Cousin Pons

Every one, no doubt, wishes to know what became of the heroine of a story only too veracious in its details; a chronicle which, taken with its twin sister the preceding volume, La Cousine Bette, proves that Character is a great social force.  You, O amateurs, connoisseurs, and dealers, will guess at once that Pons’ collection is now in question.  Wherefore it will suffice if we are present during a conversation that took place only a few days ago in Count Popinot’s house.  He was showing his splendid collection to some visitors.

“M. le Comte, you possess treasures indeed,” remarked a distinguished foreigner.

“Oh! as to pictures, nobody can hope to rival an obscure collector, one Elie Magus, a Jew, an old monomaniac, the prince of picture-lovers,” the Count replied modestly.  “And when I say nobody, I do not speak of Paris only, but of all Europe.  When the old Croesus dies, France ought to spare seven or eight millions of francs to buy the gallery.  For curiosities, my collection is good enough to be talked about—­”

“But how, busy as you are, and with a fortune so honestly earned in the first instance in business—­”

“In the drug business,” broke in Popinot; “you ask how I can continue to interest myself in things that are a drug in the market—­”

“No,” returned the foreign visitor, “no, but how do you find time to collect?  The curiosities do not come to find you.”

“My father-in-law owned the nucleus of the collection,” said the young Vicomtess; “he loved the arts and beautiful work, but most of his treasures came to him through me.”

“Through you, madame?—­So young! and yet have you such vices as this?” asked a Russian prince.

Russians are by nature imitative; imitative indeed to such an extent that the diseases of civilization break out among them in epidemics.  The bric-a-brac mania had appeared in an acute form in St. Petersburg, and the Russians caused such a rise of prices in the “art line,” as Remonencq would say, that collection became impossible.  The prince who spoke had come to Paris solely to buy bric-a-brac.

“The treasures came to me, prince, on the death of a cousin.  He was very fond of me,” added the Vicomtesse Popinot, “and he had spent some forty odd years since 1805 in picking up these masterpieces everywhere, but more especially in Italy—­”

“And what was his name?” inquired the English lord.

“Pons,” said President Camusot.

“A charming man he was,” piped the Presidente in her thin, flute tones, “very clever, very eccentric, and yet very good-hearted.  This fan that you admire once belonged to Mme. de Pompadour; he gave it to me one morning with a pretty speech which you must permit me not to repeat,” and she glanced at her daughter.

“Mme. la Vicomtesse, tell us the pretty speech,” begged the Russian prince.

“The speech was as pretty as the fan,” returned the Vicomtesse, who brought out the stereotyped remark on all occasions.  “He told my mother that it was quite time that it should pass from the hands of vice into those of virtue.”

The English lord looked at Mme. Camusot de Marville with an air of doubt not a little gratifying to so withered a woman.

“He used to dine at our house two or three times a week,” she said; “he was so fond of us!  We could appreciate him, and artists like the society of those who relish their wit.  My husband was, besides, his one surviving relative.  So when, quite unexpectedly, M. de Marville came into the property, M. le Comte preferred to take over the whole collection to save it from a sale by auction; and we ourselves much preferred to dispose of it in that way, for it would have been so painful to us to see the beautiful things, in which our dear cousin was so much interested, all scattered abroad.  Elie Magus valued them, and in that way I became possessed of the cottage that your uncle built, and I hope you will do us the honor of coming to see us there.”

Gaudissart’s theatre passed into other hands a year ago, but M. Topinard is still the cashier.  M. Topinard, however, has grown gloomy and misanthropic; he says little.  People think that he has something on his conscience.  Wags at the theatre suggest that his gloom dates from his marriage with Lolotte.  Honest Topinard starts whenever he hears Fraisier’s name mentioned.  Some people may think it strange that the one nature worthy of Pons and Schmucke should be found on the third floor beneath the stage of a boulevard theatre.

Mme. Remonencq, much impressed with Mme. Fontaine’s prediction, declines to retire to the country.  She is still living in her splendid shop on the Boulevard de la Madeleine, but she is a widow now for the second time.  Remonencq, in fact, by the terms of the marriage contract, settled the property upon the survivor, and left a little glass of vitriol about for his wife to drink by mistake; but his wife, with the very best intentions, put the glass elsewhere, and Remonencq swallowed the draught himself.  The rascal’s appropriate end vindicates Providence, as well as the chronicler of manners, who is sometimes accused of neglect on this head, perhaps because Providence has been so overworked by playwrights of late.

Pardon the transcriber’s errors.