It was not in Eleanore's nature to submit to a misfortune without first
having made every possible effort to evade it.
She wrote for from fourteen to sixteen hours a day, with the result that
she had finished all that was asked of her long before her time was
really up.
Then she looked around for a better paying position; it was in vain.
Women had never been paid well, she had no recommendations, no personal
connections, nothing on which she could depend or to which she might
refer.
Finally it occurred to her that she might make some money out of her
flowers. She went to the florist at St. Lorenz Place, taking with her a
garland of carnations and mignonettes she had made the day before. She
told the florist she knew a great deal about flowers and had had
considerable experience in handling them.
The man laughed at her, and told her he could find no sale for that kind
of things, and that, even if he could, he would have to ask so little
for them that it would not pay her to make them. Eleanore took her
flowers back home; she was profoundly discouraged. She saw herself how
perishable flowers were; these withered that same evening. Nothing could
be expected from that source.
She had not noticed that, as she left the florist shop, a man on the
other side of the street had stopped and looked at her. He was a haggard
young individual with a pale, peevish expression on his face, a man with
a chin the unimpressiveness of which was hidden behind a Vandyke beard.
He stood for a long while and looked at Eleanore as she walked down the
street. There could be no doubt but that something in her general
bearing and her face had drawn his attention to her; had awakened in him
a feeling that was nobler than mere curiosity or the satisfaction an
idler derives from gaping.
The young man finally began to move; he walked rather stiffly across the
square and entered the florist's shop. A few minutes later the florist,
a man past middle age, with the typical toper's nose, threw open his
door and removed his cap, actions which in addition to his fawning bow
were unmistakable proof to the merchants on either side of him that it
was no ordinary sale he had just made. The young man went his way,
ambling along in shiftless indifference to where he was or the time of
day.
The next morning the florist's errand boy came to Eleanore, and told her
that his chief had something very important to say to her, and that she
should come at once. Eleanore followed the call without delay. As she
entered the shop, the florist greeted her with unusual politeness, and
told her that a man who took a special fancy to the kind of flowers she
had shown him the day before had been there and placed an order for two
such bouquets, or even three, a week at twenty marks each. He advised
her to exercise all diligence in making the flowers and said that when
such a rain of good fortune descended upon one it was wise to let other
things take care of themselves. The only condition the florist imposed
on her was absolute silence. The customer did not wish his name to be
known, nor did he wish to be seen. He remarked casually that there was
manifestly some whim or crotchet back of the man's action, such as is so
frequently the case with aristocratic people.
Who was happier than Eleanore! She never bothered herself for a minute
about the illogical and legendary element in the offer of a man who only
a day before had appeared so shrewd and cautious. She drank in every
word of the florist's detailed statement, and merely believed that in
this city, among its inhabitants, there was an eccentric fellow who was
willing to pay such a princely price for her flowers simply because he
liked flowers and was pleased with the way she put them up. Though she
had not been spoiled by fortune, the transformation that had suddenly
taken place in her circumstances awakened in her not the slightest
suspicion or surprise. She was too happy to be distrustful, too grateful
to become inquisitive. Her thoughts were on Daniel, who, she felt, was
saved. The whole way home she smiled to herself as if lost in dreams.
Evening after evening she sat with the flowers she had gathered in the
forenoon from the forests, the meadows, and the gardens out by the city
fortress, where an old gardener went with her and picked out the
choicest specimens for her. He had a crippled son who fell in love with
Eleanore and always stood in the door and smiled at her when she came.
He promised he would get her flowers from the green house during the
winter.
The butcher was paid, the baker was paid; the druggist was paid, and so
was the rent. Philippina shook her head, and swore there was something
wrong. She was convinced that it would all come out some day, even if
you had to scratch the dung hill to get at the secret. She told the
people about a ghost that carried on every night up in the attic; and
once when the moon was shining she came running into the room and swore
that a bony finger had rapped on the window.
Eleanore bound roses and gilliflowers, tulips and pansies, mosses,
ferns, and what-not into beautiful tapestried pictures, or wound them
into wreaths and garlands. She gave herself up to this novel occupation
with the sacrificial love of a woman of her type; and at times she
became dizzy from so much fragrance. But this mattered not. She arranged
her flowers; and then she would lean out of the window, and sing gently
into the night.
Daniel was ignorant of what she was doing; he had not troubled himself
about the distressing poverty of past weeks; he did not concern himself
now with their abundance; where it came from he never asked.