"Alfred! he’s the man at whose house monsieur got so drunk one night that I had to make tea and other preparations for him. God! how kind I was to that creature!"
"I have never forgotten it, Fifine!"
"No more has the cat!—But go on."
"I had a very fine château. Ah! it was magnificent! towers, galleries, apartments with Cupids on the ceiling!"
"Great heaven! and did you walk about dressed as Cupid?"
"Let me finish.—Unluckily, my château was not new. I made repairs. Then I married—in order to banish your memory. I married a marquis’s daughter, who was mad over me. I thought that I had made a superb marriage. But I had to marry the whole family: father, uncle and sister; I had them all in my house. My father-in-law, who was to obtain a lucrative position for me, obtained nothing at all. My wife turned all my servants away, and hired others who robbed us. My devilish château required constant repairs; when I had finished in one part, I had to begin on another! And Uncle Mignon, who had been appointed inspector-general of my establishment, amused himself picking up pins instead of overlooking the workmen. On the other hand, my father-in-law ruined me with his economical schemes; he induced me to buy flocks of sheep which he insisted on training to draw the plough, saying that they would do the ploughing much faster; but the poor beasts died just as they were beginning to get used to the fatigue. He filled the lofts of my château with plums, declaring that they would make better sugar than beets; but when he set about making the experiment the plums were rotten. He had a canal dug in my park, because he swore that we could catch gudgeons in it and salt them and sell them for sardines; but the canal was always dry, and we caught nothing but rats.—While monsieur le marquis tried these fine experiments, my wife gave dinner-parties and elaborate fêtes. But I could not enjoy them, because I always had to play whist with my father-in-law. Finally, my sister-in-law married a widower with three children, and I had to put them all up at my château. I attempted to remonstrate, but my wife told me that when a man was as rich as I was he ought not to be mean. I determined to find out whether I still was very rich, so I wrote to my notary one fine day, when I had been married two years. He replied that of all the property of mine that he had had, only about fifty thousand francs was left. We had spent about three hundred and fifty thousand in repairs, entertainments and economical undertakings. I lost no time in informing my father-in-law that all I had left was twenty-five hundred francs a year and the château. Thereupon my wife fainted, my father-in-law seized a cane and threatened to give me a drubbing, claiming that I had deceived him; that, in order to have the honor of marrying his daughter, I had represented myself as being much richer than I really was.
"Faith! as I was tired of being scolded and threatened, and of playing whist, I started for Paris one fine morning, leaving them the château, which they were obliged to sell as it brought in nothing; but I turned over the proceeds to them. I am content with my twenty-five hundred francs a year, and if only my wife and my father-in-law do not come to Paris some day to hunt me up—that is all I ask.—That is what has happened to me, my dear Fifine;—My two travelling companions have been more fortunate: Edouard married a girl who lived in the mountains, near my château. She does not bear an illustrious name, she does not dance like Cornélie, but it seems that she makes her husband very happy; they have a lovely little girl, and they pass six months of the year at the White House, a pretty place of theirs in Auvergne, where they have urged me to visit them, which I would gladly do if I was not afraid of meeting my wife or my father-in-law in the neighborhood. As for Alfred, he too has married lately—a certain Jenny de Gerville, with whom he had been in love a long while; his wife is very pleasant; I dine with them sometimes.—There, dear Fifine, that is what I have been doing these last three years. And you?"
"I have flitted about."
"Are you still in the same shop?"
"I should think not! I have been in thirty since. But I think that I am going to settle down at last; the person with whom I am intimate now is looking for a fashionable little shop for me."