Frédérique, vol. 1

by Paul de Kock

I said a moment ago that my parents—that is to say, my father—left me some property. My mother had had two husbands, and I was the son of her second marriage. As she had nothing when she married my father, it is to him that I am indebted for the fortune which I have employed so ill hitherto.

But, after all, have I employed it so ill, if I have been happy? Ah! the fact is that I am not at all certain that I have been really happy in this life of dissipation, folly, incessant change, regrets, and hopes so often disappointed. I determined to settle down, to do what is called making an end of things, which means marrying; albeit marriage is not always the end of our follies, and is often the beginning of our troubles. I loved my fiancée; I was not madly in love with her, but I liked her, and I thought that she was fond of me. An unforeseen occurrence broke off my projected marriage, and since then I have entirely renounced all such ideas, because a similar occurrence might have a similar result. What was it? Ah! that is my secret; I am not as yet intimate enough with you to tell you everything.

I seem to have been talking a long while about myself; you must be sadly bored. I propose now to make you acquainted with most of the gentlemen who were my table companions at Deffieux's; I say "most of them," for there were fifteen of us, and I did not know them all.

Let us begin with the host, Dupréval, who was giving the dinner, as he told us, to commemorate his final adieu to his bachelorhood.

Dupréval is a solicitor; an excellent fellow, neither handsome nor ugly, but a financier, a man of figures and calculations; he is entering into marriage as one enters into any large commercial speculation. He will certainly keep his word and abandon the follies of a bachelor, or I shall be very much astonished; he is a man who will make his way in the world; he has a goal—wealth; and he marches constantly toward it, never turning aside from the path.

I admire such men, unbending in their determination, and incapable of being turned aside from the line of conduct they have marked out for themselves; I admire them, but I shall never imitate them. Chance is such a fascinating thing, and it is such good fun to trust to it!

Next to Dupréval sat a stout young man, of medium height, but heavily built, high-colored, with the bloom and brilliancy of the peach ever on his cheeks. Unluckily, that never-failing freshness of complexion was his only beauty, if, indeed, such pronounced coloring is a beauty. His face beamed with good humor and denoted a leader in merrymaking; his mouth was a considerable gulf, and his eyes were infinitesimal; but, by way of compensation for occupying so little space, they were constantly in motion and very bright, their expression being decidedly bold when they rested upon the fair sex. His head was covered with a forest of flaxen hair. Such was Monsieur Balloquet, medical student; indeed, I believe he was a full-fledged doctor; but he had little practice, or, rather, none at all; he thought only of enjoying himself, like many doctors of his age. However, I do not mean to speak ill of Balloquet; for he was a very good fellow, and we were good friends.

Next to him was a young man of medium height, very thin, and with a very yellow complexion. An enormous beard, moustache, and whiskers covered so much of his face that one could see little more than his nose, which was long and thin, and his eyes, which were sunken and overshadowed by eyebrows that threatened to spread like his beard. This gentleman had an air of excessive weariness; that was all that one could make out beneath the chestnut shrubbery that had overgrown his face. His name was Fouvenard. I believe that he was in trade; but his business, whatever it was, seemed to have worn him out. But that fact did not prevent him from talking all the time of his past conquests and his present love affairs.

At my left was a rotund old party, with an amiable expression, and a full-blown, rubicund face. It was Monsieur Rouffignard, auctioneer, who was no longer young, but held his own manfully with the young men. He did not lag behind at table; indeed, I have an idea that he did not lag behind anywhere.

The next beyond was a very good-looking young man named Montricourt. He had rather a self-sufficient air, and, if you did not know him well, you might have called him conceited; but on talking with him, you found him much more agreeable than his pretentious costume would lead you to suppose.