Madame Firmiani

Through the ring of her voice was slightly raised during the first part of this answer, the last words were said with the ease and self-possession of Celimene bantering the Misanthrope.

“Madame,” said Monsieur de Bourbonne, in a voice of some emotion, “I am an old man; I am almost Octave’s father, and I ask your pardon most humbly for the question that I shall now venture to put to you, giving you my word of honor as a loyal gentleman that your answer shall die here,” – laying his hand upon his heart, with an old-fashioned gesture that was truly religious. “Are these rumors true; do you love Octave?”

“Monsieur,” she replied, “to any other man I should answer that question only by a look; but to you, and because you are indeed almost the father of Monsieur de Camps, I reply by asking what you would think of a woman if to such a question she answered you? To avow our love for him we love, when he loves us – ah! that may be; but even when we are certain of being loved forever, believe me, monsieur, it is an effort for us, and a reward to him. To say to another! – ”

She did not end her sentence, but rose, bowed to the old man, and withdrew into her private apartments, the doors of which, opening and closing behind her, had a language of their own to his sagacious ears.

“Ah! the mischief!” thought he; “what a woman! she is either a sly one or an angel”; and he got into his hired coach, the horses of which were stamping on the pavement of the silent courtyard, while the coachman was asleep on his box after cursing for the hundredth time his tardy customer.

The next morning about eight o’clock the old gentleman mounted the stairs of a house in the rue de l’Observance where Octave de Camps was living. If there was ever an astonished man it was the young professor when he beheld his uncle. The door was unlocked, his lamp still burning; he had been sitting up all night.

“You rascal!” said Monsieur de Bourbonne, sitting down in the nearest chair; “since when is it the fashion to laugh at uncles who have twenty-six thousand francs a year from solid acres to which we are the sole heir? Let me tell you that in the olden time we stood in awe of such uncles as that. Come, speak up, what fault have you to find with me? Haven’t I played my part as uncle properly? Did I ever require you to respect me? Have I ever refused you money? When did I shut the door in your face on pretence that you had come to look after my health? Haven’t you had the most accommodating and the least domineering uncle that there is in France, – I won’t say Europe, because that might be too presumptuous. You write to me, or you don’t write, – no matter, I live on pledged affection, and I am making you the prettiest estate in all Touraine, the envy of the department. To be sure, I don’t intend to let you have it till the last possible moment, but that’s an excusable little fancy, isn’t it? And what does monsieur himself do? – sells his own property and lives like a lackey! – ”

“Uncle – ”

“I’m not talking about uncles, I’m talking nephew. I have a right to your confidence. Come, confess at once; it is much the easiest way; I know that by experience. Have you been gambling? have you lost money at the Bourse? Say, ‘Uncle, I’m a wretch,’ and I’ll hug you. But if you tell me any lies greater than those I used to tell at your age I’ll sell my property, buy an annuity, and go back to the evil ways of my youth – if I can.”

“Uncle – ”

“I saw your Madame Firmiani yesterday,” went on the old fellow, kissing the tips of his fingers, which he gathered into a bunch. “She is charming. You have the consent and approbation of your uncle, if that will do you any good. As to the sanction of the Church I suppose that’s useless, and the sacraments cost so much in these days. Come, speak out, have you ruined yourself for her?”

“Yes, uncle.”

“Ha! the jade! I’d have wagered it. In my time the women of the court were cleverer at ruining a man than the courtesans of to-day; but this one – I recognized her! – it is a bit of the last century.”

“Uncle,” said Octave, with a manner that was tender and grave, “you are totally mistaken. Madame Firmiani deserves your esteem, and all the adoration the world gives her.”

“Youth, youth! always the same!” cried Monsieur de Bourbonne. “Well, go on; tell me the same old story. But please remember that my experience in gallantry is not of yesterday.”

“My dear, kind uncle, here is a letter which will tell you nearly all,” said Octave, taking it from an elegant portfolio, her gift, no doubt. “When you have read it I will tell you the rest, and you will then know a Madame Firmiani who is unknown to the world.”

“I haven’t my spectacles; read it aloud.”

Octave began: —

“‘My beloved – ‘”

“Hey, then you are still intimate with her?” interrupted his uncle.

“Why yes, of course.”

“You haven’t parted from her?”

“Parted!” repeated Octave, “we are married.”

“Heavens!” cried Monsieur de Bourbonne, “then why do you live in a garret?”

“Let me go on.”

“True – I’m listening.”

Octave resumed the letter, but there were passages which he could not read without deep emotion.

“‘My beloved Husband, – You ask me the reason of my sadness. Has it, then, passed from my soul to my face; or have you only guessed it? – but how could you fail to do so, one in heart as we are? I cannot deceive you; this may be a misfortune, for it is one of the conditions of happy love that a wife shall be gay and caressing. Perhaps I ought to deceive you, but I would not do it even if the happiness with which you have blessed and overpowered me depended on it.

“‘Ah! dearest, how much gratitude there is in my love. I long to love you forever, without limit; yes, I desire to be forever proud of you. A woman’s glory is in the man she loves. Esteem, consideration, honor, must they not be his who receives our all? Well, my angel has fallen. Yes, dear, the tale you told me has tarnished my past joys. Since then I have felt myself humiliated in you, – you whom I thought the most honorable of men, as you are the most loving, the most tender. I must indeed have deep confidence in your heart, so young and pure, to make you this avowal which costs me much. Ah! my dear love, how is it that you, knowing your father had unjustly deprived others of their property, that YOU can keep it?

“‘And you told me of this criminal act in a room filled with the mute witnesses of our love; and you are a gentleman, and you think yourself noble, and I am yours! I try to find excuses for you; I do find them in your youth and thoughtlessness. I know there is still something of the child about you. Perhaps you have never thought seriously of what fortune and integrity are. Oh! how your laugh wounded me. Reflect on that ruined family, always in distress; poor young girls who have reason to curse you daily; an old father saying to himself each night: “We might not now be starving if that man’s father had been an honest man – “’”

“Good heavens!” cried Monsieur de Bourbonne, interrupting his nephew, “surely you have not been such a fool as to tell that woman about your father’s affair with the Bourgneufs? Women know more about wasting a fortune than making one.”

“They know about integrity. But let me read on, uncle.”

“‘Octave, no power on earth has authority to change the principles of honor. Look into your conscience and ask it by what name you are to call the action by which you hold your property.’”

The nephew looked at the uncle, who lowered his head.

“‘I will not tell you all the thoughts that assail me; they can be reduced to one, – this is it: I cannot respect the man who, knowingly, is smirched for a sum of money, whatever the amount may be; five francs stolen at play or five times a hundred thousand gained by a legal trick are equally dishonoring. I will tell you all. I feel myself degraded by the very love which has hitherto been all my joy. There rises in my soul a voice which my tenderness cannot stifle. Ah! I have wept to feel that I have more conscience than love. Were you to commit a crime I would hide you in my bosom from human justice, but my devotion could go no farther. Love, to a woman, means boundless confidence, united to a need of reverencing, of esteeming, the being to whom she belongs. I have never conceived of love otherwise than as a fire in which all noble feelings are purified still more, – a fire which develops them.

“‘I have but one thing else to say: come to me poor, and my love shall be redoubled. If not, renounce it. Should I see you no more, I shall know what it means.

“‘But I do not wish, understand me, that you should make restitution because I urge it. Consult your own conscience. An act of justice such as that ought not to be a sacrifice made to love. I am your wife and not your mistress, and it is less a question of pleasing me than of inspiring in my soul a true respect.

“‘If I am mistaken, if you have ill-explained your father’s action, if, in short, you still think your right to the property equitable (oh! how I long to persuade myself that you are blameless), consider and decide by listening to the voice of your conscience; act wholly and solely from yourself. A man who loves a woman sincerely, as you love me, respects the sanctity of her trust in him too deeply to dishonor himself.

“‘I blame myself now for what I have written; a word might have sufficed, and I have preached to you! Scold me; I wish to be scolded, – but not much, only a little. Dear, between us two the power is yours – you alone should perceive your own faults.’”

“Well, uncle?” said Octave, whose eyes were full of tears.

“There’s more in the letter; finish it.”

“Oh, the rest is only to be read by a lover,” answered Octave, smiling.

“Yes, right, my boy,” said the old man, gently. “I have had many affairs in my day, but I beg you to believe that I too have loved, ‘et ego in Arcardia.’ But I don’t understand yet why you give lessons in mathematics.”

“My dear uncle, I am your nephew; isn’t that as good as saying that I had dipped into the capital left me by my father? After I had read this letter a sort of revolution took place within me. I paid my whole arrearage of remorse in one day. I cannot describe to you the state I was in. As I drove in the Bois a voice called to me, ‘That horse is not yours’; when I ate my dinner it was saying, ‘You have stolen this food.’ I was ashamed. The fresher my honesty, the more intense it was. I rushed to Madame Firmiani. Uncle! that day I had pleasures of the heart, enjoyments of the soul, that were far beyond millions. Together we made out the account of what was due to the Bourgneufs, and I condemned myself, against Madame Firmiani’s advice, to pay three per cent interest. But all I had did not suffice to cover the full amount. We were lovers enough for her to offer, and me to accept, her savings – ”

“What! besides her other virtues does that adorable woman lay by money?” cried his uncle.

“Don’t laugh at her, uncle; her position has obliged her to be very careful. Her husband went to Greece in 1820 and died there three years later. It has been impossible, up to the present time, to get legal proofs of his death, or obtain the will which he made leaving his whole property to his wife. These papers were either lost or stolen, or have gone astray during the troubles in Greece, – a country where registers are not kept as they are in France, and where we have no consul. Uncertain whether she might not be forced to give up her fortune, she has lived with the utmost prudence. As for me, I wish to acquire property which shall be mine, so as to provide for my wife in case she is forced to lose hers.”

“But why didn’t you tell me all this? My dear nephew, you might have known that I love you enough to pay all your good debts, the debts of a gentleman. I’ll play the traditional uncle now, and revenge myself!”

“Ah! uncle, I know your vengeance! but let me get rich by my own industry. If you want to do me a real service, make me an allowance of two or three thousand francs a year, till I see my way to an enterprise for which I shall want capital. At this moment I am so happy that all I desire is just the means of living. I give lessons so that I may not live at the cost of any one. If you only knew the happiness I had in making that restitution! I found the Bourgneufs, after a good deal of trouble, living miserably and in need of everything. The old father was a lottery agent; the two daughters kept his books and took care of the house; the mother was always ill. The daughters are charming girls, but they have been cruelly taught that the world thinks little of beauty without money. What a scene it was! I entered their house the accomplice in a crime; I left it an honest man, who had purged his father’s memory. Uncle, I don’t judge him; there is such excitement, such passion in a lawsuit that even an honorable man may be led astray by them. Lawyers can make the most unjust claims legal; laws have convenient syllogisms to quiet consciences. My visit was a drama. To be Providence itself; actually to fulfil that futile wish, ‘If heaven were to send us twenty thousand francs a year,’ – that silly wish we all make, laughing; to bring opulence to a family sitting by the light of one miserable lamp over a poor turf fire! – no, words cannot describe it. My extreme justice seemed to them unjust. Well! if there is a Paradise my father is happy in it now. As for me, I am loved as no man was ever loved yet. Madame Firmiani gives me more than happiness; she has inspired me with a delicacy of feeling I think I lacked. So I call her my dear conscience, – a love-word which expresses certain secret harmonies within our hearts. I find honesty profitable; I shall get rich in time by myself. I’ve an industrial scheme in my head, and if it succeeds I shall earn millions.”

“Ah! my boy, you have your mother’s soul,” said the old man, his eyes filling at the thought of his sister.

Just then, in spite of the distance between Octave’s garret and the street, the young man heard the sound of a carriage.