‘I’m making another attempt to invite the Gonthier-Joncourts and their daughter to my Tuesday salon. I’ve been meaning to speak to you about it. I expect you to be at your best.’

‘Love is far too significant a matter simply to marry some eyesore in order to avoid military service. And anyway, in order to be exempted on the grounds of having to support the family, one must make the claim prior to the draw and not after the event! So, it is too late.’

‘Had you listened to me —’

‘Remind me, these people, they make bricks, do they not? Or are they in coal? Or is it patents? If I may be so bold, Aunt, you are ill-placed to speak to me of marriage – you, who have always been so opposed to it!’

‘That has nothing to do with it, as you very well know. If women are still marrying, it is because they are unaware of the law. But you, you are not a woman. And yes, these people are in coal, but you, might I remind you, are in nothing. And the goose who is hoping one day for a fool to steal away her inheritance is Eulalie, her parents’ only daughter – and I would have loved the fool in this story to be you.’

‘At just nineteen years of age Mademoiselle Eulalie already has the proportions of a well-built country notary. Imagine how she will look at thirty! And anyway, she’s a sweet girl who certainly deserves better than a man who shall never love her.’

His aunt shrugged her shoulders and exhaled.

‘You will not be stealing that Gonthier-Joncourt girl from anybody, and well she knows it. As do her parents. A match with a proper young lady, even an unpromising one, who offers you the means to pursue your passion for . . . for philosophical reflection, would be of far greater use to you than those good-for-nothings loitering about in your socialist cafés. You want to devote your existence to pondering the universe? So be it. A de Rigny may do with his life whatsoever he wishes, but he is forbidden from being poor!’

Clothilde articulated this family maxim without so much as a glance at her nephew, as a cuirassier bestowed upon her a concupiscent leer, bringing a flush to her face. Auguste was perfectly mortified.

‘Well then, I see . . . I shall leave you to your bestial contemplation . . . Good evening, Aunt.’ And with that he set off for his headquarters, namely the Café Madrid on Boulevard Montmartre.

Chapter 2

2

SO I STAY AT GRANNY SOIZE’S place when I reach the island and definitely not with my father.

Despite being his aunt, as the youngest child of a second marriage she is only eight years older than him. She never had any children of her own, but she had me.