"I will unearth him, never fear; I have my cue!"

x.x.xVIII

THE TWO SISTERS

A fortnight after her husband's death, f.a.n.n.y was installed in small and unpretentious apartments in the upper part of Faubourg Poissonniere.

With her dowry of twenty thousand francs, the proceeds of the sale of her furniture, horses, and carriages, and the sum which she had made by speculating in railway and other shares, the young widow had an income of about twenty-five hundred francs. That was very little, when compared with the handsome fortune she had enjoyed for a moment, but it was enough to enable a woman who was a skilful manager to live comfortably.

Monsieur Gerbault had suggested to the young widow that she should come to live with him and her sister, as she had done before her marriage, but f.a.n.n.y had refused; she preferred to remain free; and then, too, in all probability, she cherished some hopes for the future, and as she looked at her reflection in her mirror,--for she had retained enough of her furniture to furnish her new abode handsomely,--the pretty creature said to herself that plenty of aspirants to the honor of putting an end to her widowhood would surely come forward; and that, by living alone, she would be more at liberty and better able to choose.

As for the deceased, his suicide had been the sensation of the Bourse and of society for a week; a fortnight later, it was rarely mentioned, and at the end of a month everybody had forgotten it.

But, no: there was one person who often thought of him, to deplore his melancholy end, to regret that fortune had been so cruel to that young man, who, for his part, had treated fortune too cavalierly when she smiled on him. That person was not his widow, but her sister Adolphine.

The poor child had at first felt terribly ashamed because she had betrayed the deep interest she felt in Gustave; but she was unable to control the emotion which had seized her when she thought that Cherami had come to inform her of his death. Later, when she knew the truth, she had wept a long while over Auguste's death; then she had hurried to her sister, to comfort her, to mingle her own tears with hers; but she had found f.a.n.n.y much more engrossed by her pecuniary affairs than by the loss of her husband. Finally, as the young widow found that her sister came to see her every day, and that she persisted in talking about Auguste and shedding abundant tears to his memory, she said to her one day:

"My dear girl, if your purpose in coming here is to divert my thoughts, you go about it very awkwardly. Monsieur Monleard is dead, because he preferred it so; he left me, because he chose to, without troubling himself overmuch as to what was to become of me; frankly, it was hardly worth while to marry me, just to act like this after only six months. He was responsible for my refusing a young man who, as it turns out, would have made me much happier--that poor Gustave, who loved me so dearly!

For he really did love me, did Gustave, and, according to what you told me the other day, he is doing very well indeed now. Ten thousand francs a year, he earns, I believe?"

Adolphine wiped her eyes and swallowed her tears, as she replied in a faltering voice:

"Yes--I think so."

"What! you think so? So you're not sure of it now?"

"Why, yes; he told me so himself."

"Very good! with ten thousand francs one can live comfortably enough.

One can't have such a stable as I had with Monsieur Monleard; but it's better never to have a carriage than to have to give it up. In fact, I don't see why I should cry my eyes out for the dead man. In the first place, I despise men who kill themselves; everyone is ent.i.tled to his own opinion, but that's mine. A man should be able to endure the blows of destiny. Do you know where Gustave is now?"

"No, I don't; he intended to leave Paris again."

"That's strange. Formerly, he always told you where he was going; and now that I ask you, you don't know anything about him."

"He said something about Germany, that's all I know."

"On his uncle's business, I suppose?"

"I think so."

"Well, people don't travel forever; he'll return some time, poor Gustave! and we shall meet again. Ah! he had changed tremendously for the better when he came back from Spain; he had acquired ease of manner and refinement, hadn't he?"

"I didn't notice."

"Oh! how angry you make me!--It seems to me, however, that it's more interesting to talk about the living than the dead."

"Everybody isn't consoled as quickly as you."

"Do you propose to give me a lecture?"

"No, sister; I meant simply that anyone was very fortunate to have such a temperament as yours."

"My dear Adolphine, I have been a widow two months now, and I know a little something of the world. When you have had as much experience as I have, you will realize that you should be able to find consolation for anything."

"I don't think I shall ever be as philosophical as you."

Whenever the two sisters met, f.a.n.n.y did not fail to lead the conversation to the subject of Gustave. That subject, although intensely interesting to Adolphine, was very painful to her when f.a.n.n.y introduced it; but, being accustomed by long practice to conceal the secrets of her heart, to confine therein a sentiment which she dared not avow to anyone, f.a.n.n.y's younger sister contrived to listen with apparent indifference to the project which Auguste's widow already had in contemplation.

One day, while talking with Adolphine, f.a.n.n.y suddenly asked:

"By the way, do you know who that man was whom Monsieur Monleard employed to inform me of his death? I never saw him at the house, and yet Auguste must have been intimately acquainted with him to intrust him with such a commission."

"That was Monsieur Cherami."

"Yes, that's the name he gave me when he left his address and offered me his services. He has a most original aspect, that individual. But who is Monsieur Cherami, anyway? When I asked him to go to tell you, he seemed to know father's name."

"Indeed! he probably learned it from Gustave."

"Does the man know Gustave too? For heaven's sake, does he know everybody? Was it through Gustave that he knew my husband, also?"

"Why, yes, in a certain sense; for----"

"For what? Do go on, Adolphine; I don't know what's the matter with you nowadays, but I have to tear the words out of your mouth."

"I thought you knew about it at the time. Your husband fought a duel the day after your wedding."

"I know all about that; with a fellow who called out, when I left the ball that night: 'There goes the faithless f.a.n.n.y!'--Mon Dieu! I remember it as well as if it were yesterday. But what connection----"

"The man who made that remark when he saw you leaving the ball was Monsieur Cherami."

"That man? nonsense! Do you mean to say that it was he whom my husband fought with?"

"Yes, it really was."

"Ha! ha! ha! that is too funny!"

"What! you laugh?"

"Why shouldn't I laugh, pray? Ah! how little idea men have of what they want, and how richly they deserve, as a general rule, that we should make sport of their mighty wrath! Think of it! Monsieur Monleard fights a duel with Monsieur Cherami, and, a few weeks later, selects him as the confidant of his last wishes! You see that men don't know what they are doing, and that these lords of creation, who a.s.sume to deem themselves much more reasonable than we, are infinitely less so."

"There may have been other reasons that we don't know about."

"Oh! you will always take sides with the men!"

"Why accuse those who are no longer able to defend themselves?"

"Oh! that is a superb retort; but, I may ask, why give the dead credit for qualities which they had not when they were alive? I have heard that done a hundred times in society. There was some artist or author, of whom they said things much too bad for hanging: he was ill-natured, envious; he decried his fellows, he had neither talent, nor style, nor imagination. But, let him die--the same people all sang the palinode: the deceased was a most delightful man, kind-hearted, obliging to his fellow artists, full of talent, gifted with a marvellous imagination.