."
"Indeed! but what if he don't have any polish?"
"That don't make any difference. Besides, those fellows always do have;
they lend their things to each other."
"I must treat myself to a shine, then. Two sous is enough to pay, and
I'll have my shoes shined by young Paul, the messenger who plays the
swell."
Little Elina said nothing, but held her head still lower over her work;
for her eyes were full of tears, she was choking with vexation and
anger, and she did not want them to see her weep.
Luckily, Madame Dumanchon's arrival put an end to this conversation.
When their mistress was present, the girls dared not talk or laugh or
sing; they had to content themselves with looking at one another from
time to time, and making signs or wry faces.
Elina left the workroom with a heavy heart and eyes still red with
weeping.
"Mon Dieu! how spiteful those girls are!" she said to herself. "But what
would they say if they knew that poor Paul, whom they sneer at so, is
also a foundling? But all that doesn't prevent my loving him, for I'm
sure that he's honest and good, and that he loves me. Oh! his voice
rang so true when he told me. And it seems to me that, for all his
humble condition, he has better manners and expresses himself better
than any of the men who come to speak to the girls sometimes."
To help her to forget the chagrin she had felt in the workroom, she
hurried across the street to say good-night to Paul before returning to
her aunt's. But her hope was disappointed: Paul was not in his place,
and, having looked about to see if she could discover him anywhere,
Elina sadly went home, flattering herself that she would have better
luck the next day.
The next day came; Elina, who had slept very little and dreamed a great
deal,--which seems, at first glance, a difficult feat, yet happens not
infrequently,--descended from her loft, dressed with care, looked at
herself in her mirror oftener than usual, to make sure that her hair was
becomingly arranged, and left the house, saying in reply to her aunt,
who asked her where she was going so early, that there was a press of
work, and that Madame Dumanchon had urged them to come in good season.
"There ought not to be many people in the street as yet," thought Elina,
as she went downstairs; "and we shall have time to talk a little. I am
sure he's as anxious for a little talk as I am."
She walked rapidly from her home to the dressmaker's, and when she
reached the corner of the boulevard glanced toward Paul's usual stand;
but he was not there, and there were no _crochets_ or jacket to indicate
that he had been there.
"It seems that he is less eager to see me than I am to see him,"
murmured Elina, with a sigh. "But he may have business this morning,
some errand a long way off--so that it isn't his fault that he isn't
here. Oh, yes! that must be it, for it isn't possible that he doesn't
want to see me this morning."
Reflecting that it was still very early to go to her work, the girl
walked some distance along the boulevard, then returned to the corner of
Rue du Helder. Paul had not arrived, but his two comrades, Sans-Cravate
and Jean Ficelle, were in their places.
Elina hesitated, walked away a few steps, then returned to the
boulevard, saying to herself:
"But I haven't bought anything yet for my breakfast and dinner; still, I
must live to-day, so I will go and buy something; meanwhile, he will
come; as his comrades have arrived, he must be here soon."
She walked along the boulevard, going from one shop to another,
hesitating between the pastry-cook and the grocer, between a loaf of
bread and some _galette_, between honey and jam, in order to spend more
time about it and to give Paul an opportunity to arrive. But she had to
make up her mind at last. She returned to Rue du Helder with a portion
of _galette_, which she had no desire to taste; but Paul was not in his
place. She must needs resign herself to the necessity of going to her
work without speaking to Paul, without even catching a glimpse of him.
All day long, her feet itched; she tried to invent pretexts for going
out, she offered to do all the errands; but her zeal was unrewarded, she
was not sent out; and the more eagerness she manifested, the more
determined Mademoiselle Frotard seemed to be that she should not go. So
that she was compelled to wait until evening.
As soon as the hour for ceasing work had come, she went away among the
first; and when she reached the street, she gazed anxiously about. But
her heart fell, her hope vanished; Paul was not there.
To be unable to see the person whom one loves best, to have no idea
where he is, or what is the cause of his absence--is not that enough to
make one exceedingly unhappy, and have we not all had that experience?
Profound discouragement and gloom seize upon our hearts at such times,
and it seems to us that all is lost, that our happy days have vanished,
never to return.
In this frame of mind, Elina returned to her aunt's; she could find no
hope elsewhere than in her little loft, because there everything spoke
to her of Paul, because it was there that he had first told her that he
loved her.
The next day, Elina rose as early, dressed even more quickly, and
hastily left the house. She was no more fortunate than on the preceding
day: the young messenger was not in his place; she loitered about and
waited, to no purpose; nor did she see him that evening, when she left
her work.
A week passed thus, a week which seemed endless to Elina, who was
utterly unable to understand Paul's disappearance, and did not know what
to think; but her heart was oppressed by anxiety and the keenest sorrow.
At last, on the ninth day, when she arrived at Rue du Helder in the
morning and looked in vain for Paul, the girl could no longer endure the
tortures she was suffering, and accosted Sans-Cravate and Jean Ficelle,
who were seated side by side.
"I wanted to speak to your comrade--Monsieur Paul," she said, in a
trembling voice; "doesn't he stand here any more?"
"You can see for yourself," replied Sans-Cravate, with his usual
gruffness, intensified by the anger he felt whenever he heard Paul's
name.
Elina was going away, afraid to ask any further questions, when Jean
Ficelle said to her, in a wheedling tone:
"If mademoiselle wanted someone to do an errand or carry a letter, or
anything else, I am at her service, and I can do what's wanted as well
as the one she asks for."
"I thank you," replied Elina, "but I didn't ask for Monsieur Paul, to do
an errand; that is to say, it was about something I asked him to do; he
was to bring me an answer--and I haven't seen him for a week."
"Sure enough, mamzelle; he hasn't been in his place for as long as
that."
"And you don't know what keeps him away? Perhaps he is sick?"
Jean Ficelle replied, with a cunning smile:
"Oh, no! that ain't the reason he ain't here."
"It isn't? Why, do you know what the reason is?"
"_Dame!_ we have our suspicions. In the first place, perhaps he ain't a
messenger any longer; he had more than one trade."
"More than one trade? What do you mean?"
"Oh! there's something mysterious about it; he's a man of mystery, is
your Monsieur Paul."
"I don't understand."
"The fellow didn't tell everything he did, you see; and then, there may
be another reason. As the young joker has stolen Sans-Cravate's
mistress, he's afraid of getting a licking, and dursn't come and stand
beside him--see?"
"And he does well," muttered Sans-Cravate, clenching his fists; "for a
man can't always control himself; and, _sacrédié!_ he'd better look out!
I've got a score to settle with him, all the more because he was my
friend; and when you hate your friends, you hate 'em worse than you do
anybody else."
Elina had turned very pale; she gazed at the two messengers in turn, but
could not speak, for what she had heard seemed to have deprived her of
strength and voice alike; not until several minutes had elapsed did she
succeed in faltering:
"What! Monsieur Paul--has stolen--the mistress of--of---- Oh, no! no!
that is impossible!"
"Impossible!" sneered Jean Ficelle. "Ah! my pretty creature, you don't
know men yet, and you don't know what they're capable of. But we're sure
of what we say; we caught the thief in the market, as the saying is.
Look you, I'll give you a comparison----"
"No, monsieur, no! I don't care what you say!" replied the girl, paying
no heed to Jean Ficelle's comparison; "I am perfectly sure that that
isn't true!"
With that, Elina turned away, putting her handkerchief to her eyes to
wipe away her tears; for she was profoundly afflicted, although she
refused to believe that Paul was guilty.
Sans-Cravate looked after her with interest as she walked away.
"Poor girl!" he said; "she don't believe he's unfaithful; she still has
confidence in him, she refuses to abandon it; that's a fine thing, I
tell you."
And a gleam of serenity appeared on the messenger's brow as he asked
himself if he were not doing wrong not to imitate the girl. But Jean
Ficelle exclaimed:
"_Ouiche!_ she has confidence in him, you say? Not much! It was
self-esteem made her say that, but she ran off crying like a baby."
Sans-Cravate resumed his preoccupied air, and Jean Ficelle began to
whistle.
XVI
THE HUNT FOR TOBIE
Albert desired to see the beautiful cashmere shawl belonging to Madame
Plays, the mate to which Madame Baldimer was so desirous to own. But in
order to see the shawl, it was necessary to see her who wore it, and the
young man was not certain whether it would be well for him to call on
Madame Plays; after the slightly unceremonious way in which he had
ceased his relations with her, sending Tobie as his substitute, he had
reason to fear that he might not be warmly welcomed; indeed, he was not
at all certain that his messenger had been well received, for when
Pigeonnier returned from his interview, Albert was losing money at
bouillotte, and was somewhat heated by the punch, so that he had paid no
attention to the little fellow's answers on the subject of his
rendezvous.
Albert concluded that the best way to find out whether Tobie had fully
taken his place in the heart of the superb Plays was to go and ask him.
But to do that it was necessary to know his address. Tobie had said
several times that he lived on Rue de la Ferme-des-Mathurins; but that
is a long street, and Albert felt no inclination to enter every house
and ask for Monsieur Pigeonnier.
He was musing upon this subject on the day following his visit to Madame
Baldimer, as he sauntered along the Boulevard des Italiens, as usual,
with a cigar in his mouth, when he spied his friend Célestin, who at
once came to meet him and held out his hand.
"Good-morning! how are you?"
"Very well."
"And the love affairs?"
"Oh! not in bad shape."
"I'll bet that you have seen Madame Baldimer again."
"You would not lose. I saw her at her house yesterday; she had given me
a rendezvous. My affair is progressing, and on her return from the
country, where she has gone for a few days, I hope that your friend will
have nothing more to wish for."
"Good! I congratulate you."
There was a touch of irony in Monsieur Célestin's felicitations of his
friend. Albert paid little attention to it, because he was accustomed to
Célestin's manner, which always suggested that he was laughing at the
person to whom he was speaking. That is a very clever way of concealing
one's lack of merit--to pose as a scoffer or a _blagueur_, which are
much the same thing.
"I am very glad to see you; perhaps you can help me to find the person I
want to see."
"If you are looking for a faithful woman, I should find it very hard to
direct you to one; for I don't know any."
"No, not that; I simply want to know Tobie Pigeonnier's address."
"The deuce! that's almost as hard to find as the other. In the first
place, is it quite certain that little Tobie has any address? I believe
he contents himself with perching, like the birds; he lights now here,
now there."
"Let's not joke; he told us that he lived on Rue de la
Ferme-des-Mathurins."
"True; but at what number?"
"Ah! that I don't know."
"It's very easy to say: 'I live on Rue de la Ferme-des-Mathurins, or Rue
de la Paix, or Rue de Rivoli,'--when you confine yourself to that;--in
that way, you can live in the most fashionable quarters of Paris. For my
own part, I believe little Tobie has a nest in some closet on Rue du
Pont-aux-Biches or Place du Chevalier-du-Guet. His hasty departure from
our little party at Balivan's the night before last--after putting up a
fetich for five hundred francs, that poor Varinet gave him change
for---- Do you know, that looks rather shady to me. If he had lost the
five hundred francs, it would be all right; you would say that it
probably wasn't convenient for him to pay; but he lost only about
fifty."
"Didn't he go to pay Varinet the next day?"
"I don't know, but I'll bet he didn't; however, we can soon find out,
for there are Varinet and Balivan now, drinking chocolate at Tortoni's."
Albert and Célestin entered the café and accosted their friends, just as
Balivan was dipping his cigar in the chocolate, thinking that it was a
roll.
"Ah! here you are, you rakes!" cried Balivan; "have you been passing a
night at the card table? What scandalous conduct! you are to blame for
my not being able to do a stroke of work yesterday."
"But you are working hard to-day, Balivan. Upon my word, you are eating
a fine cigar with your chocolate, instead of a roll!"
"Mon Dieu! so I am. Why do they make cigars of this shape? I took it for
a _gaufre_,[I] and I adore _gaufres_ in chocolate."
"We came to ask you about young Tobie, messieurs.--Have you seen him
since night before last, Monsieur Varinet?"
"Who in the devil is Monsieur Tobie?" queried the white-eyebrowed young
man, in amazement.
"The individual of the fetich--the olive."
"Oh, yes! the man who put up an olive at five hundred francs."
"The same. Has he been to you to pay his debt and redeem his pledge?"
"No; and to prove it, I'll show you that I still have it in my purse."
Monsieur Varinet drew his purse and showed them the olive among some
gold pieces; it had dried and had shrunk considerably.
"If you keep the thing much longer," said Balivan, "you'll have nothing
left but the stone."
"Do you know Tobie's address, messieurs?" asked Albert.
"No," replied the painter; "if I knew it, I should have gone there
before this to remind him of his fetich, which he has not redeemed. As
it was at my rooms that he contracted that debt to Monsieur Varinet,
whom he had never seen but once before, I consider it infernally
ill-bred in him not to have paid up at once."
"Oh! I am not at all alarmed," said Varinet, calmly.
"But I must see this little Tobie," said Albert; "and I will not fail to
remind him of his debt; for it would be exceedingly unpleasant for us to
have Monsieur Varinet fall a victim to his confidence in a person whom
he had reason to look upon as a friend of ours."
"What's all this? what friends are you talking about?" said the jovial
Mouillot, as he joined the four young men and shook hands with them. "I
have just seen Dupétrain talking with a lady on Rue de Richelieu,
messieurs; he had her backed up against a porte cochère, and, in my
opinion, he was trying to magnetize her on the carriage stone."
"Ah! it's Mouillot!"
"How much did you win at bouillotte the night before last, Mouillot?"
"Six hundred and twenty francs; that's all."
"What a lucky dog he is! he always wins."
"Do you know Tobie's address, Mouillot?"
"Tobie's address? how should I know it? he never asks one to come and
see him. When he invites his friends to breakfast, the mice will dance
the cancan! By the way, has he redeemed his fetich?"
"No; Varinet hasn't seen him."
"Poor Varinet! that olive must be a little stale."
"So you don't know Monsieur Pigeonnier's address?"
"Not I."
"The first time that I had the honor of seeing the gentleman," said
Varinet, swallowing a glass of water, "he told me that he was a
commission merchant. If that is so, his name and address ought to be in
the directory."
The other young men laughed heartily at Varinet's suggestion.
"Ha! ha! commission merchant!"
"That kind is never in the directory!"
"I'm not sure even that he's an unlicensed broker."[J]
"It's so easy in Paris to pretend to be what you are not!"
"There are many people who go so far as to assume names that don't
belong to them."
"And who often succeed in making dupes, under the shelter of an
honorable name."
"What is there that is never stolen in Paris?"
Meanwhile, Monsieur Varinet, desiring to satisfy his mind on the
subject, sent the waiter for a business directory; they consulted the
bulky volume, but they sought in vain the name of Tobie Pigeonnier, and
the tall young man with white eyebrows began to frown as he looked at
his olive.
"Listen, messieurs," said Albert; "we must not allow Monsieur Varinet to
fall a victim to his confidence in a person to whom he was introduced by
us. I don't say that Tobie intends to deny his debt, nor do I think so;
but, lest he forget it, I make this proposition--that we beat up
Monsieur Pigeonnier, we four, who know the city pretty well. I will take
the Chaussée d'Antin, the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, and the
Champs-Élysées."
"I, the Marais and the Palais-Royal quarter," said Balivan.
"I will look out for the Faubourg Saint-Germain and the boulevards,"
said Célestin.
"And I," cried Mouillot, "I go everywhere, in all directions, and I will
take care of the rest. The first one who sees Tobie must capture him and
take him to Varinet's house, or bring him here: this will be our general
rendezvous. We will come here every morning to report the result of our
search."
"Agreed; we will go Tobie-hunting."
"Tobie-hunting it is! Tally-ho!"
"But one suggestion, messieurs," said Mouillot; "I don't see why this
hunt should interfere with our hunting grisettes also. How about your
little neighbor, Balivan? She is really charming, do you know? What are
you doing with her?"
"Oh! I assure you, messieurs, that young woman is very virtuous, and I
don't advise you to think about her--it will be time thrown away."
"Virtuous!" repeated Célestin, with a shrug; "I thought you knew more
than that about the sex, my dear artist! We found your little virtue in
a dark loft, with a young rascal, who was holding her very tight--and
for whom I have a rod in pickle; but he wasn't in his usual place this
morning."
"Nonsense," said Albert; "you don't propose to fight with a messenger, I
trust! and, after all, if he is her lover, he was quite right to defend
the girl."
"Oho! here's Albert taking up the cudgels for the dressmaker! it's
highly edifying.--I propose a wager, Mouillot: fifteen napoleons that I
triumph first over that timid virtue."
"Done! I take the bet.--Are you in it, Albert?"
"No."
"Albert is too busily occupied elsewhere," said Célestin, in a mocking
tone; "and, besides that, don't you see that he has set himself up as
the defender of grisettes?"
"Messieurs," interposed Balivan, "I assure you that neither one of you
will win. My neighbor won't listen to you."
"You'll see whether she will or not, artist. I will be persistent, I
tell you; not so much on account of the girl, as to be revenged on that
cur who played the insolent with us. He does our errands, and he dares
to talk back to us! upon my word, it is sickening!"
The young men had left the café and were about to separate, when
Bastringuette passed them on the boulevard, with her flowers.
"There's Bastringuette!" exclaimed Albert; "parbleu! she is always out
of doors--she must help us in our hunt for Tobie."
"True, she can act as beater," said Mouillot.
The young men walked toward the flower girl, and halted in front of her.
Bastringuette looked up at them.
"Mon Dieu!" she ejaculated; "what a bunch of customers to fall on me all
at once! What luck for me! for I haven't sold anything to-day. Buy my
flowers, messieurs; I have something to put in your buttonholes."
"Bastringuette," said Albert, "do you remember the young man who was
with us the day before yesterday on the boulevard? the one who thrust
his nose into all your bouquets to smell them better?"
"You mean a fat little fellow with a face that looked like a painting,
and a small glass in one eye?"
"That's the man, you know him."
"Well, we are hunting him."
"Is he a stag?"
"Yes; we are even afraid that he's a kite!"[K]
"A kite! and you want to hitch something to his tail, so that he'll go
up straighter."
"Ha! ha! ha! On the contrary, we're running after him to prevent his
flying at all. If you see him, tell him a lady wants to see him at
Tortoni's."
"No, no, messieurs; Tobie wouldn't believe that; he knows that ladies
don't often go to Tortoni's, and that they wouldn't give him a
rendezvous there; the best way would be to have Bastringuette tell our
man that a lady, who wishes to see him alone, will expect him, at nine
in the evening, at the--the--Pâté des Italiens.--You might even give him
a handsome bouquet, and tell him that the lady sent it to him. And when
you have done it, just tell one of the waiters in the café, and he will
inform us; we all go there every day."
"Bravo!" said Mouillot; "that's an excellent scheme; if our flower girl
here sees Tobie and tells him that, he will surely fall into the trap,
and we'll nab our man at the Pâté des Italiens."
"Well, Bastringuette, will you do what we want?"
"Why not?--that is, if I see the man."
"Oh! you will surely see him! But what's the trouble, Bastringuette? you
don't seem in as good spirits as usual to-day; has there been any
difficulty in our love affairs?"
The tall girl replaced her tray on her hip, with a sigh, and answered:
"My love affairs! Oh! they're all done with; they've gone to bed."
"What do you mean? Has Sans-Cravate been unfaithful to you?"
"Just the opposite; I tried to be to him."
"Bravo! good enough! that's frank, at all events! Agree, messieurs, that
very few women who act like Bastringuette would answer as she did."
"Oh! bless my soul! I don't take four roads to get to a place. I don't
know how to hide my passions. I didn't want to deceive Sans-Cravate, so
I told him that I didn't love him any more."
"And he tried to force you to stay with him--to love him?"
"Not much! as if a man could force a woman to do such things when it
don't suit her! You're pretty countrified still, if you think that. A
woman ain't to be forced--I don't care how many keys and picklocks you
have. When she don't choose to--good-day!"
"Well, then, why are you so dismal? is your new love affair going wrong
already?"
"I tell you that I haven't got any love affair--that I don't propose to
have any more!"
"But you say you tried to be unfaithful to Sans-Cravate?"
"That's all right! that's my business, my secret; it don't concern you!
Are you my fathers and mothers, to cross-examine me like this?"
"Ha! ha! beware, messieurs, our ally is on the point of losing her
temper."
"Here, Bastringuette," said Albert, tossing a five-franc piece on the
girl's tray; "this is for keeping a sharp lookout for Tobie, and we
promise you twice as much more if you send him to the rendezvous as we
have agreed."
"All right, I'll try to earn it. Adieu, my little loves!"
Bastringuette walked away; and the young men separated, promising to
meet in front of Tortoni's at the same hour the next day.