After lunch the dealer, the artist, and the group were announced. Her daughter’s sudden blush made the Baroness first worried and then watchful, and Hortense’s embarrassment, the ardour in her eyes, soon revealed the secret that was poorly concealed in her young heart.
Count Steinbock, dressed all in black, seemed to the Baron a very distinguished young man.
‘Would you do a statue in bronze?’ he asked, holding the group in his hand.
After admiring it with confidence in his own judgement, he passed the bronze group to his wife, who knew nothing about sculpture.
‘Isn’t it lovely, Mama?’ Hortense whispered to her mother.
‘A statue! … That, Monsieur le Baron, is less difficult to make than the arrangement of figures in a clock like this one, which Monsieur has been so obliging as to bring here,’ the artist replied to the Baron’s question.
The dealer was busy placing on the dining-room sideboard the wax model of the twelve Hours that the Cupids were trying to catch.
‘Leave that clock with me,’ said the Baron, astonished at the beauty of the work. ‘I want to show it to the Minister of Home Affairs and the Minister of Trade.’
‘Who is this young man you are so interested in?’ the Baroness asked her daughter.
‘An artist rich enough to exploit this model could get a hundred thousand francs for it,’ said the antique dealer, looking knowing and mysterious as he noticed the looks of understanding that passed between the girl and the artist. ‘He would need to sell only twenty copies at eight thousand francs, for each copy would cost about five thousand francs to make. But if each copy were numbered and the model destroyed, it would be easy to find twenty art-lovers, pleased to be the only ones to own the work!’
‘A hundred thousand francs!’ exclaimed Steinbock, looking in turn at the dealer, Hortense, the Baron, and the Baroness.
‘Yes, a hundred thousand francs,’ repeated the dealer, ‘and if I were rich enough, I’d buy it from you myself for twenty thousand francs. For if the model is destroyed, the clock becomes a valuable property. But one of the Princes* would pay thirty or forty thousand francs for this masterpiece to decorate his drawing-room. A clock has never yet been made, by a real artist, which pleases both the ordinary man and the connoisseur, and this one, Monsieur, solves the problem.’
‘This is for yourself, Monsieur’ said Hortense, giving six gold coins to the dealer, who then left.
‘Don’t tell anyone in the world about this visit,’ the artist said to the dealer, following him to the door. ‘If you are asked where we took the group, say it was to the Duc d’Hérouville, the well-known collector who lives in the Rue de Varennes.’
The dealer nodded his assent.
‘Your name is …?’ the Baron asked the artist when he returned.
‘Count Steinbock.’
‘Have you papers that prove your identity?’
‘Yes, Monsieur le Baron. They are in Russian and German but not legally authenticated.’
‘Do you feel equal to undertaking a nine-foot statue?’
‘Yes, Monsieur.’
‘Well, if the people I’m going to consult are pleased with your work, I can get the commission for the statue of Marshal Montcornet for you. They want to erect it at Père-Lachaise, on his grave. The Ministry of War and the former officers of the Imperial Guard are giving quite a large sum so that we should have the right to choose the artist.’
‘Oh, Monsieur, that would make my fortune!’ said Steinbock, stunned by so much good luck happening all at once.
‘Don’t worry,’ the Baron replied graciously. ‘I’m going to show your group and this model to two ministers, and if they think these two works are wonderful, your fortune’s on the right path.’
Hortense squeezed her father’s arm so hard that it hurt him.
‘Bring me your papers and say nothing of your hopes to anyone, not even to our old cousin Bette.’
‘Lisbeth?’ exclaimed Madame Hulot, at last appreciating the ends though without understanding the means.
‘I can give you proofs of my ability by making a bust of Madame,’ added Wenceslas.
Struck by Madame Hulot’s beauty, the artist had just been comparing the mother and daughter.
‘Come, Monsieur, life can turn out very well for you,’ said the Baron, completely won over by Count Steinbock’s refined and distinguished appearance. ‘You will soon learn that in Paris talent doesn’t go unrewarded for long and that all steady work brings its reward.’
Hortense, blushing, handed the young man a pretty Algerian purse containing sixty gold coins. The artist, still with something of a nobleman’s pride, responded to Hortense’s blush with a flush of shame easy enough to interpret.
‘Is this by any chance the first money you’ve received for your work?’ asked the Baroness.
‘Yes, Madame, for my artistic work, but not for my labour, for I have been a workman.’
‘Well, let’s hope that my daughter’s money will bring you luck,’ replied Madame Hulot.
And don’t hesitate to take it,’ added the Baron, seeing Wenceslas still holding the purse in his hand and not putting it away. ‘We’ll get the amount back from some important nobleman, perhaps from a prince who will repay us with interest in order to possess such a fine work.’
‘Oh, I value it too much, Papa, to give it up to anyone, even the Prince Royal.’*
‘I could make another group for Mademoiselle, prettier than this …’
‘It wouldn’t be this one,’ she replied.
And as if ashamed of having said too much, she went into the garden.
‘Well, I’ll break the mould and the model when I get home,’ said Steinbock.
‘Come now, bring me your papers and you’ll hear from me soon if you live up to my expectations, Monsieur.’
At these words, the artist was obliged to leave. After bowing to Madame Hulot and Hortense, who came in from the garden on purpose to receive his bow, he went for a walk in the Tuileries without the strength or the courage to return to his attic, where his tyrant would bombard him with questions and wrench his secret from him.
Hortense’s lover imagined groups and statues by the hundred. He felt strong enough to cut the marble with his own hand, like Canova,* who was also not strong and had nearly died in the attempt. He was transformed by Hortense, who for him became a visible inspiration.
‘Now then, what does this mean?’ the Baroness asked her daughter.
‘Oh, dear Mama, you have just seen our cousin Bette’s admirer, who, I hope, is now mine…. But close your eyes. Pretend you know nothing about it. Goodness me! Here am I, who wanted to hide it all from you, about to tell you everything.’
‘Goodbye, my dears,’ said the Baron, kissing his wife and daughter. ‘Perhaps I’ll go and see Nanny and I’ll learn a lot of things about the young man from her.’
‘Papa, be careful,’ said Hortense.
‘Oh, my child, my dear child, the most cunning people on earth are always the innocent!’ cried the Baroness when Hortense had finished telling her romantic tale, whose last chapter was that morning’s adventure.
True passions have their own instinct. Put a gourmet in front of a dish of fruit, he will unfailingly, without even looking, take the best piece. Similarly, if well-bred girls are allowed to choose their own husbands and if they are in a position to have the man they select, they will rarely make a mistake. Nature is infallible. In this field, nature’s work is called love at first sight. In love, first sight is quite simply second sight.
The Baroness’s happiness, although concealed by her maternal dignity, was as great as her daughter’s, for of the three ways suggested by Crevel of arranging a marriage for Hortense, the best, the one that most pleased her, seemed likely to succeed. In what had happened she saw an answer from Providence to her fervent prayers.