The Knight of Maison-Rouge_ A Novel of Marie Antoinette - Alexandre Dumas [78]
“Don’t worry,” said Morand. “You can always remind me, between now and then.”
Geneviève rose from the table and Maurice followed suit. Morand was just about to rise too, and perhaps follow them, when one of the workers brought the chemist a small vial of liquid that absorbed all his attention.
“Quick,” said Maurice, dragging Geneviève off.
“Oh! Don’t worry,” she said. “He’ll be at it for a good hour at least.”
With that, the young woman abandoned her hand in his and he squeezed it tenderly. She felt remorse for her treachery and so was rewarding him for her remorse by making him happy.
“You see,” she said as they walked across the garden, pointing out the carnations that had been moved into the open air in their mahogany box to revive them if possible. “You see, my flowers died.”
“And who killed them? You did, you neglected them,” said Maurice. “Poor carnations!”
“It wasn’t me who neglected them, it was you who abandoned them.”
“But they asked for so very little, Geneviève, a bit of water, that’s all. And my not being around must have left you plenty of time.”
“Ah!” said Geneviève. “If flowers were watered with tears, these poor carnations, as you call them, would not have died.”
Maurice wrapped his arms around her and pulled her fiercely toward him. Before she had time to defend herself, he pressed his lips to her half-smiling, half-swooning eyes as they gazed at the ravaged carnations.
Geneviève had so many things with which to reproach herself, she let him have his way without a struggle.
Dixmer came home late, and when he did he found Morand, Geneviève, and Maurice chatting about botany in the garden.
20
THE FLOWER GIRL
At last the big day arrived, the Thursday when Maurice was standing guard in the Temple.
The month of June had just begun. The sky was a deep blue, and against this backdrop of indigo the flat white of the new houses that had been built stood out. You could just feel the arrival of that terrible dog that the ancients represented as parched with an insatiable thirst and which, according to the commoners of Paris, licks the pavement clean. You could have eaten your dinner off the cobblestones of Paris they were so pristine, and a host of scents rained down from above, where they wafted from the trees and flowers in bloom, swirling around, intoxicating, as though to make the inhabitants of the capital forget for a while the vapor of blood fuming incessantly on the cobblestones of Paris’s squares.
Maurice was to clock in at the Temple at nine. His two colleagues were to be Mercerault and Agricola. At eight o’clock he was at the old rue Saint-Jacques, all decked out in the full regalia of a citizen municipal officer, which included a red, white, and blue scarf tied tightly around his strong and supple waist. He had come as usual to Geneviève’s on horseback and en route had attracted the unabashed praise and drooling approbation of the good female patriots who watched him ride by.
Geneviève was ready and waiting, wearing a simple muslin frock, a kind of mantilla in light taffeta, and a small bonnet decorated with the red, white, and blue cockade, and in such simple apparel she was dazzlingly beautiful.
Morand, who had had to be begged, as we have seen, had donned his everyday garb, this half-bourgeois, half-artisanal combination, no doubt out of fear of being suspected as an aristocrat otherwise. He had just gotten home and his face showed signs of exhaustion.
He claimed to have been up working half the night finishing an urgent job.
Dixmer had gone out as soon as his friend Morand had returned.
“Well then,” said Geneviève, “what have you decided, Maurice? How are we to see the Queen?”
“Listen,” said Maurice. “I have a plan. I’ll arrive with you at the Temple; I’ll hand you over to Lorin, my friend who’s chief of the guard. I’ll take up my post, and when there’s a favorable moment I’ll come and get you.”
“But