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He will require watching!" "He loves, Van Tricasse, he loves your charming Suzel." "Well, Niklausse, he shall marry her. Now that we have agreed on this marriage, what more can he desire?" "He desires nothing, Van Tricasse, the dear boy! But, in short we'll say no more about it he will not be the last to get his ticket at the box-office."
The burgomaster perceived that his own daughter, the charming Suzel, was escaping from his hands. As for dear Tatanémance, she had dared to sound Commissary Passauf on the subject of a union, which seemed to her to combine every element of happiness, fortune, honour, youth! At last, to reach the depths of abomination, a duel took place!
Frantz Niklausse, then, loved Suzel Van Tricasse, but quietly, as a man would love when he has ten years before him in which to obtain the beloved object. Once every week, at an hour agreed upon, Frantz went to fetch Suzel, and took a walk with her along the banks of the Vaar.
As for Frantz's rival, he generously abandoned the charming Suzel to her lover, who hastened to wed her five or six years after these events. And as for Madame Van Tricasse, she died ten years later, at the proper time, and the burgomaster married Mademoiselle Pélagie Van Tricasse, his cousin, under excellent conditions for the happy mortal who should succeed him.
The sun was fast approaching the western horizon, and despite the combined skill of Suzel and Frantz, there had not been a bite. The barbels had not shown themselves complacent, and seemed to scoff at the two young people, who were too just to bear them malice. "We shall be more lucky another time, Frantz," said Suzel, as the young angler put up his still virgin hook.
From time to time Frantz would say, without raising his eyes, "I think I have a bite, Suzel." "Do you think so, Frantz?" replied Suzel, who, abandoning her work for an instant, followed her lover's line with earnest eye. "N-no," resumed Frantz; "I thought I felt a little twitch; I was mistaken." "You will have a bite, Frantz," replied Suzel, in her pure, soft voice.
Noise had no existence there; people did not walk, but glided about in it; they did not speak, they murmured. There was not, however, any lack of women in the house, which, in addition to the burgomaster Van Tricasse himself, sheltered his wife, Madame Brigitte Van Tricasse, his daughter, Suzel Van Tricasse, and his domestic, Lotchè Janshéu.
"Let us hope so," replied Frantz. Then walking side by side, they turned their steps towards the house, without exchanging a word, as mute as their shadows which stretched out before them. Suzel became very, very tall under the oblique rays of the setting sun. Frantz appeared very, very thin, like the long rod which he held in his hand. They reached the burgomaster's house.
He took good care to carry his fishing-tackle, and Suzel never forgot her canvas, on which her pretty hands embroidered the most unlikely flowers. Frantz was a young man of twenty-two, whose cheeks betrayed a soft, peachy down, and whose voice had scarcely a compass of one octave. As for Suzel, she was blonde and rosy. She was seventeen, and did not dislike fishing.
We may also mention the burgomaster's sister, Aunt Hermance, an elderly maiden who still bore the nickname of Tatanémance, which her niece Suzel had given her when a child. But in spite of all these elements of discord and noise, the burgomaster's house was as calm as a desert.
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