Cousin Pons

by Honoré de Balzac

  *

  ‘Well, Papa Schmucke,’ Wilhelm continued, after lengthily narrating this story to the pianist, in German, ‘I can tell you the rest in a nutshell. Brunner senior is dead. Without his own son or Herr Graff, in whose house we live, knowing a word about it, he had been one of the promoters of railroads in Baden. He made enormous sums out of that, and his estate amounts to four millions! No more flute-playing for me after tonight; had this not been a first performance, I should have left several days ago, but I didn’t want to leave a gap in the score.’

  ‘Zat iss goot, younk man,’ said Schmucke, ‘put who iss it you marry?’

  ‘The daughter of our host Herr Graff, who owns the Hôtel du Rhin. I have been in love with Fraülein Émilie for seven years, and she has read so many ‘immoral’ novels that for my sake she has refused every proposal of marriage, without knowing how things would turn out. This young lady is very rich, for she is the sole heiress of the Graff tailoring firm in the rue de Richelieu. Fritz is going to give me five times the amount we squandered together in Strasbourg – five hundred thousand francs! He is putting a million francs into a banking house, in which Herr Graff the tailor is also investing five hundred thousand francs. My fiancée’s father is letting me use her marriage portion for the same purpose – two hundred and fifty thousand francs – and he is coming in for the same sum. So the house of Brunner, Schwab and Company will have a capital of two and a half million francs. Fritz has just bought fifteen hundred thousand francs’ worth of shares in the Banque de France, as a backing for our account. And that does not include all Fritz’s fortune: he still has his father’s houses in Frankfurt, which are valued at a million, and he has already let the Grand Hôtel de Hollande to a cousin of the Graffs.’

  ‘You look viz satness at your frient,’ replied Schmucke, ‘you are tchealous off him?’

  ‘I’m not jealous of him, but for him – for his happiness. Is that the face of a contented man? I fear the effect Paris may have on him. I wish he would do what I am doing. The old Adam may revive in him. Of the two of us, he is by no means the more steady-minded. His clothes, his opera-glasses – all that worries me; he has eyes only for the loose women in the audience. If you only knew what a job it is to get Fritz married! The idea of paying court to a young lady appals him. He needs to be flung into family life, as the English fling criminals into eternity.’

  During the commotion which marks the close of all first performances, the flautist invited the conductor to his wedding-party. Pons joyfully accepted. Schmucke then saw a smile dawn on his friend’s face for the first time in months. He took him back to the rue de Normandie in profound silence, for Pons’s elation showed him how deep-seated was the malady gnawing at his vitals. That so noble-hearted and unselfish a man, one of such great feeling, should be a prey to such weakness! This simply stupefied the stoical Schmucke, for he recognized that he would have to give up the pleasure of seeing his ‘goot Pons’ opposite him at table every day – for the greater happiness of Pons himself. He was not sure he could bring himself to this sacrifice: the thought of it drove him out of his wits.

  *

  The haughty silence maintained by Pons in his retreat on the Aventine Hill of the rue de Normandie had necessarily made its impression on the Présidente, though she lost no sleep for being delivered of her parasite. She and her charming daughter surmised that her little Lili’s pleasantry had got home to her cousin. But her husband showed some concern. The stout little Président Camusot de Marville, whose judicial preferment had made him portentous, admired Cicero, liked the Comic Opera better than the Théâtre des Italiens, sorted out the merits of the various actors, and conformed slavishly to current tastes. He quoted all the articles of the Ministerial press as if he had written them himself, and when he pronounced an opinion, he paraphrased the ideas of the Councillor who had spoken before him. We know well enough the chief traits of this magistrate’s character. His position obliged him to take a serious view of everything, and he laid great store by family ties. Like most husbands completely ruled by their wives, the Président made in trivial matters a show of independence which his wife respected. For a month or so, he accepted the Présidente’s trite explanations of Pons’s withdrawal, but in the end he found it curious that the old musician, a friend of forty years’ standing, had ceased his visits, and particularly after bestowing so considerable a present as Madame de Pompadour’s fan. Le Comte Popinot had recognized it as a masterpiece, and it brought the Présidente compliments which were exceedingly flattering to her vanity – even at the Tuileries Palace, where this toy was passed from hand to hand. Her attention was drawn to the lovely workmanship in its ten ivory radials, each one of them adorned with inconceivably exquisite carvings. A Russian lady (Russians always behave as if they were at home) offered the Présidente, in the Comte Popinot’s house, six thousand francs for this amazing fan. It amused her to think that it had fallen into such hands, for admittedly it was fit for a duchess.

  ‘There’s no denying,’ said Cécile to her father the day after this offer was made, ‘that poor Cousin Pons is very knowing about such silly trifles.’

  ‘Such silly trifles!’ the Président exclaimed. ‘Why, the State is about to pay a hundred thousand francs for the late Councillor Dusommerard’s collection and to go halves with the City of Paris in spending nearly a million on the purchase and repair of the Hôtel de Cluny for the housing of such “silly trifles”. Such “silly trifles”, my dear child, are often the only relics we have of vanished civilizations. An Etruscan jar, a necklace, sometimes worth forty or fifty thousand francs respectively, are “silly trifles” which reveal the perfection that had been reached by the arts at the time of the siege of Troy, and prove that the Etruscans were Trojans who had taken refuge in Italy!’

  This was the kind of humour the Président favoured; he liked to be heavily ironical at his wife’s and daughter’s expense.

  ‘The sum total of knowledge required for assessing these “silly trifles”, Cécile,’ he continued, ‘is the science known as archaeology. Archaeology comprises architecture, sculpture, painting, the goldsmith’s craft, ceramics, cabinet-making (a completely modern art), lace-making, tapestry; in short all the products of human workmanship.’

  ‘So Cousin Pons is a learned man?’ said Cécile.

  ‘By the way, why do we never see him here these days?’ asked the Président, in the tone of a man who is worried by a host of little facts, taken in but forgotten for a time, which suddenly, to borrow a sportsman’s phrase, ‘bunch up’ into a solid bullet.

  ‘He must have taken offence at some supposed slight,’ answered the Présidente. ‘Perhaps I didn’t make enough fuss when he gave me the fan. As you know, I’m not very up in art…’

  ‘You, one of Servin’s most promising pupils!’ the Président exclaimed, ‘you don’t know Watteau?’

  ‘I know David, Gérard, Gros and Girodet, and Guérin, and Monsieur de Forbin, and Monsieur Turpin de Crissé…’

  ‘You ought to have…’

  ‘What ought I to have done, Monsieur?’ asked the Présidente with a Queen of Sheba look.

  ‘You ought to have known about Watteau, my dear. He’s in great favour today,’ replied the Président with a meekness which showed he was duly aware of all he owed to his wife.

  This conversation had taken place a few days before the first performance of The Devil’s Betrothed, when the whole orchestra had been struck by Pons’s sickly appearance. But by then the people accustomed to having Pons at their table and using him as an errand boy had all begun to inquire about him, and in the circles in which the old man moved disquiet had spread, all the more serious because people had taken stock of him at his conductor’s stand. Despite the care with which Pons, while taking his walks, avoided any of his former acquaintances whom he might see in the offing, he nevertheless came face to face one day with the former Minister, the Comte Popinot, in the shop kept by Monistrol, a well-known and enterprising dealer in the newly co
nstructed Boulevard Beaumarchais: a man Pons had mentioned to the Présidente not long before, a man whose wily enthusiasm sends up the price of curios every day – they are getting so scarce, it is said, that one can no longer lay hands on them.

  ‘My dear Pons, why don’t we ever see you these days? We miss you very much, and Madame Popinot is wondering why you have deserted us.’

  ‘Monsieur le Comte,’ the old fellow replied, ‘I have been led to realize in one of the houses I visit – a kinsman’s – that people of my age are out of place in society. I never did get much of a welcome there, but at any rate I hadn’t yet been insulted… I have never asked for anything,’ he said, with all the pride of an artist. ‘In return for a few civilities, I often made myself useful to my hosts. But it seems I was mistaken; I had to be at everybody’s beck and call to pay for the honour of dining with friends and relatives… Well, I have resigned from my post as hanger-on. In my flat, I can find every day what I have been offered at no one’s table – a real friend.’

  These words, uttered with all the bitterness that the old artist was still capable of conveying by tone and gesture, so impressed the Peer of France that he drew the worthy musician to one side.

  ‘Oh, come, old friend. What’s the matter? Can’t you tell me in confidence what has hurt your feelings? You won’t mind my saying that in my house we have always treated you with consideration.’

  ‘You are the only exception,’ said the old man. ‘Besides, you are an important person, a statesman, and your many duties would be an excuse for everything, if excuse were needed.’

  In the end, under the influence of that diplomatic tact which Popinot had acquired in the handling of men and affairs, Pons told his tale of woe in regard to the Marville household. Popinot felt so keenly for the victim of such ill-treatment that he went home immediately and told Madame Popinot all about it. This excellent and worthy woman made representations to the Présidente as soon as she met her. The ex-Minister for his part said a few words on the subject to the Président. Then the Camusots de Marville had it out together in a family session. Although Camusot was by no means master in his own house, his remonstrances were too well founded de jure and de faeto for his wife and daughter not to acknowledge their pertinence. Both of them ate humble pie and blamed the servants. The latter were summoned and brow-beaten, and only obtained forgiveness by making a full avowal which clearly showed the Président how right Pons had been in keeping away. Like all lords and masters under their wives’ thumb, the Président marshalled all his marital and magisterial majesty, declaring to his servants that they would be dismissed, and would thus lose all the benefits which their long service with him might entail, if henceforth his cousin Pons and all others who did him the honour of visiting him were not treated with the same respect as himself. This remark drew a smirk from Madeleine.

  ‘You have indeed,’ said the Président, ‘only one chance to save yourselves. You must apologize and make your peace with him. You will go and tell him that your remaining here depends entirely on him. I will turn you all out if he does not forgive you.’

  9. Pons brings the Présidente something better than a fan

  THE next day, the Président set out fairly early in order to pay his cousin a visit before his legal sessions began. The arrival of Monsieur le Président de Marville, announced by Madame Cibot, was quite an event. Never in his life had Pons received such an honour, and he sensed that amends were forthcoming.

  ‘My dear cousin,’ said the Président, after the usual exchange of civilities, ‘I now know the reason for your withdrawal. Your conduct increases, if that were possible, my esteem for you. I will just say one word about all this. My servants are under notice. My wife and daughter are in despair. They are anxious to see you to explain their behaviour. In this affair, cousin, one person is blameless – an old judge. Do not punish me then for the escapade of a silly girl who was intent on dining with the Popinots, above all since I have come to make our peace with you, acknowledging that we are entirely in the wrong. A friendship of thirty-six years’ standing, even if it has been impaired, has still some claims. Come now, make peace with us by coming to dine with us this evening.’

  Pons stammered out a wordy reply and ended by telling his cousin that he was booked that evening for the engagement party of a member of his orchestra who was throwing up his duties as flautist in order to take up banking.

  ‘Very well, come tomorrow evening.’

  ‘My cousin la Comtesse Popinot has honoured me with an extremely amiable written invitation.’

  ‘The day after tomorrow then,’ the Président went on.

  ‘The day after tomorrow my chief flautist’s partner, a German by the name of Brunner, will be returning the hospitality he is receiving today from the engaged couple.’

  ‘Your company is certainly agreeable enough for people to compete for the pleasure of having you,’ said the Président. ‘Very well, next Sunday, eight days from this instant, as the lawyers say!’

  ‘That day we are dining with Monsieur Graff, the flautist’s prospective father-in-law.’

  ‘Very well, make it Saturday. Between now and then there will be time for you to calm down a little girl who has already shed many tears over her bad behaviour. Our Lord asks only for repentance. Would you be sterner than our eternal Father with my poor little Cécile?’

  This touched Pons’s softer feelings, and he took refuge in over-polite phrases before seeing the President out. An hour later, the President’s domestic staff arrived at his flat. They were like all servants, cowardly and glib. They wept! Madeleine took Pons aside and was resolutely abject.

  ‘It’s all my fault, but you know how fond I am of you,’ she said, bursting into tears. ‘You must put this unhappy incident down to the vengefulness which was raging inside me. We shall lose our pensions!… Monsieur Pons, I was out of my senses, and I should not like my fellow-servants to suffer for my folly. I can see now that I was not destined to belong to you. I have argued it out with myself. I had got above myself. But I am still fond of you, Monsieur Pons. For ten years I have thought of nothing but the happiness of making you happy and looking after everything here. It was a lovely prospect for me! Oh, if only you knew how much I care for you! But you must have guessed that from my spiteful deeds. If I were to die tomorrow, what would they find among my belongings? A will in your favour, Monsieur Pons… yes, Monsieur, in my trunk, underneath my jewellery.’

  By twanging on this chord, Madeleine brought the old bachelor to that pleasurable self-complacency which is always evoked by the idea of having inspired a passion, even an unwelcome one. After generously absolving Madeleine, he showed mercy to everyone else by promising to persuade his cousin the Présidente to keep all her servants on. It afforded unspeakable pleasure to Pons to see himself reinstated in all his wonted enjoyments without having demeaned himself. Society had made advances to him, and this was a sop to his personal dignity; but when he disclosed his triumph to his friend Schmucke he was sorry to see him saddened and full of unspoken doubts. Nevertheless, noting the sudden change in Pons’s physiognomy, the kindly German shared his joy and decided to forgo the happiness he had derived from having his friend entirely to himself for nearly four months. As for Pons – mental ills have a tremendous advantage over physical ones in that, having been caused by the thwarting of a desire, they are instantaneously cured once that desire is fulfilled – on that happy morning, Pons was transfigured. The gloomy, moribund old man gave way to the self-satisfied Pons who not so long before had carried the Marquise de Pompadour’s fan to the Présidente. But Schmucke fell to pondering deeply over this phenomenon which he failed to understand, for real stoicism will never fathom the why and wherefore of French sycophancy. Pons was a true Frenchman of the Empire period, a compound of eighteenth-century courtesy and that devoted respect for woman of which ballads like Partant pour la Syrie make so much. Schmucke buried his disappointment deep in his heart and strewed it with the flowers of his Teutonic ph
ilosophy; but in a week his face turned sallow, and Madame Cibot had to use guile to call in the local doctor. The latter diagnosed a possible icterus, and Madame Cibot was flabbergasted by this learned synonym for common or garden jaundice!

  It was probably the first time that the two friends had dined out together, but for Schmucke it was like taking a trip back to Germany. In fact Johann Graff, the proprietor of the Hôtel du Rhin, his daughter Émilie, the tailor Wolfgang Graff and his wife, Fritz Brunner and Wilhelm Schwab were all Teutons. Pons and the notary were the only Frenchmen admitted to the banquet. The tailor and his wife, who owned a splendid mansion in the rue de Richelieu, between the rue Neuve des Petits Champs and the rue Villedo, had brought up their niece themselves, for her father had – not unreasonably – wished to shelter her from contact with the varied types of people who come and go in hotels. This worthy couple, who loved the child as if she had been their own daughter, were allotting the ground floor of their house to the bridal pair. There also the banking house of Brunner, Schwab and Company was to be installed. And since these arrangements had been made about a month before, in order to allow time for Brunner, the author of all this felicity, to collect his heritage, the well-known tailor had had the happy pair’s flat richly decorated and furnished. The banking house offices had been fitted out in the wing which linked a magnificent block of rented flats to the former town house between the courtyard and the garden.