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 fashionable woman, to display himself in the proscenium box of a
theatre, or in a calèche 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.
In a word, what Alfred desired was to create a sensation; the same
pleasures, enjoyed in private, without show, without witnesses, or in
curtained boxes at the theatre, would have seemed to him tasteless,
insipid and of no account; but to attract attention, to cause a
sensation, to be noticed on entering a theatre or a concert hall, was to
him supreme happiness. He did not suspect that many people said when
they saw him:
“They say that he has already run through thirty thousand francs with
her!”
“I believe him to be quite enough of a fool for that! Indeed, he looks
it!”
“What an utterly absurd costume!”
And it was to procure this reputation that young Alfred had run through
more than thirty thousand francs in one year; that was more than half of
the fortune he had inherited. If he continued to live in the same way,
he had not enough for another year; but once started on the path of
folly, some people keep on, not knowing how to stop. The crash which
awaits them, and in which they will involve some too confiding friends,
is there before them, inevitable, if they persist in following the same
road; they know it, and still they go on. Are they fools or knaves? they
necessarily deserve both titles.
The other individual was not so good-looking as Monsieur Alfred de
Saint-Arthur, but he had not his stupid look; indeed, there was in his
eyes a shrewd expression which sometimes turned to mockery. Neither his
trousers nor his coat were so exaggerated as his friend’s, but all the
world did not turn to look at him; he had no fashionable mistress upon
whom he squandered money, but he strove to be on the best terms with the
mistresses of his friends; he did not waste his fortune, because he had
none, and he had not left his place, because he had never had any.
However, as one must needs try, in society, to have some talent, some
profession, or some rank, in default of fortune, Jéricourt had become an
author. He had not stopped to consider whether he had the necessary
vocation and intellect for that; he had said to himself: “I propose to
be an author;” and as one ordinarily effects his purpose by dint of
perseverance and unbounded self-assurance, Jéricourt, by persistently
frequenting the café where the young men who write for the stage
ordinarily gather, had insinuated himself among them, playing billiards
with one, dominoes with another; he had become one of their intimates,
and then had begun to talk of plays, of plots, of original ideas which
he claimed to have had; and when someone would say to him:
“That is old, that subject has already been treated fifty times!” he
would exclaim:
“I don’t see why it shouldn’t be treated fifty-one times! A thing that
has succeeded so often will succeed again. It is mere folly to try to do
something new; one risks failure; whereas, by following roads already
marked out, one is certain to arrive without hindrance.”
Jéricourt found people of his opinion; and thus it was that he became an
author by revamping what others had done before him. And he ended by
believing himself to be an inventor, a man of genius, and by making
idiots of the type of his friend Saint-Arthur believe it also. The
number of fools is infinite!
“Well, my pretty flower girl, I must have a wonderful, a stupendous
bouquet!” said Alfred, halting in front of Violette; “it’s for a lady
who knows what’s what, and who has already had the most beautiful
bouquets that are made in Paris,--isn’t that so, Jéricourt?--_Sapristi!_
I haven’t a cigar; Jéricourt, my dear fellow, make me a cigarette, will
you?”
“You don’t like them.”
“Ah! it is true that I have become so accustomed to panatelas--I say!
look at that little woman yonder! She turned around to look at me. If I
weren’t in such a hurry, I’d follow her.”
“Aha! would you be unfaithful to Zizi Dutaillis?”
“Oh! pardieu! a little amourette of a moment.--Make me a
cigarette.--Well, flower girl! you don’t show me anything.”
“Why, monsieur, you see what I have; choose for yourself.”
“Choose for myself! why, all this stuff is horrible! these bouquets are
good for nobody but circus riders! I don’t want any of these. I told you
that I wanted something wonderful, such a bouquet as never yet was
seen.”
“I will make you up one!”
“All right! but hurry. Zizi is waiting for me, and she doesn’t like to
wait; her nerves are all upset when I am late.”
“Here’s your cigarette.”
“Thanks, my boy. Have you fire?”
“Always, when I am before this fascinating flower girl. Pray look at
those eyes! did you ever see anything more alluring?”
“True! for a flower girl’s eyes, they are very fair.”
“And that nose, that mouth, and that cruel air, which would be so
becoming to her if it were not genuine!”
“Ah! mademoiselle is cruel, is she?”
“Alas! yes, my dear Alfred.--Would you believe that for nearly a month I
have been sighing at her feet, and without making any progress?”
“The deuce, my boy, you don’t know how to go about it! You tempt me to
try my hand with the flower girl. If I should undertake it, I will wager
that the affair would go faster,--eh, my girl?”
As he spoke, Alfred tried to take Violette’s arm; but she struck him
across the fingers with a bunch of roses and lilacs that she held; and
as there were some thorns in the bunch, the young dandy made a wry face
as he withdrew his hand.
“_Bigre!_ she has scratched my fingers! Is this flower girl a Lucretia?”
“I told you that she resisted me, and yet you choose to meddle!”
“She plays the prude; but if I had time! I am terribly afraid of being
late. Zizi will be angry; she plays to-night, and she is much more
nervous when she plays! You are coming to dine with us, Jéricourt, are
you not?”
“Impossible.”
“Bah! why impossible?”
“Because I dine with this lovely girl, with the flower girl.--Isn’t it
true, Violette, that you will dine with me to-day?”
“Monsieur, I thought that I answered you the other day in such a way
that you would not give me any more such invitations.”
“My dear love, you are too fascinating to remain virtuous long; why
shouldn’t you give me the preference? I will give you your own
apartment, pretty furniture, pretty dresses; the theatre every evening;
that’s the life that awaits you!”
“I prefer to sell my bouquets, monsieur.”
“That’s absurd! Unless you have some passion that closes your heart to
me, you ought to yield to me.”
“No, monsieur, I feel no sort of obligation to you.”
“Ha! ha! ha! poor Jéricourt! he fails in his suit to a flower girl! That
will make Zizi laugh! I’ll tell her at dinner.--I say, my pretty girl,
don’t make my bouquet all white, please. The other day I offered one
like that to Zizi, and she declared that it looked like a cauliflower.”
“There, monsieur, how is this? Do you like it?”
“Why, yes, it isn’t bad; it has some style! I think that it will produce
an effect.--Come,--Jéricourt, as Mademoiselle Violette refuses to dine
with you, it seems to me that you can accept my invitation. If I don’t
bring you, Zizi will be sulky; she is much livelier when you are there;
that is easily understood, for you make her laugh, you make puns, and
she declares that there is no such thing as a good dinner without puns.”
“I tell you again, Alfred, that Mademoiselle Violette will not be
inexorable; why, I propose to launch her in society, to make her the
fashion, for I have all the small newspapers at my disposal.”
“He is telling you the truth, my girl, and the small newspapers are the
only ones that are read nowadays, for they are much more amusing than
the large ones. For my part, I know nothing better than the
_Tintamarre_! Dieu! the _Tintamarre_; there’s a newspaper that always
drives away the blues! I learn puns from it and I repeat them to Zizi;
but unfortunately I don’t remember them very well, so that she doesn’t
understand them.--Ah! what a beautiful bouquet!--Well, my dear fellow,
will you come?”
And the pretty young man with the light whiskers, holding his enormous
bouquet in one hand, tried with the other to lead away his friend, who,
half leaning over the flower girl’s counter, was gazing at her with his
face close to hers, although she did her utmost to move away from him.
It was at this moment that Chicotin Patatras, who had spied one of his
cronies a few steps from Violette’s booth, ran to him and tripped him
up,--a method of beginning a conversation decidedly fashionable among
street urchins. The friend, taken by surprise, fell upon the sidewalk,
and as he rose, saw Chicotin laughing and making fun of him, and
apparently challenging him to retaliate. He immediately started to run
after him, which was what young Patatras hoped that he would do. When he
saw that his comrade was about to overtake him, he jumped back in such a
way as to collide with the persons who stood in front of Violette’s
booth.
Chicotin had hoped to fall on Jéricourt, but having failed to calculate
the distance accurately, he collided violently with the young dandy,
Alfred de Saint-Arthur. The shock was so sudden and so unexpected by
Alfred, whose back was turned to the passers-by, that he fell forward
with his face against the flower girl’s wares; and as the counter was
not strong enough to hold the weight of his body, it collapsed under the
young man.
Violette uttered a loud exclamation when she saw her flowers scattered
over the concrete, and Monsieur de Saint-Arthur apparently trying to
swim among them.
Jéricourt, taken by surprise by this unexpected mishap, also received a
kick or two from Chicotin, for the latter, still pursued by his comrade,
who finally overtook him, began with him a struggle which was all in
jest, but in which, although they were merely fooling, the young men
dealt each other blows so lustily applied that everybody who was near
them received some.
“Will you stop, or go somewhere else and fight, you clowns?” cried
Jéricourt. “Just look at what you have done! All of the girl’s flowers
are on the ground!”
“Ah! it’s that good-for-nothing Patatras again!” said Violette; “he is
always doing something of the kind; he must always be making trouble
somewhere! It’s outrageous; I am going to complain to the inspector.”
“Oh, I beg pardon, excuse me, Mamzelle Violette,” said Chicotin, rising,
“you must know that I didn’t fall against your stall on purpose. It’s
Chopard’s fault; why did he chase me when I tried to get out of the way
behind your customers?”
“Why did you come and trip me up when I wasn’t saying anything to you?”
“I’ll do it again when I choose, you long _bobêche_!”
“Oh, yes! just come and try! I’ll show you!”
“Sapristi! are you going to begin again, you scoundrels, instead of
picking up these bouquets which you knocked down?”
“But your friend has fallen too, monsieur, and he doesn’t get up!--Help
him! Perhaps he’s hurt himself!”
At these words from Violette, Jéricourt condescended at last to pay some
attention to his companion; with the assistance of Chicotin, he
succeeded, not without difficulty, in placing him on his feet; for
Alfred was almost suffocated; two rosebuds had been forced into each
nostril, and had entered far enough to close them hermetically; and as
he had in addition a bunch of gilly-flowers over his mouth, he could not
breathe at all, and was beginning to turn purple. Once upon his feet, he
opened his mouth as if he proposed to swallow everything in his
neighborhood, and shook his head to try to rid himself of the two
rosebuds, whose thorny stems tickled the lower part of his face
unpleasantly. But he could not succeed; Jéricourt had to pull one of the
stems and Chicotin the other, to uncork his nose. This operation was not
performed without a number of shrieks from Monsieur de Saint-Arthur, but
his nose at last recovered its air current, and everybody’s mind was at
ease.
When the young dandy recovered all his faculties, the thing that
troubled him most was that he had broken one of his suspenders, and that
his trousers on that side were not held in place.
“All sorts of misfortunes at once,” cried Alfred; “I have broken my left
suspender. But who was it, then, who came down on me like a bomb and
pushed me onto that counter?”
“Excuse me, master, my excellency, I did it by accident, and not on
purpose, for I was fooling with Chopard.”
“What, you scoundrel, was it you?--Ah! I recognize you; I have employed
you more than once.”
“Oh! I remember very well! You are one of those generous and
distinguished gentlemen that a man doesn’t forget. I have often opened
your carriage door, master, and you are always with such pretty ladies,
ladies from the theatre, and so well dressed, that everybody looks at
you. Shall I wait at Monsieur Bonvalet’s, master, to see if you want to
send me to find out how far they’ve got in the play?”
“All right, all right, we’ll see. After all, as he didn’t do it on
purpose--And my bouquet, what became of that in the scrimmage?”
“Here it is, monsieur,” said Violette; “luckily nothing happened to it.”
“It’s my broken suspender that worries me most; my trousers are all
creased on that side! I’d give thirty francs for a pair of suspenders.”
“Would you like mine, master?”
“No, thanks! That would look nice!”
“I’ll go and buy you a pair at the druggist’s on Rue du Temple.”
“What does the idiot say?” muttered Jéricourt; “suspenders at a
druggist’s! do you propose to buy them made of marshmallow paste?”
“At all events I can’t stop here any longer,” cried Alfred; “Zizi will
make a horrible row; she will be in an infernal humor; and if she sees
that my trousers are creased, it will be much worse! And she will see
it, for she always looks at them first when I join her; she is so
particular about dress; she said to me once: ‘A man who doesn’t have
morocco straps to his boots shall never step foot inside my
door!’--Well, Jéricourt, are you coming?”
Tall Jéricourt decided at last to go away with his friend; for the
flower girl, busily engaged in picking up her flowers, did not seem
disposed to laugh, and he saw that he must needs abandon the idea of
being listened to for that day at least. So he walked away, arm-in-arm
with Alfred de Saint-Arthur, who, as he walked, did his utmost to hold
his trousers up. When he saw the two young men take their leave,
Chicotin Patatras nodded his head to Georget, who was not very far away,
and who answered with a smile. And Violette, as she tried to replace her
flowers in order upon her counter, did not fail to notice that
pantomime.
V
A CONCIERGE’S LODGE
In a house of respectable appearance on Rue d’Angoulême, about half-past
eleven one evening, the street bell was pulled so violently that it
caused Monsieur Baudoin, the concierge, to leap from his chair, upon
which he was beginning to doze, while his wife Hildegarde took advantage
of his nodding to open a small cupboard and take therefrom a bottle, the
neck of which she proceeded to introduce into her mouth, and took
several swallows of a fluid which she seemed to enjoy greatly.
Baudoin the concierge was a tall, thin man, with a pale face and light
hair, who had passed his fiftieth year, but was still very straight, and
as active as a young man. To his occupation of concierge, he added that
of clerk in a stage office, which kept him only until six o’clock. He
was an honest man, to whom one could fearlessly entrust his house and
his treasure; he did promptly whatever he was ordered to do, unless he
did not fully understand; but in that case it was not safe to reproach
him, for Baudoin lost his temper very readily, having an immeasurable
self-esteem and claiming that he never made a mistake. When he did lose
his temper, Baudoin swore like a trooper, and turned as red as a
turkey-cock.
Hildegarde, the concierge’s wife, was two or three years older than her
husband; she had once been pretty and sentimental; she was not very well
preserved, and her inclination to sentiment having with age become
diverted to brandy, Madame Baudoin had neglected herself considerably;
there was a deplorable carelessness in her dress, which resulted in
nothing ever being in place. Baudoin, who was always neat and decently
dressed, often reproached his wife for her heedlessness in that respect,
and as he had also discovered her unlucky fondness for liquor, he
sometimes added to his reproaches lessons of an impressive sort, which
made Hildegarde bellow loudly, and promise never to give way again to
her miserable failing; but she never failed to forget that promise,
whenever she thought that her husband would know nothing about it.
Moreover, Madame Baudoin was a genuine type of concierge: talkative,
inquisitive, gossiping, scandal-loving, incautious, not evil-minded at
bottom, but capable of setting the whole quarter at odds with remarks
made without ill-intent. Her husband often scolded her for it; but
“what’s bred in the bone will come out in the flesh!”
At the jingling of the bell, and the somersault performed by her
husband, Hildegarde, bewildered, and realizing that she had not time to
replace the bottle of brandy in the cupboard, hastily put it on the
floor between her feet, and then sat down, thus having her dear bottle
in the place where the open air tradeswomen put their foot-warmers.
“Didn’t someone ring?” said Baudoin, rubbing his eyes.
“Yes, my dear, yes, someone certainly did!” replied his wife, without
moving from her chair.
“Well, then, draw the cord, Hildegarde; you’re right near it.”
“You can draw it much easier yourself, my dear; you have only to put out
your arm and lean forward a bit.”
“Look here, why won’t you pull the cord, when you’re right beside it?
What sort of way is that to behave?”
“Why--why, you see I pulled it just now when the tenant of the first
floor came in, so it’s your turn.”
“Ah! so this is a new idea you’ve got into your head! Madame is afraid
that she will pull the cord oftener than I, who have just come in, all
tired and out of breath after running about Paris all day! What a lazy
hussy!”
“Mon Dieu! is it possible for a man to be as ugly as this to his wife!
to be so unwilling to do anything for her! Ah! Monsieur Baudoin, how you
have changed!”
While this little dialogue was taking place between the couple employed
to take care of the house, the person who had rung remained at the door,
which is rarely pleasing when one returns home at night. A second peal
at the bell, much more violent than the first, announced that he was
losing patience.
Baudoin decided to pull the cord, but as he did so he said to his wife:
“Ah! _bigre!_ you shall pay for this, Hildegarde! by all that’s good! I
promise you that.”
Hildegarde made no reply, but continued to sit over her bottle. Someone
came in and closed the street door; and soon a man appeared at the
concierge’s lodge, and said curtly:
“Give me my light.”
“Oh! yes, Monsieur Malberg; this minute, Monsieur Malberg.--Hildegarde,
just take Monsieur Malberg’s candlestick from the cupboard by you, light
it at our lamp, or rather light it with a match, for the chimney of our
lamp is cracked and it might break in your hand.--You are just from the
theatre, I suppose, Monsieur Malberg? They say that they are giving a
fine play there just now; I don’t know which theatre, but no matter, it
seems that it’s fine, all the same! You have been to see it, of course?”
“I have been where I chose to go, and it is none of your business,”
replied the tenant, in a tone which did not invite further conversation.
“Well! what about my light? Are you going to give it to me to-night? or
do you intend to keep me waiting here as long as you did in the street?”
“What, Hildegarde, haven’t you lighted Monsieur Malberg’s light yet?
Look here, what are you about? God forgive me, Monsieur Malberg, but I
believe that my wife is getting deaf or idiotic; something’s the matter
with her to-night; it isn’t possible--yes, she may have been tippling.
You know her unlucky failing, which will lead her to perdition! and it
isn’t for lack of my trying to correct it by every means that I can
think of.”
Whereupon Hildegarde, who had her reasons for not stirring from her
chair, made haste to reply:
“Oh, yes! the means you use are very nice! I advise you to boast of
them; you ought to be ashamed of them! a man with an education, who has
clerks under him, in an office, to raise his hand to his wife! Yes,
Monsieur Malberg, I don’t blush to confess that Monsieur Baudoin has the
baseness to strike me! that’s a nice thing to do, ain’t it?”
But the man to whom these questions were addressed, observing that no
one thought of giving him his light, pushed open the door of the lodge,
took his candlestick, lighted the candle with a piece of paper, and went
upstairs without another word to the concierge and his wife, who
continued their conversation.
“Well, Hildegarde, do you see what you’ve done? Here’s Monsieur Malberg
had to light his candle himself! what will he think of us?”
“Oh! I don’t care what he thinks! he’s an agreeable man, that tenant! a
fellow who never talks, who hardly answers when you speak to him, and
always in a short, surly tone, as if he was always angry!”
“It is true that he seldom laughs; but still perhaps that’s his nature;
there are people who enjoy being dismal. However, he’s a man who
occupies an apartment at eleven hundred francs, and who pays on the dot,
without having to be reminded that it is rent day, and who has very
handsome furniture, and mirrors in every room, so that the proprietor
has a very high regard for him.”
“Oh! I don’t say that he’s a vagabond! but why doesn’t he keep a maid,
who’d come to our lodge in the evening and talk, as decent people always
do, instead of that miserable blackamoor, that yellow negro, who doesn’t
know how to do anything but wax his floor and polish his boots? as if
you could call that a servant! He ought to hire me to do his housework;
that’s my line!”
“You forget, Hildegarde, that the landlord doesn’t want you to do
housework. Of course, if you went away while I am at my office, there
wouldn’t be anybody but the cat to look after the lodge and answer
questions!”
“A fine job this is, where the concierge’s wife isn’t allowed to do
housework! That was my only ambition.”
“Oh, yes! the fact is that you were the cause of our being discharged
from the lodge we had before this, because you did housework for the men
on the fourth floor and drank all their liquor.”
“That isn’t true, it’s a slander!”
“Let’s not go back to that. I am mortified that Monsieur Malberg had to
light his candle himself; it’s a stain upon our good name.”
“Well then, you ought to have lighted it for him, if you have that on
your conscience!”
“Hold your tongue, Hildegarde; you’re very unreasonable to-night, you
have something bad to say about everybody. You find fault because
Monsieur Malberg has a yellow negro to work for him, and you don’t seem
to know that that is very distinguished. Swell people always have
colored servants in their employ.”
“It’s a miserable fashion. But still, if that miserable Pingo or
Ponceau--I never know what his name is--was only agreeable.”
“Pongo!”
“Oh! what a dog of a name! Pongo! But he never talks, the blackamoor; or
else he talks to himself, and says things that I don’t understand; I
believe that he talks Morocco!”
“Come, Hildegarde, it’s almost twelve o’clock; go to bed, that’s the
best thing you can do.”
“Everybody hasn’t come in.”
“Yes they have, everybody except little Georget, who lives up under the
roof, with his mother.--By the way, how is the poor woman to-day?”
“Not very well; she’s had more fainting fits this afternoon, and I
thought she was going _to put out her gas_.”