Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/171

that the young lady was going shortly to the wedding-ball of one of her friends, he made bold to promise Angela a bouquet of violets for the ball. And after asking permission of her father, Angela accepted her cousin’s gallant offer, always on condition that the violets should be white.

Overjoyed at his cousin’s amiability, Rodolphe danced and sang his way back to Mount St. Bernard, as he called his lodging—why will be seen presently. As he passed by a florist’s in crossing the Palais Royal, he saw some white violets in the show-case, and was curious enough to ask their price. A presentable bouquet could not be had for less than ten francs; there were some that cost more.

“The deuce!” exclaimed Rodolphe, “ten francs! and only eight days to find this fortune! It will be a hard pull, but never mind, my cousin shall have her flowers.”

This happened in the time of Rodolphe’s literary genesis, as the transcendentalists would say. His only income at that period was an allowance of fifteen francs a month, made him by a friend, who, after living a long while in Paris as a poet, had, by the help of influential acquaintances, gained the mastership of a provincial school. Rodolphe, who was the child of prodigality, always spent his allowance in four days; and, not choosing to abandon his holy but not very profitable profession of elegiac poet, lived for the rest of the month on the rare droppings from the basket of Providence. This long Lent had no terrors for him; he passed through it gaily, thanks to his stoical temperament and to the imaginary treasures which he expended every day while waiting for the first of the month, that Easter which terminated his fast. He lived at this time at the very top of one of the loftiest houses in Paris. His room was shaped like a belvidere, and was a delicious habitation in summer, but from October to April a perfect little