Delphi complete works of.., p.341
Delphi Complete Works of Alphonse Daudet (Illustrated), page 341
“The time has come,” she thought; “if I do not speak now, when shall I ever dare to?” And, still on her knees, without moving or turning, she replied; “No my dear, I will not leave you, whatever happens; and when I marry, which will probably be very soon, I shall arrange to remain always your sister and your friend.”
The sentence was not finished when she felt him slipping from her shoulder, and turning, saw him cowering in the grass, with lifeless eyes and white lips, his cap lying on the ground beside him.
“Raymond, my dear, what is the matter with you?”
It was her turn now to take him in her arms, against her breast, terrified to see him so pale.
“Nothing, an attack of faintness, of vertigo. I felt as if the ground were slipping away from me and the trees walking through the air, because of a word which I thought I heard, but which you surely did not say. Tell me, Tantine, it isn’t true, is it? You are not going to be married?”
She had never known how to lie, so she hung her head. Thereupon he burst out in sobs and lamentations. “Married to whom, pray? Siméon? A marriage without love, then? She could never have — No, she would not do that. Ah! Mon Dieu!”
He wept, his face hidden on Genevieve’s knees, and covering her hand with burning kisses, while she tried to soothe him, to convince him.
“I must do it, my little Raymond, my father wishes it; I am no longer young, you understand. And then you too will be married some day, and that will not prevent your remaining my friend.”
He shook his head.
“As if I could ever marry! Just as soon as I have my hand on a profession, I have, a whole household to take care of; I am the support of the family. And besides, is there any other woman in the world for me than Genevieve? Would it be possible for me to marry any other? You see, I love you and you do not love me. No, you do not love me with love, you do not know what love is. You take me for a child, because of my cap and my frock. But I am eighteen years old, and in our courtyard at Louis-le-Grand I hear fellows of my age talking about their mistresses. For my part, I have never wanted a mistress, because I thought only of you, and because your love kept me from all parodies of love; but if you abandon me, what do you suppose will become of me, my life is so sad, so dismal? Ah! wicked, wicked Tantine!”
He said no more, still covering with tears and kisses the pretty hands which abandoned themselves to him. She too held her peace, agitated by a cruel struggle, feeling that the hour and the place were momentous. To conquer her, sincere creature that she was, falsehood must needs take a hand; and the rhetorician, who was already declaiming within him, poured forth a flood of meaningless words.
“It is very simple,’’ he said, springing suddenly to his feet; “if you marry, my father has shown me what road I must take to leave life and its miseries behind me; but I will not wait until I am his age.”
“Hush, Raymond!” she cried in dismay.
He persisted, very calm because of his confidence in his argument: “I was thinking of it just now as I leaned over the bridge. My father, appeared to me in the water, just as he was when they took him out of the canal. He motioned to me to join him, that I should be happier, much happier. Very good; I will go and see.”
Twice or thrice he repeated: “I will go and see,” with an evil smile, an accent of mild menace, which filled her with terror. The truth is that in his own image reflected in the water a moment before, a distant resemblance had recalled his unhappy father to his mind. “How did he have the courage to kill himself? For my part I could not do it. Life before everything! Yes, life!” he had said to himself, in the brief meditation which had so terrified the poor girl, who was too sincere to doubt now the threats which corresponded so well with her own distress. Oh! these ill-omened laws of heredity, with which science has cast an additional shadow upon life, which was so black before!
“He is a nervous creature like his father; God grant that he may not end like him!” — How many times she had rebelled when she heard her friend Casta hurl that uncompromising diagnosis at the struggles of the boy and his hopes! Just imagine that, on the morrow of her marriage, they should bring her the child just taken from the water, his lips blue as they were just now, the light in his eyes extinguished forever, and all for that man whom she did not love, whom she could not love! And while he continued to utter his cruel, false “I will go and see,” she abruptly closed his mouth with her hand.
“Enough, do not worry any more; above all, do not say any more such horrible things. It is settled, I will not be married yet. I do not know what father will say, how he will get out of his bargain with Siméon. Let them arrange it as best they can. It would not be such a great misfortune after all, if I should never marry, if I should always remain Tantine. Show me your eyes, come, tell me that you are satisfied.”
She was close beside him, motherly and enthusiastic, with a smile full of kindliness and affection; he felt that he held her, that she was his forever, his dupe, his eternal dupe. And in an outburst of joy and pride, he took her in his arms and embraced her rapturously.
“Really! Do you mean it, that you will not be married, that you will never marry? Ah! you are a good girl and I love you. Tell me that you love me too.”
“Raymond!”
Their lips met and clung together. It was the first time.
Several moments of silence and of delicious embarrassment followed. Seated side by side, looking each other in the face, among the wild grass which the sun strewed with sparks of light, in which long white threads waved to and fro, they felt that something new and unforeseen had glided between them. He was no longer her little one, she was no longer his Tantine. They were alone. The stagnant water in the ditches gleamed in the sunlight. The whole park sang and quivered. Ah! if the precociously wicked young man could have seen them, how he would have laughed at their burning, parted lips, at their hands which they dropped at their sides, full of useless caresses.
The silence was broken by their two names shouted under the hedge, where a whole aviary, startled by the sound, chirped and twittered.
“Casta, — she is looking for us. Father must be anxious about us,” said the girl in an undertone; and they both arose quickly, blushing. Why blush, since they were not to blame?
Genevieve was mistaken. Père Izoard was so far from feeling the least uneasiness, that he proposed to take advantage of his daughter’s absence to have an understanding with the suitor on the subject of the dowry, a serious question, always embarrassing to discuss before the young woman concerned.
Standing in the doorway of the old slate-roofed summer-house, an arched doorway with a knocker, surmounted by a stone escutcheon, the hunting figures upon which were three-fourths effaced, the old stenographer, as soon as he saw the stage appear on the road from Antony, laden with Parisians as on the loveliest Sundays in summer, cocked his broad-brimmed planter’s hat, on which there had been a mourning band for two years, over one ear, and majestically descended the three steps to go and meet his future son-in-law. The omnibus stopped at the Mauglas’ door; they hired a summer house next to his, but more modern. Mauglas and his father, an old peasant twisted like a vine, with a complexion like a ploughed furrow, received from the driver, with infinite precautions, baskets large and small, and game baskets, with the mark of the most celebrated caterers to Parisian epicurism, and passed them to the long, yellow, bony, callous hands, at the ends of fleshless arms, of Mère Mauglas, who was cooking behind her half-closed shutters. The old partisan of ‘48, planted in the middle of the road, watched this performance with envy.
“What epicures they are! And it is always like this every Sunday. The son invites his friends to these family feasts; there’s a whole lot of them now.”
Young men with eye-glasses and monocles, in silk hats and frock coats, the costume of bailiffs or of country doctors, but with intelligent, tired faces, leaped from the carriage and, suddenly infected by the sparkling light and oxygen, entered the Mauglas’ garden, capering about and uttering wild cries. The last to alight, a man dressed with more care, in a complete suit of green, and pearl-gray gloves, left the group, bowing with an air of reserve; it was Monsieur Siméon, the clerk from the auditor’s office.
Nephew of a colonel on the retired list, who was also a Deputy and Auditor of the Chamber, the young man plumed himself upon his exalted connections, affected a pompous strut, sported a moustache and royale, a varied assortment of cravats and canes, and in the presence of ladies had a conceited little fluttering of the eyelid.
“Well, Siméon, didn’t I tell you that she would come to it, that it was only a question of a little patience with you? Now we are all right, my boy!”
Opening a vine-embowered gate with a bell, at the side of the road, the old stenographer introduced Siméon into a large orchard which he shared with the Mauglas, separated from them by a low wall with fruit trees growing against it. On the right and in the rear there were no neighbors; and on those sides dense bushes of wild plum and hawthorn separated the garden from the plain, which stretched away as far as the eye could see. A path of finely sifted gravel, bordered by fruit trees and also by a few evergreens, so that the invalid could feast her eyes upon a little verdure in the winter, ran the whole length of the garden, intersected in the centre by a circular space where there stood a thatched roof, whose rustic supports served as a back to a circular bench. There the two men seated themselves to talk freely before Geneviève’s arrival. They heard loud laughter in the adjoining garden, the merry humor born of cocktails, and the church bell of Morangis tolling in the distance.
“I have already told you, my dear Siméon, that my daughter formerly possessed a fortune of fifty thousand francs, left to the dear child by her grandmother at Nice; now this is how that little fortune came to be impaired.”
Père Izoard coughed several times to give his future son-in-law time to say: “What difference do you suppose that makes to me?” or “I am above such considerations as that, my dear father-in-law!” but Siméon maintained the most absolute silence, and the father had to continue:
“When my wife fell sick and we hired this place, this bit of a garden and this summer house pleased her so much that a mere hiring did not satisfy her. She insisted upon purchasing. She was kept awake by the thought that her happiness might come to an end with our lease. ‘Buy the house,’ said the little one. Unluckily I had but fifteen thousand francs at my disposal, and the price was twenty-five thousand. Genevieve made up the difference, which will not surprise you.”
On the contrary, the young man seemed very much surprised.
“A short time after,” continued the stenographer, “Victor Eudeline, the father of the two children whom you know, needed some money for building purposes; it was a vital question to him, how to let his unproductive yard. The little one asked me:
‘How much does he need?’—’ Ten thousand francs.’—’ Here they are!’ — Her mother and I made all reasonable objections: ‘Look out! in these days it is of no use for a girl to be pretty, she can’t get a husband without a dowry.’ The child laughed. ‘Siméon will marry me all the same, he loves me.’ Ah! she knew you, my dear boy. All the same, that made ten thousand francs less for her. No one of the Eudelines has ever suspected that the money came from the little one; she would have it so. It seemed to her that the children would love her less, that the rôle of benefactress would embarrass her with them. A fancy of hers, but a pretty fancy, was it not, my dear boy?”
There was a long pause, broken here and there by the cries of birds, and accompanied by the distant bells playing a bright, sweet song in the sunshine. Oh! such a deep blue sky, and such a sunny morning for’ a happy betrothal!
“If I reckon right, then, Mademoiselle Geneviève’s dowry is only thirty thousand at this time?” Having asked this question in a hissing sort of voice, the clerk from the auditor’s office did not await a reply.
“It is very unfortunate,” he said pensively, with his head bent forward and his hands behind his back, tapping his legs with his gold-headed cane.
And he walked slowly all around the bench, trying to explain the embarrassment of his situation — that he must have fifty thousand francs, not thirty thousand; that that amount was indispensable for his contribution in an important affair, a kennel of racing dogs which he was about to set up with the chief whipper-in of the Dampierre pack, a stock company with four shares of fifty thousand each. They were all waiting for his, and indeed they had been waiting for it a long while. And the clerk continued, blinking his foppish little eye:
“As you can imagine, dear Monsieur Izoard, I have not lacked opportunities. My uncle the auditor has obtained the offer of very handsome dowries for me two or three times; but Mademoiselle Geneviève, with a more modest contribution, tempted me much more. However, I must keep my engagements and not leave to others the profit of an idea which belongs to me; for it was I who conceived this idea of racing dogs, and I should have liked so much to have your daughter profit by it.”
“Bah! you know what sort of a girl she is,” said Père Izoard, unable as yet to imagine what Siméon was driving at. “The little one takes after her father, she has never known the value of money. Love each other and have fine children, and deuce take me if I ask you to do more!”
The man from the auditor’s office hastily ceased his little circular walk, and with his two pearl-gray hands resting on the gold head of his cane, he declared as calmly as you please that, as it was one of his weaknesses to have a horror of breaking his word, it would be impossible for him to make the match without at least fifty thousand francs.
“My daughter has not that sum, monsieur,” replied the old man, very pale.
He saw his Siméon now, in all his glory.
“In that case, dear Monsieur Izoard, despite my very keen regret, I find myself under the necessity—”
He took off his hat, bowed in the sunlight his little round skull, traversed like Izoard’s garden by a straight, beautifully-raked path, then walked at a stiff, rapid pace to the gate, which went ting-a-ling as it opened upon the high road.
“Siméon, what about breakfast?” cried the old man.
At Morangis restaurants are rare; he must go back to Antony, and perhaps have to wait for a train. Siméon had not thought of that. He hesitated, with his hand on the gate. But the idea of facing Genevieve — He made a gesture à la Manlius, and hastened away as if one of his racing dogs were running off with him.
Crushed by the unexpectedness and the brutality of his disappointment, the stenographer sat motionless under the arbor, repeating mechanically in his white beard, “Well, upon my word! Well, upon my word!” and thus Raymond and Genevieve found him, when they arrived with Sophia Castagnozoff. All three wore a strange expression. Tantine, quivering with excitement and with a thrill of anxiety which flushed her cheeks, was wondering what pretext she could give her father and Siméon for a definite refusal; Raymond, all quivering with the first kiss, still felt her flexible form in his arms, and the pressure of her rounded breasts against his heart. Do what he would, his glance at the girl was radiant with a gratitude which embellished them both, “What is the matter with them?” the student asked herself, as they walked along; and all the way she questioned her friend:
“Did you tell him?”
“To be sure I did.”
“Well, he doesn’t seem to look distressed at all.”
“I do not know why,” signified Genevieve’s evasive gesture; for she was thinking solely of her refusal, and of what she could say to her unfortunate suitor.
“Siméon has just gone from here,” rumbled the goodman’s bass, as his daughter appeared on the stoop.
“What! he has gone away?”
There was a medley of diverse and bewildered impressions.
“And never to return, I trust, trondesarnipabieùne!” thundered the Marseillais, who could find no words sufficiently blasphemous, no insult on a level with his wrath.
“Just guess, my girl,” he threw his arms before him, violently enough to dislocate his shoulder. “Just guess why Siméon won’t have you; for there is no use beating about the bush — he is the one who refuses now. And his reason? Because there are twenty thousand francs missing from your dowry. Don’t you think he is a pretty blackbird?”
His daughter threw her arms around his neck.
“Poor father, never mind! We shall be consoled very soon.”
Her eyes gleamed beneath the light, hypocritical veil of melancholy with which she tried to disguise her joy.
“It will not be very difficult to replace him,” said the Russian, her eye-glasses straying anxiously from Raymond to Tantine. “And, without looking very far, I fancy that young Mauglas—” The old stenographer started violently. Very jealous of his daughter, but blind like all jealous people, he had never noticed his neighbor’s attentions and advances.
“Young Mauglas!” he said in his deepest bass.
As if in answer to him, in the adjoining garden a hoarse baritone roared out, accompanied by the thrum of a guitar:
“To table, oh! to table!
Let us eat this fine young shoat—”
A chorus of falsetto voices, accompanied by drums and saucepans, continued in unison:
“Which would be most detestable,
If it were not eaten hot!”
Geneviève took her father’s arm.
“You see my lover’s frame of mind. Let us profit by the example and the advice which he gives us, and go to breakfast, my friends.”
In the dining-room of the old summer house, more than a century old, where so many drinking songs and the coarse laughter of so many farmers-general, army contractors, peers and senators of the Restoration and the Empire, had made the long windows with their tiny green panes shake in their sashes, — in this dining-room, which on Sunday afternoon was transformed into a study for Tantine and her pupil, Raymond had passed many pleasant moments, but never a day like this. The vast luminous plain with its background of violet mist, which he saw from his seat while breakfasting, spread out before him, like a new and gorgeous country, an unknown land which passion had just revealed. Sitting opposite Genevieve, whenever their eyes met he longed to cry out to her: “Come, let us fly away!” There was in his whole being, an affluence of strength and joy, at the idea that she had promised herself to him forever, at the unfading savor of their first kiss. Now, life no longer frightened him.
_preview.jpg)
