A Start in Life [70]
fitting up for his Florentine the former apartment of the late
Coralie. In Paris there are suites of rooms as well as houses and
streets that have their predestinations. Enriched with a magnificent
service of plate, the "prima danseuse" of the Gaiete began to give
dinners, spent three hundred francs a month on her dress, never went
out except in a hired carriage, and had a maid for herself, a cook,
and a little footman.
In fact, an engagement at the Opera was already in the wind. The Cocon
d'Or did homage to its first master by sending its most splendid
products for the gratification of Mademoiselle Cabirolle, now called
Florentine. The magnificence which suddenly burst upon her apartment
in the rue de Vendome would have satisfied the most ambitious
supernumerary. After being the master of the ship for seven years,
Cardot now found himself towed along by a force of unlimited caprice.
But the luckless old gentleman was fond of his tyrant. Florentine was
to close his eyes; he meant to leave her a hundred thousand francs.
The iron age had now begun.
Georges Marest, with thirty thousand francs a year, and a handsome
face, courted Florentine. Every danseuse makes a point of having some
young man who will take her to drive, and arrange the gay excursions
into the country which all such women delight in. However
disinterested she may be, the courtship of such a star is a passion
which costs some trifles to the favored mortal. There are dinners at
restaurants, boxes at the theatres, carriages to go to the environs
and return, choice wines consumed in profusion,--for an opera danseuse
eats and drinks like an athlete. Georges amused himself like other
young men who pass at a jump from paternal discipline to a rich
independence, and the death of his uncle, nearly doubling his means,
had still further enlarged his ideas. As long as he had only his
patrimony of eighteen thousand francs a year, his intention was to
become a notary, but (as his cousin remarked to the clerks of
Desroches) a man must be stupid who begins a profession with the
fortune most men hope to acquire in order to leave it. Wiser then
Georges, Frederic persisted in following the career of public office,
and of putting himself, as we have seen, in training for it.
A young man as handsome and attractive as Georges might very well
aspire to the hand of a rich creole; and the clerks in Desroches'
office, all of them the sons of poor parents, having never frequented
the great world, or, indeed, known anything about it, put themselves
into their best clothes on the following day, impatient enough to
behold, and be presented to the Mexican Marquise de las Florentinas y
Cabirolos.
"What luck," said Oscar to Godeschal, as they were getting up in the
morning, "that I had just ordered a new coat and trousers and
waistcoat, and that my dear mother had made me that fine outfit! I
have six frilled shirts of fine linen in the dozen she made for me. We
shall make an appearance! Ha! ha! suppose one of us were to carry off
the Creole marchioness from that Georges Marest!"
"Fine occupation that, for a clerk in our office!" cried Godeschal.
"Will you never control your vanity, popinjay?"
"Ah! monsieur," said Madame Clapart, who entered the room at that
moment to bring her son some cravats, and overhead the last words of
the head-clerk, "would to God that my Oscar might always follow your
advice. It is what I tell him all the time: 'Imitate Monsieur
Godeschal; listen to what he tells you.'"
"He'll go all right, madame," interposed Godeschal, "but he mustn't
commit any more blunders like one he was guilty of last night, or
he'll lose the confidence of the master. Monsieur Desroches won't
stand any one not succeeding in what he tells them to do. He ordered
your son, for a first employment in his new clerkship, to get a copy
of a judgment which ought to have been served last evening,
Coralie. In Paris there are suites of rooms as well as houses and
streets that have their predestinations. Enriched with a magnificent
service of plate, the "prima danseuse" of the Gaiete began to give
dinners, spent three hundred francs a month on her dress, never went
out except in a hired carriage, and had a maid for herself, a cook,
and a little footman.
In fact, an engagement at the Opera was already in the wind. The Cocon
d'Or did homage to its first master by sending its most splendid
products for the gratification of Mademoiselle Cabirolle, now called
Florentine. The magnificence which suddenly burst upon her apartment
in the rue de Vendome would have satisfied the most ambitious
supernumerary. After being the master of the ship for seven years,
Cardot now found himself towed along by a force of unlimited caprice.
But the luckless old gentleman was fond of his tyrant. Florentine was
to close his eyes; he meant to leave her a hundred thousand francs.
The iron age had now begun.
Georges Marest, with thirty thousand francs a year, and a handsome
face, courted Florentine. Every danseuse makes a point of having some
young man who will take her to drive, and arrange the gay excursions
into the country which all such women delight in. However
disinterested she may be, the courtship of such a star is a passion
which costs some trifles to the favored mortal. There are dinners at
restaurants, boxes at the theatres, carriages to go to the environs
and return, choice wines consumed in profusion,--for an opera danseuse
eats and drinks like an athlete. Georges amused himself like other
young men who pass at a jump from paternal discipline to a rich
independence, and the death of his uncle, nearly doubling his means,
had still further enlarged his ideas. As long as he had only his
patrimony of eighteen thousand francs a year, his intention was to
become a notary, but (as his cousin remarked to the clerks of
Desroches) a man must be stupid who begins a profession with the
fortune most men hope to acquire in order to leave it. Wiser then
Georges, Frederic persisted in following the career of public office,
and of putting himself, as we have seen, in training for it.
A young man as handsome and attractive as Georges might very well
aspire to the hand of a rich creole; and the clerks in Desroches'
office, all of them the sons of poor parents, having never frequented
the great world, or, indeed, known anything about it, put themselves
into their best clothes on the following day, impatient enough to
behold, and be presented to the Mexican Marquise de las Florentinas y
Cabirolos.
"What luck," said Oscar to Godeschal, as they were getting up in the
morning, "that I had just ordered a new coat and trousers and
waistcoat, and that my dear mother had made me that fine outfit! I
have six frilled shirts of fine linen in the dozen she made for me. We
shall make an appearance! Ha! ha! suppose one of us were to carry off
the Creole marchioness from that Georges Marest!"
"Fine occupation that, for a clerk in our office!" cried Godeschal.
"Will you never control your vanity, popinjay?"
"Ah! monsieur," said Madame Clapart, who entered the room at that
moment to bring her son some cravats, and overhead the last words of
the head-clerk, "would to God that my Oscar might always follow your
advice. It is what I tell him all the time: 'Imitate Monsieur
Godeschal; listen to what he tells you.'"
"He'll go all right, madame," interposed Godeschal, "but he mustn't
commit any more blunders like one he was guilty of last night, or
he'll lose the confidence of the master. Monsieur Desroches won't
stand any one not succeeding in what he tells them to do. He ordered
your son, for a first employment in his new clerkship, to get a copy
of a judgment which ought to have been served last evening,