Parisian Points of View | Page 7

extravagant love that
comes without its being possible to know why--in short, Aunt Louise,
exactly the love I have for him."
"Much obliged! But you do not tell everything. You do not say that
your mother desired your marriage with Courtalin--"
"Yes, of course; mamma was quite right. M. de Courtalin has a
thousand sterling merits that you have not--that you will never have;
and then M. de Courtalin had a particularly good point in mamma's
eyes: he did not find me too thin, and he asked for my hand in marriage.
One day about four o'clock (that was the 2d of June last year) mamma
came into my room with an expression on her face I had never seen
before. 'My child,' she said--'my dear child!' She had no need to finish;
I had understood. M. de Courtalin all the evening before, at the
Princess de Viran's, had hovered about me, and the next day his mother
had come to declare to mamma that her son knew of nothing more
delightful than my face. I answered that I knew of nothing less
delightful than M. de Courtalin's face. I added that, besides, I was in no
hurry to marry. Mamma tried to make me hear reason. I was going to
let slip an admirable chance. The Duke of Courtalin was the target of
all the ambitious mothers--a great name, a great position, a great
fortune! I should deeply regret some day to have shown such disdain
for advantages like these, etc. And to all these things, which were so
true and sensible, I could find only one word to say: his name, Gontran,

Gontran, Gontran! Gontran or the convent, and the most rigorous one
of all, the Carmel, in sackcloth and ashes! Oh, Aunt Louise, do look at
him! He listens to all this with an unbearable little air of fatuity."
"You have forbidden me to speak."
"True. Don't speak; but you have deserved a little lesson in modesty
and humility. Good gracious! you think perhaps it was for your merits
that I chose you, insisted on you. You would be far from the mark, my
poor dear. It is, on the contrary, because of your want of merit. Now, as
to M. de Courtalin. Why, there is a man of merit! I had, from morning
to night, M. de Courtalin's merit dinned into my ears, and that was why
I had taken a dislike to him. What I dreaded more than anything for a
husband was what is called a superior man; and mamma went the
wrong way to work to win me over to her candidate when she said to
me: 'He is a very intelligent, very serious, very deep-thinking, and very
distinguished man; he has spent his youth honorably; he has been a
model son, and would make a model husband.' It made me shiver to
hear mamma talk so. I know nothing more awful than people who are
always, always right; who, under all circumstances, give evidence of
unfailing good sense; who crush us with their superiority. With
Gontran I am easy, quite easy. It isn't he who would crush me with his
superiority. I do not know much, Aunt Louise, but my ignorance beside
his is learning. He had great trouble in getting his baccalaureate. He
flunked three times."
"Flunked!" exclaimed Aunt Louise.
"It means failed. He taught me the word. All the queer words I use,
Aunt Louise, were taught me by him."
"Come, now--"
"Yes, all. I can see him now, coming to the house one day, and I can
hear him say, 'Flunked again!' That was the third time. Then he went
and took his examination in the country at a little college at Douai; it
was easier, and he passed at last. M. de Courtalin has never been
flunked; he is everything that one can be at his age: bachelor, advocate,
lawyer, and grave, exact, and severe in his language, and
dressed--always in a black frock-coat, with two rows of buttons, always
all buttoned--in short, a man of the past. And what a future before him!
Already a member of the General Council, and very eloquent, very
influential, he will be deputy in three years, and then, when we have a

government that people of our class can recognize, minister,
ambassador, and I know not what! The highest offices wait for him,
and all his ambitions will be legitimate when he has a chance to put his
superior talents at the service of the monarchy. That's one of mamma's
phrases. Whereas you, my poor Gontran--you will never be anything
other than a very funny and very nice old dear, whom I shall lead as I
like with my little finger."
"Oh! oh!"
"You will see. Besides, you have seen for eight days."