Tig
favour which she did not often, however, bestow upon him. Once the General was so delighted to see her that he even burst into tears—rl really marvelled at him.
From the very first, Blanche began to plead his cause before me. Indeed, she waxed eloquent in his behalf; reminded me that she had betrayed the General for my sake, that she was almost engaged to him, had given him her word; that he had abandoned his family on her account, and, lastly, that I had been in his service and ought to remember that, and that I ought to be ashamed ... I said nothing while she rattled away at a terrific pax:e. At last I laughed: and with that the matter ended, that is, at first, she thought I was a fooclass="underline" and at last came to the conclusion that I was a very nice and accommodating man. In fact, I had the good fortune to win in the end the complete approval of that excellent young woman. (Blanche really was, though, a very good-natured girl—^in her own way, of course; I had not such a high opinion of her at first.) "You're a kind and clever man," ^e used to say to me towards the end, "and . . . and . . . it's only a pity you are such a fool! You never, never, save anjrthingl"
"Un vrcd russe, im caknouk!" Several times she sent me to take the General for a walk about the streets, exactly as she might send her lapdog out with her footman. I took him, however, to the theatre, and to the Bal-Mabille, and to the restaurants. Blanche gave me the money for this, though the General had some of his own, and he was very fond of taking out his pocket-book before people. But I had almost to use force to prevent him from buying a brooch for seven hundred francs, by which he was fascinated in the Palais Ro37al and of which he wanted, at all costs, to make Blanche a present. But what was a brooch of seven hundred frsincs to her? The General hadn't more than a thousand francs altogether. I could never find out where he had got that money from. I imagine it was from Mr. Astley, especially as the latter had paid their bill at the hotel. As for the General's attitude to me all this time, I believe that he did not even guess at my relations with Blanche. Though he had heard vaguely that I had won a fortune, yet he probably supposed that I was with Blemche in the capacity of a private secretary or even a servant. Anyway, he always, as before, spoke to be condescendingly, auliioritatively, and even sometimes fell to scolding me. One morning he amused Blanche and me unmensely at breakfast. He was not at all ready to take offence, but suddenly he was huffy with me—why?—I don't
know to this day. No doubt he did not know himself. In fact, he made a speech without a beginning or an end, a bdtcms-rompus, shouted that I was an impudent boy, that he would give me a lesson . . . that he would let me know it . . . and so on. But no one could make out anjrthing from it. Blanche went off into peals of laughter. At last he was somehow appeased and taken outfor a walk. I noticed sometimes, however, that he grew sad, that he was regretting someone and something, he was missing something in spite of Blanche's presence. On two such occasions he began tafliing to me of himself, but could not express himself clearly, alluded to his times in the army, to his deceased wife, to his family affairs, to his property. He would stumble upon some phrase—and was delighted with it and would repeat it a hundred times a day, thdugh perhaps it expressed neither his feelings nor his thoughts. I tried to talk to him about his children: but he turned off the subject with incoherent babble, and passed hurriedly to another topic: "Yes, yes, my children, you are right, my children!" Only once he grew sentimental —we were with him at the theatre: ' "Those unhappy children 1'' he began suddenly. "Yes, sir, those un—happy clmdren 1" And several times afterwards that evening he repeated the same words: "unhappy children 1" Once, when I began to speak of Polina, he flew into a frenzy. "She's an ungrateful girl," he cried. "She's wicked and ungrateful! She has disgraced her family. If there were laws here I would make her mind her p's and q's. Yes, indeed, yes, indeed!" As for De Grieux, he could not bear even to hear his name: "He has been the ruin of me," he would say, "he has robbed me, he has destroyed me! He has been my nightmare for the last two years! He has haunted my dreams for whole months I It's, it's, it's . . . Oh, never speak to me of him!"
I saw there was an understanding between them, but, as usual, I said nothing. Blanche announced the news to me first—^it was just a week before we parted: "II a du chance," she babbled. "Granny really is ill this time, and certainly will die. Mr. Astley has sent a telegram. You must admit that the General is her heir, anjnvay, and even if he were not, he would not interfere with me in an5^thing. In the first place, he has his pension, and in the second place, he will live in a back room and will be perfectly happy. I shall be 'Madame le G6n6rale'. I shall get into a good set" (Blanche was continually dreaming of this), "in the end I shall be a Russian landowner, j'tmrai im chateau, des mmtjiks, et puis j'awrai topjours mo<tp million."
"Well, what if he begins to be jealous, begins to insist ... on goodness knows what^—do you understand?"
"Oh, no, now, non, non! How dare he! I have taken precautions, you needn't be afraid. I have even naade him sign some lOUs for Albert. The least thing—and he will be arrested; and he won't dare!"
"Well, marry him . . ."
The marriage was celebrated without any great p>omp; it was a quiet family affair. Albert was invited and a few other intimate friends. Hortense, Cleopatra and company were studiously excluded. The bridegroom was extremely interested in his position. Blanche herself tied his cravat with her own hands, and pomaded his head: and in his swallow-tailed coat with his white tie he looked tres ommne il faut.
"II est pomiamt ires comme il ftmt," Blanche herself observed to me, coming out of the General's room, as though the idea that the General was tres comme U fmd was a surprise even to her. Though I assisted at the whole affair as an idle spectator, yet I took so little interest in the details that I have to a great extent forgotten the course of events. I only remember that Blanche turned out not to be called "de Cominges", and her mamma not to be Ja veutue "Cominges", but "du Placet". Why they had been both "de Cominges" till then, I don't know. But the General remained very much pleased with that, and "du Placet" pleased him, in fact, better than "de Cominges". On the morning of the wedding, fully dressed for the part, he kept walking to and fro in the drawing-room, repeating to himself with a grave and important air, "Mile. Blanche du Placet! Blanche du Placet, du Placet! . . . and his countenance beamed with a certain complacency. At church, before the moire, and at the wedding breakfast at home, he was not oniy^^jByful but proud. There was a change in both of them. Blanche, too, had an air of peculiar dignity.