The fortunes of Fifi

by Molly Elliot Seawell

“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.”

Paris is beautiful on a spring morning, with the sun shining on the splashing fountains and the steel blue river, and the streets full of cheerful-looking people. It was the first, mild, soft day of March, and everybody was trying to make believe it was May. The restaurants had placed their chairs and tables out of doors, and made a brave showing of greenery with watercress and a few little radishes. Itinerant musicians were grinding away industriously, and some humorous cab-drivers had paid five centimes for a sprig of green to stick behind the ears of their patient horses. All Paris was out of doors, helping the birds and leaves to make the spring.

Fifi strolled along and found the streets almost as pleasant as the street of the Black Cat, except that she knew everybody in the street of the Black Cat and knew no one at all of all this merry throng. Her first incursion was into a chocolate shop, where she treated both herself and Angéline in a princely manner, as became a lady who had ten notes of a thousand francs to dispose of in a morning’s shopping.

While they were sipping their chocolate Fifi was wondering how she could manage to leave Angéline in the lurch and slip off by herself—for Angéline might possibly make trouble for her when she came to dispensing her wealth as she privately planned. But in this, as in all things else that day, fortune favored Fifi. Afar off was heard the rataplan of a marching regiment, with the merry laughter and shuffle of feet of an accompanying crowd.

“What so easy as to get carried along with that crowd?” thought Fifi, as she ran to the door, where the proprietor and all the clerks as well as the customers were flying. It was the day of a grand review at Longchamps, and the sight of the marching regiment, with the band ringing out in rhythmic beauty, seemed the finest thing in the world.

Fifi found herself, with very little effort on her part, pushed out on the sidewalk, and the next thing she was being swept along with the eager crowd following the soldiers. At the corner of a large street the regiment turned off toward the Champs Elysées, the crowd parted, and Fifi saw her way back clear to the chocolate shop. But staring her in the face was a magnificent furniture and bric-à-brac shop, while next it was a superb magasin des modes with a great window full of gowns, wraps and hats.

Here was the place for Fifi to get rid of her ten thousand francs. It seemed to Fifi as if a benignant Providence had rewarded her virtuous design by placing her just where she was; so she walked boldly into the magasin des modes.

The manager of the place, a handsome, showily-dressed and bejeweled woman, looked suspiciously at a young and pretty girl, arriving without maid or companion of any sort—but Fifi, bringing into play some of the arts she had learned at the Imperial Theater, sank, apparently breathless, into a seat; told of her being swept away from her companion, and offered to pay for a messenger to hunt up Angéline. Meanwhile she artlessly let out that she was Mademoiselle Chiaramonti, in search of articles for her trousseau.

Her story was well known; everybody in Paris had heard of Mademoiselle Chiaramonti, of the Imperial Theater, who had drawn the first prize in the lottery, and instantly all was curiosity to see her and alertness to attend her—except as to sending for Angéline. There was an unaccountable slowness about that, except on the theory that it would be well to show Fifi some of the creations of the establishment before the arrival of the elder person, who might throw cold water on the prospective purchases. And then began the comedy, so often enacted in the world, of the cunning hypocrite being unconsciously the dupe of the supposed victim.

Fifi was careful to hint that her marriage was being arranged; and if anything could have added to Fifi’s joy and satisfaction it was the determination on the part of the shop people to embody in her trousseau all the outlandish things they possessed. This suited Fifi exactly. Louis Bourcet was as finically particular about colors as he was about behavior, and both he and Madame Bourcet were privately determined that Fifi should go through life in brown gowns with dark green spots, like the one which had so excited her disgust in the first instance. Knowing this, Fifi concluded to administer a series of shocks in every one of her purchases, and went about to do this with a vim and thoroughness characteristic of her.