Cousin Pons. Honore de Balzac

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СКАЧАТЬ the display of the capacity for business inherited by a descendant of the Virlaz family. Yet, in spite of his assiduity, in spite of abilities which possibly may have stood in his way, his salary only reached the sum of two thousand francs in 1843. Penury, that divine stepmother, did for the two men all that their mothers had not been able to do for them; Poverty taught them thrift and worldly wisdom; Poverty gave them her grand rough education, the lessons which she drives with hard knocks into the heads of great men, who seldom know a happy childhood. Fritz and Wilhelm, being but ordinary men, learned as little as they possibly could in her school; they dodged the blows, shrank from her hard breast and bony arms, and never discovered the good fairy lurking within, ready to yield to the caresses of genius. One thing, however, they learned thoroughly – they discovered the value of money, and vowed to clip the wings of riches if ever a second fortune should come to their door.

      This was the history which Wilhelm Schwab related in German, at much greater length, to his friend the pianist, ending with;

      “Well, Papa Schmucke, the rest is soon explained. Old Brunner is dead. He left four millions! He made an immense amount of money out of Baden railways, though neither his son nor M. Graff, with whom we lodge, had any idea that the old man was one of the original shareholders. I am playing the flute here for the last time this evening; I would have left some days ago, but this was a first performance, and I did not want to spoil my part.”

      “Goot, mine friend,” said Schmucke. “But who is die prite?”

      “She is Mlle. Graff, the daughter of our host, the landlord of the Hotel du Rhin. I have loved Mlle. Emilie these seven years; she has read so many immoral novels, that she refused all offers for me, without knowing what might come of it. She will be a very wealthy young lady; her uncles, the tailors in the Rue de Richelieu, will leave her all their money. Fritz is giving me the money we squandered at Strasbourg five times over! He is putting a million francs in a banking house, M. Graff the tailor is adding another five hundred thousand francs, and Mlle. Emilie’s father not only allows me to incorporate her portion – two hundred and fifty thousand francs – with the capital, but he himself will be a shareholder with as much again. So the firm of Brunner, Schwab and Company will start with two millions five hundred thousand francs. Fritz has just bought fifteen hundred thousand francs’ worth of shares in the Bank of France to guarantee our account with them. That is not all Fritz’s fortune. He has his father’s house property, supposed to be worth another million, and he has let the Grand Hotel de Hollande already to a cousin of the Graffs.”

      “You look sad ven you look at your friend,” remarked Schmucke, who had listened with great interest. “Kann you pe chealous of him?”

      “I am jealous for Fritz’s happiness,” said Wilhelm. “Does that face look as if it belonged to a happy man? I am afraid of Paris; I should like to see him do as I am doing. The old tempter may awake again. Of our two heads, his carries the less ballast. His dress, and the opera-glass and the rest of it make me anxious. He keeps looking at the lorettes in the house. Oh! if you only knew how hard it is to marry Fritz. He has a horror of ‘going a-courting,’ as you say; you would have to give him a drop into a family, just as in England they give a man a drop into the next world.”

      During the uproar that usually marks the end of a first night, the flute delivered his invitation to the conductor. Pons accepted gleefully; and, for the first time in three months, Schmucke saw a smile on his friend’s face. They went back to the Rue de Normandie in perfect silence; that sudden flash of joy had thrown a light on the extent of the disease which was consuming Pons. Oh, that a man so truly noble, so disinterested, so great in feeling, should have such a weakness!.. This was the thought that struck the stoic Schmucke dumb with amazement. He grew woefully sad, for he began to see that there was no help for it; he must even renounce the pleasure of seeing “his goot Bons” opposite him at the dinner-table, for the sake of Pons’ welfare; and he did not know whether he could give him up; the mere thought of it drove him distracted.

      Meantime, Pons’ proud silence and withdrawal to the Mons Aventinus of the Rue de Normandie had, as might be expected, impressed the Presidente, not that she troubled herself much about her parasite, now that she was freed from him. She thought, with her charming daughter, that Cousin Pons had seen through her little “Lili’s” joke. But it was otherwise with her husband the President.

      Camusot de Marville, a short and stout man, grown solemn since his promotion at the Court, admired Cicero, preferred the Opera-Comique to the Italiens, compared the actors one with another, and followed the multitude step by step. He used to recite all the articles in the Ministerialist journals, as if he were saying something original, and in giving his opinion at the Council Board he paraphrased the remarks of the previous speaker. His leading characteristics were sufficiently well known; his position compelled him to take everything seriously; and he was particularly tenacious of family ties.

      Like most men who are ruled by their wives, the President asserted his independence in trifles, in which his wife was very careful not to thwart him. For a month he was satisfied with the Presidente’s commonplace explanations of Pons’ disappearance; but at last it struck him as singular that the old musician, a friend of forty years’ standing, should first make them so valuable a present as a fan that belonged to Mme. de Pompadour, and then immediately discontinue his visits. Count Popinot had pronounced the trinket a masterpiece; when its owner went to Court, the fan had been passed from hand to hand, and her vanity was not a little gratified by the compliments it received; others had dwelt on the beauties of the ten ivory sticks, each one covered with delicate carving, the like of which had never been seen. A Russian lady (Russian ladies are apt to forget that they are not in Russia) had offered her six thousand francs for the marvel one day at Count Popinot’s house, and smiled to see it in such hands. Truth to tell, it was a fan for a Duchess.

      “It cannot be denied that poor Cousin Pons understands rubbish of that sort – ” said Cecile, the day after the bid.

      “Rubbish!” cried her parent. “Why, Government is just about to buy the late M. le Conseiller Dusommerard’s collection for three hundred thousand francs; and the State and the Municipality of Paris between them are spending nearly a million francs over the purchase and repair of the Hotel de Cluny to house the ‘rubbish,’ as you call it. – Such ‘rubbish,’ dear child,” he resumed, “is frequently all that remains of vanished civilizations. An Etruscan jar, and a necklace, which sometimes fetch forty and fifty thousand francs, is ‘rubbish’ which reveals the perfection of art at the time of the siege of Troy, proving that the Etruscans were Trojan refugees in Italy.”

      This was the President’s cumbrous way of joking; the short, fat man was heavily ironical with his wife and daughter.

      “The combination of various kinds of knowledge required to understand such ‘rubbish,’ Cecile,” he resumed, “is a science in itself, called archaeology. Archaeology comprehends architecture, sculpture, painting, goldsmiths’ work, ceramics, cabinetmaking (a purely modern art), lace, tapestry – in short, human handiwork of every sort and description.”

      “Then Cousin Pons is learned?” said Cecile.

      “Ah! by the by, why is he never to be seen nowadays?” asked the President. He spoke with the air of a man in whom thousands of forgotten and dormant impressions have suddenly begun to stir, and shaping themselves into one idea, reach consciousness with a ricochet, as sportsmen say.

      “He must have taken offence at nothing at all,” answered his wife. “I dare say I was not as fully sensible as I might have been of the value of the fan that he gave me. I am ignorant enough, as you know, of – ”

      “You! One of Servin’s best pupils, and you don’t know Watteau?” cried the President.

      “I know Gerard and David and Gros and Griodet, and M. de Forbin and M. Turpin de Crisse – ”

      “You СКАЧАТЬ