“That is not requisite; we will exchange the snuff and the snuff-boxes.”
So saying, I put Thérèse’s box in my pocket and gave her mine shut. When she saw the portrait, she gave a cry which puzzled everybody, and her first motion was to kiss the portrait.
“Look,” said she to Cesarino, “here is your portrait.”
Cesarino looked at it in astonishment, and the box passed from hand to hand. Everybody said that it was my portrait, taken ten years ago, and that it might pass for a likeness of Cesarino. Thérèse got quite excited, and swearing that she would never let the box out of her hands again, she went up to her son and kissed him several times. While this was going on I watched the Abbé Gama, and I could see that he was making internal comments of his own on this affecting scene.
The worthy abbé went away towards the evening, telling me that he would expect me to breakfast next morning.
I spent the rest of the day in making love to Redegonde, and Thérèse, who saw that I was pleased with the girl, advised me to declare myself, and promised that she would ask her to the house as often as I liked. But Thérèse did not know her.
Next morning Gama told me that he had informed Marshal Botta that I would come and see him, and he would present me at four o’clock. Then the worthy abbé, always the slave of his curiosity, reproached me in a friendly manner for not having told him anything about my fortune.
“I did not think it was worth mentioning, but as you are interested in the subject I may tell you that my means are small, but that I have friends whose purses are always open to me.”
“If you have true friends you are a rich man, but true friends are scarce.”
I left the Abbé Gama, my head full of Redegonde, whom I preferred to the young Corticelli, and I went to pay her a visit; but what a reception! She received me in a room in which were present her mother, her uncle, and three or four dirty, untidy little monkeys: these were her brothers.’