PRADELINE.
Gonthram Neroweg, Count of Plouernel, occupied a cosy little house on
Paradis-Poissonniere Street, built by his own grandfather. The somewhat
_rococo_ elegance of the establishment suggested it must have been
constructed about the middle of the last century, and had done service
as a city residence. The quarter of the Poissonnieres, or Fish-markets,
as the neighborhood was called in the days of the Regency, but now
almost deserted, was perfectly appropriate for those mysterious retreats
that are devoted to the cult of Venus Aphrodite.
The Count of Plouernel was breakfasting _tete-a-tete_ with a pretty girl
of about twenty years--a brunette, lively and laughterful, who had been
surnamed Pradeline because of her readiness, at the suppers of which she
always was the soul and often the queen also, in improvising upon all
imaginable subjects, ditties that the celebrated improviser, whose name
she bore with a feminine termination, would surely not have cared to
father, but which had at least the redeeming feature of lacking neither
in point nor in mirthfulness.
The Count of Plouernel, having heard speak of Pradeline, invited her to
sup the previous night with him and some of his friends. After the
supper, which was prolonged until three in the morning, the right of
hospitality for the night had been earned by the girl. After the
hospitality came breakfast the following morning. The two companions
were, accordingly, at table in a little boudoir fitted out in Louis XV
style, and contiguous to the bed chamber. A good fire blazed in the
marble-tipped hearth. Thick curtains of light blue damask, covered with
roses, softened the glare of the daylight. Flowers filled large
porcelain vases. The atmosphere was warm and perfumed. The wines were
choice, the dishes toothsome. Pradeline and the Count of Plouernel were
doing honor to both.
The colonel was a man of about thirty-eight years of age--tall, and at
once lithe and robust. His face, though rather haggard, on that morning,
was of a species of bold beauty, and strongly betrayed his German or
Frankish stock, the characteristic traits of which Tacitus and Caesar
frequently described. His hair was light blonde, his moustache long and
reddish, his eyes light grey, and his nose hooked like an eagle's beak.
Wrapped in a costly morning gown, the Count of Plouernel seemed no less
hilarious than the young girl.
"Come, Pradeline," said he, pouring out to her a glass of generous old
Burgundy wine, "to the health of your lover."
"Nonsense! Do you think I keep a lover?"
"You are right. To the health of your lovers!"
"You don't seem to be jealous, darling!"
"And you?"
At this question Pradeline nonchalantly opened her red corsage, and
clinking her glass with the blade of her knife she answered the Count of
Plouernel with an improvisation to the tune then in vogue of _La Rifla_:
"For ague-cheeked Sir Fidelity
I only have duplicity.
When some gay lover pleases me,
'Tis quickly done! He pleases me--
La rifla-fla-fla-fla, la rifla-fla-fla-fla,
La rifla-fla-fla-fla-fla-fla-fla."
"Bravo, my dear!" cried the colonel, laughing boisterously.
And joining in chorus with Pradeline, he sang, also clinking his glass
with the edge of his knife:
"When some gay lover pleases me,
'Tis quickly done! He pleases me.
La rifla-fla-fla-fla, la rifla-fla-fla-fla,
La rifla-fla-fla-fla-fla-fla-fla."
"And now, my little girl," he proceeded to say at the close of the
refrain, "since you are not jealous, give me some advice--some friendly
advice. I am in love--desperately in love."
"Is it possible!"
"If she were a woman of the world I would not ask your advice, but--"
"Well! Well! Am I, perchance, not a woman? and of the world, too?"
"Of all the world, not true, my dear?"
"Naturally, seeing I'm here--which is little to your credit, my dear,
and less creditable to me. But that matters not. Proceed, and don't be
rude again--if you can avoid it."
"Oh! The little one gives me a lesson in politeness!"
"You want my advice; you see I can give you lessons. Proceed, what have
you to say?"
"You must know I am in love with a shop-girl, that is to say, her father
and mother keep a shop. You surely know the ways of such folks, their
customs and habits. What means would you advise me to employ in order to
succeed?"
"Make yourself beloved."
"That takes too long. When a violent fancy seizes me, I find it
impossible to wait."
"Indeed! 'Tis wonderful, but, darling, you interest me greatly. Let's
see. First of all is the shop-girl poor? Is she in great want? Does she
seem very hungry?"
"How? Whether she is hungry? What the devil do you mean?"
"Colonel, I can not deny your personal attractions--you're handsome,
you're brilliant, you're charming, you're adorable, you're delicious--"
"Irony?"
"What do you think! Would I dare to? Well, as I was saying, you're
delicious! But, in order for the poor girl to appreciate you duly, she
must first be dying of hunger. You have no idea how hunger--helps to
find people adorable."
Whereupon Pradeline sailed in to improvise a new ditty, not, this time,
in merry vein, but with marked bitterness, and keeping time with such a
slow measure that her favorite tune sounded melancholic:
"You're hungry and you weep,
Come, maid, and fall asleep;
Come, you'll have plenty of gold,
Thyself to me be sold.
La rifla-fla-fla-fla, la rifla--"
"The devil take that song! This one is not at all jolly," remarked the
Count of Plouernel, struck by the melancholic accents of the young girl,
who, however, quickly resumed her reckless bearing and wonted
cheerfulness. "I understand the allusion," he added; "but my pretty
shop-girl is not hungry."
"The next thing--is she coquettish? Does she love to be prinked? Does
she like jewelry, or theaters? These are famous means to blast a poor
girl."
"I presume she likes all those things. But she has a father and mother,
and they probably keep a close watch over her. In view of all this I
had a plan--"
"You? At last you have a plan of your own! And what is it?"
"It is to make frequent and large purchases in that shop, even to loan
them money at a pinch, because I know those small traders must ever be
hard pushed for cash to pay their bills."
"In other words, you believe they will be ready to sell you their
daughter--for cash?"
"No; but I figure that they will at least shut their eyes--I would then
be able to dazzle the minx with presents, and proceed rapidly to my
goal. Well, how does my plan strike you?"
"I'll be blown! How can I tell?" answered Pradeline, affecting
innocence. "If things are done in your upper world in that manner, if
parents sell their daughters, perhaps the thing is done in the same way
among the poorer folks. Still, I don't believe it. These people are too
bourgeois, they are too niggardly, you see?"
"My little girl," said the Count of Plouernel haughtily, "you are
emancipating yourself prodigiously."
At this reproach the young girl broke out with a peal of laughter, which
she interrupted to sing in merry notes this new improvisation:
"O! See that bold signor,
So full of pride, honor?
To such a haughty flea
All bourgeois bend the knee!
La rifla-fla-fla-fla, la rifla--"
After which Pradeline rose, took from the mantlepiece a cigar that she
deftly lighted, and proceeded to hum her refrain between the puffs of
smoke that she blew out of her cherry lips. She then stretched herself
at full length upon a lounge, and drove in silence the bluish smoke of
her choice Havana towards the ceiling.
Forgetting the anger with which he was seized shortly before, the Count
of Plouernel could not avoid laughing at the originality displayed by
the young girl, and said:
"Come, my little pet; let us talk seriously. I am not asking for songs,
but for advice."
"I must first be informed of the quarter of the town in which your love
is located," observed the young girl dogmatically, turning over on the
lounge. "The knowledge of the quarter is very important in such matters.
What may be done in one quarter, can not be done in another. Darling,
there are prudish quarters, devout quarters, and _decollete_ quarters."
"Profoundly reasoned, my charmer. The influence of a quarter upon the
virtue of its women is considerable. Without running any risk I may tell
you that my shop-girl lives on St. Denis Street."
The young girl, who, stretched out upon the lounge, had been leisurely
and nonchalantly rolling the clouds of smoke from her cigar before her,
started at the mention of St. Denis Street, and rose so suddenly that
the Count of Plouernel looked at her in astonishment, and cried:
"What the devil has come over you?"
"What has come over me--" answered Pradeline, quickly recovering her
composure and wonted nonchalance, "what has come over me is that your
horrible cigar has burnt me--but that's no matter. You were saying,
darling, that your love is located in St. Denis Street? Well, now I have
something to go by; but not yet enough."
"And you shall not learn any more, my little beauty."
"The pest take this cigar!" exclaimed Pradeline, again shaking her head.
"It will blister me! It will blister me surely!"
"Would you like some cold water?"
"No, it will soon be over. So, then, your love lives in St. Denis
Street. You should also let me know--is the place at the head or the
foot of the street? There is quite some difference between the head and
the foot of a street, you must admit. The proof is, that the prices of
the shops are dear at one end and cheap at the other. According as the
rent runs high or low, a lover's generosity must keep step and be
proportionately great or less so. You can not get over this positive
fact."
"It is a very positive fact. Well, I shall confide to you that my love
lives not far from the St. Denis Gate."
"I need put no further questions to render my opinion," said Pradeline
with a voice that she was at great pains to modulate into comical tones.
Nevertheless, a closer observer than the Count of Plouernel would have
noticed a vague shadow of uneasiness flit over the otherwise gay girl.
"Well, what is your advice?"
"First of all--you should--" but, suddenly breaking off, the young girl
said:
"Someone raps at the door, darling."
"You think so?"
"I am quite certain. Listen! Don't you hear?"
In fact the rapping was renewed.
"Walk in!" cried the Count.
A valet presented himself, looking disconcerted, and said to the Count
anxiously:
"Monsieur Count, his Eminence--"
"My uncle!" exclaimed the Count of Plouernel, looking no less
disconcerted than his valet, and hastily rising to his feet.
"Yes, Monsieur Count. Monsignor the Cardinal arrived last night in the
city from his trip abroad, and--"
"A Cardinal!" cried Pradeline, interrupting the valet with boisterous
peals of laughter, already oblivious of the matters that seemed to
preoccupy her mind a minute before. "A Cardinal! That's a rare sight!
That's a thing one does not find every day at Mabille's or at
Valentino's! A Cardinal! I've never seen one. I must give myself a
treat."
Whereupon she forthwith improvised to the tune of her favorite song:
"The young Queen Bacchanal
She saw a Cardinal,
And said: Let's have some fun,
And make him dance and run--
La rifla-fla-fla-fla, la rifla-fla-fla-fla,
La rifla-fla-fla-fla-fla-fla-fla!"
So saying, Pradeline raised the hem of her dress and started to pirouet
around the room with great grace and utterly unconstrained, all the
while singing her latest improvisation, while the valet, standing
motionless at the half-opened door was with difficulty keeping a serious
face, and the Count of Plouernel, nettled at the freedom of the brazen
minx, called to her:
"Come, my dear; that's foolish; keep still."
Cardinal Plouernel, just announced, not caring to be kept waiting in his
nephew's ante-chamber, and little imagining him to be in such profane
company, had followed upon the heels of the valet, and entered the room
just as Pradeline, throwing out her well shaped limb, undulated her
upper body as she sang:
"Oh, let us have some fun,
And make him dance and run!
La rifla-fla-fla-fla, la rifla--"
At the sight of the Cardinal the Count of Plouernel ran to the door, and
repeatedly and effusively embracing his uncle, gently pushed him back
into the salon from which he came. The valet, like the experienced
menial that he was, discreetly shut the door of the boudoir upon his
master, and drew the bolt.