Fifi

“ Then the child’s cry changed to impatience, to terror and at last to despair. It was Fifi. The mother was dead, but the child did not know it then. She had no one in the world that I could discover; so, when I was started for France in a cart—for I could not walk at all then—I brought Fifi with me. She was so light, her weight made no difference, and ate so little that she could live off my rations and there would still be enough left for me. When we got to Paris, I hired a little garret for her, in yonder tall old house where I live, and Fifi lives there still. ”

“ Around these centers of light and warmth people were gathered, sniffing the pungent odor of the roasting chestnuts, and spending five-centime pieces with a splendid generosity. The street hawkers did a rushing business; one could buy broken furniture, cheeses, toy balloons, cheap bonbons and cakes tied with gay ribbons, within twenty feet of anywhere. Three organ-grinders were going at the same time in front of the brightly lighted shop where Fifi’s cloak was—for she already reckoned it hers. But alas for Fifi! ”

“ It was a soft, mild day in February, with a hint of spring in the air, that they set forth in a rickety coach for Fontainebleau. Fifi wore the hideous brown gown with the green spots in it, and felt exactly as she did the night she played Léontine in the blue silk robe with the grease spot in the back. If the grease spot had been noticed everything would have been ruined—and if the Holy Father should notice the brown gown! Fifi felt that it would mean wholesale disaster. She comforted herself, however, with the reflection that the Holy Father probably knew nothing about ladies’ gowns ”

“ Women are expensive creatures, Cartouche.”
“True, your Majesty,” replied Cartouche, “and Fifi does not know what to do with money when she gets it—” Then, in a burst of confidence he told the Emperor about the thirty francs Fifi had saved up for a cloak and invested in a little black dog instead. The Emperor threw back his head and laughed heartily.
“This Fifi must be a character. Well, I shall ask Lebrun, the arch-treasurer, to give us his advice about Fifi’s hundred thousand francs. But suppose she will not trust you and me and the arch-treasurer with her money?” ”

“ Fifi smiled and blushed more than ever, and remained silent until the Empress said, in her flute-like voice:
“Perhaps, Mademoiselle, you could not love him.”
“Your Majesty, I hated him,” answered Fifi, with the greatest earnestness. “He was the most correct [Pg 232] person and the greatest bore in the universe. Unlike Cartouche, he thought himself much too good for me, but was willing to take me on account of my hundred thousand francs. At first I tried to frighten him off.”
“How, Mademoiselle?” asked the Emperor, now laughing outright. ”

“ As soon as Fifi was established in Madame Bourcet’s apartment, Louis began to lay siege to her. Regularly every evening at eight o’clock, he arrived—to pay his respects to his aunt. Regularly did he propose to play a game of cribbage with Fifi: a dull and uninteresting game, which involved counting—and counting had always been a weak point with Fifi—she always counted her salary at too much, and her expenses at too little. ”

“ I say, Cartouche, how hard life is sometimes! Now, because Fifi is rich through the lottery ticket you bought her, you can never hope to marry her.”
“Oh, your Majesty, that could not have been in any event,” answered Cartouche, a dull red showing through his dark skin. “I am sixteen years older than Fifi, and I have a stiff leg, and although I make what is reckoned a good living for a man like me, it is not the sort of living for a notary’s daughter like Fifi. No, your Majesty; I love Fifi, but I never thought to make her my wife. She deserves a better man than I am.” ”

“ There was very nearly a mob in the street of the Black Cat, so many persons were drawn by curiosity to see Fifi. Fifi, peeping from her garret window, would have dearly liked to exhibit herself, but Duvernet, for once stern, refused to let her show so much as an eyelash, except to those who bought a ticket to see her at the theater, when she was to appear in her great part of the Roman maiden on the Thursday week, the very day she had fixed upon to marry Cartouche. ”

“ Fifi, however, was perfectly well acquainted with the ways both of the omnibus and diligence, and only inquired about them to impress upon Duvernet the immense gulf between the Fifi of yesterday and the Mademoiselle Chiaramonti of to-day. She finally rose and sailed off, but returned to ask the amazed and disgusted Duvernet to get her a cab to take her across the street.
“I can walk, Monsieur,” she said condescendingly, “except that I am afraid of ruining my clothes. I carry on my back nearly four thousand francs’ worth of clothes.” ”

“ Imagine the most correct young advocate in Paris taking Fifi’s shoes off, because she was tired! Louis would have let her die of fatigue before he [Pg 82] would have committed this horrid crime, as he conceived it.
So Fifi checked the ebullition that was rising in her, and kept her head and held her tongue. But when she was once alone in her own large, solemn room, fitter for a dowager duchess than for little Fifi, she poured out her soul in a letter to Cartouche—thus:
“Cartouche—Why haven’t you been to see me? ”

“ Fifi, you are not very old, but you are of the sort which does not change, and you will be Fifi as long as you live. You can not be happy away from Cartouche and the theater and Toto—unfeeling wretch that you are, to let Toto be torn from you! So the only thing to do is to return to love and work. If you spend all your money Louis Bourcet would not marry you to save your life, and then you can go back to the theater and make Cartouche marry you. ”

“ Cartouche noted her little shiver.
“Ah, Fifi,” he said. “If only I had enough [Pg 8] money to give you a cloak! But my appetite is so large! I am always thinking that I will save up something, and then comes a dish of beans and cabbage, or something like it, and my money is all eaten up!”
“Never mind, Cartouche,” cried Fifi, laughing, while her teeth chattered; “I have twenty-five francs the week now, and in a fortnight I can buy a cloak. Monsieur Duvernet asked me yesterday why I did not pawn my brooch of brilliants and buy some warm clothes. ”

“ Fifi alone in her own room went into spasms of delight. Her freedom was close at hand—and soon, soon, she could return to that happy life of hard work and deep affection she had once known. When she slipped into bed, the hard lump was not in her mattress.
“Think,” she said to herself, lying awake in the dark, “of the good that hateful money will do now—of the poor children warmed and fed and clothed. Giving it away like this is not half so difficult as spending it on hats and gowns and monkeys, and I think I may reckon on getting back to the dear street of the Black Cat soon—very soon.” ”

“ Fifi was too much of an artist to repeat herself. She felt she had reached the limit of horrors in shopping, and she still had nearly ninety thousand francs sewed up in her mattress. Some new way must be devised for getting rid of it. She thought of endowing beds in hospitals, of giving dots to young ladies, not so fortunate as herself in having a man like Cartouche, who declined a fortune—and a thousand other schemes; but all involved some vague and mysterious business transactions which frightened Fifi. ”

“ One was produced which might have looked well on the dowager empress of China, but scarcely on an occidental. It was a stupendous stripe of red and green satin, which might have served for the gridiron on which Saint Lawrence was broiled alive. It had large sleeves, which Fifi insisted must be trimmed with heavy lace and deep fur. In a twinkling this was fastened on, and Fifi approved.
“And now a fan,” she said.
Dozens of fans were produced, but none of them preposterous enough to suit Fifi’s purpose and her costume. ”

“ In her hand Fifi carried a little purse, containing twenty-one francs, and in her reticule she carried her handkerchief, her smelling-salts and ten crisp thousand-franc notes.
“How shall I ever spend it all!” she thought, with a little dismay; and then, having some curious odds and ends of sense in her pretty head, she concluded: “Oh, it is easy enough. I have often heard Cartouche say that nobody ever yet tried to squander money who did not find a dozen helpers on every hand.” ”

“ Nothing could have been more impressive than Fifi’s studied calmness and coolness while giving directions about the bed. The clerk went after the proprietor, who could not conceal his surprise at a young lady like Fifi going about unattended, and with five thousand francs in her pocket. Fifi finally condescended to explain that she was Mademoiselle Chiaramonti. ”

“ Fifi had taken for granted that Cartouche would be with her on that momentous occasion; but when the day came no Cartouche appeared, so she was forced to ask Madame Bourcet and Louis Bourcet to attend her. This they both agreed to do, with the utmost alacrity.
Fifi still remained perfectly and strangely docile, but her mind had begun to work normally once more, and Fifi had a very strong little mind, which could work with great vigor. She had the enormous advantage of belonging to that class of persons who always know exactly what they want, and what they do not want. ”

“ Cartouche’s letter was written in very black ink, in a large, slovenly hand, on a big sheet of paper, and Fifi knew perfectly well that he was in a rage when writing it.
“Fifi: What nonsense is this you write me, that as soon as you promised to marry Louis Bourcet you determined not to marry him? What have you been doing? Don’t you know if you squander your money neither Louis Bourcet nor any man of his class will marry you? Four thousand francs for your trousseau is outrageous; as for the blue-satin bed the Empress could not buy, I can not trust myself to speak of it. ”

“ Fifi scolded and complained bitterly of this, but Angéline took [Pg 162] a firm stand against monkeys and Italians—much to Fifi’s relief.
The subject of Fifi’s marriage to Louis was not touched upon by either Madame Bourcet or Louis in that week, although Louis continued to spend his evenings with his aunt and Fifi, and did not intermit the nightly game of cribbage. If it was imprudent to marry Fifi, it was likewise imprudent not to marry her—so reasoned the unhappy Louis, who, like Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, was of two minds at the same time, and fairly distracted between them. ”

“ There was but one thing in the box that was not hers, and that was a wooden javelin which Cartouche had used with great effect in his part of the centurion of the Pretorian Guard. It was rather a commonplace looking javelin in the cold light of day, but Fifi held that, too, to her breast; it was those things that kept her from losing her mind; they made her feel that after all, the old life existed, and was not a nightmare, like the present. ”

“ Cartouche and Fifi were among the poorest people in Paris; they worked hard for a very little money; the room was small and bare, and although Fifi had now a cloak for the winter, she would have been better off for some warm stockings, and Cartouche for some flannel shirts.
Nevertheless, they were as happy as the birds in spring. They ate, they drank, they laughed, they sang. Fifi dressed Toto up in his ballet costume, and together they did a beautiful ballet divertissement for Cartouche, which he liberally applauded. ”

“ A MOST IMPRUDENT THING
Madame Bourcet sat in the snuff-colored drawing-room, nursing her rheumatism, when in walked Fifi as demure as the cat after it has eaten the canary. She mentioned casually that she had bought a few things for her trousseau, and Madame Bourcet presumed that the sum total of expenditure was something like a hundred francs. ”

“ Julie Campionet had large lung power, and had used it cruelly on him. Nevertheless, the idea of securing Fifi with all her additional values for the Imperial Theater was quite irresistible to Duvernet; and the thought that another manager, more enterprising than he, might get her for ten francs more the week, was intolerable to him. He determined to make a gigantic effort for Fifi’s services, and it would be extremely desirable to him to have this crucial interview as far away from the Imperial Theater as possible. ”

“ And if the man Fifi married did not treat her right, Cartouche, she knew, would beat him all to rags; and how could she, husband or no husband, [Pg 34] settle anything in the world, from a new part in a play, to the way to make onion soup, without consulting Cartouche? So the question of a husband was full of complications for Fifi. At last, however, a brilliant solution burst upon her mind: she would have a great many flirtations—and then she would marry Cartouche! ”

“ And now, I suppose, having thrown away the chance of marrying a worthy man in a respectable walk of life, you will proceed to marry some showy creature for his fine clothes, or his long pedigree, and then be miserable forever after.”
“Oh, no,” answered Fifi, sweetly. “The man I intend to marry is not at all showy. He is as plain [Pg 186] as the kitchen knife—and as for fine clothes and a long pedigree, ha! ha!” Fifi pinched Toto, who seemed to laugh with her.
Cartouche remained silent a whole minute, and then said calmly:
“You seem to have fixed upon the man.” ”

“ They had a great many rehearsals at the theater, too, and Cartouche, as stage manager, had lost none of his strictness, and ordered Fifi about as peremptorily as if he were not to be married to her on Thursday. Fifi obeyed him very sweetly and had a new humility toward him.
All of their fellow actors showed them great [Pg 237] good-will—even Julie Campionet, who behaved in the most beautiful manner, considering what provocation Fifi had long given her. Everybody connected with the theater gave them a little present—poor and cheap enough, but rich in kindness. ”