Book #1: Suzy's Dream (Chapter 1 Part - 4)

 Chapter 1 continued...

“I beg you, aunt, to accept my proposal without doubt,” she continued, nevertheless. “I know very well that Maman will be happy to receive a telegram telling her that I will soon kiss her in a few days.”

“That’s very true,” said Madame Arnay, no longer protesting. “Your uncle is going to Paris tomorrow for a shareholders' meeting. You should travel with him. It would be...” She corrected herself without even noticing. “It will be convenient that way.”

From the depths of the armchair in which she was curled up, Madame de Berly nodded.

“It is indeed the best combination,” she said. “Suzy is reasonable. She doesn't care too much about your worldliness and won't complain about being in her dear home. Isn't that true, Suzy?”

“Oh, certainly,” replied the young girl, with an imperceptible bitterness in her voice.

No doubt she was reasonable, as Mme. de Berly said so well. After all, she only possessed the wisdom of her eighteen years, which no one seemed to consider.

Germaine, however, in her position as a young girl, had a sensitivity to the regret that her cousin might feel, but she was too careless to dwell on it. Besides, the thought of Gladys occupied her entirely.

“What a pity, Suzy,” Germaine said thoughtlessly. “You’re leaving just when we’re going to have so much fun at Le Castel!”

“What more is there to say?” Suzy tried to smile cheerfully. “I think it’s better this way. Even so, after so many distractions, my life in Paris will perhaps seem very monotonous to me.”

Georges de Flers, having quit the smoking room with M. de Berly, turned abruptly at Suzy's words. As Madame Arnay called to Germaine to discuss details, Georges drew near to Suzy. She remained aloof and had distanced herself from the others. Leaning on the table, she leafed through an album of old engravings. The light of the lamp, pink through the shade, bathed her profile in a soft brightness. She appeared pensive, with her lips taking on a sad tenseness.

“Did I misunderstand what I just heard?” he asked. “It’s not true that you’re leaving sooner than expected?” His tone of lively interest put Suzy’s heart at ease.

At no price would she want others to think she was leaving Le Castel because she felt uncomfortable to be there.

“On the contrary, you heard correctly. But I have no regrets. Maman is anxious to see me again, and I'm always happy to be with her,” she said without raising her eyes while continuing to turn the pages of the book.

“Except for Suzy, everything is prepared and ready,” said Madame Arnay quietly, her voice coming from the other end of the drawing room. She appeared overly occupied with the arrangements she discussed with her daughters.

Georges de Flers raised his head, shaken by a sudden feeling, as if offended himself and sensing he was the one unwelcome. Even more so at this hour, when he found himself seduced by Suzy's delightful charm.

She had not moved, her gaze still fixed on the engravings, but her lips trembled a little. He leaned nearer to her.

“Will you allow me, mademoiselle, to assure you that it seems to me very…Is it hard to have no right to insist that you extend your stay here?” he asked, respectfully. His voice was slightly muffled, with an almost affectionate intonation,

This time she raised her clear gaze to him and a frail smile came to her lips.

“Thank you for saying that to me,” she said in her pretty, frank manner. “It is childish on my part, but I like to feel missed.”

“You will be very much!” he replied, with a spontaneity that brought a slight flame to Suzy's cheeks.

Georges de Flers had never spoken to her like this, especially with this tone of voice. In that moment, when a feeling of isolation gripped her, she felt a strange sweetness, almost a joy. With a sudden burst of appreciation, her young heart opened to Georges, he who understood her distress. 

At the request of her aunt, who was quite reassured and very gracious, Suzy went, as she did every evening, and sat down at the piano. And, as Madame Arnay did every evening, after insisting on listening to music, she didn’t pay attention and instead chatted with her daughters. 

In the billiard room, where the men exercised their dexterity with skillful shots, the sharp sound of the balls colliding often disturbed Suzy's playing of the piano. Georges de Flers, having been fetched by M. de Berly, went to join them. But when the first notes of a Schumann romance resounded, he appeared back in the drawing room and took his seat in an armchair placed in the shadow of the grand piano.

Without stopping in her playing, Suzy turned her head a little towards him, a question in her eyes.

“Since it's the last evening hearing you play, grant me the favor of listening to you from here, in this peaceful little corner. I enjoy hearing you interpret this melody,” he said in a polite tone. It was a great charm of his to address a woman as he would a sovereign.

He was very handsome, too, with an elegant and finely standard attractiveness. He bore this dangerous description with flawless ease. Truly, Georges de Flers had received much on his part. With a highly developed artistic sense, as evidenced by the paintings he signed, his reputation was a given. His fortune had greatly accelerated his celebrity. By a mastered reason, his enthusiastic and generous imagination judged things with a coolness filled with skepticism. A supple and lively, if not profound, intelligence, made him capable of taking an interest in all questions that remained closed off to more common individuals.

Very modern in his tastes for refined luxury, he was also so in his delicate dilettantism. Always curious about new impressions, he sought them out with a blasé nonchalance, even while appreciating them as an artist. When presented to him, he was charmed by such new notions and voluntarily disdainful of analyzing them. Moreover, as a man of the world, his superiority of mind was obvious, very appealing without effort or banality.

And so Suzanne judged him—according to the general opinion that other’s thought of him. 

With a slight sign of consent, she accepted his presence and continued to play. To know that Georges de Flers was near her, interested in what she was doing, enveloped Suzy with a sensation of sweet joy, dispelling the sadness awakened in her young heart by the bruises of the evening. As her long fingers wandered over the ivory keys, Suzy felt happy. The music lulled her confused reverie, and she thought no more of desiring or regretting anything.

End of Chapter 1

Le rêve de Suzy is in the public domain. All original additions, including translations, illustrations and chapter summaries, are copyright © 2025 by Marriah K. Nissen and may not be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. All rights reserved.