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Is it thou, Gino Monaldi!" exclaimed a smart Venetian grisette, whose tone and manner betrayed as much of coquetry as of surprise. "On foot, and by the secret door! Is this an hour to come on any of thy errands?" "Truly, Annina, it is not the season for affairs with thy father, and it is something early for a visit to thee. But there is less time for words than for action, just now.
It had totally escaped me that I, a bashful Englishman of twenty-one, nervously sensitive to ridicule and gifted by nature with but little of the spirit of social defiance, must in broad daylight make my appearance in the streets of Paris, accompanied by a bonnetless grisette! What should I do, if I met Dr. Chéron? or Madame de Courcelles? or, worse than all, Madame de Marignan?
I exclaimed with a groan. "What the deuce is her element the Quartier Latin?" "The Quartier Latin is to some extent her habitat but then Mam'selle Josephine belongs to a genus of which you, cher Monsieur Arbuthnot, are deplorably ignorant the genus grisette. The grisette from a certain point of view is the chef-d'oeuvre of Parisian industry; the bouquet of Parisian civilization.
They could plainly hear the steps approaching; then a low whispering, as of two people questioning; finally, the door opened, and gave entrance to a soldier of the French guard, and a little grisette. The guardsman was the Baron de Valef. As to the grisette, she threw off the little black veil which hid her face, and they recognized Madame de Maine.
Sooner would I see my daughter dead than give her to a man who had such a connection with a married woman. A grisette, an actress, you take her and leave her. There is no danger, in my opinion, from women of that stamp; love is their trade, they care for no one, one down and another to come on!
Noel pronounced a great many platitudes in an insincere effort to persuade her that things would get better, and somehow they seemed to give her comfort for the moment. As if to put the subject by, she called the big cat to her, snapping her fine slim fingers, and saying, "Come, Grisette"; and the creature jumped into her lap with the obedience of a well-trained dog.
She can still bring tears to the eyes of a youthful lover, for her age is whatever she pleases, and she has the exquisite self-devotion of a grisette. In short, she is herself a fairy tale, unless, indeed, she is a fairy. Had Madame d'Espard known Madame Zayonseck? Did she mean to imitate her career?
"But in Montmartre one can yet admire Baudin's monument, which has a degree of grandeur; that of Gautier, of Murger, on which I saw the other day a simple, paltry wreath of immortelles, yellow immortelles, brought thither by whom? Possibly by the last grisette, very old and now janitress in the neighborhood. It is a pretty little statue by Millet, but ruined by dirt and neglect.
This peculiar foot-gear, which Parisian caricaturists have well-rendered, is a special attribute of the grisette of Paris; but she is even more distinctive to the eyes of an observer by the care with which her garments are made to adhere to her form, which they clearly define.
Thinkest thou because thou art so eminently virtuous that she who has many a serviceable virtue of her own, shall be debarred from her share in this world's cakes and ale? Vive la grisette! Let us think and speak no evil of her. "Elle ne tient au vice que par un rayon, et s'en éloigne par les mille autres points de la circonference sociale."
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