The Flower Girl of The Chateau d'Eau Volume I Part 19

"What a misfortune it is to be afraid of all diseases!"

"I am not afraid of them, madame, but I simply am on my guard against them; it isn't from fear, it's from prudence, from common sense."

"Bless my soul! if all men resembled you, it would be amusing."

"What do you mean by that, Lolotte?"

"I mean that by dint of thinking about diseases, you think that you have them all, and it doesn't tend to make you a lively companion in society."

"Madame, _si vis pacem, para bellum_."

"What does that mean, monsieur?"

"If you wish for peace, prepare for war."

"What connection has that with your lemon juice in tea?"

"It also means: If you want to be well, look after yourself as if you were ill."

"Oh! as to that, I don't believe a word of it; do I dose myself, monsieur? and you see how well I am!"

"It is a fact that you are getting too stout, my dear love; but if you would have consented to take a little white mustard seed, you would have lost flesh."

"No, thanks, monsieur; I should probably have become like a lath, and I prefer to remain as I am. To hear you talk, one would say that I was enormous."

"Not exactly, but you haven't any waist."

"I haven't any waist! I haven't any waist! Upon my word, I guess that it's your eyes that are diseased; you see crooked."

"What! why do you say that my eyes are diseased? Is it because they are red? Don't joke, Lolotte, are my eyes swollen?"

"Ah! so I haven't any waist! All men don't think as you do, monsieur, and in spite of my stoutness, if I chose to listen to all the pleasant things that are said to me----"

"Madame! you forget that your daughter is here.--Eolinde, come and look at my eyes; it seems to me that they sting."

Mademoiselle Eolinde was looking over a volume of plays; instead of answering her father, she cried:

"We must play _La Foret Perilleuse_, papa, and I will be the fair Ca--Ca--Camille!"

"Yes, my child, yes, we have already decided to give that play," said Madame Glumeau; "and we are going to have here to-day all the people who are to take part in the first piece to be given at our country house, in order to distribute the roles. But the other piece is what hasn't yet been chosen. We must have a very lively vaudeville."

"Oh, mamma! let's give _Estelle, ou Le Pere et La Fille!_"

"I should like to know if you call that a lively vaudeville! My dear girl, when we have theatricals in our house, for our amus.e.m.e.nt, we mustn't undertake to make people weep, for the only result is to make them laugh. As a general rule, you are all very bad, but that is what is wanted; the worse actors you are, the more laughter you cause; if you acted well, it would be very dull, I fancy."

"Oh, mamma! how you ta--ta--talk, just because you--you--do--do--don't act yourself!"

"If I did, I should try to be funny, that's all; but I should know my lines, I tell you that; and you never know yours."

During this conversation between the mother and the daughter, Monsieur Glumeau had risen, had stationed himself in front of a mirror, and was looking at his eyes with a persistent scrutiny which finally ended in making his sight blurred; whereupon he paced the salon, muttering:

"I must get some eye salve; I ought to have a recipe somewhere."

"But there's nothing the matter with your eyes, monsieur!" cried Madame Glumeau impatiently; "you apparently propose to make yourself blind now!

Why don't you take the elixir of long life, and have done with it?"

"That wouldn't be such a bad idea, madame!"

"Oh, yes! do as your friend Boutelet did. Do you remember what happened to him, because he drank heaven knows how many bottles of the elixir of long life in six months? He died of it!"

"Perhaps he would have died six months earlier if he hadn't drunk it!"

"After three o'clock and Astianax has not come home," said tall Eolinde; "it isn't very kind of my brother, for he was to bring us a collection of plays to choose from!"

"Wasn't it his neighbor, Monsieur Jericourt, that young author who lives on the fourth floor, who was to lend your brother the plays?"

"Yes, mamma."

"He has a very attractive look, has that young man, we must invite him to come to our play in the country; eh, Edouard?"

"I have no objection; isn't he a newspaper man too?"

"I don't think so."

"I'm sorry for that; we must try to have a few newspaper men; they go everywhere in society, they write articles about everything they see, and perhaps they would speak of me in the paper, and I should see myself in print; that would be very nice!--Whom have we to dinner to-day?"

"Why, you must know as well as I do, my dear."

"Ah! _bigre!_ I really believe that I have a pain in my stomach."

"Oh dear! that would be the last straw."

"No, it's nothing, it's going away; I was in a constrained position."

"We expect to dinner Monsieur and Madame Dufournelle; Madame Dufournelle wants to act; she will be terribly awkward on the stage, I fancy, but that's her business!"

"She is graceful and pretty, and I believe that she will make a success of it."

"Oh! that's just like a man! to call that woman pretty, just because she is always laughing, and because she is a great flirt; indeed she carries it so far sometimes as to be almost indecent in her behavior with men!"

"Upon my word, Lolotte! where did you see that?"

"I have seen it more than once; and in our own house, in the country, with you, when she asked you to run after her and defied you to catch her! Monsieur ran like a deer, and then you both disappeared behind a hedge.--You had no pain in your stomach that day!"

"Madame! really, you should not say such things; your daughter can hear you."

"My daughter will be married some day, monsieur, and there's no harm in her being warned beforehand of the perfidy of the male s.e.x. Besides, Madame Dufournelle's coquetry is evident to everybody. Her husband sees nothing in all that! Poor fellow! so long as he has somebody to play billiards with him, he doesn't care about anything else."

"He isn't jealous, madame, and he is very wise; that proves that he has some intelligence."