Cartouche sat stunned. Like persons near drowning, he saw in an instant, by some inward vision, all his past and future with Fifi: she was no more for him. A great gulf had opened between them. Had it been thundered in his ears for a century, he could not have realized it more than in the first two seconds after the announcement was made. Fifi had a hundred thousand francs; then she could be Fifi, his little Fifi, no more. He saw, in a mental flash, the little store he had saved up in the cranny of the chimney—twenty-two francs. Twenty-two francs! What a miserable sum! A blur came before his eyes; he heard a great noise of men shouting and clapping; women were waving their handkerchiefs and laughing and screaming out of sheer inability to keep quiet. As for Fifi, she turned two wide, innocent, frightened eyes on Cartouche, and stammered:
“Dear Cartouche—shall we really have a hundred—thousand—francs—of our own?”
“You will have it, Fifi,” replied Cartouche, and thrusting the ticket in her nerveless hand, he forced her to stand up and show it, which Fifi did, then suddenly burst into a torrent of tears and a tempest of sobs.
Her youth, her beauty, her tears, her humility touched all hearts; and this time there was a roar of sympathy. Fifi’s slight figure swayed and would have fallen but for Cartouche holding her up. It was buzzed about on all sides:
“Who is that tall, ugly fellow with her?” Some said her father, some her brother, but no one said he was her lover.
The formalities were simple and brief; the drawing would still take many hours; and Fifi, with her precious memorandum, duly signed and countersigned, to be presented at a certain bank, was once again in the street with Cartouche.
It was a bright, soft January day, the sun gilding the blue river, the quays and bridges, and lighting up with a golden glow the great masses of the Louvre and the Tuileries. Fifi walked along, clutching Cartouche’s arm tightly. She had forgotten Toto trotting soberly at her side, and apparently crushed by the hundred thousand francs, forgotten all but Cartouche, who seemed to her the only thing that was not changed in all the wide world. It was Cartouche who held Toto’s blue ribbon and who straightened Fifi’s hat when it fell over her eyes and she was too agitated to know it. Cartouche proposed to her to stop and rest in the Tuileries gardens—but Fifi would have none of it.
“Take me home,” she cried. “Take me somewhere so I can cry as much as I like!”
This struck Cartouche as a perfectly natural way of receiving such stunning news; he himself could have wept with pleasure.
At last they were in Fifi’s shabby little room, and Fifi was taking off her new cloak and folding it up mechanically.