Among all the people who were walking and sauntering and examining the flowers displayed on the asphalt or the concrete, there were, as is always the case at that market, more women than men. Do the ladies care more for flowers than we do? I might say some very pretty things on that subject, as for example: “Birds of a feather flock together,” or: “Where can one be more at home than in the bosom of his family?” or again—but no, I will not repeat what you have already seen or heard a hundred times. Moreover, I think that François I said something better than any of that.
Furthermore, if the ladies are fonder of flowers than we are, you see they have much more time to attend to them. I once knew a bachelor, a clerk in a business house, who adored flowers, and although of small means, could not resist the temptation to purchase a handsome rosebush or a wood-violet, which he instantly carried home and placed in triumph on his window-sill. But that gentleman was a heavy sleeper, and when he woke he had hardly time to dress and go to his office. He did not dine at home, and when he returned at night he was always in a hurry to go to bed. The result was that, after two or three days, when he attempted to gloat over the flower that he had purchased, he was surprised to find it dead.
“But why didn’t you water it?” someone would ask him.
“Why—why—because I have noticed that it always rains sooner or later.”
We will, with your permission, allow those of the passers-by who are indifferent to us to go their way, and will follow the steps of a family composed of a mother, her son and her daughter.
The mother’s name was Madame Glumeau; her first name was Lolotte. She was a lady who had reached the wrong side of forty; she had once been pretty, a piquant brunette, whose bright and mischievous eyes made many victims. But time had passed that way! What a deplorable passage, that of time,—a passage which should be well barricaded!
It was not that Madame Glumeau’s features had changed very much. No, her eyes were still very bright, her nose rather delicate; her hair, which was yet black, still fell in thick curls on each side of her face; but she had grown enormously stout, so that her whole figure was changed and her waist enlarged.
Even the face had undergone the influence of that exuberant health; the cheeks had become rotund, the chin had trebled, the neck had shortened, and the complexion had become purple; and there were people who were cruel enough to say to her:
“What perfect health you enjoy! No one needs to ask you how you are!”
At that compliment, Madame Glumeau would try to smile, as she replied: