It was thanks to Touquet that she was able to look so chic--the little
baggage!--yet of all her suitors Touquet was the one she favoured
least. He was the costumier at the corner of the rue des Martyrs, and
made a very fair thing of the second-hand clothes. It was to Touquet's
that the tradesmen of the quarter turned as a matter of course to hire
dress-suits for their nuptials; it was in the well-cleaned satins of
Touquet that the brides' mothers and the lady guests cut such imposing
figures when they were photographed after the wedding breakfasts; it
was even Touquet who sometimes supplied a gown to one or another of the
humble actresses at the Théâtre Montmartre, and received a couple of
free tickets in addition to his fee. I tell you that Touquet was not a
person to be sneezed at, though he had passed the first flush of youth,
and was never an Adonis.
Besides, who was she, this little Lisette, who had the impudence to
flout him? A girl in a florist's, if you can believe me, with no
particular beauty herself, and not a son by way of dot! And yet--one
must confess it--she turned a head as swiftly as she made a
"buttonhole"; and Pomponnet, the pastrycook, was paying court to her,
too--to say nothing of the homage of messieurs Tricotrin, the poet, and
Goujaud, the painter, and Lajeunie, the novelist. You would never have
guessed that her wages were only twenty francs a week, as you watched
her waltz with Tricotrin at the ball on Saturday evening, or as you saw
her enter Pomponnet's shop, when the shutters were drawn, to feast on
his strawberry tarts. Her costumes were the cynosure of the boulevard
Rochechouart!
And they were all due to Touquet, Touquet the infatuated, who lent the
fine feathers to her for the sake of a glance, or a pressure of the
hand--and wept on his counter afterwards while he wondered whose arms
might be embracing her in the costumes that he had cleaned and pressed
with so much care. Often he swore that his folly should end--that she
should be affianced to him, or go shabby; but, lo! in a day or two she
would make her appearance again, to coax for the loan of a smart
blouse, or "that hat with the giant rose and the ostrich plume"--and
Touquet would be as weak as ever.
Judge, then, of his despair when he heard that she had agreed to marry
Pomponnet! She told him the news with the air of an amiable gossip when
she came to return a ball-dress that she had borrowed.
"Enfin," she said--perched on the counter, and swinging her remorseless
feet--"it is arranged; I desert the flowers for the pastry, and become
the mistress of a shop. I shall have to beg from my good friend
monsieur Touquet no more--not at all! I shall be his client, like the
rest. It will be better, hein?"
Touquet groaned. "You know well, Lisette," he answered, "that it has
been a joy to me to place the stock at your disposal, even though it
was to make you more attractive in the eyes of other men. Everything
here that you have worn possesses a charm to me. I fondle the garments
when you bring them back; I take them down from the pegs and dream over
them. Truly! There is no limit to my weakness, for often when a client
proposes to hire a frock that you have had, I cannot bear that she
should profane it, and I say that it is engaged."
"You dear, kind monsieur Touquet," murmured the coquette; "how
agreeable you are!"
"I have always hoped for the day when the stock would be all your own,
Lisette. And by-and-by we might have removed to a better position--
even down the hill. Who knows? We might have opened a business in the
Madeleine quarter. That would suit you better than a little cake-shop
up a side street? And I would have risked it for you--I know how you
incline to fashion. When I have taken you to a theatre, did you choose
the Montmartre--where we might have gone for nothing--or the Moncey?
Not you!--that might do for other girls. _You_ have always
demanded the theatres of the Grand Boulevard; a cup of coffee at the
Café de la Paix is more to your taste than a bottle of beer and
hard-boiled eggs at The Nimble Rabbit. Heaven knows I trust you will be
happy, but I cannot persuade myself that this Pomponnet shares your
ambitions; with his slum and his stale pastry he is quite content."
"It is not stale," she said.
"Well, we will pass his pastry--though, word of honour, I bought some
there last week that might have been baked before the Commune; but to
recur to his soul, is it an affinity?"
"Affinities are always hard up," she pouted.
"Zut!" exclaimed Touquet; "now your mind is running on that monsieur
Tricotrin--by 'affinities' I do not mean hungry poets. Why not have
entrusted your happiness to _me_? I adore you, I have told you a
thousand times that I adore you. Lisette, consider before it is too
late! You cannot love this--this obscure baker?"
She gave a shrug. "It is a fact that devotion has not robbed me of my
appetite," she confessed. "But what would you have? His business goes
far better than you imagine--I have seen his books; and anyhow, my
sentiment for you is friendship, and no more."
"To the devil with friendship!" cried the unhappy wardrobe-dealer; "did
I dress you like the Empress Joséphine for friendship?"
"Do not mock yourself of it," she said reprovingly; "remember that
'Friendship is a beautiful flower, of which esteem is the stem.'" And,
having thrown the adage to him, coupled with a glance that drove him to
distraction, the little flirt jumped off the counter and was gone.
Much more reluctantly she contemplated parting with him whom the
costumier had described as a "hungry poet"; but matrimony did not enter
the poet's scheme of things, nor for that matter had she ever regarded
him as a possible parti. Yet a woman may give her fancy where her
reason refuses to follow, and when she imparted her news to Tricotrin
there was no smile on her lips.
"We shall not go to balls any more, old dear," she said. "Monsieur
Pomponnet has proposed marriage to me--and I settle down."
"Heartless girl," exclaimed the young man, with tears in his eyes. "So
much for woman's constancy!"
"Mon Dieu," she faltered, "did you then love me, Gustave--really?"
"I do not know," said Tricotrin, "but since I am to lose you, I prefer
to think so. Ah, do not grieve for me--fortunately, there is always the
Seine! And first I shall pour my misery into song; and in years to
come, fair daughters at your side will read the deathless poem, little
dreaming that the Lisette I sang to is their mother. Some time--long
after I am in my grave, when France has honoured me at last--you may
stand before a statue that bears my name, and think, 'He loved me, and
I broke his heart!'"
"Oh," she whimpered, "rather than break your heart I--I might break the
engagement! I might consider again, Gustave."
"No, no," returned Tricotrin, "I will not reproach myself with the
thought that I have marred your life; I will leave you free. Besides,
as I say, I am not certain that I should want you so much but for the
fact that I have lost you. After all, you will not appreciate the poem
that immortalises you, and if I lived, many of your remarks about it
would doubtless infuriate me."
"Why shall I not appreciate it? Am I so stupid?"
"It is not that you are stupid, my Soul," he explained; "it is that I
am transcendentally clever. To understand the virtues of my work one
must have sipped from all the flowers of Literature. 'There is to be
found in it Racine, Voltaire, Flaubert, Renan--and always Gustave
Tricotrin,' as Lemaître has written. He wrote, '--and always Anatole
France,' but I paraphrase him slightly. So you are going to marry
Pomponnet? Mon Dieu, when I have any sous in my pocket, I will ruin
myself, for the rapture of regretting you among the pastry!"
"I thought," she said, a little mortified, "that you were going to
drown yourself?"
"Am I not to write my Lament to you? I must eat while I write it--why
not pastry? Also, when I am penniless and starving, you may sometimes,
in your prosperity--And yet, perhaps, it is too much to ask?"
"Give you tick, do you mean, dear? But yes, Gustave; how can you doubt
that I will do that? In memory of--"
"In memory of the love that has been, you will permit me to run up a
small score for cakes, will you not, Lisette?"
"I will, indeed!" she promised. "But, but--Oh, it's quite true, I
should never understand you! A minute ago you made me think of you in
the Morgue, and now you make me think of you in the cake-shop. What are
you laughing at?"
"I laugh, like Figaro," said Tricotrin, "that I may not be obliged to
weep. When are you going to throw yourself away, my little Lisette? Has
my accursed rival induced you to fix a date?'
"We are to be married in a fortnight's time," she said. "And if you
could undertake to be sensible, I would ask Alphonse to invite you to
the breakfast."
"In a fortnight's time hunger and a hopeless passion will probably have
made an end of me," replied the poet; "however, if I survive, the
breakfast will certainly be welcome. Where is it to be held? I can
recommend a restaurant that is especially fine at such affairs, and
most moderate. 'Photographs of the party are taken gratuitously in the
Jardin d'Acclimatation, and pianos are at the disposal of the ladies';
I quote from the menu--I study it in the window every time I pass.
There are wedding breakfasts from six to twelve francs per head. At six
francs, the party have their choice of two soups and three hors
d'oeuvres. Then comes 'poisson'--I fear it may be whiting--filet de
boeuf with tomates farcies, bouchées à la Reine, chicken, pigeons,
salad, two vegetables, an ice, assorted fruits, and biscuits. The wines
are madeira, a bottle of mâcon to each person, a bottle of bordeaux
among four persons, and a bottle of champagne among ten persons. Also
coffee and liqueurs. At six francs a head! It is good, hein? At seven
francs there is a bottle of champagne among every eight persons--
Pomponnet will, of course, do as he thinks best. At eight francs, a
bottle is provided for every six persons. I have too much delicacy to
make suggestions, but should he be willing to soar to twelve francs a
head, I might eat enough to last a week--and of such quality! The soups
would then be bisque d'écrevisse and consommé Rachel. Rissoles de foies
gras would appear. Asparagus 'in branches,' and compote of peaches
flavoured with maraschino would be included. Also, in the twelve-franc
breakfast, the champagne begins to have a human name on the label!"
Now, it is not certain how much of this information Lisette repeated to
Pomponnet, but Pomponnet, having a will of his own, refused to
entertain monsieur Tricotrin at any price at all. More-over, he found
it unconventional that she should desire the poet's company,
considering the attentions that he had paid her; and she was forced to
listen, with an air of humility which she was far from feeling, to a
lecture on the responsibilities of her new position.
"I am not a jealous man," said the pastrycook, who was as jealous a man
as ever baked a pie; "but it would be discreet that you dropped this
acquaintance now that we are engaged. I know well that you have never
taken the addresses of such a fellow seriously, and that it is only in
the goodness of your heart you wish to present him with a blow-out.
Nevertheless, the betrothal of a man in my circumstances is much
remarked; all the daughters of the hairdresser next door have had their
hopes of me--indeed, there is scarcely a neighbour who is not chagrined
at the turn events have taken--and the world would be only too glad of
an excuse to call me 'fool.' Pomponnet's wife must be above suspicion.
You will remember that a little lightness of conduct which might be
forgiven in the employée of the florist would be unseemly in my
fiancée. No more conversation with monsieur Tricotrin, Lisette! Some
dignity--some coldness in the bow when you pass him. The boulevard will
observe it, it will be approved."
"You, of course, know best, my dear Alphonse," she returned meekly; "I
am only an inexperienced girl, and I am thankful to have your advice to
guide me. But let me say that never, never has there been any
'lightness of conduct,' to distress you. Monsieur Tricotrin and I have
been merely friends. If I have gone to a ball with him sometimes--and I
acknowledge that has happened--it has been because nobody more to my
taste has offered to take me." She had ground her little teeth under
the infliction of his homily, and it was only by dint of thinking hard
of his profits that she abstained from retorting that he might marry
all the daughters of the hairdresser and go to Uganda.
However, during the next week or so, she did not chance to meet the
poet on the boulevard; and since she wished to conquer her tenderness
for him, one cannot doubt that all would have been well but for the
Editor of _L'Echo de la Butte._ By a freak of fate, the Editor of
_L'Echo de la Butte_ was moved to invite monsieur Tricotrin to an
affair of ceremony two days previous to the wedding. What followed?
Naturally Tricotrin must present himself in evening dress. Naturally,
also, he must go to Touquet's to hire the suit.
"Regard," said the costumier, "here is a suit that I have just
acquired. Monsieur will observe that it is of the most distinguished
cut--quite in the latest fashion. I will whisper to monsieur that it
comes to me through the valet of the Comte de St.-Nom-la-Bretèche-
Forêt-de-Marly."
"Mon Dieu!" said Tricotrin, "let me try it on!" And he was so gratified
by his appearance in it that he barely winced at the thought of the
expense. "I am improving my position," he soliloquised; "if I have not
precisely inherited the mantle of Victor Hugo, I have, at any rate,
hired the dress-suit of the Comte de St.-Nom-la-Bretèche-Forêt-de-
Marly!"
Never had a more impressive spectacle been witnessed in Montmartre than
Tricotrin's departure from his latest lodging shortly after six
o'clock. Wearing a shirt of Pitou's, Flamant's patent-leather boots,
and a white tie contributed by Goujaud, the young man sallied forth
with the deportment of the Count himself. Only one thing more did he
desire, a flower for his buttonhole--and Lisette remained in her
situation until the morrow! What more natural, finally, than that he
should hie him to the florist's?
It was the first time that she had seen her lover in evening dress, and
sentiment overpowered her as he entered.
"Thou!" she murmured, paling.
On the poet, too, the influence of the clothes was very strong; attired
like a jeune premier, he craved with all the dramatic instinct of his
nature for a love scene; and, instead of fulfilling his intention to
beg for a rosebud at cost price, he gazed at her soulfully and breathed
"Lisette!"
"So we have met again!" she said.
"The world is small," returned the poet, ignoring the fact that he had
come to the shop. "And am I yet remembered?"
"It is not likely I should forget you in a few days," she said, more
practically; "I didn't forget about the breakfast, either, but Alphonse
put his foot down."
"Pig!" said the poet. "And yet it may be better so! How could I eat in
such an hour?"
"However, you are not disconsolate this evening?" she suggested. "Mais
vrai! what a swell you are!"
"Flûte! some fashionable assembly that will bore me beyond endurance,"
he sighed. "With you alone, Lisette, have I known true happiness--the
train rides on summer nights that were joyous because we loved; the
simple meals that were sweetened by your smile!"
"Ah, Gustave!" she said. "Wait, I must give you a flower for your
coat!"
"I shall keep it all my life!" vowed Tricotrin. "Tell me, little one--I
dare not stay now, because my host lives a long way off--but this
evening, could you not meet me once again? For the last time, to say
farewell? I have nearly two francs fifty, and we might go to supper, if
you agree."
It was arranged before he took leave of her that she should meet him
outside the _débit_ at the corner of the rue de Sontay at eleven
o'clock, and sup with him there, in a locality where she was unlikely
to be recognised. Rash enough, this conduct, for a young woman who was
to be married to another man on the next day but one! But a greater
imprudence was to follow. They supped, they sentimentalised, and when
they parted in the Champs Elysées and the moonshine, she gave him from
her bosom a little rose-coloured envelope that contained nothing less
than a lock of her hair.
The poet placed it tenderly in his waistcoat pocket; and, after he had
wept, and quoted poetry to the stars, forgot it. He began to wish that
he had not mixed his liquors quite so impartially; and, on the morrow,
when he woke, he was mindful of nothing more grievous than a splitting
headache.
Now Touquet, who could not sleep of nights because the pastrycook was
going to marry Lisette, made a practice of examining the pockets of all
garments returned to him, with an eye to stray sous; and when he
proceeded to examine the pockets of the dress-suit returned by monsieur
Tricotrin, what befell but that he drew forth a rose-tinted envelope
containing a tress of hair, and inscribed, "To Gustave, from Lisette.
Adieu."
And the Editor who invited monsieur Tricotrin had never heard of
Lisette; never heard of Pomponnet; did not know that such a person as
Touquet existed; yet the editorial caprice had manipulated destinies.
How powerful are Editors! How complicated is life!
But a truce to philosophy--let us deal with the emotions of the soul!
The shop reeled before Touquet. All the good and the bad in his
character battled tumultuously. In one moment he aspired to be generous
and restore to Lisette the evidence of her guilt; in the next he sank
to the base thought of displaying it to Pomponnet and breaking off the
match. The discovery fired his brain. No longer was he a nonentity, the
odd man out--chance had transformed him to the master of the situation.
Full well he knew that there would be no nuptials next day were
Pomponnet aware of his fiancée's perfidy; it needed but to go to him
and say, "Monsieur, my sense of duty compels me to inform you--." How
easy it would be! He laughed hysterically.
But Lisette would never pardon such a meanness--she would always
despise and hate him! He would have torn her from his rival's arms, it
was true, yet his own would still be empty. "Ah, Lisette, Lisette!"
groaned the wretched man; and, swept to evil by the force of passion,
he cudgelled his mind to devise some piece of trickery, some diabolical
artifice, by which the incriminating token might be placed in the
pastrycook's hands as if by accident.
And while he pondered--his "whole soul a chaos"--in that hour Pomponnet
entered to hire a dress-suit for his wedding!
Touquet raised his head, blanched to the lips.
"Regard," he said, with a forced calm terrible to behold; "here is a
suit that I have just acquired. Monsieur will observe that it is of the
most distinguished cut--quite in the latest fashion. I will whisper to
monsieur that it comes to me through the valet of the Comte de St. Nom-
la-Bretéche-Forét-de-Marly." And, unseen by the guileless bridegroom,
he slipped the damning proof into a pocket of the trousers, where his
knowledge of the pastrycook's attitudes assured him that it was even
more certain to be found than in the waistcoat.
"Mon Dieu!" said the other, duly impressed by the suit's pedigree; "let
me try it on.... The coat is rather tight," he complained, "but it has
undeniably an air."
"No more than one client has worn it," gasped the wardrobe dealer
haggardly: _"monsieur Gustave Tricotrin, the poet, who hired it last
night!_ The suit is practically new; I have no other in the
establishment to compare with it. Listen, monsieur Pomponnet! To an old
client like yourself, I will be liberal; wear it this evening for an
hour in your home--if you find it not to your figure, there will be
time to make another selection before the ceremony to-morrow. You shall
have this on trial, I will make no extra charge."
Such munificence was bound to have its effect, and five minutes later
Touquet's plot had progressed. But the tension had been frightful; the
door had scarcely closed when he sank into a chair, trembling in every
limb, and for the rest of the day he attended to his business like one
moving in a trance.
Meanwhile, the unsuspecting Pomponnet reviewed the arrangement with
considerable satisfaction; and when he came to attire himself, after
the cake-shop was shut, his reflected image pleased him so well that he
was tempted to stroll abroad. He decided to call on his betrothed, and
to exhibit himself a little on the boulevard. Accordingly, he put some
money in the pocket of the waistcoat, oiled his silk hat, to give it an
additional lustre, and sallied forth in high good-humour.
"How splendid you look, my dear Alphonse!" exclaimed Lisette, little
dreaming it was the same suit that she had approved on Tricotrin the
previous evening.
Her innocent admiration was agreeable to Pomponnet; he patted her on
the cheek.
"In truth," he said carelessly, "I had forgotten that I had it on! But I
was so impatient for to-morrow, my pet angel, that I could not remain
alone and I had to come to see you."
They were talking on her doorstep, for she had no apartment in which it
would have been _convenable_ to entertain him, and it appeared to
him that the terrace of a café would be more congenial.
"Run upstairs and make your toilette, my loving duck," he suggested,
"and I shall take you out for a tasse. While you are getting ready, I
will smoke a cigar." And he drew his cigar-case from the breast-pocket
of the coat, and took a match-box from the pocket where he had put his
cash.
It was a balmy evening, sweet with the odour of spring, and the streets
were full of life. As he promenaded with her on the boulevard,
Pomponnet did not fail to remark the attention commanded by his
costume. He strutted proudly, and when they reached the café and took
their seats, he gave his order with the authority of the President.
"Ah!" he remarked, "it is good here, hein?" And then, stretching his
legs, he thrust both his hands into the pockets of his trousers.
"_Comment?_" he murmured. "What have I found?... Now is not this
amusing--I swear it is a billet-doux!" He bent, chuckling, to the
light--and bounded in his chair with an oath that turned a dozen heads
towards them. "Traitress," roared Pomponnet, "miserable traitress! It
is _your_ name! It is your _writing_! It is your _hair_!
Do not deny it; give me your head--it matches to a shade! Jezebel, last
night you met monsieur Tricotrin--you have deceived me!"
Lisette, who had jumped as high as he in recognising the envelope, sat
like one paralysed now. Her tongue refused to move. For an instant, the
catastrophe seemed to her of supernatural agency--it was as if a
miracle had happened, as she saw her fiancé produce her lover's
keepsake. All she could stammer at last was:
"Let us go away--pay for the coffee!"
"I will not pay," shouted monsieur Pomponnet. "Pay for it yourself,
jade--I have done with you!" And, leaving her spellbound at the table,
he strode from the terrace like a madman before the waiters could stop
him.
Oh, of course, he was well known at the café, and they did not detain
Lisette, but it was a most ignominious position for a young woman. And
there was no wedding next day, and everybody knew why. The little
coquette, who had mocked suitors by the dozen, was jilted almost on the
threshold of the Mairie. She smacked Tricotrin's face in the morning,
but her humiliation was so acute that it demanded the salve of
immediate marriage; and at the moment she could think of no one better
than Touquet.
So Touquet won her after all. And though by this time she may guess how
he accomplished it, he will tell you--word of honour!--that never,
never has he had occasion for regret.