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NOVELS BY Paul de Kock

THE FLOWER GIRL OF THE CH?TEAU D'EAU

VOL. I

PRINTED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH

GEORGE BARRIE'S SONS

THE JEFFERSON PRESS BOSTON NEW YORK

THE FLOWER GIRL

OF THE CH?TEAU D'EAU

PAPA'S BIRTHDAY

It was the month of May in the year 1853--you see that our subject is not lost in the night of time--it was a Monday and there was a flower market on Boulevard Saint-Martin, in front, or rather on both sides of the Ch?teau d'Eau. The booths of the dealers extended as far as Rue de Lancry, a favor which had been only recently accorded to the flower girls, but upon which the passers-by had as much reason to congratulate themselves as the dealers and the people of that portion of the quarter. Is there anything more delightful to the eye than flowers? What is there which charms the sight and pleases the sense of smell more?

Are there people who do not love flowers? If you should tell me that there were, I would not believe it.

There were therefore many people on the boulevards, and particularly near the flower market; everyone was anxious to take advantage of a fine day, not being certain of another on the morrow; and everybody was sensible: fine weather, pleasure and happiness we must seize you when you come to us, and never say: "I will wait till to-morrow."

Among all the people who were walking and sauntering and examining the flowers displayed on the asphalt or the concrete, there were, as is always the case at that market, more women than men. Do the ladies care more for flowers than we do? I might say some very pretty things on that subject, as for example: "Birds of a feather flock together," or: "Where can one be more at home than in the bosom of his family?" or again--but no, I will not repeat what you have already seen or heard a hundred times. Moreover, I think that Fran?ois I said something better than any of that.

Furthermore, if the ladies are fonder of flowers than we are, you see they have much more time to attend to them. I once knew a bachelor, a clerk in a business house, who adored flowers, and although of small means, could not resist the temptation to purchase a handsome rosebush or a wood-violet, which he instantly carried home and placed in triumph on his window-sill. But that gentleman was a heavy sleeper, and when he woke he had hardly time to dress and go to his office. He did not dine at home, and when he returned at night he was always in a hurry to go to bed. The result was that, after two or three days, when he attempted to gloat over the flower that he had purchased, he was surprised to find it dead.

"But why didn't you water it?" someone would ask him.

"Why--why--because I have noticed that it always rains sooner or later."

We will, with your permission, allow those of the passers-by who are indifferent to us to go their way, and will follow the steps of a family composed of a mother, her son and her daughter.

The mother's name was Madame Glumeau; her first name was Lolotte. She was a lady who had reached the wrong side of forty; she had once been pretty, a piquant brunette, whose bright and mischievous eyes made many victims. But time had passed that way! What a deplorable passage, that of time,--a passage which should be well barricaded!

It was not that Madame Glumeau's features had changed very much. No, her eyes were still very bright, her nose rather delicate; her hair, which was yet black, still fell in thick curls on each side of her face; but she had grown enormously stout, so that her whole figure was changed and her waist enlarged.

Even the face had undergone the influence of that exuberant health; the cheeks had become rotund, the chin had trebled, the neck had shortened, and the complexion had become purple; and there were people who were cruel enough to say to her:

"What perfect health you enjoy! No one needs to ask you how you are!"

At that compliment, Madame Glumeau would try to smile, as she replied:

"That is true, I am not often ill!"

Let us come to the two children; we are not speaking of little brats, who have to be led along by the hand, but of a boy of nineteen and a young lady of sixteen.

The young man was very ill-favored; he had no one of his mother's features, and squinted in too pronounced a fashion, a fact which necessarily imparted more or less vagueness to his countenance; but one might judge from the expression of his face that Monsieur Astianax--that was young Glumeau's name--was not displeased with his little person, and still less with his wit. Unluckily, nature had not bestowed upon him a figure corresponding to the advantages with which he considered himself to be endowed; despite the high heels that he wore and the double soles that he put in his shoes, Monsieur Astianax Glumeau had been unable to make himself taller than his mother, who was four feet nine.

If young Glumeau was short, his sister, by way of compensation, at sixteen, was as tall as a bean-pole, and threatened to attain the stature of a drum-major. As thin as her mother was stout, Eolinde Glumeau had at all events a face which did her honor; although she was not so pretty as her mother had once been, she had regular features, rather large eyes, a small mouth, fine teeth, and all the freshness of a peach still on the tree. But--for there were always buts in that family--Mademoiselle Eolinde was afflicted with a very noticeable defect of speech; she stuttered in a way that was very tiresome to those who listened to her. Her parents declared that that would cure itself, and as a corrective to that infirmity they insisted that their daughter should talk as much as possible. Mademoiselle Eolinde obeyed her parents to an extent that was sometimes very terrible for her friends and acquaintances.

The Glumeau family had been on Boulevard du Ch?teau d'Eau a long while, going from one dealer to another, stopping in front of the flowers, sticking their noses into the finest ones, asking the price, hesitating, and not deciding.

At last Madame Glumeau turned about once more and halted in front of a very handsome pomegranate tree, saying:

"I think I will buy this pomegranate for your father. A pomegranate will please Honor?; he will like it very much."

"But, mamma, what connection is there between this shrub and my father?" queried young Glumeau, looking toward Boulevard du Temple and Porte Saint-Martin at the same moment.

"What's that! what connection? What do you mean by that, Astianax? Isn't to-morrow your father's f?te-day, as his name is Honor?? We are going to give him flowers as usual. I select this pomegranate, which is very handsome; I don't see what there is in that to surprise you."

"But, my dear boy, you are terribly tiresome with your allusions; you want to put allusions in everything; just wait until you are a man."

"My dear boy, I have been giving your father myrtles for twenty years and he must have had enough of them. Everything in life goes by, and we have used the myrtle long enough; it seems to me that I can properly vary it a little. After twenty years one is not forbidden to change bouquets. I have decided, I am going to buy this pomegranate.--Don't you think, Eolinde, that this will please your father?"

"Oh! ye--ye--yes, it will pl--please him very mu--u--uch."

"But what are you going to buy for him? You must make up your mind, children, for we intend to go to the play after dinner, and it is getting late."

"B--b--bless me!" replied the tall young lady, "I would li--i--ike that fl--fl--flower--you know--you know--it's the--I d--d--don't see it."

"But what flower? tell us its name."

"I d--d--don't reme--e--ember."

"In that case, ask the woman if she has any," said Monsieur Astianax, smiling maliciously, for he very often made fun of the difficulty which his sister had in speaking.

"What a stu--u--u--pid you are, Astianax!" cried the girl, shrugging her shoulders and looking down at her brother as if she were searching for a little dog. "Let me alo--o--one; it's a flow--ower with b--b--bells."

"Bells?"

"No, little bell-flowers--brown."

"Oh, I know what you mean, daughter; it is a--I don't know the name; but come, I saw some over yonder."

And the stout lady, having paid for the pomegranate and hired a porter to carry it, led her daughter to the booth of a dealer who had a large assortment of tulips. Mademoiselle Eolinde examined them for some time, then murmured:

"This isn't what I wanted. No matter, let me see. Oh! they don't smell--they don't smell of anything; I'd rather get something else."

"Well, what? Come, choose."

"The name makes no difference, let us go and buy it."

Mademoiselle Eolinde stopped in front of a magnificent magnolia, which had already flowered in the heat of a greenhouse; she placed her nose upon the lovely white egg-shaped blossom, which, as it opened, exhaled a delicious odor of orange and lemon; then she raised her head and said: "That smells too strong."

"Look here, mamzelle!" cried the flower woman, irritated to see the tall girl take her mother away in another direction, "you mustn't stick your face on our flowers like that! Did anyone ever see such a bean-pole as that creature who buries her muzzle in the blossom of my magnolia, and then walks off, as if she had been sniffing at my poodle's tail! Go on, you long-legged cockroach! Go somewhere else and buy Indian pinks, they'll suit you better!"

The Glumeau family did not hear, or rather pretended not to hear the somewhat forcible complaints of the woman with the magnolia; they had stopped in front of a booth where there was a large quantity of laurel. Mademoiselle Eolinde, whom the lesson which she had just received had not corrected, smelled several laurel bushes and cried:

"Ah! that sm--smells nasty!"

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