XXVI

A GOOD FRIEND

On reaching Paris, the count said to Georget:

"I don't need you at this moment, my boy; go about your own business; but be on the boulevard, opposite Rue d'Angouleme, at five o'clock; I will take you up there as I pa.s.s, I shall have a cab, and we will come back together."

"Very good, monsieur; but if monsieur needs me, if he wishes me to go with him----"

"It isn't necessary; be at the place I have mentioned at five o'clock."

The count walked away, and Georget did not hesitate long as to what he would do. In a few moments he was on the boulevard, and he walked in the direction of the Chateau d'Eau. It was flower market day in that quarter, the weather was magnificent, and there was a great concourse of dealers and promenaders. Georget congratulated himself upon that circ.u.mstance, which would enable him to keep out of sight in the crowd, and not be seen; for he wished to see Violette, and he wished also to see her without her suspecting it.

On approaching the place where the pretty girl kept her booth, Georget felt his legs tremble and give way under him. His heart beat so violently that he placed his hand against it, trying to suppress its throbbing. The poor boy had never been so intensely agitated. He longed, yet dreaded, to turn his eyes toward the place where he used formerly to stop so often. At last, taking advantage of a moment when many people were between him and that spot, he raised his eyes and looked; he saw Violette, and after that his glance remained fastened upon her. At that moment indeed, the flower girl, being busily engaged in making bouquets, was looking at her tray and was paying no attention to the pa.s.sers-by.

Violette was as fascinating as ever; but the rosy tinge of her complexion had almost entirely disappeared, her brow was careworn, and all her features bore the stamp of melancholy; far from impairing her beauty, however, it gave a new charm to her whole person.

Georget instantly observed the change, the pallor which had replaced the roses that formerly adorned Violette's cheeks; and in a second, twenty thoughts rushed through his mind.

"Why that sad, downcast expression?--Why this change, this pallor?--Why, even while arranging her flowers, does her brow remain pensive and careworn?--Is she sick?--Is she unhappy?--Who can make her so?--What is she thinking about at this moment?"

Georget asked himself all these questions in less than a minute. But the last was the one of all others which he would have given everything in the world to be able to answer! Of what was she thinking at that moment?

Is not that always what a lover asks, when he can observe his mistress unseen, and when he sees that she is thoughtful? But it is also the question which most frequently remains unanswered.

Quite a long time pa.s.sed and Georget was still in the same spot, with his eyes fixed upon Violette, who did not see him. More than once the young man was pushed aside and jostled by the pa.s.sers-by, by people carrying flowers.

"Look out!" they would shout at him; "stand out of the way! let us pa.s.s!

Is the fellow stuck to the concrete?"

But Georget did not stir, he did not even hear, he did not even feel the jostling; it seemed as if his whole being were concentrated in his eyes, and as if he only existed through them.

But he had no choice save to emerge from his trance and to reply, when he suddenly felt a pair of wiry arms thrown about him, and someone began to dance up and down in front of him and embrace him, exclaiming the while:

"Ah! so here you are, my poor Georget! You're not dead, or melted! How glad I am! I thought you must be in the ca.n.a.l or in a well, or caught in a slide in the Montmartre quarries! Let me embrace you, _saperlotte_!

You villain! you brute! to disappear like this and leave your friends in despair! Let me embrace you!"

Georget recognized his former comrade, and he felt touched by the joy Chicotin showed as he gazed at him.

"Yes, it is I, Chicotin; thanks; so you have not forgotten me?"

"Forgotten you! what a stupid you are! What does that mean? why should I have forgotten you? weren't we friends? I should like to know if friends part like an old pair of breeches, which you never expect to put on again? Forgotten! why, I've hunted for you in every corner of Paris!

I've been to your house, after asking Mamzelle Violette for your address, for I didn't know it!"

"You asked Mamzelle Violette for my address?"

"To be sure; I had to ask her, to find out."

"And what did she say when you mentioned me?"

"Pardi! she told me that you lived on Rue d'Angouleme. I went there, and I found a tall, thin brute of a concierge who was as drunk as a fool and fighting with a woman--she must have been his wife, for she called him a blackguard!"

"Didn't she say anything else?"

"The old woman said: 'They've gone away, and we don't know where they are.'"

"But Violette--Violette----"

"The flower girl? Oh! I don't know what's the matter with her, poor girl, but for sometime past she's been as sad as can be; she never laughs now, she has changed completely! But bless my soul! perhaps she was unhappy because she didn't see you any more; you, who used to pa.s.s your days with her, all of a sudden you drop her, without even bidding her good-bye, so it seems! That's a very nice way to act! If I'd behaved like that, why it would have been all right! n.o.body would have been surprised, but they'd have said: 'Oh! that Patatras! that's just like his tricks! Appear and disappear! like Rotomago in the marionette show.'--But you, Georget, a fellow as polite as you, with the manners of a solicitor's clerk! Really, I shouldn't have expected it of you."

While listening to his old comrade, Georget kept his eyes fixed on the flower girl, who was still arranging her flowers. But there came a moment when the girl raised her head and turned her eyes in Georget's direction. He was convinced that she had seen him, and instantly, dragging Chicotin away, he forced him to leave the boulevard, saying in a choking voice:

"Come, come! Let's not stay here; she may have seen me, and I don't want her to think that I still take pleasure in looking at her, in thinking about her; she would make sport of me again, and I won't have it. Come, Chicotin."

"But, for heaven's sake, look out! How you go! You are dragging me in front of the omnibuses! If you want to get us run over, I beg to be excused! I prefer something different! I say, haven't we gone far enough?--But what is it that you have against Mamzelle Violette? You run away from her, you who used to be so dead in love with her! I don't understand it at all! What on earth has the girl done to you?"

"What has she done to me? She deceived me, she let me believe that she was virtuous and honest, that she was worthy of my love, in short; but it wasn't true; and she listened to one of those fine gentlemen who made love to her, and she went to his room!"

"She! the pretty flower girl a hussy! Nonsense! It isn't true; I don't believe it! it's all talk!"

Georget was impressed by the a.s.surance with which his friend contradicted him, and in the depths of his heart, he was conscious of a thrill of the keenest pleasure; then it was his turn to embrace Chicotin for what he had said; but he simply pressed his hand hard, as he muttered:

"You don't believe that of her. Ah, I was like you, I would not believe it; but if, in your presence, she had refused to deny such statements, you would be forced to believe! Listen, listen!"

And Georget gave his friend an exact account of what had happened the last time that he was on Boulevard du Chateau d'Eau.

Chicotin listened, shaking his head from time to time like a person who still doubts what he hears, and when his friend had ceased to speak, he cried:

"What does all that prove? That little squint-eyed villain,--and I'll smash him one of these days,--says a lot of nasty things about a girl who won't have anything to do with him! If he blackguards like that all the women who send him about his business, he will have his hands full."

"But that Jericourt, that fashionable young man,--alas! he is not ugly, and you know very well that he made love to Violette!"

"Well, what then? He wasn't there, was he? He didn't say anything, confirm anything?"

"But Violette! Violette! When the little man told her that he had seen her go into his neighbor's room and come out rumpled and excited, she didn't say to him: 'You are a liar!'--If it hadn't been true, do you think that she wouldn't have contradicted that evil-tongued fellow and confounded him?"

"Oh, bless my soul! I don't know! You should ask her to explain it all to you."

"Ask her to explain--so that she could lie some more to me! Oh! I didn't need any explanation. Besides, she saw my grief, my despair, and she let me go away, she didn't say a word to justify herself. Come, Chicotin, do you still believe her innocent now?"

"Bless me! yes."

"Yes? Ah! if I could only think like you! I have been so unhappy since I have been unable to say everywhere that I love her! She is pale, she is sad, she is changed, and how can I find out what causes her sadness?"