Cousin Pons

“And why not?” asked the bewildered musician.

“Oh! – ” said the notary, “well – a young man nowadays may be as ugly as you and I, my dear Pons, but he is almost sure to have the impertinence to want six hundred thousand francs, a girl of good family, with wit and good looks and good breeding – flawless perfection in short.”

“Then it will not be easy to marry her?”

“She will not be married so long as M. and Mme. de Marville cannot make up their minds to settle Marville on her when she marries; if they had chosen, she might have been the Vicomtesse Popinot by now. But here comes M. Brunner. – We are about to read the deed of partnership and the marriage contract.”

Greetings and introductions over, the relations made Pons promise to sign the contract. He listened to the reading of the documents, and towards half-past five the party went into the dining-room. The dinner was magnificent, as a city merchant’s dinner can be, when he allows himself a respite from money-making. Graff of the Hotel du Rhin was acquainted with the first provision dealers in Paris; never had Pons nor Schmucke fared so sumptuously. The dishes were a rapture to think of! Italian paste, delicate of flavor, unknown to the public; smelts fried as never smelts were fried before; fish from Lake Leman, with a real Genevese sauce, and a cream for plum-pudding which would have astonished the London doctor who is said to have invented it. It was nearly ten o’clock before they rose from table. The amount of wine, German and French, consumed at that dinner would amaze the contemporary dandy; nobody knows the amount of liquor that a German can imbibe and yet keep calm and quiet; to have even an idea of the quantity, you must dine in Germany and watch bottle succeed to bottle, like wave rippling after wave along the sunny shores of the Mediterranean, and disappear as if the Teuton possessed the absorbing power of sponges or sea sand. Perfect harmony prevails meanwhile; there is none of the racket that there would be over the liquor in France; the talk is as sober as a money-lender’s extempore speech; countenances flush, like the faces of the brides in frescoes by Cornelius or Schnorr (imperceptibly, that is to say), and reminiscences are poured out slowly while the smoke puffs from the pipes.

About half-past ten that evening Pons and Schmucke found themselves sitting on a bench out in the garden, with the ex-flute between them; they were explaining their characters, opinions, and misfortunes, with no very clear idea as to why or how they had come to this point. In the thick of a potpourri of confidences, Wilhelm spoke of his strong desire to see Fritz married, expressing himself with vehement and vinous eloquence.

“What do you say to this programme for your friend Brunner?” cried Pons in confidential tones. “A charming and sensible young lady of twenty-four, belonging to a family of the highest distinction. The father holds a very high position as a judge; there will be a hundred thousand francs paid down and a million to come.”

“Wait!” answered Schwab; “I will speak to Fritz this instant.”

The pair watched Brunner and his friend as they walked round and round the garden; again and again they passed the bench, sometimes one spoke, sometimes the other.

Pons was not exactly intoxicated; his head was a little heavy, but his thoughts, on the contrary, seemed all the lighter; he watched Fritz Brunner’s face through the rainbow mist of fumes of wine, and tried to read auguries favorable to his family. Before very long Schwab introduced his friend and partner to M. Pons; Fritz Brunner expressed his thanks for the trouble which Pons had been so good as to take.

In the conversation which followed, the two old bachelors Schmucke and Pons extolled the estate of matrimony, going so far as to say, without any malicious intent, “that marriage was the end of man.” Tea and ices, punches and cakes, were served in the future home of the betrothed couple. The wine had begun to tell upon the honest merchants, and the general hilarity reached its height when it was announced that Schwab’s partner thought of following his example.

At two o’clock that morning, Schmucke and Pons walked home along the boulevards, philosophizing a perte de raison as they went on the harmony pervading the arrangements of this our world below.

On the morrow of the banquet, Cousin Pons betook himself to his fair cousin the Presidente, overjoyed – poor dear noble soul! – to return good for evil. Surely he had attained to a sublime height, as every one will allow, for we live in an age when the Montyon prize is given to those who do their duty by carrying out the precepts of the Gospel.

“Ah!” said Pons to himself, as he turned the corner of the Rue de Choiseul, “they will lie under immense obligations to their parasite.”

Any man less absorbed in his contentment, any man of the world, any distrustful nature would have watched the President’s wife and daughter very narrowly on this first return to the house. But the poor musician was a child, he had all the simplicity of an artist, believing in goodness as he believed in beauty; so he was delighted when Cecile and her mother made much of him. After all the vaudevilles, tragedies, and comedies which had been played under the worthy man’s eyes for twelve long years, he could not detect the insincerity and grimaces of social comedy, no doubt because he had seen too much of it. Any one who goes into society in Paris, and knows the type of woman, dried up, body and soul, by a burning thirst for social position, and a fierce desire to be thought virtuous, any one familiar with the sham piety and the domineering character of a woman whose word is law in her own house, may imagine the lurking hatred she bore this husband’s cousin whom she had wronged.

All the demonstrative friendliness of mother and daughter was lined with a formidable longing for revenge, evidently postponed. For the first time in Amelie de Marville’s life she had been put in the wrong, and that in the sight of the husband over whom she tyrannized; and not only so – she was obliged to be amiable to the author of her defeat! You can scarcely find a match for this position save in the hypocritical dramas which are sometimes kept up for years in the sacred college of cardinals, or in chapters of certain religious orders.

At three o’clock, when the President came back from the law-courts, Pons had scarcely made an end of the marvelous history of his acquaintance, M. Frederic Brunner. Cecile had gone straight to the point. She wanted to know how Frederic Brunner was dressed, how he looked, his height and figure, the color of his hair and eyes; and when she had conjectured a distinguished air for Frederic, she admired his generosity of character.

“Think of his giving five hundred thousand francs to his companion in misfortune! Oh! mamma, I shall have a carriage and a box at the Italiens – ” Cecile grew almost pretty as she thought that all her mother’s ambitions for her were about to be realized, that the hopes which had almost left her were to come to something after all.

As for the Presidente, all that she said was, “My dear little girl, you may perhaps be married within the fortnight.”

All mothers with daughters of three-and-twenty address them as “little girl.”

“Still,” added the President, “in any case, we must have time to make inquiries; never will I give my daughter to just anybody – ”

“As to inquiries,” said Pons, “Berthier is drawing up the deeds. As to the young man himself, my dear cousin, you remember what you told me? Well, he is quite forty years old; he is bald. He wishes to find in family life a haven after a storm; I did not dissuade him; every man has his tastes – ”

“One reason the more for a personal interview,” returned the President. “I am not going to give my daughter to a valetudinarian.”

“Very good, cousin, you shall see my suitor in five days if you like; for, with your views, a single interview would be enough” – (Cecile and her mother signified their rapture) – “Frederic is decidedly a distinguished amateur; he begged me to allow him to see my little collection at his leisure. You have never seen my pictures and curiosities; come and see them,” he continued, looking at his relatives. “You can come simply as two ladies, brought by my friend Schmucke, and make M. Brunner’s acquaintance without betraying yourselves. Frederic need not in the least know who you are.”

“Admirable!” cried the President.

The attention they paid to the once scorned parasite may be left to the imagination! Poor Pons that day became the Presidente’s cousin. The happy mother drowned her dislike in floods of joy; her looks, her smiles, her words sent the old man into ecstasies over the good that he had done, over the future that he saw by glimpses. Was he not sure to find dinners such as yesterday’s banquet over the signing of the contract, multiplied indefinitely by three, in the houses of Brunner, Schwab, and Graff? He saw before him a land of plenty – a vie de cocagne, a miraculous succession of plats couverts, of delicate surprise dishes, of exquisite wines.

“If Cousin Pons brings this through,” said the President, addressing his wife after Pons had departed, “we ought to settle an income upon him equal to his salary at the theatre.”

“Certainly,” said the lady; and Cecile was informed that if the proposed suitor found favor in her eyes, she must undertake to induce the old musician to accept a munificence in such bad taste.

Next day the President went to Berthier. He was anxious to make sure of M. Frederic Brunner’s financial position. Berthier, forewarned by Mme. de Marville, had asked his new client Schwab to come. Schwab the banker was dazzled by the prospect of such a match for his friend (everybody knows how deeply a German venerates social distinctions, so much so, that in Germany a wife takes her husband’s (official) title, and is the Frau General, the Frau Rath, and so forth) – Schwab therefore was as accommodating as a collector who imagines that he is cheating a dealer.

“In the first place,” said Cecile’s father, “as I shall make over my estate of Marville to my daughter, I should wish the contract to be drawn up on the dotal system. In that case, M. Brunner would invest a million francs in land to increase the estate, and by settling the land on his wife he would secure her and his children from any share in the liabilities of the bank.”

Berthier stroked his chin. “He is coming on well, is M. le President,” thought he.

When the dotal system had been explained to Schwab, he seemed much inclined that way for his friend. He had heard Fritz say that he wished to find some way of insuring himself against another lapse into poverty.

“There is a farm and pasture land worth twelve hundred thousand francs in the market at this moment,” remarked the President.

“If we take up shares in the Bank of France to the amount of a million francs, that will be quite enough to guarantee our account,” said Schwab. “Fritz does not want to invest more than two million francs in business; he will do as you wish, I am sure, M. le President.”

The President’s wife and daughter were almost wild with joy when he brought home this news. Never, surely, did so rich a capture swim so complacently into the nets of matrimony.

“You will be Mme. Brunner de Marville,” said the parent, addressing his child; “I will obtain permission for your husband to add the name to his, and afterwards he can take out letters of naturalization. If I should be a peer of France some day, he will succeed me!”

The five days were spent by Mme. de Marville in preparations. On the great day she dressed Cecile herself, taking as much pains as the admiral of the British fleet takes over the dressing of the pleasure yacht for Her Majesty of England when she takes a trip to Germany.

Pons and Schmucke, on their side, cleaned, swept, and dusted Pons’ museum rooms and furniture with the agility of sailors cleaning down a man-of-war. There was not a speck of dust on the carved wood; not an inch of brass but it glistened. The glasses over the pastels obscured nothing of the work of Latour, Greuze, and Liotard (illustrious painter of The Chocolate Girl), miracles of an art, alas! so fugitive. The inimitable lustre of Florentine bronze took all the varying hues of the light; the painted glass glowed with color. Every line shone out brilliantly, every object threw in its phrase in a harmony of masterpieces arranged by two musicians – both of whom alike had attained to be poets.

With a tact which avoided the difficulties of a late appearance on the scene of action, the women were the first to arrive; they wished to be on their own ground. Pons introduced his friend Schmucke, who seemed to his fair visitors to be an idiot; their heads were so full of the eligible gentleman with the four millions of francs, that they paid but little attention to the worthy Pons’ dissertations upon matters of which they were completely ignorant.

They looked with indifferent eyes at Petitot’s enamels, spaced over crimson velvet, set in three frames of marvelous workmanship. Flowers by Van Huysum, David, and Heim; butterflies painted by Abraham Mignon; Van Eycks, undoubted Cranachs and Albrecht Durers; the Giorgione, the Sebastian del Piombo; Backhuijzen, Hobbema, Gericault, the rarities of painting – none of these things so much as aroused their curiosity; they were waiting for the sun to arise and shine upon these treasures. Still, they were surprised by the beauty of some of the Etruscan trinkets and the solid value of the snuff-boxes, and out of politeness they went into ecstasies over some Florentine bronzes which they held in their hands when Mme. Cibot announced M. Brunner! They did not turn; they took advantage of a superb Venetian mirror framed in huge masses of carved ebony to scan this phoenix of eligible young men.

Frederic, forewarned by Wilhelm, had made the most of the little hair that remained to him. He wore a neat pair of trousers, a soft shade of some dark color, a silk waistcoat of superlative elegance and the very newest cut, a shirt with open-work, its linen hand-woven by a Friesland woman, and a blue-and-white cravat. His watch chain, like the head of his cane, came from Messrs. Florent and Chanor; and the coat, cut by old Graff himself, was of the very finest cloth. The Suede gloves proclaimed the man who had run through his mother’s fortune. You could have seen the banker’s neat little brougham and pair of horses mirrored in the surface of his speckless varnished boots, even if two pairs of sharp ears had not already caught the sound of wheels outside in the Rue de Normandie.

When the prodigal of twenty years is a kind of chrysalis from which a banker emerges at the age of forty, the said banker is usually an observer of human nature; and so much the more shrewd if, as in Brunner’s case, he understands how to turn his German simplicity to good account. He had assumed for the occasion the abstracted air of a man who is hesitating between family life and the dissipations of bachelorhood. This expression in a Frenchified German seemed to Cecile to be in the highest degree romantic; the descendant of the Virlaz was a second Werther in her eyes – where is the girl who will not allow herself to weave a little novel about her marriage? Cecile thought herself the happiest of women when Brunner, looking round at the magnificent works of art so patiently collected during forty years, waxed enthusiastic, and Pons, to his no small satisfaction, found an appreciative admirer of his treasures for the first time in his life.

“He is poetical,” the young lady said to herself; “he sees millions in the things. A poet is a man that cannot count and leaves his wife to look after his money – an easy man to manage and amuse with trifles.”

Every pane in the two windows was a square of Swiss painted glass; the least of them was worth a thousand francs; and Pons possessed sixteen of these unrivaled works of art for which amateurs seek so eagerly nowadays. In 1815 the panes could be bought for six or ten francs apiece. The value of the glorious collection of pictures, flawless great works, authentic, untouched since they left the master’s hands, could only be proved in the fiery furnace of a saleroom. Not a picture but was set in a costly frame; there were frames of every kind – Venetians, carved with heavy ornaments, like English plate of the present day; Romans, distinguishable among the others for a certain dash that artists call flafla; Spanish wreaths in bold relief; Flemings and Germans with quaint figures, tortoise-shell frames inlaid with copper and brass and mother-of-pearl and ivory; frames of ebony and boxwood in the styles of Louis Treize, Louis Quatorze, Louis Quinze, and Louis Seize – in short, it was a unique collection of the finest models. Pons, luckier than the art museums of Dresden and Vienna, possessed a frame by the famous Brustoloni – the Michael Angelo of wood-carvers.

Mlle. de Marville naturally asked for explanations of each new 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.