Climates by André Maurois Read Free Book Online

intervene and glean information about the Malets. What would they find? I myself knew nothing of Odile’s family and had never even laid eyes on her father. I have already said that peculiar Marcenat traditions meant serious news was never transmitted to the concerned parties, but through an intermediary, and tempered by endless precautions. I asked my aunt Cora, my favorite confidante, to tell my father ofmy engagement. She was always happy to prove the efficiency of her information-gathering service, which was indeed remarkable, although it had the drawback of comprising agents too highly placed in society, for if one wanted details on the life of a corporal, Aunt Cora could only consult the minister of war, or on some local doctor in Limoges, only a surgeon in a Paris hospital. When I gave her Monsieur Malet’s name, she replied, as I expected, with, “I don’t know him, but if he is anyone, I’ll find out right away from old Berteaux, you know, the architect at the institute who comes to a couple of Tuesdays in the winter because poor Adrien used to go hunting with him.”
    I saw her again a couple of days later and found her pessimistic but animated with it.
    “Oh, my poor dear!” she said. “You’re lucky you consulted me; this is no marriage for you … I saw old Berteaux. He knows Malet very well; they were in lodgings together for the Prix de Rome scholarships. He says he is a pleasant man who had some talent but has not had any success because he never does any work. He is the sort of architect capable of designing a project but who fails to oversee the work and loses all his clients … I was aware of thatwhen I had Trouville built … Your Malet married a woman I once knew, when she was Madame Boehmer, it came back to me when Berteaux reminded me … Hortense Boehmer, I think … He is her third husband … Now it seems, as you told me, that the daughter is ravishing, and it’s only natural that you should be taken with her, but, please believe my experience, my little Philippe, don’t marry her, and don’t mention this to your father or your mother … It’s not the same with me—I have seen so many people in my life—but your poor mother … I cannot picture her with Hortense Boehmer, Oh! Good Lord, no!”
    I told my aunt that Odile was quite different from her family, and besides I had made my decision and it would be better if Odile found approval with my family immediately. After resisting a little, Aunt Cora consented to speak with my parents, partly because she was kind, partly also because she was like an old ambassador with an impassioned taste for negotiating who views a period of international difficulties ahead with both fear, because he likes peace, and secret glee, because it will allow him to exercise his true talent.
    My father proved calm and indulgent. He asked me to think things over. As for my mother, sheinitially greeted the idea that I was to be married with joy, but a few days later she met an old friend who knew the Malets and told her they moved in circles with very liberal customs. Madame Malet had a bad reputation; she was still said to take lovers. Nothing precise was known about Odile, but there was no doubt she had been badly brought up, went out alone with young men, and was far too pretty besides.
    “Do they have a fortune?” asked my uncle Pierre, who was inevitably privy to the conversation.
    “I don’t know,” said my mother. “They say this Monsieur Malet is an intelligent man but rather odd … They’re not people like us.”
    “Not people like us” was a real Marcenat saying and a terrible condemnation. For a few weeks I thought it would be very difficult for me to have my marriage accepted. Odile and her mother came home to Paris a fortnight after I did. The Malets lived on the rue Lafayette, in a third-floor apartment. A door hidden in paneling led to Monsieur Malet’s offices, and Odile took me to see him. I was used to the rigorous