curiosity, and was initiated into the mysteries of art by Brunner. Her
exclamations were so childish, she seemed so pleased to have the value
and beauty of the paintings, carvings, or bronzes pointed out to her,
that the German gradually thawed and looked quite young again, and both
were led on further than they intended at this (purely accidental) first
meeting.
The private view lasted for three hours. Brunner offered his arm when
Cecile went downstairs. As they descended slowly and discreetly, Cecile,
still talking fine art, wondered that M. Brunner should admire her
cousin’s gimcracks so much.
“Do you really think that these things that we have just seen are worth
a great deal of money?”
“Mademoiselle, if your cousin would sell his collection, I would give
eight hundred thousand francs for it this evening, and I should not make
a bad bargain. The pictures alone would fetch more than that at a public
sale.”
“Since you say so, I believe it,” returned she; “the things took up so
much of your attention that it must be so.”
“On! mademoiselle!” protested Brunner. “For all answer to your reproach,
I will ask your mother’s permission to call, so that I may have the
pleasure of seeing you again.”
“How clever she is, that ‘little girl’ of mine!” thought the Presidente,
following closely upon her daughter’s heels. Aloud she said, “With the
greatest pleasure, monsieur. I hope that you will come at dinner-time
with our Cousin Pons. The President will be delighted to make your
acquaintance.--Thank you, cousin.”
The lady squeezed Pons’ arm with deep meaning; she could not have said
more if she had used the consecrated formula, “Let us swear an eternal
friendship.” The glance which accompanied that “Thank you, cousin,” was
a caress.
When the young lady had been put into the carriage, and the jobbed
brougham had disappeared down the Rue Charlot, Brunner talked
bric-a-brac to Pons, and Pons talked marriage.
“Then you see no obstacle?” said Pons.
“Oh!” said Brunner, “she is an insignificant little thing, and the
mother is a trifle prim.--We shall see.”
“A handsome fortune one of these days.... More than a million--”
“Good-bye till Monday!” interrupted the millionaire. “If you should
care to sell your collection of pictures, I would give you five or six
hundred thousand francs--”
“Ah!” said Pons; he had no idea that he was so rich. “But they are my
great pleasure in life, and I could not bring myself to part with them.
I could only sell my collection to be delivered after my death.”
“Very well. We shall see.”
“Here we have two affairs afoot!” said Pons; he was thinking only of the
marriage.
Brunner shook hands and drove away in his splendid carriage. Pons
watched it out of sight. He did not notice that Remonencq was smoking
his pipe in the doorway.
That evening Mme. de Marville went to ask advice of her father-in-law,
and found the whole Popinot family at the Camusots’ house. It was only
natural that a mother who had failed to capture an eldest son should be
tempted to take her little revenge; so Mme. de Marville threw out hints
of the splendid marriage that her Cecile was about to make.--“Whom can
Cecile be going to marry?” was the question upon all lips. And Cecile’s
mother, without suspecting that she was betraying her secret, let
fall words and whispered confidences, afterwards supplemented by Mme.
Berthier, till gossip circulating in the bourgeois empyrean where
Pons accomplished his gastronomical evolutions took something like the
following form:
“Cecile de Marville is engaged to be married to a young German, a banker
from philanthropic motives, for he has four millions; he is like a hero
in a novel, a perfect Werther, charming and kind-hearted. He has sown
his wild oats, and he is distractedly in love with Cecile; it is a case
of love at first sight; and so much the more certain, since Cecile had
all Pons’ paintings of Madonnas for rivals,” and so forth and so forth.
Two or three of the set came to call on the Presidente, ostensibly to
congratulate, but really to find out whether or not the marvelous tale
were true. For their benefit Mme. de Marville executed the following
admirable variations on the theme of son-in-law which mothers may
consult, as people used to refer to the _Complete Letter Writer_.
“A marriage is not an accomplished fact,” she told Mme. Chiffreville,
“until you have been in the mayor’s office and the church. We have only
come as far as a personal interview; so I count upon your friendship to
say nothing of our hopes.”
“You are very fortunate, madame; marriages are so difficult to arrange
in these days.”
“What can one do? It was chance; but marriages are often made in that
way.”
“Ah! well. So you are going to marry Cecile?” said Mme. Cardot.
“Yes,” said Cecile’s mother, fully understanding the meaning of the
“so.” “We were very particular, or Cecile would have been established
before this. But now we have found everything we wish: money, good
temper, good character, and good looks; and my sweet little girl
certainly deserves nothing less. M. Brunner is a charming young man,
most distinguished; he is fond of luxury, he knows life; he is wild
about Cecile, he loves her sincerely; and in spite of his three or four
millions, Cecile is going to accept him.--We had not looked so high for
her; still, store is no sore.”
“It was not so much the fortune as the affection inspired by my daughter
which decided us,” the Presidente told Mme. Lebas. “M. Brunner is in
such a hurry that he wants the marriage to take place with the least
possible delay.”
“Is he a foreigner?”
“Yes, madame; but I am very fortunate, I confess. No, I shall not have
a son-in-law, but a son. M. Brunner’s delicacy has quite won our hearts.
No one would imagine how anxious he was to marry under the dotal system.
It is a great security for families. He is going to invest twelve
hundred thousand francs in grazing land, which will be added to Marville
some day.”
More variations followed on the morrow. For instance--M. Brunner was a
great lord, doing everything in lordly fashion; he did not haggle. If
M. de Marville could obtain letters of naturalization, qualifying M.
Brunner for an office under Government (and the Home Secretary surely
could strain a point for M. de Marville), his son-in-law would be a peer
of France. Nobody knew how much money M. Brunner possessed; “he had the
finest horses and the smartest carriages in Paris!” and so on and so on.
From the pleasure with which the Camusots published their hopes, it was
pretty clear that this triumph was unexpected.
Immediately after the interview in Pons’ museum, M. de Marville, at his
wife’s instance, begged the Home Secretary, his chief, and the attorney
for the crown to dine with him on the occasion of the introduction of
this phoenix of a son-in-law.
The three great personages accepted the invitation, albeit it was given
on short notice; they all saw the part that they were to play in the
family politics, and readily came to the father’s support. In France we
are usually pretty ready to assist the mother of marriageable daughters
to hook an eligible son-in-law. The Count and Countess Popinot likewise
lent their presence to complete the splendor of the occasion, although
they thought the invitation in questionable taste.
There were eleven in all. Cecile’s grandfather, old Camusot, came, of
course, with his wife to a family reunion purposely arranged to elicit a
proposal from M. Brunner.
The Camusot de Marvilles had given out that the guest of the evening
was one of the richest capitalists in Germany, a man of taste (he was in
love with “the little girl”), a future rival of the Nucingens, Kellers,
du Tillets, and their like.
“It is our day,” said the Presidente with elaborate simplicity, when she
had named her guests one by one for the German whom she already regarded
as her son-in-law. “We have only a few intimate friends--first, my
husband’s father, who, as you know, is sure to be raised to the peerage;
M. le Comte and Mme. la Comtesse Popinot, whose son was not thought rich
enough for Cecile; the Home Secretary; our First President; our attorney
for the crown; our personal friends, in short.--We shall be obliged to
dine rather late to-night, because the Chamber is sitting, and people
cannot get away before six.”
Brunner looked significantly at Pons, and Pons rubbed his hands as if to
say, “Our friends, you see! _My_ friends!”
Mme. de Marville, as a clever tactician, had something very particular
to say to her cousin, that Cecile and her Werther might be left together
for a moment. Cecile chattered away volubly, and contrived that Frederic
should catch sight of a German dictionary, a German grammar, and a
volume of Goethe hidden away in a place where he was likely to find
them.
“Ah! are you learning German?” asked Brunner, flushing red.
(For laying traps of this kind the Frenchwoman has not her match!)
“Oh! how naughty you are!” she cried; “it is too bad of you, monsieur,
to explore my hiding-places like this. I want to read Goethe in the
original,” she added; “I have been learning German for two years.”
“Then the grammar must be very difficult to learn, for scarcely ten
pages have been cut--” Brunner remarked with much candor.
Cecile, abashed, turned away to hide her blushes. A German cannot resist
a display of this kind; Brunner caught Cecile’s hand, made her turn, and
watched her confusion under his gaze, after the manner of the heroes of
the novels of Auguste Lafontaine of chaste memory.
“You are adorable,” said he.
Cecile’s petulant gesture replied, “So are you--who could help liking
you?”
“It is all right, mamma,” she whispered to her parent, who came up at
that moment with Pons.
The sight of a family party on these occasions is not to be described.
Everybody was well satisfied to see a mother put her hand on an eligible
son-in-law. Compliments, double-barreled and double-charged, were paid
to Brunner (who pretended to understand nothing); to Cecile, on whom
nothing was lost; and to the Presidente, who fished for them. Pons heard
the blood singing in his ears, the light of all the blazing gas-jets of
the theatre footlights seemed to be dazzling his eyes, when Cecile, in
a low voice and with the most ingenious circumspection, spoke of her
father’s plan of the annuity of twelve hundred francs. The old artist
positively declined the offer, bringing forward the value of his fortune
in furniture, only now made known to him by Brunner.
The Home Secretary, the First President, the attorney for the crown, the
Popinots, and those who had other engagements, all went; and before long
no one was left except M. Camusot senior, and Cardot the old notary, and
his assistant and son-in-law Berthier. Pons, worthy soul, looking round
and seeing no one but the family, blundered out a speech of thanks to
the President and his wife for the proposal which Cecile had just made
to him. So it is with those who are guided by their feelings; they
act upon impulse. Brunner, hearing of an annuity offered in this way,
thought that it had very much the look of a commission paid to Pons; he
made an Israelite’s return upon himself, his attitude told of more than
cool calculation.
Meanwhile Pons was saying to his astonished relations, “My collection or
its value will, in any case, go to your family, whether I come to terms
with our friend Brunner or keep it.” The Camusots were amazed to hear
that Pons was so rich.
Brunner, watching, saw how all these ignorant people looked favorably
upon a man once believed to be poor so soon as they knew that he had
great possessions. He had seen, too, already that Cecile was spoiled by
her father and mother; he amused himself, therefore, by astonishing the
good bourgeois.
“I was telling mademoiselle,” said he, “that M. Pons’ pictures were
worth that sum to _me_; but the prices of works of art have risen so
much of late, that no one can tell how much the collection might sell
for at public auction. The sixty pictures might fetch a million francs;
several that I saw the other day were worth fifty thousand apiece.”
“It is a fine thing to be your heir!” remarked old Cardot, looking at
Pons.
“My heir is my Cousin Cecile here,” answered Pons, insisting on the
relationship. There was a flutter of admiration at this.
“She will be a very rich heiress,” laughed old Cardot, as he took his
departure.
Camusot senior, the President and his wife, Cecile, Brunner, Berthier,
and Pons were now left together; for it was assumed that the formal
demand for Cecile’s hand was about to be made. No sooner was Cardot
gone, indeed, than Brunner began with an inquiry which augured well.
“I think I understood,” he said, turning to Mme. de Marville, “that
mademoiselle is your only daughter.”
“Certainly,” the lady said proudly.
“Nobody will make any difficulties,” Pons, good soul, put in by way of
encouraging Brunner to bring out his proposal.
But Brunner grew thoughtful, and an ominous silence brought on a
coolness of the strangest kind. The Presidente might have admitted that
her “little girl” was subject to epileptic fits. The President, thinking
that Cecile ought not to be present, signed to her to go. She went.
Still Brunner said nothing. They all began to look at one another. The
situation was growing awkward.
Camusot senior, a man of experience, took the German to Mme. de
Marville’s room, ostensibly to show him Pons’ fan. He saw that some
difficulty had arisen, and signed to the rest to leave him alone with
Cecile’s suitor-designate.
“Here is the masterpiece,” said Camusot, opening out the fan.
Brunner took it in his hand and looked at it. “It is worth five thousand
francs,” he said after a moment.
“Did you not come here, sir, to ask for my granddaughter?” inquired the
future peer of France.
“Yes, sir,” said Brunner; “and I beg you to believe that no possible
marriage could be more flattering to my vanity. I shall never find any
one more charming nor more amiable, nor a young lady who answers to my
ideas like Mlle. Cecile; but--”
“Oh, no _buts_!” old Camusot broke in; “or let us have the translation
of your ‘buts’ at once, my dear sir.”
“I am very glad, sir, that the matter has gone no further on either
side,” Brunner answered gravely. “I had no idea that Mlle. Cecile was an
only daughter. Anybody else would consider this an advantage; but to me,
believe me, it is an insurmountable obstacle to--”
“What, sir!” cried Camusot, amazed beyond measure. “Do you find a
positive drawback in an immense advantage? Your conduct is really
extraordinary; I should very much like to hear the explanation of it.”
“I came here this evening, sir,” returned the German phlegmatically,
“intending to ask M. le President for his daughter’s hand. It was my
desire to give Mlle. Cecile a brilliant future by offering her so much
of my fortune as she would consent to accept. But an only daughter is
a child whose will is law to indulgent parents, who has never been
contradicted. I have had the opportunity of observing this in many
families, where parents worship divinities of this kind. And
your granddaughter is not only the idol of the house, but Mme. la
Presidente... you know what I mean. I have seen my father’s house turned
into a hell, sir, from this very cause. My stepmother, the source of
all my misfortunes, an only daughter, idolized by her parents, the most
charming betrothed imaginable, after marriage became a fiend incarnate.
I do not doubt that Mlle. Cecile is an exception to the rule; but I am
not a young man, I am forty years old, and the difference between our
ages entails difficulties which would put it out of my power to make
the young lady happy, when Mme. la Presidente always carried out her
daughter’s every wish and listened to her as if Mademoiselle was an
oracle. What right have I to expect Mlle. Cecile to change her habits
and ideas? Instead of a father and mother who indulge her every whim,
she would find an egotistic man of forty; if she should resist, the man
of forty would have the worst of it. So, as an honest man--I withdraw.
If there should be any need to explain my visit here, I desire to be
entirely sacrificed--”
“If these are your motives, sir,” said the future peer of France,
“however singular they may be, they are plausible--”
“Do not call my sincerity in question, sir,” Brunner interrupted
quickly. “If you know of a penniless girl, one of a large family, well
brought up but without fortune, as happens very often in France; and if
her character offers me security, I will marry her.”
A pause followed; Frederic Brunner left Cecile’s grandfather and
politely took leave of his host and hostess. When he was gone, Cecile
appeared, a living commentary upon her Werther’s leave-taking; she was
ghastly pale. She had hidden in her mother’s wardrobe and overheard the
whole conversation.
“Refused!...” she said in a low voice for her mother’s ear.
“And why?” asked the Presidente, fixing her eyes upon her embarrassed
father-in-law.
“Upon the fine pretext that an only daughter is a spoilt child,” replied
that gentleman. “And he is not altogether wrong there,” he added,
seizing an opportunity of putting the blame on the daughter-in-law, who
had worried him not a little for twenty years.
“It will kill my child!” cried the Presidente, “and it is your doing!”
she exclaimed, addressing Pons, as she supported her fainting daughter,
for Cecile thought well to make good her mother’s words by sinking into
her arms. The President and his wife carried Cecile to an easy-chair,
where she swooned outright. The grandfather rang for the servants.
“It is a plot of his weaving; I see it all now,” said the infuriated
mother.
Pons sprang up as if the trump of doom were sounding in his ears.
“Yes!” said the lady, her eyes like two springs of green bile, “this
gentleman wished to repay a harmless joke by an insult. Who will believe
that that German was right in his mind? He is either an accomplice in
a wicked scheme of revenge, or he is crazy. I hope, M. Pons, that in
future you will spare us the annoyance of seeing you in the house where
you have tried to bring shame and dishonor.”
Pons stood like a statue, with his eyes fixed on the pattern of the
carpet.
“Well! Are you still here, monster of ingratitude?” cried she, turning
round on Pons, who was twirling his thumbs.--“Your master and I are
never at home, remember, if this gentleman calls,” she continued,
turning to the servants.--“Jean, go for the doctor; and bring hartshorn,
Madeleine.”
In the Presidente’s eyes, the reason given by Brunner was simply an
excuse, there was something else behind; but, at the same time, the fact
that the marriage was broken off was only the more certain. A woman’s
mind works swiftly in great crises, and Mme. de Marville had hit at once
upon the one method of repairing the check. She chose to look upon it as
a scheme of revenge. This notion of ascribing a fiendish scheme to
Pons satisfied family honor. Faithful to her dislike of the cousin, she
treated a feminine suspicion as a fact. Women, generally speaking, hold
a creed peculiar to themselves, a code of their own; to them anything
which serves their interests or their passions is true. The Presidente
went a good deal further. In the course of the evening she talked
the President into her belief, and next morning found the magistrate
convinced of his cousin’s culpability.
Every one, no doubt, will condemn the lady’s horrible conduct; but what
mother in Mme. Camusot’s position will not do the same? Put the choice
between her own daughter and an alien, she will prefer to sacrifice the
honor of the latter. There are many ways of doing this, but the end in
view is the same.
The old musician fled down the staircase in haste; but he went slowly
along the boulevards to his theatre, he turned in mechanically at the
door, and mechanically he took his place and conducted the orchestra. In
the interval he gave such random answers to Schmucke’s questions, that
his old friend dissembled his fear that Pons’ mind had given way. To
so childlike a nature, the recent scene took the proportions of a
catastrophe. He had meant to make every one happy, and he had aroused
a terrible slumbering feeling of hate; everything had been turned
topsy-turvy. He had at last seen mortal hate in the Presidente’s eyes,
tones, and gesture.
On the morrow, Mme. Camusot de Marville made a great resolution;
the President likewise sanctioned the step now forced upon them by
circumstances. It was determined that the estate of Marville should be
settled upon Cecile at the time of her marriage, as well as the house in
the Rue de Hanovre and a hundred thousand francs. In the course of the
morning, the Presidente went to call upon the Comtesse Popinot; for she
saw plainly that nothing but a settled marriage could enable them
to recover after such a check. To the Comtesse Popinot she told the
shocking story of Pons’ revenge, Pons’ hideous hoax. It all seemed
probable enough when it came out that the marriage had been broken off
simply on the pretext that Cecile was an only daughter. The Presidente
next dwelt artfully upon the advantage of adding “de Marville” to the
name of Popinot; and the immense dowry. At the present price fetched by
land in Normandy, at two per cent, the property represented nine hundred
thousand francs, and the house in the Rue de Hanovre about two hundred
and fifty thousand. No reasonable family could refuse such an alliance.
The Comte and Comtesse Popinot accepted; and as they were now touched by
the honor of the family which they were about to enter, they promised to
help explain away yesterday evening’s mishap.
And now in the house of the elder Camusot, before the very persons who
had heard Mme. de Marville singing Frederic Brunner’s praises but a
few days ago, that lady, to whom nobody ventured to speak on the topic,
plunged courageously into explanations.
“Really, nowadays” (she said), “one could not be too careful if a
marriage was in question, especially if one had to do with foreigners.”
“And why, madame?”
“What has happened to you?” asked Mme. Chiffreville.
“Do you not know about our adventure with that Brunner, who had the
audacity to aspire to marry Cecile? His father was a German that kept a
wine-shop, and his uncle is a dealer in rabbit-skins!”
“Is it possible? So clear-sighted as you are!...” murmured a lady.
“These adventurers are so cunning. But we found out everything through
Berthier. His friend is a beggar that plays the flute. He is friendly
with a person who lets furnished lodgings in the Rue du Mail and some
tailor or other.... We found out that he had led a most disreputable
life, and no amount of fortune would be enough for a scamp that has run
through his mother’s property.”
“Why, Mlle. de Marville would have been wretched!” said Mme. Berthier.
“How did he come to your house?” asked old Mme. Lebas.
“It was M. Pons. Out of revenge, he introduced this fine gentleman
to us, to make us ridiculous.... This Brunner (it is the same name
as Fontaine in French)--this Brunner, that was made out to be such a
grandee, has poor enough health, he is bald, and his teeth are bad. The
first sight of him was enough for me; I distrusted him from the first.”
“But how about the great fortune that you spoke of?” a young married
woman asked shyly.