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Florian And Crescence
by
After dinner Balt said, “Now, wife, get in a cup of coffee.”
“None for me, I thank you,” said the geometer.
The tailor’s wife was not so ill-mannered as to press the refreshment upon her guest against his will, for she grudged her husband his share of it. She afterward boiled a cup for herself, and toasted a biscuit to eat with it.
When the afternoon church was over, Crescence could not avoid taking a walk with the geometer; but she managed to keep clear of the street and go along the back fences of the gardens. When they approached George’s ninepin-alley, she started with fright on seeing Florian standing there in his shirt-sleeves with his back to the road. Throwing a piece of money on the ground, he said, “‘Bet you six creutzers I’ll make five.” Under the pretext of having forgotten something, Crescence turned round quickly, and the geometer had nothing to do but to follow her. On arriving at home, they surprised her mother at her private cup of coffee,–which was unpleasant. They now took the street of the village.
Florian had no other design on this Sunday than to attract attention, in which he succeeded brilliantly. Everybody spoke of him,–of his black velvet roundabout with silver buttons, his free rifleman’s vest of red and black stripes, and his other glories. The people of a village, as of a city, are grateful to any one who will furnish them with a subject of conversation. The old butcher, Florian’s father, drank in the fame of his son from every mouth, and did his best to keep it at the full. He was still rather a handsome man himself, with a rubicund face and bright gray eyes. He walked about in his shirt-sleeves and carried his handkerchief in the armpit of his waistcoat,–which gave him an air of originality. Whenever he met any one, he drew out his snuff-box and offered a pinch of “doppelmops,” saying, “My Florian brought it with him: he’s a fine fellow, a’n’t he? None like him for twenty miles around. His master would give him his daughter in a minute, but the rapscallion won’t have her. His master makes more out of hoofs than three Horb butchers do out of beef: he kills eight calves every day and two or three oxen besides. What would you think,” he would generally add, taking off his little frontless cap, formed in the resemblance of a cabbage-leaf, and putting it on again, “if I was to go to Strasbourg and marry the girl? If she must have a tall man, why shouldn’t the old one be as good as the young? I won’t back out for any one yet a while.”
He stopped longest at the door of George the blacksmith,–a childless old man of more than eighty years of age,–who was always sitting before his house at the roadside and hearing the news from all who passed by. Old George and old Maurita of the Bridge were the two persons through whom a piece of news could be brought to the cognizance of every soul in the village. George repeated every thing, good or bad, to tease others and to show them that he knew every thing; Maurita told the good news to impart her gladness, and the sad ones to obtain sharers in her regret. George the blacksmith was the largest purchaser of the old butcher’s vaunts.
Thus the Sunday passed; and, when Crescence returned with the geometer, long after dark, she thanked her stars that the dreaded fracas had not occurred.
4.
HOW FLORIAN AND CRESCENCE MET AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME.
Crescence rose an hour before daybreak next morning, fed the cattle, and attended quietly to the house-affairs. Once she looked up with pain when it occurred to her that she had not hummed a single tune. She went into the field.
With a bundle of fresh clover on her head, she came up the valley on her return, looking beautiful, as the healthful exercise brought out her fine form in all its strength and pliancy. With her right hand she held the bundle, and with her left the rake, which lay on her shoulder and also served to steady the load. She walked with leisurely and measured pace, the red blossoms blinking into her rosy face. Not far from Jacob’s crucifix, the voice of Florian, who said, “God bless you, Crescence!” rooted her to the earth.