in summer, but from October to April a perfect
little Kamschatka. The four cardinal winds which penetrated by the four
windows,--there was one on each of the four sides--made fearful music in
it throughout the cold seasons. Then in irony as it were, there was a
huge fireplace, the immense chimney of which seemed a gate of honor
reserved for Boreas and his retinue. On the first attack of cold,
Rodolphe had recourse to an original system of warming; he cut up
successively what little furniture he had, and at the end of a week his
stock was considerably abridged; in fact, he had only a bed and two
chairs left; it should be remarked that these items were insured against
fire by their nature, being of iron. This manner of heating himself he
called _moving up the chimney_.

It was January, and the thermometer, which indicated twelve degrees
below freezing point on the Spectacle Quay, would have stood two or
three lower if moved to the belvidere, which Rodolphe called
indifferently Mount St. Bernard, Spitzenberg, and Siberia.

The night when he promised his cousin the white violets, he was seized
with a great rage on returning home; the four cardinal winds, in playing
puss-in-the-corner round his chamber, had broken a pane of glass--the
third time in a fortnight. After exploding in a volley of frantic
imprecations upon Eolus and all his family, and plugging up the breach
with a friend's portrait, Rodolphe lay down, dressed as he was, between
his two mattresses, and dreamed of white violets all night.

At the end of five days, Rodolphe had found nothing to help him toward
realizing his dreams. He must have the bouquet the day after tomorrow.
Meanwhile, the thermometer fell still lower, and the luckless poet was
ready to despair as he thought the violets might have risen higher.
Finally his good angel had pity on him, and came to his relief as
follows.

One morning, Rodolphe went to take his chance of getting a breakfast
from his friend Marcel the painter, and found him conversing with a
woman in mourning. It was a widow who had just lost her husband, and who
wanted to know how much it would cost to paint on the tomb which she had
erected, a man's hand, with this inscription beneath:

"I WAIT FOR HER TO WHOM MY FAITH WAS PLIGHTED."

To get the work at a cheaper rate, she observed to the artist that when
she was called to rejoin her husband, he would have another hand to
paint--her hand with a bracelet on the wrist and