forepaws; “you hurt me, when me pick you up in the street; and you not
handsome either; but thin, ugly, little short hair; you a gutter cat,
you hear? You no angora, you gutter cat! and me take care of you, comb
you and rub you, make nice porridge for you, so’s to make you pretty and
fat; and you claw me on the nose when me try to talk with you, like two
friends. You take care, Carabi! if me take Mamzelle Zima to beat you,
Mamzelle Zima, she mind me right off, and she strike hard, Mamzelle
Zima; will you be good boy now?”
The cat’s only reply was to howl in a piteous fashion; and he was
beginning to vary his cries with snarls which boded no good to Pongo,
when Georget returned and interrupted the conversation.
“Ah! little neighbor again! He want to speak to master or me?”
“I have come to bring your master my mother’s reply. He is very
good----”
“Oh, no! he not good; but me beat him, me whip him if he claw again!”
“I am speaking of your master.”
“Oh! me tink it was my new friend Carabi; he claw my nose. Come, you go
in right away.--Little gutter cat! you wait there till me come back.
Don’t stir, or me take Zima!”
When he reappeared before Monsieur Malberg, Georget was sad, and seemed
embarrassed; he kept his eyes on the floor, and dared not speak.
“Well, Georget, you have come to bring me your mother’s answer,” said
Monsieur Malberg; “but to look at you one would think that you dared not
tell me what it is.”
“Ah! monsieur, you see----”
“Mon Dieu! I will spare you the trouble of telling me, for I will wager
that I can guess what your mother answered: she refused my offer,
because she would have to part with you, and she prefers to live in
poverty and not leave her son; isn’t that it?”
“Yes, monsieur, yes, that’s the truth; when I told her about monsieur’s
offer, she was struck dumb at first; and when she did answer, I heard
her voice trembling as if she were going to cry, when she said: ‘Well!
if you want me to go away, if it bores you to live with your mother, why
then I will go to this fine place in the country; but for my part, I
should much prefer to live on a little, to be less comfortable, and to
be where I could embrace my son every day; that would make me much
happier!’--So then, monsieur, as you can imagine, I threw my arms about
my mother’s neck and said to her: ‘It was in the hope of assuring your
happiness that I offered you this; if you are happier with me, you must
stay here, and I shall be happier too!’--Then she told me to come and
thank you for your kindness, monsieur, and explain the reason for her
refusal, and I beg you to forgive me for showing so little appreciation
of your kindness; for in all this it is I who am most to blame. If I had
had the courage to leave Paris, why, then my mother would have been very
glad to go!”
“I don’t blame you, Georget, but I hope that your flower girl is worthy
of the sacrifice you are making for her. Go, my boy.”
“And monsieur doesn’t want Violette to bring him a bouquet, so that--so
that he can make her acquaintance.”
“No, I don’t want any bouquet.”
“And I am not to look for Monsieur de Roncherolle any more?”
“It’s no use.”
“But monsieur will still employ me when he needs a messenger?”
“That goes without saying. Now go.”
Georget went away in a sad frame of mind, for at the bottom of his heart
he was not content with himself. As he passed through the reception
room, he made no reply when Pongo called out to him:
“Monsieur Georget, Carabi not so bad now, he no claw nothing but my
ear.”
XV
A TRAP
To Georget’s mind, the best way to find an excuse for his wrongdoing was
to go to her who was the cause of his committing it; so that was what he
did not fail to do; and as he looked at the fascinating flower girl, he
said to himself:
“As if it would have been possible for me to live without seeing her!
Oh, no! I should have died of grief, and that would have made my mother
more unhappy than all the rest! So I did well not to accept Monsieur
Malberg’s offer.”
Thus it is that man always finds a way to compromise with his conscience
and to put himself on pleasant terms with it.
Violette smiled pleasantly at Georget, saying:
“So you’re not travelling all over Paris to-day, Georget?”
“No, mamzelle, my travels are ended; Monsieur Malberg doesn’t want me to
go on looking for his man.--But what has become of Chicotin? I never see
him here now.”
“That’s true, he doesn’t come so much as he did. I am not sorry, for he
frequently knocked my customers down, and that would have ended by
injuring my trade.”
“Your customers! You mean the fine gentlemen who come here to make sweet
speeches to you! Do you still see those fellows?”
“Dear me! when it pleases them to buy flowers of me I can’t refuse to
sell them.”
“Ah! if I was rich, Mamzelle Violette, you wouldn’t sell anything at
all, you would have a home of your own, and a lovely room, with nothing
else to do but arrange your hair!”
“Really, Georget, you would give me all that?”
“Indeed I would, and much more too if I had it!”
“Do you think that I would accept it from you rather than from another
man?”
“Why, mamzelle, when a man has only honorable sentiments; you may be
sure that I wouldn’t offer that to you as a mistress, but
as--as--as--Oh! Violette, you understand me well enough, but you are not
willing to help me a little!”
“No, Georget, I do not choose to understand you, because I don’t choose
to take seriously the foolish things that you say to me.”
“Foolish things! oh! you are mistaken, mamzelle; and if you knew,--if
you could guess--you would no longer doubt my love! Yes, Violette, I
love you. I must pluck up courage to tell you, if you refuse to believe
it; I love you to the point of--but I mustn’t tell you that.”
“What is it? Come, Georget, finish. You say nothing? Poor boy! you
imagine that you love me; but in a month, in less than that perhaps,
you will have something else in your mind. You are a child, do you know!
A boy should never talk of love until he’s twenty-one.”
“Oh! mon Dieu! how I would like to grow old! So you don’t believe me,
mamzelle?”
“I say again that it’s very possible that you believe what you say now;
but it won’t be so for long,--you are too young.”
“Too young, that is the only thing you can throw in my face. What proofs
do you want to make you believe in my love?”
“See, Georget, look at that little bit of a man passing over there, who
looks at me in such a funny way.”
“Ah! I recognize him; it’s the little squint-eyed fellow. I had an idea
that that creature was in love with you too; but I am not jealous of
him! he’s too ugly! Why do you point him out to me? I wasn’t talking
about him, mamzelle.”
“I pointed him out to you, Georget, because that little fellow, who can
hardly be any older than you, a year at most, has been prowling about
here all the time for several days; he constantly bargains for flowers
with me, and then he too has told me that he adores me, and has
suggested carrying me off and taking me to Saint-Germain or to
Versailles, or even farther, declaring that he would make me happy.”
“What! that little wretch has told you all that?”
“Yes, that little fellow has told me all those foolish things; and I
laughed in his face--that was the best thing for me to do. Since then,
he has ceased to speak to me, but he comes here just as often and hurls
savage glances at me--look, as he is doing now.”
“Ah! if he treats you discourteously, I’ll go and say a word to him.”
“No, Georget, he’s not discourteous, for he doesn’t speak; we can’t
prevent his walking here; and besides, I am always tempted to laugh when
I look at him, remembering that one day Chicotin knocked him down in
such a way that he tore both knees of his trousers.”
“Oh! how I would have liked to see that! There he goes away; he has made
up his mind it’s no use, and he has done well.”
“Well, Georget, if I had listened to what that young man said, do you
think that I should have done right?”
“Oh, no! of course not!”
“So then you see that I should be no more reasonable if I should listen
to you.”
“Oh! what a difference, Violette! You compare my love with that of that
little popinjay who hardly knows you! Whereas I have seen you and loved
you for three years! So I am nothing more to you than the first comer
who pays you compliments as he buys your bouquets! Ah! it isn’t right to
treat me so. You wouldn’t act like this if you knew----”
“What? if I knew what? Ah! you tire me, constantly beginning sentences
which you don’t finish!”
Georget had on the end of his lips the avowal of the sacrifice he had
made to his love for Violette; for in youth, one has not become
accustomed to sacrifices, and it is natural to boast of them. However,
the young lover retained that secret which was on the point of escaping
him; he suspected that the pretty flower girl would scold him roundly
for having acted so, and that, far from approving his conduct, she would
try to compel him to accept Monsieur Malberg’s offer; so he deemed it
prudent to hold his peace, and he did not answer Violette’s questions.
At that moment someone came up who wanted Georget to run on an errand,
and he seized that opportunity to take his leave, waving his hand as an
adieu to the flower girl.
The pretty peddler was more moved than she had chosen to appear. Georget
was such a dear fellow! It was the first time that he had told her in so
many words that he loved her, and he had made that declaration in such a
sweet voice, with such an affectionate expression, that it was difficult
not to believe in his sincerity, and further, not to be touched by that
genuine love, in which passion was so artlessly expressed.
While giving her young lover sage advice, and while pretending to laugh
at his suffering, Violette had nevertheless felt a very keen sensation;
her heart had opened to a happiness that she had not as yet known, and
she was herself amazed by the unfamiliar joy which filled her whole
being.
About an hour had passed since Georget had gone away, when a sort of
servant approached Violette and said to her:
“Mademoiselle la bouquetière, I want a fine bouquet for my mistress,
Madame de Belleval; all the rarest flowers that you have; the price does
not matter. I will give you a hundred sous in advance, and if that isn’t
enough, she will give you the rest.”
“That will be enough, monsieur; for a hundred sous I will make you a
superb bouquet!”
“But, mademoiselle, you must have the kindness to carry it to madame
yourself, for I am in a great hurry; I haven’t time to wait, and I
shan’t come back this way.”
“I am to carry the bouquet? Is it far from here?”
“No, mademoiselle, Boulevard Beaumarchais, 98.”
“That is quite a long distance.”
“No, mademoiselle; you know, if you don’t leave the boulevard, you are
soon there.”
“Oh! I know all about that, and if there is no great hurry----”
“Can you carry it within an hour?”
“Yes, I will go within an hour.”
“By the way, madame wants also to order a smaller one for to-morrow, to
take to a wedding or a ball; madame will explain to you about it. So she
can rely upon the bouquet, mademoiselle?”
“To be sure, monsieur, as I have received the money. You say Madame de
Belleval, Boulevard Beaumarchais, 98?”
“That’s it; good-morning.”
The servant disappeared, and Violette began to select her finest
flowers, saying to herself:
“It seems that this is likely to be a good customer! I can make as much
as I choose! To think that Georget, when he was without money the other
day and his mother was sick, didn’t apply to me! And he says that he
loves me! Perhaps I spoke too harshly to him; and he thinks that I have
an unfeeling heart; I don’t want him to think that!”
When the girl had finished the bouquet, with which she took the greatest
care, she asked a neighbor to look after her booth and started for
Boulevard Beaumarchais; she arrived at the number given her; she entered
an attractive, newly-built house and asked the concierge:
“Madame de Belleval?”
The concierge assumed the expression of a person who does not know what
one means; then suddenly he remembered and slapped his leg, exclaiming:
“Ah! what a stupid fool I am! I forgot all about it.--Go up to the fifth
floor, the door at the right, for Madame de Belleval.”
“The fifth floor?”
“Yes, the door at the right.”
Violette went upstairs, saying to herself:
“That concierge acted very strangely when he answered me; perhaps he
always has that manner. It’s surprising that a lady who buys such
handsome bouquets should live so high; but lodgings are very dear now;
and after all, it’s none of my business.”
And without the slightest suspicion, the girl quickly climbed the five
flights and rang at the door on the right hand. It was opened
immediately, and a woman who had the appearance of a box-opener out of a
job said to Violette:
“Ah! mamzelle has brought the bouquet; that’s good! Come in, mamzelle,
come in.”
“But I only have to deliver the bouquet,--it is paid for.”
“No matter; come in, mamzelle, she wants to speak to you; wait a
minute.”
And the girl was almost pushed into a small salon the door of which was
at once closed upon her.
“To be sure,” thought Violette, “that servant told me that his mistress
wanted to order a bouquet for a ball to-morrow. I will wait. It isn’t
very fine here; it’s pretty enough, but it’s funny that there’s no
coquetry, no taste in the arrangement; I should think that I was in a
gentleman’s room rather than a lady’s. And that woman who let me
in--she’s neither a lady’s maid nor a cook. I believe that I am rather
frightened here; I am inclined to go away.”
And Violette had already taken several steps toward the door of the
salon, when it opened and Jéricourt appeared before her, in
dressing-gown and slippers, like a person in his own home.
The flower girl uttered a cry; she realized that she had fallen into a
trap; but in an instant she recovered her courage, and Violette had an
ample store of it; in her case, fright was but temporary. She raised her
head therefore and gazed steadfastly at the man before her.
Jéricourt assumed one of his most winning smiles and stepped toward the
girl.
“You didn’t expect to see me, did you, bewitching damsel?”
“No, monsieur, I am waiting for a lady, Madame de Belleval; am I in her
apartment?”
“Madame de Belleval is--is my aunt, dear child, and I live with her.”
“Ah! you live here? Well, why doesn’t your aunt come, monsieur? I have
no business with you, and if this aunt doesn’t mean to come then I will
go about my business.”
And Violette took several steps toward the door; but Jéricourt barred
her passage and led her back into the salon, saying:
“Mon Dieu! how quick you are! Are you in such a great hurry, pray? Take
a seat--she is coming.”
As she did not choose to disclose her apprehensions, Violette decided to
sit down for a moment. Whereupon the young man also took a chair and
placed it beside her and very near.
“Do you know, charming girl, that I am overjoyed to have a chat with you
at last? I have wanted it a long while, and it is so hard to obtain the
slightest favor from you!”
“Are you going to repeat the same song as on the boulevard, monsieur? I
know it already; I have no wish to learn it by heart, for, as I have
told you, I don’t like the tune.”
“How unkind you are! But this little outburst of anger makes you
prettier than ever! Women who surrender at once cease to have any value;
whereas your conquest would be a genuine triumph.”
“Your aunt doesn’t come, monsieur, so I will go.”
“My aunt! Ha! ha! ha! that’s a good one! do you still believe in that,
little one?”
“What, monsieur, is it a lie? And this Madame de Belleval, who sent to
me for this bouquet----”
“Never existed except in my imagination. I wanted to decoy you to my
rooms, for you refused to come willingly; so I resorted to stratagem.
That’s often done--it’s fair fighting.”
“Oh! but it’s an outrage!--So the concierge whom I asked for that
lady----”
“I had warned him that someone would ask for a person of that name, and
I ordered him to send her up to me; it’s as simple as good-day.”
“And that woman who opened the door and told me that Madame de Belleval
would come in a minute----”
“Is an obliging neighbor; I paid her for that little service with a
ticket to the theatre.”
“Why, this is frightful! And there are people who lend a hand to such
outrages!”
“My dear child, you make a great fuss over a very small matter! To try
to obtain a tête-à-tête with a pretty flower girl is no great crime; I
might have kept up the deception much longer, but I am very honest, you
see; I play with my cards on the table.--Come, don’t be angry; you will
have to end by calming down, anyway. Let’s make peace at once, and seal
the treaty with a kiss.”
Before Jéricourt could put his lips to Violette’s face, she rose and ran
toward the door; but the young man ran after her and detained her by
putting his arm about her waist.
“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.”
Jéricourt 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, passed 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 Jéricourt 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 Jéricourt’s.
This young man, who was no other than little Astianax, uttered a cry of
surprise on recognizing the girl, who passed very near him. Having
followed her with his eyes as she descended the stairs, he turned toward
Jéricourt, who was standing in his doorway, and said:
“It is surely she; it’s the pretty flower girl of the Château 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 impassioned 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 assume.--Au revoir, Astianax.”
“Au revoir, Joconde! Don Juan! Richelieu!”
Jéricourt 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 classes 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.