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Updated: May 16, 2025
In that pretty whirl of silk and flowers and jet and flounces and furs, as it runs quickly up the step, Sidonie has recognized one of the most fashionable frequenters of the Fromont salon, the wife of a wealthy dealer in bronzes. What an honor to receive a call from such an one!
But her ambition confined itself to a superficial aspect of things. "Claire Fromont plays the piano; I will sing. She is considered a refined and distinguished woman, and I intend that people shall say the same of me." Without a thought of improving her education, Sidonie passed her life running about among milliners and dressmakers. "What are people going to wear this winter?" was her cry.
Nor did Sidonie add that she had entreated all those friends of Claire's, of whom she spoke so scornfully, to come to see her on her own day, and that the day was selected by them. Will they come? Will Madame Fromont Jeune insult Madame Risler Aine by absenting herself on her first Friday? The thought makes her almost feverish with anxiety. "For heaven's sake, hurry!" she says again and again.
Whereas he had always been very kind and affable with the workmen, he had become pitilessly severe in regard to the slightest infraction of the rules. It seemed as if he were taking vengeance upon himself for some indulgence in the past, blind, culpable indulgence, for which he blamed himself. Surely he was a marvellous employe, was this new officer in the house of Fromont.
The two great lamps in the salon are lighted. In the adjoining room they hear the servant laying the table. It is all over. Madame Fromont Jeune will not come. Sidonie is pale with rage. "Just fancy, that minx can't come up eighteen steps! No doubt Madame thinks we're not grand enough for her. Ah! but I'll have my revenge."
When I call on her on Wednesdays, you should hear the tone in which she asks me, before everybody, how 'dear Madame Chebe' is. Oh! yes. I'm a Chebe and she's a Fromont. One's as good as the other, in my opinion. My grandfather was a druggist. What was hers? A peasant who got rich by money-lending.
Pere Achille informed him that the ladies were at their respective country seats where the partners joined them every evening. Fromont Jeune had left the factory very early; Risler Aine had just gone. Frantz decided to speak to old Sigismond.
At last one day Sidonie entered that paradise of which she had heretofore caught only a glimpse. Madame Fromont, to whom Risler often spoke of her little neighbor's beauty and intelligence, asked him to bring her to the children's ball she intended to give at Christmas. At first Monsieur Chebe replied by a curt refusal.
They have for each other a profound esteem, dating from their first employment at the factory, from that time, long, long ago, when they breakfasted together at the little creamery on the corner, to which Sigismond Planus goes alone now and selects his refreshment for the day from the slate hanging on the wall. But stand aside! The carriage of Fromont Jeune drives through the gateway.
"We have every reason to be satisfied, especially as this is our first year together. We have forty thousand francs each for our share of the profits; and as I thought you might need a little money to give your wife a New Year's present " Ashamed to meet the eyes of the honest man whose confidence he was betraying, Fromont jeune placed a bundle of cheques and notes on the table.
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