The Celibates. Оноре де Бальзак
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expenses at the hotel, and made the conductor of the Provins diligence pay him, telling him to take good care of the girl and to see that the charges were paid by the family, exactly as though she were a case of goods. Four days after her departure from Nantes, about nine o'clock of a Monday night, a kind old conductor of the Messageries-royales, took Pierrette by the hand, and while the porters were discharging in the Grand'Rue the packages and passengers for Provins, he led the little girl, whose only baggage was a bundle containing two dresses, two chemises, and two pairs of stockings, to Mademoiselle Rogron's house, which was pointed out to him by the director at the coach office.
"Good-evening, mademoiselle and the rest of the company. I've brought you a cousin, and here she is; and a nice little girl too, upon my word. You have forty-seven francs to pay me, and sign my book."
Mademoiselle Sylvie and her brother were dumb with pleasure and amazement.
"Excuse me," said the conductor, "the coach is waiting. Sign my book and pay me forty-seven francs, sixty centimes, and whatever you please for myself and the conductor from Nantes; we've taken care of the little girl as if she were our own; and paid for her beds and her food, also her fare to Provins, and other little things."
"Forty-seven francs, twelve sous!" said Sylvie.
"You are not going to dispute it?" cried the man.
"Where's the bill?" said Rogron.
"Bill! look at the book."
"Stop talking, and pay him," said Sylvie, "You see there's nothing else to be done."
Rogron went to get the money, and gave the man forty-seven francs, twelve sous.
"And nothing for my comrade and me?" said the conductor.
Sylvie took two francs from the depths of the old velvet bag which held her keys.
"Thank you, no," said the man; "keep 'em yourself. We would rather care for the little one for her own sake." He picked up his book and departed, saying to the servant-girl: "What a pair! it seems there are crocodiles out of Egypt!"
"Such men are always brutal," said Sylvie, who overhead the words.
"They took good care of the little girl, anyhow," said Adele with her hands on her hips.
"We don't have to live with him," remarked Rogron.
"Where's the little one to sleep?" asked Adele.
Such was the arrival of Pierrette Lorrain in the home of her cousins, who gazed at her with stolid eyes; she was tossed to them like a package, with no intermediate state between the wretched chamber at Saint-Jacques and the dining-room of her cousins, which seemed to her a palace. She was shy and speechless. To all other eyes than those of the Rogrons the little Breton girl would have seemed enchanting as she stood there in her petticoat of coarse blue flannel, with a pink cambric apron, thick shoes, blue stockings, and a white kerchief, her hands being covered by red worsted mittens edged with white, bought for her by the conductor. Her dainty Breton cap (which had been washed in Paris, for the journey from Nantes had rumpled it) was like a halo round her happy little face. This national cap, of the finest lawn, trimmed with stiffened lace pleated in flat folds, deserves description, it was so dainty and simple. The light coming through the texture and the lace produced a partial shadow, the soft shadow of a light upon the skin, which gave her the virginal grace that all painters seek and Leopold Robert found for the Raffaelesque face of the woman who holds a child in his picture of "The Gleaners." Beneath this fluted frame of light sparkled a white and rosy and artless face, glowing with vigorous health. The warmth of the room brought the blood to the cheeks, to the tips of the pretty ears, to the lips and the end of the delicate nose, making the natural white of the complexion whiter still.
"Well, are you not going to say anything? I am your cousin Sylvie, and that is your cousin Rogron."
"Do you want something to eat?" asked Rogron.
"When did you leave Nantes?" asked Sylvie.
"Is she dumb?" said Rogron.
"Poor little dear, she has hardly any clothes," cried Adele, who had opened the child's bundle, tied up in a handkerchief of the old Lorrains.
"Kiss your cousin," said Sylvie.
Pierrette kissed Rogron.
"Kiss your cousin," said Rogron.
Pierrette kissed Sylvie.
"She is tired out with her journey, poor little thing; she wants to go to sleep," said Adele.
Pierrette was overcome with a sudden and invincible aversion for her two relatives—a feeling that no one had ever before excited in her. Sylvie and the maid took her up to bed in the room where Brigaut afterwards noticed the white cotton curtain. In it was a little bed with a pole painted blue, from which hung a calico curtain; a walnut bureau without a marble top, a small table, a looking-glass, a very common night-table without a door, and three chairs completed the furniture of the room. The walls, which sloped in front, were hung with a shabby paper, blue with black flowers. The tiled floor, stained red and polished, was icy to the feet. There was no carpet except for a strip at the bedside. The mantelpiece of common marble was adorned by a mirror, two candelabra in copper-gilt, and a vulgar alabaster cup in which two pigeons, forming handles, were drinking.
"You will be comfortable here, my little girl?" said Sylvie.
"Oh, it's beautiful!" said the child, in her silvery voice.
"She's not difficult to please," muttered the stout servant. "Sha'n't
I warm her bed?" she asked.
"Yes," said Sylvie, "the sheets may be damp."
Adele brought one of her own night-caps when she returned with the warming-pan, and Pierrette, who had never slept in anything but the coarsest linen sheets, was amazed at the fineness and softness of the cotton ones. When she was fairly in bed and tucked up, Adele, going downstairs with Sylvie, could not refrain from saying, "All she has isn't worth three francs, mademoiselle."
Ever since her economical regime began, Sylvie had compelled the maid to sit in the dining-room so that one fire and one lamp could do for all; except when Colonel Gouraud and Vinet came, on which occasions Adele was sent to the kitchen.
Pierrette's arrival enlivened the rest of the evening.
"We must get her some clothes to-morrow," said Sylvie; "she has absolutely nothing."
"No shoes but those she had on, which weigh a pound," said Adele.
"That's always so, in their part of the country," remarked Rogron.
"How she looked at her room! though it really isn't handsome enough for a cousin of yours, mademoiselle."
"It is good enough; hold your tongue," said Sylvie.
"Gracious, what chemises! coarse enough to scratch her skin off; not a thing can she use here," said Adele, emptying the bundle.
Master, mistress, and servant were busy till past ten o'clock, deciding what cambric they should buy for the new chemises, how many pairs of stockings, how many under-petticoats, and what material, and in reckoning up the whole cost of Pierrette's outfit.
"You won't get off under three hundred francs," said Rogron, who could remember the different prices, and add them up from his former shop-keeping habit.
"Three hundred francs!" cried Sylvie.
"Yes, three hundred. Add it up."
The brother and sister went over the calculation once more, and found the cost would be fully three hundred francs, not counting the making.
"Three hundred francs at one stroke!" said Sylvie to herself as she got into bed.
* * * * *
Pierrette was one of those children of love whom love endows with its tenderness, its vivacity, its gaiety, its nobility, its devotion. Nothing had so far disturbed or wounded a