Guy de Maupassant: The Colonel's Nieces

“You, my dear Florentine, are beautiful, well-developed, young and intelligent. Alas, you are not rich, and if anything happens to me, you will be poor. In order to assure our well-being I have turned my small inheritance into an annuity, but pensions will disappear when the Lord calls me to His Throne. Frankly, I think that the time has come to think seriously of your future. What do you say about Cousin George?”

Florentine had turned slightly pale. At twenty she definitely had other dreams than those concerning a man deep in his fifties. She did like George Vaudrez very much, as a matter of fact he was her favorite relative. Of course, she did not have much choice of relatives, but she had always had a certain fondness for her dear cousin George Vaudrez, ever since she had been a tiny toddler. But to say that her heart throbbed wildly, or even experienced a tiny skip whenever he was around, would be a far cry from the truth. Despite his ardent declaration, which flattered her enormously, it had never crossed her mind to become his life-long companion and devoted wife. Let alone the mother of his children, though she did not have the vaguest inkling how that was going to be accomplished.

She was just a sweet, young and innocent girl. Like all girls of her upbringing, she did not have the faintest idea of the many implications that are hidden behind the simple little word, “love.”

In books she had caught glimpses of possibilities superior to the one she seemed destined for at the moment. But, it must be said in all fairness that she had also caught glimpses of things which seemed far worse to her. Florentine was a fairly level-headed girl; in short, she was neither elated nor depressed at the thought of giving her tiny hand in marriage to the aging person, and the vast fortune, of cousin George Vaudrez.

“My dear Aunt Briquart,” she said after a short moment of silence, “you know so much more about life than I do. I would appreciate very much if you could help me to arrange my life as you think it would be best for me. I don't know how to say this properly, but I am not particularly passionately in love with Cousin George, though I like him enough to accept the pleasant position he offers me, even if he is already fifty-five years old. I mean… I don't know whether it is that, or… how should I say it, I think I could be happy by being agreeable to George…”

Good Lord,” her sister exploded, “now I have heard just about everything. I have read quite a lot about marriages of convenience, marriages of passion and marriages of atonement. But to marry someone just to give him pleasure is a new one in the books! My best wishes for the future, dearest sister, but I won't follow your dreary example.”

“One of these days you might regret such an attitude.” said her aunt. “But thank goodness, we are not talking about you but the future of your sister. I will go to Cousin George and tell him about Florentine's decision.”

A wedding is always a big affair in any household. But the prospect of her own impending marriage to George Vaudrez seemed to have less of an affect on Florentine, the bride-to-be, than it had on her sister Julia. It was not that Julia was jealous; far from that. In the first place, she loved her sister too much for that, and secondly, whatever made Florentine happy, usually made Julia happy, too. But this time it was different. The words of Madame Briquart had torn apart the veil of innocence and ignorance which had shrouded the girls since early childhood.

That's it, she thought. I have no fortune; I am poor. And therefore I will be either condemned to live out my life as an old spinster, or I must become the life's companion of an aging rich man. With luck he might be as nice and half-way intelligent as Cousin George, but more likely he will be some drooling, old imbecile. Because, who, else in beautiful France would marry a nice, young girl without a dowry? This is utterly ridiculous. Everything I have ever read and dreamed about tells me that there is love and passion and things unknown but incredibly exciting… all this is waiting for me. It's in every book. What will ever happen to me if I don't find a young, handsome and rich husband who loves me?

But there was no one to answer that question.

Florentine was more simple-minded. She did not experience this sort of daydream. As far as she was concerned, her future was-from now on- predictable, and she could imagine it rather well. She was familiar with George's huge manor near Paris, because the children had spent practically every summer vacation there. And, by becoming the lady of the manor, she could imagine herself sitting on a big chair in the large drawing room, entertaining her guests.

The mornings would be bathed in sunshine, she would breathe deeply from the healthy morning air and she would devote herself to the numerous little tasks of a housewife, and the big task of giving orders for the day to her servants.

Noon would find her surrounded by her family. The children around her called her “Mama,” and the little baby in her arms gurgled pretty sounds. Above this gracious tableau, George's white head presided, his loving eyes fixed upon her.

This beautiful picture of a tranquil future had fixed itself so firmly in her mind that it filled her with a deep happiness. That evening, when George Vaudrez visited her, she was more than happy to put her hand in his, look up at him adoringly, and answer his formal request to marry him with a resounding “yes.”

Madame Briquart did not want to seem pushy, but she preferred to see things hurry up. Not that she did not trust her husband's nephew. Far from it! But the excitement and the fact that George was no longer a young man, made her decide upon an early wedding date. And George did not contradict her.

For six weeks there was a continual coming and going of dressmakers, seamstresses and milliners. Madame Briquart wanted everything to be as fine and elegant as possible. “I can only give you your trousseau,” she said to her little niece, “and the least I can do is to give you a very pretty one.”

The good woman had carefully chosen revealing chemises, worked with lace, very low-cut night gowns with ribbon and frills and all those hundreds of little nothings which, when put together, are the build-up to nights of love and laughter.

“But my dearest aunt,” said Florentine, who at times was very economy minded and who could not possibly see the reason for all these expenses, “why all these expensive frills on clothes nobody but me will ever see?”

The older woman would smile and say, “Oh, please, let me have my little pleasure.”

Madame Briquart knew the human heart and its frailties, and she was also not unaware of the fact that Cousin George had made good use of his many, many years as a bachelor. The leisure hours of his youth-as well as those of his later years- had been spent in sampling every form of lasciviousness the human mind can think of. And George was used to the luxuries with which the priestesses of Venus surround themselves, because a whore, by whatever name, is not capable of displaying much emotion, and has to make up her lack of feeling with the display of luxury. It was just that Madame Briquart did not want George's ardor to cool down too quickly, and she reasoned justly that the sight of luxury would make him temporarily forget that his new wife could not possibly match the experience of even a novice courtesan.

The great day finally arrived. She looked positively charming in her billowing, white bridal gown and veil, the orange blossoms, and her violet eyes so trustworthy. Florentine sincerely vowed love and fidelity; she was properly excited, but not at all frightened, when she and George got into the carriage which drove away from the home of her youth, her aunt, her sister and her friends, toward the huge mansion of George Vaudrez where they would spend the first days of their life together. George, with the complete agreement of Madame Briquart, was a rather old-fashioned man who saw no reason to travel the four corners of the earth to savor the most delicate experience of one's marriage, and to make the impersonal walls of some out-of-the-way hotel witness to the solemn act of making a devoted wife out of an inexperienced virgin.