A rosebud will sometimes be a week in bursting into a full blown flower. Besides, I like pleasure without attendant remorse; and within the walls of the city which so well defended itself against the invader in 1792 there existed a veteran whose old age I respected.
The worthy man did not seem as if he would have committed suicide on account of the mishap of his eldest daughter, but perhaps he loved more tenderly his youngest-perhaps he had formed for her future plans which I did not like to upset. Besides, I have always noticed that with patience everything goes well for everybody.
I thus pondered until daybreak. Pent up with fatigue, I at last closed my eyes and slept on till eight o'clock.
I got up hastily, as Violette must have been an early riser. I told my man that I should probably not be home for breakfast, I hailed a cab, and in five minutes was at the house in Rue Saint Augustin.
I went upstairs four steps at a time, and my heart beat as if this were my first love.
I entered the room noiselessly. Not only was Violette fast asleep, but she had not even moved.
However, the blankets were partly drawn back, and, as her chemise was half opened, one of her breasts was exposed to my view.
She was charming thus, with her head thrown back and nearly hidden by her luxuriant locks; then she looked like a picture by Giorgione.
Her bosom was marvellously plump and as white as snow. Though a brunette, the nipples of her breasts were rose and like strawberries. I leaned over and applied my lips lightly to one of them; it stiffened instantly, whilst a slight shudder ran through her frame. Had I only chosen to pull off the sheets, I am sure she would not have opened her eyes.
But I preferred awaiting the close of her slumbers. I took a seat near the bed and held one of her hands in mine.
By the light of the night lamp I examined that hand; it was small, of a comely shape, rather short like the hands of Spaniards, and the nails were rosy, pointed, but the forefinger bore evidence of needlework. While I was thus employed she suddenly opened her eyes and uttered a joyful exclamation.
"Oh!" she said, "you are here, how happy I am! If I had not seen you on waking up I should have thought it was all a dream. Did you never leave me then?"
"I did," I replied, "I left you for four or five hours, which seemed like ages, but I returned, hoping to be the first object on which you should set eyes on waking up."
"And how long have you been here?"
"For half an hour."
"You should have woke me."
"I should never have thought of doing so."
"You did not even kiss me!"
"Yes, I did, I kissed one of your pretty little rosebuds."
"Which?"
"The one on the left."
She uncovered it with a genuine air of innocence and tried to touch it with her lips.
"Oh, how tiresome!" said she. "I cannot kiss it in my turn."
"And why should you like to kiss it in your turn?"
"To place my lips where yours have lain."
She renewed the attempt.
"I can do it! Well," she said, "you gave it a kiss just now for your own sake, let your lips touch it now for my sake."
Thereupon I leant over her and taking the rosebud between my lips I caressed it with the tip of my tongue.
She gave a little cry of pleasure:
"Oh, how nice!"
"As nice as yesterday's kiss?"
"Oh! yesterday's kiss. It is so long since, I cannot remember."
"Shall I begin again?"
"You know I should like you to, since you told me that was the proper way to kiss people you loved."
"But I don't know yet whether I love you."
"As for me, I am quite sure that I do love you dearly. So do not kiss me if you don't like to do it, but I shall kiss you all the same."
And as on the previous day she glued her lips to mine, with this difference, that this time her tongue touched my teeth.
I could not have got away had I wished to do so, she hugged me so tightly.
Her head fell back and with half closed eyes she murmured:
"Oh, how I love you!"
The kiss made me mad; I snatched her, so to speak, from the bed, and pressing her closely to my heart I covered her bosom with kisses.
"Oh, what are you doing, I feel quite faint?"
These words brought me to my senses, for it was not thus, by surprise, that I wished to possess her.
"Dear girl," said I, "I have had a bath got ready for you in the dressing room." With these words I carried her there in my arms.
"Ah!" said she, sighing, "how comfortable I feel in your arms."
The bath was just warm enough, I put her into it after having poured in half a bottle of eau-de-Cologne. I then lit the fire and placed the bearskin rug in front of it.
Then I brought out a dressing gown of white cashmere and put before an armchair a pair of small red Turkish slippers with gold embroidery.
After a quarter of an hour, my little bather came out quite shivering and ran to the fire.
"Oh, how nice and warm!" she said, and she sat on the (bearskin at my feet.
She was charming in her cambric peignoir of such transparent texture that the skin could be seen through it. She looked round and said:
"Dear me, how pretty everything is here. Am I to live in this place?"
"Yes, if you like, but we must have somebody's permission."
"Whose?"
"Your father's."
"My father's! But will he not be glad when he knows I have a beautiful room and plenty of leisure time for study?"
"To study what?"
"Ah! I had forgotten. I must explain."
"Do, my dear girl, by all means. You know you must tell me all," said I, kissing her.
"You remember one day you gave me a ticket for a play?"
"Yes, I do remember."
"It was for the Porte-Saint-Martin theatre, where they played Antony, by M. Dumas."
"It is an immoral play, not at all fit for young girls to see."
"I did not think so at all. I was quite taken up with it, and ever since that day, I told my sister and Monsieur Ernest that I wished to appear on the stage."
"You don't say so?"
"Then Monsieur Ernest and my sister exchanged glances. 'Well,' said my sister, 'if she has any taste at all for it, it would be preferable to the milliner's business."
"'And then,' said Monsieur Ernest, With my journal, the Gazette des Theatres, I can give her a lift."
"'Well, that will be just the thing for her.'"
"Madame Beruchet was told that I should sleep at my sister's and that I should not return until next day. After the play we returned to the Rue Ghaptal and I began to repeat the principal scenes which I remembered, and I set to acting all the while moving my arms about like this-"
But meanwhile Violette unconsciously had opened her peignoir and disclosed some lovely treasures to my view.
I took her in my arms, set her on my knee, and she nestled lovingly against me.
"What next?" I asked.
"Monsieur Ernest then said that if my mind was made up, as two or three years must elapse before I made my debut, I must let my father know of the plan."
"'And during these two or three years, how will she live?' asked Marguerite.
"'What a question to ask!' replied Monsieur Ernest. 'She is pretty and a pretty girl need not want for anything. From fifteen to eighteen she will find a protector. Besides she eats no more than a little bird. What does she require? A nest and a little seed.' "
I shrugged my shoulders while casting a glance at the poor little creature nestling in my arms as in a cradle.
"Then," resumed Violette, "the next day they wrote to Papa."
"And what did Papa reply?"
"He replied: 'You are two poor orphans thrown upon the world without any other protector than an old man of sixty-seven who may at any moment be taken away from you. Therefore, do the best you can, but never do anything which would make the poor old soldier ashamed of you.'"
"Did you keep that letter?"
"Yes, I did."
"Where is it?"