Chapter II: Violette

Madame Glumeau had said nothing beyond the truth, when she observed that the flower girl to whom she pointed was very pretty, for she was speaking of Violette.

Let us then make Violette’s acquaintance; it is always pleasant to know a pretty girl, even though she sells bouquets, but especially when she sells nothing else.

Violette was from eighteen to nineteen years of age; her figure was slender and shapely; she was tall enough but not too tall, which, in women, is rather a defect than an advantage; but there was grace in all her movements, and refinement in her simplicity.

Her face was oval; her fine brown hair left bare a forehead which was instinct with innocence and pride. Her eyes too were brown, but their expression was immeasurably sweet and they were fringed by long lashes which imparted to them an infinite charm; the eyebrows were but slightly marked. Her mouth was not very small, but it was intelligent; small mouths, which are unintelligent, of which there are so many, are not nearly so desirable. Lastly, her teeth were white and very regular. As you see, all these things must have combined to make a very pretty girl. Still there are many who possess all Violette’s advantages, but whom we pass without being charmed by them; the reason is, that it is not always sufficient to be beautiful in order to attract; a woman must also have in herself that indefinable something which fascinates, which surprises, which allures, which gives expression to the face and charm to the voice. That something is a gift of nature, which coquetry tries in vain to supply, and the flower girl had that gift. Moreover, there was in her speech and in her manners something which distinguished her from her companions. She expressed herself in better language and she was always courteous, even when one did not buy of her. So that Violette was noticed first for her beauty and then for her courtesy. Courtesy is a thing so rare among street peddlers, and even elsewhere! There are so many people who think that they acquire the air of being somebody by affecting an insolent tone and a contemptuous glance! Poor fools! If they did not arouse laughter, they would arouse compassion.

But was this flower girl, who expressed herself in better language than others of her trade, the child of rich people stricken by misfortune? Was it to support destitute and infirm parents that that pretty girl had decided to take up a business for which she was not born?

Not at all. Violette did not know her parents, she did not know whether they still lived, but what she did know perfectly was that they had abandoned her.

Put out to nurse in a small village of Picardie, near Abbeville, she evidently possessed little interest for them, for they had forgotten to pay the woman who had undertaken to replace her mother. The nurse was patient for a long while, but after three years, hearing nothing from her nursling’s parents, and being too poor to add a little stranger to her numerous family, the woman was about to leave the child at the Foundling Hospital, when an old lady who was passing through the village, touched with compassion for the deserted little one, offered the nurse to take charge of her and to take her to Paris with her.

The nurse assented, and took the lady’s address, in order that she might write to her if the child’s parents should ever claim her.

But who were her parents?

To the lady’s question the peasant woman replied:

“Faith, I hardly know, or rather I don’t know, at all. As to the mother, I am very sure I never saw her. I was at the nurses’ bureau on Rue Sainte-Apolline; a fine gentleman--I guess he was a servant--came into the place, while I was taking the air in the yard; I was the first one he saw, and he asked me if I wanted to take a brat that was born the night before. I says yes; then he says: ‘I don’t need to look any further; you’ll do as well as another; take your bundle and come.’--I went with him; there was a carriage at the door, and I got in with the swell servant. We drove to a street I don’t know the name of, he took me into a house, with a concierge, and up to the second floor, into a handsome room. I found a gentleman there, very well dressed, a pretty man with a fine figure; he had a splendid gold chain sticking out of his fob. He was a young man, about thirty-two or thirty-three, more or less. And when he saw the man come in who had brought me there, he says:

“‘Come, make haste, Comtois! I don’t know what to do with the child! It has been crying until it has burst the drum of my ear, but I can’t nurse it. Have you brought a nurse at last?’

“‘Yes, monsieur, here’s one who will take charge of the little girl.’

“‘Ah! that is very lucky!’

“And with that the gentleman, without even looking at me to see how I was built and whether I had much milk, motioned to me to go with him into another room, where I saw a little girl, just come into the world, wriggling on a sofa with cushions; they didn’t even have a cradle for her. The gentleman says to me:

“‘Take this child and carry it away at once, for it cries enough to split one’s head.’

“To that I answers:

“‘It will be twenty francs a month, without counting sugar and soap!’

“‘All right, that’s understood,’ he says; and he puts a hundred francs in my hand, saying: ‘This is for the first expenses; don’t you be afraid, I’ll send you money, you shall have plenty of it.’

“At that I makes another reverence and says:

“‘I am a Picarde, monsieur, from the village of Coulange, near Abbeville; my name is Marguerite Thomasseau; my husband raises donkeys, and we’ve had four nurslings already.’

“‘All right, take this little one and go.’

“‘But, monsieur,’ I says, ‘what about the _layette;_ where’s the little one’s _layette?_’

“At that, the handsome gentleman looks at his swell servant as if he was surprised, and says:

“‘What’s this woman talking about? What’s a _layette?_’

“The servant who was better instructed than his master, says:

“‘Monsieur, it is the child’s trousseau, the little things that people give to dress it in.’

“‘Oh! the devil! I didn’t know that myself, and it seems she didn’t think of it either! Never mind, Comtois, give her some of my trousers and waistcoats, give her my old dressing-gown and some linen; the nurse can make them over and we’ll send her something else later. Make haste, Comtois. Here, put in this handkerchief too, which belongs to the child’s mother, and which I put in my pocket by mistake yesterday.’

“The servant made me up a bundle in a hurry; and a queer _layette_ it was, I tell you! I don’t believe that any young one ever had one like it; it consisted of a woolen dressing-gown lined with silk, three pairs of broadcloth trousers, six cravats, two white piqué waistcoats and one black satin one, six fine shirts, a pair of suspenders, and a white handkerchief embroidered with a cipher, with a coronet on it. As for the handkerchief, I still have that, I have kept it so that the child might have something that belonged to her parents. However, all that stuff was better than nothing; I took the bundle and they were already turning me out of the room with my nursling, when I remembered that I didn’t know anybody’s name.

“‘Well, monsieur, what’s the little one’s name, and yours, and your wife’s?’

“At that the gentleman made a funny kind of face; he hesitated a long while, as if he was trying to think what answer he could make, and finally he said:

“‘The child’s name is Evelina--Evelina de Paulausky.--Now go; I will write to you.’

“At that he pushed me out with the child and the bundle. I started back the same day; and since then, and that was three years ago, not a word from the child’s parents. Evelina they called her, but we found that name too long and too hard to pronounce, and so, as the child when she was a year old, loved violets and could pick them as she rolled about on the grass, why we just called her Violette; you can call her so too, if you choose. She answers to that name better than to Evelina!”

That is what the nurse had told the good woman who took Violette to Paris. That charitable person was by no means wealthy, but she had given the child some education. Violette had learned to read, to write, and to do some kinds of sewing, but her protectress died before she was very learned. The child was only eleven when she lost her.

Being left alone and without resources, and having too much pride to beg her bread, she went from door to door, to all the people in the quarter, saying:

“Please give me something to do; I am able to work; I know how to knit and sew; I will do anything you want, but employ me, I beg you, for I would rather starve to death than beg and live on the charity of passers-by.”

These words indicated a certain pride and a lofty spirit; they indicated above all else Violette’s horror of idleness, which is the most dangerous of all faults. They were worth more than a letter of recommendation.

A dealer in fruit said to her:

“I know a lady who is looking for a young maid to take her little ones to walk. I will give you her address, you can go to see her, and perhaps she’ll hire you. But oh, dear! I am afraid that she’ll think you a little too young.--How old are you?”

“Eleven.”

“You must tell her you’re fourteen.”

“Oh, no! I won’t lie, madame; my protectress always told me that that was a very wicked habit.”

“Ah! my girl, anyone can see that you are young! If you pass your life without lying, you’ll be a famous phenomenon, and they’ll exhibit you later for two sous. However, that’s your business. You can do as you choose.”

Violette went to see the lady who was looking for a young nursemaid. Her first question, as she looked at Violette, was:

“How old are you?”

And when the girl told her the truth, she dismissed her, saying:

“Why, you are much too young! You are only a child yourself; how do you expect me to give you my children to take care of?”

“Oh! I am very prudent, very sensible for my age, madame; inquire at number thirty-two; and then you can give me whatever you please, madame, I don’t care; so long as I can live without begging, that is all I ask.”

These last words caused the lady to reflect, for there are people who calculate closely on every subject, even when the welfare of their children is concerned; such people are ordinarily the ones who consider it very hard that dogs are ordered to be muzzled. She called Violette back and said:

“Come again to-morrow; I will make inquiries at the house you mention.”

The next day Violette became nursemaid, with a hundred francs a year. That sum seemed enormous to the child, who would have taken the place for nothing if it had been suggested to her. And as her mistress lived on Rue de Bondy, she took the two little girls of three or four years to walk every day on the Boulevard, near the Château d’Eau. When it was the day for the flower market, Violette never failed to take the children there, and then she was very happy, for she adored flowers, and even if she had not the means to buy any, on that day she could see them and gaze at them at her leisure.

More than three years passed thus. Violette’s mistress had never had to find fault with her little maid, for she had never left for a single instant the children whom it was her duty to take to walk. However, her wages were not increased; to be sure, Violette did not ask for an increase, and to obtain distinction in this world, it is not sufficient to behave oneself well, to have merit or talent--one must ask, ask, and then--ask. And as people who are out of the line do not understand that, they prefer to be undistinguished except by their talent.

The mother of the two little girls whom Violette had in charge left Paris and France; she took her children, but did not take the young nurse. So that Violette was left once more without a home and without occupation. While waiting until chance should throw employment in her way, the girl as a matter of habit went to the Boulevard du Château d’Eau, where she had taken the children so often; and on market days she stopped in front of the flowers and sometimes remained there all day long.

One day, one of the flower women, an honest old soul, who had often noticed the little nurse when she was taking the two children to walk, said to Violette, who seemed to be admiring her bouquets:

“Well, my girl, what have you done with the brats that you always brought here to walk? For I know you, I have looked after you very often; and bless my soul, it don’t seem to me that anyone had any reason to complain of you. You didn’t run about from one place to another. You didn’t talk with a lot of people, as most of the nurses do that have children to take care of! Mon Dieu! if nothing happens to the young ones, it isn’t the fault of those young women, who attend to everything else except the children that are in their care!”

“Alas! madame, my mistress has gone to England with her children.”

“And you didn’t want to leave your country, eh?”

“Oh! I would have been glad to go with madame, but she didn’t choose to take me!”

“And she left you like that, without getting another place for you--a girl of your age, who took such good care of her little ones? Ah! that isn’t right, that isn’t. That mistress of yours can’t be good for much!--But what are you doing now, my child?”

“I am looking for another place, madame, but I haven’t found it yet. Luckily I saved money at my mistress’s; I earned a hundred francs a year!”

“Is that all? Well, upon my word! she wasn’t very generous, that mistress of yours!”

“Oh! I had quite enough; I didn’t spend anything except to dress myself; and now I have some clothes and sixty francs of my own; I spend so little to live; I get along with five or six sous a day.”

“Poor child! In that case, you’re not much of a glutton; why, you must live on bread and water.”

“I beg pardon, I have a sou’s worth of milk every morning; bread dipped in milk is so good!”

“Bless my soul! It is good for those who like milk! But no matter, that diet will soon take away your fresh color. I say, you must be very fond of flowers to look at them so long, as if you wanted to kiss them!”

“Flowers! oh! I am mad over them, madame, I am never tired of gazing at them.”

“So, so! and how would you like to sell them, to make bouquets as I do?”

“Make bouquets! live among flowers! you ask me if I would like that? Oh, madame! that would be the happiest life for me. It seems to me that one has nothing more to wish for when one is a flower girl!”

“Well, my child, sit down here, by my side. I am alone, I have no children, and no one depending on me; I am beginning not to be so smart as I used to be; if you choose to stay with me and always be as good--as--as you were when you took the two little girls to walk, why, I will keep you, I will give you part of my profits; in fact, I will make a flower girl of you; does that suit you?”

“Does it suit me,--to be a flower girl! such a pleasant trade! Is it really true, madame? You are not making fun of me?”

“As true as my name is Mère Gazon; and yours?”

“My name is Violette.”

“Violette! You see you were destined to be a flower girl.”

So Violette took her place beside Mère Gazon; and she was so pleased with the skill and taste with which the girl made her bouquets, that she congratulated herself every day upon having taken her into her employ.

Violette reached the age of fifteen, sixteen, and became so pretty and her figure assumed such graceful proportions that people began to notice the young flower girl, and Mère Gazon’s business constantly increased. Then came the lady-killers, the oglers, the gallants, who tried to make love to Violette, but she did not listen to them, or at all events paid no heed to what they said. Moreover, Mère Gazon was there and said to those who paid her companion compliments:

“For heaven’s sake, let the child alone! You see well enough that you bother her with your fine words, without head or tail! Go and get your hair curled, that would be better.”

But one night, Mère Gazon, who had rather abused currant brandy, which she adored as a cordial, felt an oppression that compelled her to keep her bed. The next day she was worse, and she said to her young companion:

“My dear Violette, I believe I am going to pack up and not open shop any more. I leave you all I have; my stock, my flowers, my furniture, my customers. Always be honest and virtuous, don’t let anyone cajole you and I have an idea that you will prosper. If I myself had been more prudent with currant brandy, I might have kept shop much longer! but never mind! that’s a small matter! I am glad, at all events, to have you with me to close my eyes.”

That is Violette’s whole story; that is how the little girl abandoned by her parents had become a flower girl.