The fortunes of Fifi

by Molly Elliot Seawell

There was method in this. Fifi had suddenly remembered that the next morning was Thursday. On that day, every week, Madame Bourcet indulged in the wild orgy of attending a lecture on mathematics delivered by her brother, the professor of mathematics, before a lyceum frequented by several elderly and mathematical ladies, like Madame Bourcet. When she was out of the house was clearly the time to get the preposterous bed in; and Fifi made her arrangements accordingly.

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. That cleared up everything. The proprietor, of course, had heard her story, and rashly and mistakenly assumed that Fifi was a little fool, but at all events, he had made a good bargain with her, and he bowed her out of the establishment as if she had been a princess as well as a fool.

Once outside in the clear sunshine, Fifi was triumphant. She felt that a long step had been taken toward getting rid of Louis Bourcet. And, after all, it was just as easy to spend five thousand francs as five, if one has the money. She had spent infinitely more time and trouble over her thirty-franc cloak than over all her extraordinary purchases of the last hour.

“The gowns are frightful enough, as well as the bills,” she thought to herself, walking away from the shop, “and the bed is really a crushing revelation—but it is not enough—it is not enough.”

Then an inspiration came to her which brought her to a standstill.

“I must go to a monkey shop and buy a monkey—but—but I am afraid of monkeys. However—”—here Fifi felt an expansion of the soul—“when one loves, as I love Cartouche, one must be prepared for sacrifices. So I shall sacrifice myself. I shall buy a monkey.”

But it is easier to say one will buy a monkey than to buy one. Fifi walked on, pondering how to make this sublime sacrifice to her affections.

The sense of freedom, the exhilaration of the spring day, made themselves felt in her blood. And then, for the first time, she also felt the berserker madness for shopping which is latent in the feminine nature. The fact that reason and common sense were to be outraged as far as possible rather added zest to the enjoyment.

“This is the real way to go shopping,” thought Fifi, with delight. “Spending for the pleasure of spending—buying monkeys and everything else one fancies. It can only be done once in a blue moon; even the Empress can not do it whenever she likes.”

She walked on, drinking in with delight the life and sunshine around her. The more she reflected upon the monkey idea the finer it appeared to her. True, she was mortally afraid of a monkey, but then she was convinced that Louis Bourcet was more afraid of monkeys than she was.