Another anomaly: notwithstanding this taste for Parisian pleasures;
notwithstanding the liberty, or, rather, the state of abandonment in which
she found herself, being alone in the world; notwithstanding the rigid
economy which she was obliged to use in her smallest expenses in order to
live on thirty sous a day; notwithstanding the most mischievous and
adorable little face in the world, never had Rigolette been a man's prey.
Early in life, she had lost her parents by the cholera, and, at ten years
of age, strangers had taken care of her, until she left them to find her
own living. At this period she had made Fleur-de-Marie's passing
acquaintance, and later, as she dwelt in Rudolph's lodging-house--that of
the prince whom she only thought to be a workman--she had been in the habit
of going out on Sundays and other holidays with young men of her house, but
they had given up the companionship when they found how virtuous she was,
without knowing it. Germain, also her neighbor in the house, had, however,
fallen desperately in love with Rigolette, without daring to breathe one
word respecting it. Far from imitating his predecessors, who resorted to
other sources of solace, without losing their regard for her, Germain had
delightfully enjoyed his intimacy with the girl, and the pleasure afforded
by her society on Sundays and every other evening that he was disengaged.
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