Оноре де Бальзак
The Celibates
Mesdames Borniche, Goddet-Herau, Beaussier, Lousteau-Prangin and Fichet, decorated with their husbands, here entered the room.
When the fourteen persons were seated, and the usual compliments were over, Madame Hochon presented her goddaughter Agathe and Joseph. Joseph sat in his armchair all the evening, engaged in slyly studying the sixty faces which, from five o'clock until half past nine, posed for him gratis, as he afterwards told his mother. Such behavior before the aristocracy of Issoudun did not tend to change the opinion of the little town concerning him: every one went home ruffled by his sarcastic glances, uneasy under his smiles, and even frightened at his face, which seemed sinister to a class of people unable to recognize the singularities of genius.
After ten o'clock, when the household was in bed, Madame Hochon kept her goddaughter in her chamber until midnight. Secure from interruption, the two women told each other the sorrows of their lives, and exchanged their sufferings. As Agathe listened to the last echoes of a soul that had missed its destiny, and felt the sufferings of a heart, essentially generous and charitable, whose charity and generosity could never be exercised, she realized the immensity of the desert in which the powers of this noble, unrecognized soul had been wasted, and knew that she herself, with the little joys and interests of her city life relieving the bitter trials sent from God, was not the most unhappy of the two.
"You who are so pious," she said, "explain to me my shortcomings; tell me what it is that God is punishing in me."
"He is preparing us, my child," answered the old woman, "for the striking of the last hour."
At midnight the Knights of Idleness were collecting, one by one like shadows, under the trees of the boulevard Baron, and speaking together in whispers.
"What are we going to do?" was the first question of each as he arrived.
"I think," said Francois, "that Max means merely to give us a supper."
"No; matters are very serious for him, and for the Rabouilleuse: no doubt, he has concocted some scheme against the Parisians."
"It would be a good joke to drive them away."
"My grandfather," said Baruch, "is terribly alarmed at having two extra mouths to feed, and he'd seize on any pretext – "
"Well, comrades!" cried Max softly, now appearing on the scene, "why are you star-gazing? the planets don't distil kirschwasser. Come, let us go to Mere Cognette's!"
"To Mere Cognette's! To Mere Cognette's!" they all cried.
The cry, uttered as with one voice, produced a clamor which rang through the town like the hurrah of troops rushing to an assault; total silence followed. The next day, more than one inhabitant must have said to his neighbor: "Did you hear those frightful cries last night, about one o'clock? I thought there was surely a fire somewhere."
A supper worthy of La Cognette brightened the faces of the twenty-two guests; for the whole Order was present. At two in the morning, as they were beginning to "siroter" (a word in the vocabulary of the Knights which admirably expresses the act of sipping and tasting the wine in small quantities), Max rose to speak: —
"My dear fellows! the honor of your grand master was grossly attacked this morning, after our memorable joke with Fario's cart, – attacked by a vile pedler, and what is more, a Spaniard (oh, Cabrera!); and I have resolved to make the scoundrel feel the weight of my vengeance; always, of course, within the limits we have laid down for our fun. After reflecting about it all day, I have found a trick which is worth putting into execution, – a famous trick, that will drive him crazy. While avenging the insult offered to the Order in my person, we shall be feeding the sacred animals of the Egyptians, – little beasts which are, after all, the creatures of God, and which man unjustly persecutes. Thus we see that good is the child of evil, and evil is the offspring of good; such is the paramount law of the universe! I now order you all, on pain of displeasing your very humble grand master, to procure clandestinely, each one of you, twenty rats, male or female as heaven pleases. Collect your contingent within three days. If you can get more, the surplus will be welcome. Keep the interesting rodents without food; for it is essential that the delightful little beasts be ravenous with hunger. Please observe that I will accept both house-mice and field-mice as rats. If we multiply twenty-two by twenty, we shall have four hundred; four hundred accomplices let loose in the old church of the Capuchins, where Fario has stored all his grain, will consume a not insignificant quantity! But be lively about it! There's no time to lose. Fario is to deliver most of the grain to his customers in a week or so; and I am determined that that Spaniard shall find a terrible deficit. Gentlemen, I have not the merit of this invention," continued Max, observing the signs of general admiration. "Render to Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to God that which is God's. My scheme is only a reproduction of Samson's foxes, as related in the Bible. But Samson was an incendiary, and therefore no philanthropist; while we, like the Brahmins, are the protectors of a persecuted race. Mademoiselle Flore Brazier has already set all her mouse-traps, and Kouski, my right-arm, is hunting field-mice. I have spoken."
"I know," said Goddet, "where to find an animal that's worth forty rats, himself alone."
"What's that?"
"A squirrel."
"I offer a little monkey," said one of the younger members, "he'll make himself drunk on wheat."
"Bad, very bad!" exclaimed Max, "it would show who put the beasts there."
"But we might each catch a pigeon some night," said young Beaussier, "taking them from different farms; if we put them through a hole in the roof, they'll attract thousands of others."
"So, then, for the next week, Fario's storehouse is the order of the night," cried Max, smiling at Beaussier. "Recollect; people get up early in Saint-Paterne. Mind, too, that none of you go there without turning the soles of your list shoes backward. Knight Beaussier, the inventor of pigeons, is made director. As for me, I shall take care to leave my imprint on the sacks of wheat. Gentlemen, you are, all of you, appointed to the commissariat of the Army of Rats. If you find a watchman sleeping in the church, you must manage to make him drunk, – and do it cleverly, – so as to get him far away from the scene of the Rodents' Orgy."
"You don't say anything about the Parisians?" questioned Goddet.
"Oh!" exclaimed Max, "I want time to study them. Meantime, I offer my best shotgun – the one the Emperor gave me, a treasure from the manufactory at Versailles – to whoever finds a way to play the Bridaus a trick which shall get them into difficulties with Madame and Monsieur Hochon, so that those worthy old people shall send them off, or they shall be forced to go of their own accord, – without, understand me, injuring the venerable ancestors of my two friends here present, Baruch and Francois."
"All right! I'll think of it," said Goddet, who coveted the gun.
"If the inventor of the trick doesn't care for the gun, he shall have my horse," added Max.
After this night twenty brains were tortured to lay a plot against Agathe and her son, on the basis of Max's programme. But the devil alone, or chance, could really help them to success; for the conditions given made the thing well-nigh impossible.
The next morning Agathe and Joseph came downstairs just before the second breakfast, which took place at ten o'clock. In Monsieur Hochon's household the name of first breakfast was given to a cup of milk and slice of bread and butter which was taken in bed, or when rising. While waiting for Madame Hochon, who notwithstanding her age went minutely through the ceremonies with which the duchesses of Louis XV.'s time performed their toilette, Joseph noticed Jean-Jacques Rouget planted squarely on his feet at the door of his house across the street. He naturally pointed him out to his mother, who was unable to recognize her brother, so little did he look like what he was when she left him.
"That is your brother," said Adolphine, who entered, giving an arm to her grandmother.
"What an idiot he looks like!" exclaimed Joseph.
Agathe clasped her hands, and raised her eyes to heaven.
"What a state they have driven him to! Good God! can that be a man only fifty-seven years old?"
She looked attentively at her brother, and saw Flore Brazier standing directly behind him, with her hair dressed, a pair of snowy shoulders and a dazzling bosom showing through a gauze neckerchief, which was trimmed with lace; she was wearing a dress with a tight-fitting waist, made of grenadine (a silk material then much in fashion), with leg-of-mutton sleeves so-called, fastened at the wrists by handsome bracelets. A gold chain rippled over the crab-girl's bosom as she leaned forward to give Jean-Jacques his black silk cap lest he should take cold. The scene was evidently studied.
"Hey!" cried Joseph, "there's a fine woman, and a rare one! She is made, as they say, to paint. What flesh-tints! Oh, the lovely tones! what surface! what curves! Ah, those shoulders! She's a magnificent caryatide. What a model she would have been for one of Titians' Venuses!"
Adolphine and Madame Hochon thought he was talking Greek; but Agathe signed to them behind his back, as if to say that she was accustomed to such jargon.
"So you think a creature who is depriving you of your property handsome?" said Madame Hochon.
"That doesn't prevent her from being a splendid model! – just plump enough not to spoil the hips and the general contour – "
"My son, you are not in your studio," said Agathe. "Adolphine is here."
"Ah, true! I did wrong. But you must remember that ever since leaving Paris I have seen nothing but ugly women – "
"My dear godmother," said Agathe hastily, "how shall I be able to meet my brother, if that creature is always with him?"
"Bah!" said Joseph. "I'll go and see him myself. I don't think him such an idiot, now I find he has the sense to rejoice his eyes with a Titian's Venus."
"If he were not an idiot," said Monsieur Hochon, who had come in, "he would have married long ago and had children; and then you would have no chance at the property. It is an ill wind that blows no good."
"Your son's idea is very good," said Madame Hochon; "he ought to pay the first visit. He can make his uncle understand that if you call there he must be alone."
"That will affront Mademoiselle Brazier," said old Hochon. "No, no, madame; swallow the pill. If you can't get the whole property, secure a small legacy."
The Hochons were not clever enough to match Max. In the middle of breakfast Kouski brought over a letter from Monsieur Rouget, addressed to his sister, Madame Bridau. Madame Hochon made her husband read it aloud, as follows: —
My dear Sister, – I learn from strangers of your arrival in Issoudun. I can guess the reason which made you prefer the house of Monsieur and Madame Hochon to mine; but if you will come to see me you shall be received as you ought to be. I should certainly pay you the first visit if my health did not compel me just now to keep the house; for which I offer my affectionate regrets. I shall be delighted to see my nephew, whom I invite to dine with me to-morrow, – young men are less sensitive than women about the company. It will give me pleasure if Messrs. Baruch Borniche and Francois Hochon will accompany him.
Your affectionate brother,J. – J. Rouget.
"Say that we are at breakfast, but that Madame Bridau will send an answer presently, and the invitations are all accepted," said Monsieur Hochon to the servant.
The old man laid a finger on his lips, to require silence from everybody. When the street-door was shut, Monsieur Hochon, little suspecting the intimacy between his grandsons and Max, threw one of his slyest looks at his wife and Agathe, remarking, —
"He is just as capable of writing that note as I am of giving away twenty-five louis; it is the soldier who is corresponding with us!"
"What does that portend?" asked Madame Hochon. "Well, never mind; we will answer him. As for you, monsieur," she added, turning to Joseph, "you must dine there; but if – "
The old lady was stopped short by a look from her husband. Knowing how warm a friendship she felt for Agathe, old Hochon was in dread lest she should leave some legacy to her goddaughter in case the latter lost the Rouget property. Though fifteen years older than his wife, the miser hoped to inherit her fortune, and to become eventually the sole master of their whole property. That hope was a fixed idea with him. Madame Hochon knew that the best means of obtaining a few concessions from her husband was to threaten him with her will. Monsieur Hochon now took sides with his guests. An enormous fortune was at stake; with a sense of social justice, he wished it to go to the natural heirs, instead of being pillaged by unworthy outsiders. Moreover, the sooner the matter was decided, the sooner he should get rid of his guests. Now that the struggle between the interlopers and the heirs, hitherto existing only in his wife's mind, had become an actual fact, Monsieur Hochon's keen intelligence, lulled to sleep by the monotony of provincial life, was fully roused. Madame Hochon had been agreeably surprised that morning to perceive, from a few affectionate words which the old man had said to her about Agathe, that so able and subtle an auxiliary was on the Bridau side.
Towards midday the brains of Monsieur and Madame Hochon, of Agathe, and Joseph (the latter much amazed at the scrupulous care of the old people in the choice of words), were delivered of the following answer, concocted solely for the benefit of Max and Flore: —
My dear Brother, – If I have stayed away from Issoudun, and kept up no intercourse with any one, not even with you, the fault lies not merely with the strange and false ideas my father conceived about me, but with the joys and sorrows of my life in Paris; for if God made me a happy wife, he has also deeply afflicted me as a mother. You are aware that my son, your nephew Philippe, lies under accusation of a capital offence in consequence of his devotion to the Emperor. Therefore you can hardly be surprised if a widow, compelled to take a humble situation in a lottery-office for a living, should come to seek consolation from those among whom she was born.
The profession adopted by the son who accompanies me is one that requires great talent, many sacrifices, and prolonged studies before any results can be obtained. Glory for an artist precedes fortune; is not that to say that Joseph, though he may bring honor to the family, will still be poor? Your sister, my dear Jean-Jacques, would have borne in silence the penalties of paternal injustice, but you will pardon a mother for reminding you that you have two nephews; one of whom carried the Emperor's orders at the battle of Montereau and served in the Guard at Waterloo, and is now in prison for his devotion to Napoleon; the other, from his thirteenth year, has been impelled by natural gifts to enter a difficult though glorious career.
I thank you for your letter, my dear brother, with heart-felt warmth, for my own sake, and also for Joseph's, who will certainly accept your invitation. Illness excuses everything, my dear Jean-Jacques, and I shall therefore go to see you in your own house. A sister is always at home with a brother, no matter what may be the life he has adopted.
I embrace you tenderly.Agathe Rouget
"There's the matter started. Now, when you see him," said Monsieur Hochon to Agathe, "you must speak plainly to him about his nephews."
The letter was carried over by Gritte, who returned ten minutes later to render an account to her masters of all that she had seen and heard, according to a settled provincial custom.
"Since yesterday Madame has had the whole house cleaned up, which she left – "
"Whom do you mean by Madame?" asked old Hochon.
"That's what they call the Rabouilleuse over there," answered Gritte. "She left the salon and all Monsieur Rouget's part of the house in a pitiable state; but since yesterday the rooms have been made to look like what they were before Monsieur Maxence went to live there. You can see your face on the floors. La Vedie told me that Kouski went off on horseback at five o'clock this morning, and came back at nine, bringing provisions. It is going to be a grand dinner! – a dinner fit for the archbishop of Bourges! There's a fine bustle in the kitchen, and they are as busy as bees. The old man says, 'I want to do honor to my nephew,' and he pokes his nose into everything. It appears the Rougets are highly flattered by the letter. Madame came and told me so. Oh! she had on such a dress! I never saw anything so handsome in my life. Two diamonds in her ears! – two diamonds that cost, Vedie told me, three thousand francs apiece; and such lace! rings on her fingers, and bracelets! you'd think she was a shrine; and a silk dress as fine as an altar-cloth. So then she said to me, 'Monsieur is delighted to find his sister so amiable, and I hope she will permit us to pay her all the attention she deserves. We shall count on her good opinion after the welcome we mean to give her son. Monsieur is very impatient to see his nephew.' Madame had little black satin slippers; and her stockings! my! they were marvels, – flowers in silk and openwork, just like lace, and you could see her rosy little feet through them. Oh! she's in high feather, and she had a lovely little apron in front of her which, Vedie says, cost more than two years of our wages put together."
"Well done! We shall have to dress up," said the artist laughing.
"What do you think of all this, Monsieur Hochon?" said the old lady when Gritte had departed.
Madame Hochon made Agathe observe her husband, who was sitting with his head in his hands, his elbows on the arms of his chair, plunged in thought.
"You have to do with a Maitre Bonin!" said the old man at last. "With your ideas, young man," he added, looking at Joseph, "you haven't force enough to struggle with a practised scoundrel like Maxence Gilet. No matter what I say to you, you will commit some folly. But, at any rate, tell me everything you see, and hear, and do to-night. Go, and God be with you! Try to get alone with your uncle. If, in spite of all your genius, you can't manage it, that in itself will throw some light upon their scheme. But if you do get a moment alone with him, out of ear-shot, damn it, you must pull the wool from his eyes as to the situation those two have put him in, and plead your mother's cause."
CHAPTER XII
At four o'clock, Joseph crossed the open space which separated the Rouget house from the Hochon house, – a sort of avenue of weakly lindens, two hundred feet long and of the same width as the rue Grande Narette. When the nephew arrived, Kouski, in polished boots, black cloth trousers, white waistcoat, and black coat, announced him. The table was set in the large hall, and Joseph, who easily distinguished his uncle, went up to him, kissed him, and bowed to Flore and Max.
"We have not seen each other since I came into the world, my dear uncle," said the painter gayly; "but better late than never."
"You are very welcome, my friend," said the old man, looking at his nephew in a dull way.
"Madame," Joseph said to Flore with an artist's vivacity, "this morning I was envying my uncle the pleasure he enjoys in being able to admire you every day."
"Isn't she beautiful?" said the old man, whose dim eyes began to shine.
"Beautiful enough to be the model of a great painter."
"Nephew," said Rouget, whose elbow Flore was nudging, "this is Monsieur Maxence Gilet; a man who served the Emperor, like your brother, in the Imperial Guard."
Joseph rose, and bowed.
"Your brother was in the dragoons, I believe," said Maxence. "I was only a dust-trotter."
"On foot or on horseback," said Flore, "you both of you risked your skins."
Joseph took note of Max quite as much as Max took note of Joseph. Max, who got his clothes from Paris, was dressed as the young dandies of that day dressed themselves. A pair of light-blue cloth trousers, made with very full plaits, covered his feet so that only the toes and the spurs of his boots were seen. His waist was pinched in by a white waistcoat with chased gold buttons, which was laced behind to serve as a belt. The waistcoat, buttoned to the throat, showed off his broad chest, and a black satin stock obliged him to hold his head high, in soldierly fashion. A handsome gold chain hung from a waistcoat pocket, in which the outline of a flat watch was barely seen. He was twisting a watch-key of the kind called a "criquet," which Breguet had lately invented.
"The fellow is fine-looking," thought Joseph, admiring with a painter's eye the eager face, the air of strength, and the intellectual gray eyes which Max had inherited from his father, the noble. "My uncle must be a fearful bore, and that handsome girl takes her compensations. It is a triangular household; I see that."
At this instant, Baruch and Francois entered.
"Have you been to see the tower of Issoudun?" Flore asked Joseph. "No? then if you would like to take a little walk before dinner, which will not be served for an hour, we will show you the great curiosity of the town."
"Gladly," said the artist, quite incapable of seeing the slightest impropriety in so doing.
While Flore went to put on her bonnet, gloves, and cashmere shawl, Joseph suddenly jumped up, as if an enchanter had touched him with his wand, to look at the pictures.
"Ah! you have pictures, indeed, uncle!" he said, examining the one that had caught his eye.
"Yes," answered the old man. "They came to us from the Descoings, who bought them during the Revolution, when the convents and churches in Berry were dismantled."
Joseph was not listening; he was lost in admiration of the pictures.
"Magnificent!" he cried. "Oh! what painting! that fellow didn't spoil his canvas. Dear, dear! better and better, as it is at Nicolet's – "
"There are seven or eight very large ones up in the garret, which were kept on account of the frames," said Gilet.
"Let me see them!" cried the artist; and Max took him upstairs.
Joseph came down wildly enthusiastic. Max whispered a word to the Rabouilleuse, who took the old man into the embrasure of a window, where Joseph heard her say in a low voice, but still so that he could hear the words: —
"Your nephew is a painter; you don't care for those pictures; be kind, and give them to him."
"It seems," said Jean-Jacques, leaning on Flore's arm to reach the place were Joseph was standing in ecstasy before an Albano, " – it seems that you are a painter – "
"Only a 'rapin,'" said Joseph.
"What may that be?" asked Flore.
"A beginner," replied Joseph.
"Well," continued Jean-Jacques, "if these pictures can be of any use to you in your business, I give them to you, – but without the frames. Oh! the frames are gilt, and besides, they are very funny; I will put – "
"Well done, uncle!" cried Joseph, enchanted; "I'll make you copies of the same dimensions, which you can put into the frames."
"But that will take your time, and you will want canvas and colors," said Flore. "You will have to spend money. Come, Pere Rouget, offer your nephew a hundred francs for each copy; here are twenty-seven pictures, and I think there are eleven very big ones in the garret which ought to cost double, – call the whole four thousand francs. Oh, yes," she went on, turning to Joseph, "your uncle can well afford to pay you four thousand francs for making the copies, since he keeps the frames – but bless me! you'll want frames; and they say frames cost more than pictures; there's more gold on them. Answer, monsieur," she continued, shaking the old man's arm. "Hein? it isn't dear; your nephew will take four thousand francs for new pictures in the place of the old ones. It is," she whispered in his ear, "a very good way to give him four thousand francs; he doesn't look to me very flush – "
"Well, nephew, I will pay you four thousand francs for the copies – "
"No, no!" said the honest Joseph; "four thousand francs and the pictures, that's too much; the pictures, don't you see, are valuable – "
"Accept, simpleton!" said Flore; "he is your uncle, you know."
"Very good, I accept," said Joseph, bewildered by the luck that had befallen him; for he had recognized a Perugino.
The result was that the artist beamed with satisfaction as he went out of the house with the Rabouilleuse on his arm, all of which helped Maxence's plans immensely. Neither Flore, nor Rouget, nor Max, nor indeed any one in Issoudun knew the value of the pictures, and the crafty Max thought he had bought Flore's triumph for a song, as she paraded triumphantly before the eyes of the astonished town, leaning on the arm of her master's nephew, and evidently on the best of terms with him. People flocked to their doors to see the crab-girl's triumph over the family. This astounding event made the sensation on which Max counted; so that when they all returned at five o'clock, nothing was talked of in every household but the cordial understanding between Max and Flore and the nephew of old Rouget. The incident of the pictures and the four thousand francs circulated already. The dinner, at which Lousteau, one of the court judges, and the Mayor of Issoudun were present, was splendid. It was one of those provincial dinners lasting five hours. The most exquisite wines enlivened the conversation. By nine o'clock, at dessert, the painter, seated opposite to his uncle, and between Flore and Max, had fraternized with the soldier, and thought him the best fellow on earth. Joseph returned home at eleven o'clock somewhat tipsy. As to old Rouget, Kouski had carried him to his bed dead-drunk; he had eaten as though he were an actor from foreign parts, and had soaked up the wine like the sands of the desert.
"Well," said Max when he was alone with Flore, "isn't this better than making faces at them? The Bridaus are well received, they get small presents, and are smothered with attentions, and the end of it is they will sing our praises; they will go away satisfied and leave us in peace. To-morrow morning you and I and Kouski will take down all those pictures and send them over to the painter, so that he shall see them when he wakes up. We will put the frames in the garret, and cover the walls with one of those varnished papers which represent scenes from Telemachus, such as I have seen at Monsieur Mouilleron's."
"Oh, that will be much prettier!" said Flore.
On the morrow, Joseph did not wake up till midday. From his bed he saw the pictures, which had been brought in while he was asleep, leaning one against another on the opposite wall. While he examined them anew, recognizing each masterpiece, studying the manner of each painter, and searching for the signature, his mother had gone to see and thank her brother, urged thereto by old Hochon, who, having heard of the follies the painter had committed the night before, almost despaired of the Bridau cause.
"Your adversaries have the cunning of foxes," he said to Agathe. "In all my days I never saw a man carry things with such a high hand as that soldier; they say war educates young men! Joseph has let himself be fooled. They have shut his mouth with wine, and those miserable pictures, and four thousand francs! Your artist hasn't cost Maxence much!"
The long-headed old man instructed Madame Bridau carefully as to the line of conduct she ought to pursue, – advising her to enter into Maxence's ideas and cajole Flore, so as to set up a sort of intimacy with her, and thus obtain a few moments' interview with Jean-Jacques alone. Madame Bridau was very warmly received by her brother, to whom Flore had taught his lesson. The old man was in bed, quite ill from the excesses of the night before. As Agathe, under the circumstances, could scarcely begin at once to speak of family matters, Max thought it proper and magnanimous to leave the brother and sister alone together. The calculation was a good one. Poor Agathe found her brother so ill that she would not deprive him of Madame Brazier's care.
"Besides," she said to the old bachelor, "I wish to know a person to whom I am grateful for the happiness of my brother."
These words gave evident pleasure to the old man, who rang for Madame Flore. Flore, as we may well believe, was not far off. The female antagonists bowed to each other. The Rabouilleuse showed the most servile attentions and the utmost tenderness to her master; fancied his head was too low, beat up the pillows, and took care of him like a bride of yesterday. The poor creature received it with a rush of feeling.
"We owe you much gratitude, mademoiselle," said Agathe, "for the proofs of attachment you have so long given to my brother, and for the way in which you watch over his happiness."
"That is true, my dear Agathe," said the old man; "she has taught me what happiness is; she is a woman of excellent qualities."
"And therefore, my dear brother, you ought to have recompensed Mademoiselle by making her your wife. Yes! I am too sincere in my religion not to wish to see you obey the precepts of the church. You would each be more tranquil in mind if you were not at variance with morality and the laws. I have come here, dear brother, to ask for help in my affliction; but do not suppose that we wish to make any remonstrance as to the manner in which you may dispose of your property – "
"Madame," said Flore, "we know how unjust your father was to you. Monsieur, here, can tell you," she went on, looking fixedly at her victim, "that the only quarrels we have ever had were about you. I have always told him that he owes you part of the fortune he received from his father, and your father, my benefactor, – for he was my benefactor," she added in a tearful voice; "I shall ever remember him! But your brother, madame, has listened to reason – "