Cousin Bette (45 page)

‘You are very hard on my husband, my dear Crevel; and yet you would be his best friend if you had found his wife frail.…'

She cast a burning look at Crevel. But, like Dubois, who kicked the Regent disguised as his valet with too much enthusiasm, she over-played her part and profligate thoughts
returned with such force to the ‘Regency' perfumer that he said to himself:

‘Can she want to revenge herself on Hulot? Does she like me better as a Mayor than in National Guard uniform? Women are such odd creatures!' And he struck an attitude in his second manner, looking at the Baroness with a Regency smirk.

‘One might think,' she went on, ‘that you are having your revenge on him for a virtue that resisted you, for a woman whom you loved enough… to… to buy her,' she concluded, in a whisper.

‘For a divine woman,' Crevel returned, leering at the Baroness, who lowered her eyes, finding her lashes suddenly wet; ‘and what a lot of bitter pills you've had to swallow… in the past three years… eh, my beauty?'

‘Don't let's talk of my sufferings,
dear
Crevel; they are too much for any human being to endure. Ah, if you still loved me, you could take me from the pit I am in! Yes, I lie in hell! The regicides who were tortured with red-hot pincers, who were drawn and quartered, were on roses compared with me, for it was only their bodies that were dismembered and it is my heart that is torn asunder!'

Crevel's hand slipped from his waistcoat armhole. He laid his hat on the work-table. He broke his pose. He smiled! His smile was so idiotic that the Baroness misunderstood it: she thought it was an expression of kindness.

‘You see a woman, not in despair, but suffering the death-throes of her honour, and resolved to do anything,
my dear
, to prevent a crime.…'

Fearing that Hortense might come in, she bolted the door; then in the same impulse cast herself at Crevel's feet, took his hand and kissed it.

‘Be my deliverer!' she said.

She believed that there was generous feeling in his shopkeeper's heart, and a sudden hope flashed through her mind that she might obtain the two hundred thousand francs without losing her honour.

‘Buy a soul, you who sought to buy a virtue!' she said, looking at him wildly. ‘Trust my integrity as a woman, my honour, whose steadfastness you know! Be my friend! Save a whole
family from ruin, shame, despair. Keep it from plunging into a mire whose filth will be mixed with blood! Oh, don't ask for explanations!' she went on, as Crevel made a gesture and seemed about to speak. ‘Above all, don't say “I told you sol” like a person glad at a friend's misfortune. Only do as you are asked by one you once loved, a woman whose humiliation at your feet is perhaps a noble achievement. Ask her for nothing in return, but be sure that there is nothing her gratitude will withhold! No, do not give, but lend, lend to the one whom you once called Adeline!'

At this point Adeline sobbed uncontrollably, and tears came in such floods that Crevel's gloves were soaked. The words ‘I need two hundred thousand francs!' were barely distinguishable amid the torrent of tears, like the boulders, substantial as they are, just breaking the surface in Alpine torrents swollen at the melting of the snows.

Such is virtue's inexperience! Vice asks for nothing, as Madame Marneffe's case has shown; it causes everything to be offered to it. Women of Valérie's kind become demanding only when they have become indispensable, or when it is a matter of extracting all that a man has left, like working a quarry when the lime becomes scarce, ‘worked out', as the quarrymen say. Hearing the words ‘Two hundred thousand francs!' Crevel understood everything. He gallantly raised the Baroness to her feet with the insolent words, ‘Come, mother, let's keep calm,' which Adeline in her distracted state did not hear. The scene was changing its aspect. Crevel was becoming, as he put it, master of the situation. The magnitude of the sum produced such strong reaction in Crevel that his considerable emotion at seeing this beautiful woman in tears at his feet was dissipated. And then, however angelic and saintly a woman may be, when she weeps unrestrainedly her beauty disappears. Women like Madame Marneffe, as we have seen, may cry a little sometimes, let a tear roll down their cheeks; but burst into floods of tears, redden their eyes and noses… never! They would not make such a mistake.

‘Come now,
my child
, keep cool now, hang it!' Crevel said, taking the lovely Madame Hulot's hands in his and patting
them. ‘Why do you want two hundred thousand francs from me? What do you want it for? Who needs it?'

‘Don't ask me to explain, but give it to me,' she answered.

‘You will have saved the lives of three people and our children's honour.'

‘And do you believe, my dear little woman,' said Crevel, ‘that you could find a single man in Paris ready, at the say-so of a woman half off her head, to go, there and then, and take out of some drawer or other two hundred thousand francs, which are quietly stewing in their own juice there, waiting till she is good enough to come along and lift the gravy? Is that all you know of life and business, my pretty? Your relations are in a very bad way, better send them the Sacraments, for no one in Paris except Her Holiness the Bank, the great and illustrious Nucingen, or a few misers with a kink (as mad about gold as men like us are about a woman), could work a miracle like that. The Civil List, however civil it may be, the Civil List itself would ask you to call back tomorrow. Everybody puts out his money at interest and turns it over as best he can. You're deluding yourself, dear angel, if you imagine that it's King Louis-Philippe that we're ruled by, and he has no illusions himself on that score. He knows, as we all do, that above the Charter there stands the holy, venerable, solid, the adored, gracious, beautiful, noble, ever young, almighty, franc! Now, my fair angel, money calls for interest, and it is for ever busy about gathering it. “God of the Jews, you prevail!” as the great Racine said. In fact, the eternal allegory of the golden calf. Even in the days of Moses they had jobbers in the desert! We have returned to Old Testament ideas. The golden calf was the first great book of the national debt,' he went on. ‘You live far too much in the rue Plumet, my Adeline. The Egyptians borrowed enormous sums from the Jews, and it wasn't God's chosen people they ran after, it was cash.'

He looked at the Baroness, and his expression said, ‘I hope you admire my cleverness!'

‘You don't know how devoted every citizen is to his sacred pile,' he continued, after this pause. ‘If you'll pardon me, let me tell you this! Get hold of these facts. You want two hundred
thousand francs?… No one can give you that sort of money without selling capital. Now just reckon it up. To have two hundred thousand francs in ready money you would have to sell investments bringing in an income of about seven thousand francs, at three per cent. Well, you can't have your money in less than two days; you can't do it quicker than that. And if you mean to persuade someone to hand over a fortune, for that's a whole fortune to plenty of people – two hundred thousand francs – you'll certainly have to tell him where it's going, what you want it for.…'

‘It's a question, my kind dear Crevel, of saving the lives of two men, of whom one will die of grief and the other will kill himself! And then it affects me too, for I'll go mad! Perhaps I am a little mad already?'

‘Not so mad!' he said, squeezing Madame Hulot's knees. ‘Papa Crevel has his price, since you have deigned to think of him, my angel.'

‘It seems it's necessary to let my knees be squeezed!' thought the noble saintly woman, burying her face in her hands. ‘You offered me a fortune once!' she said, blushing.

‘Ah, mother mine, three years ago!' said Crevel. ‘Oh! you are more beautiful than ever!' he exclaimed, seizing the Baroness's arm and pressing it against his heart. ‘You have a good memory, my child, upon my soul! Well, see how wrong you were to act the prude! Now the three hundred thousand francs that you high-mindedly refused are in another woman's purse. I loved you then and I love you still; but let's carry our minds back to three years ago. When I said to you “I mean to have you!” what was my purpose? I wanted to have my revenge on that blackguard Hulot. Well, your husband, my belle, took a jewel of a woman as his mistress, a pearl, a sly little puss, then aged twenty-three for she's twenty-six now. I thought it would be more comical, more complete, more Louis XV, more Maréchal de Richelieu, more succulent, to steal the charming creature from him, and in any case she never loved Hulot and for the past three years she has been crazy about your humble servant.'

As he said this, Crevel, from whose hands the Baroness had withdrawn her own, struck his pose again. He stuck his
thumbs in his armholes and flapped his hands against his chest like a pair of wings, thinking that this made him look desirable and charming. It was a way of saying ‘this is the man whom you chucked out!'

‘There you are, my dear; I've had my revenge and your husband knows it! I categorically demonstrated to him that he had been made a goose of, properly what you call paid back in his own coin… Madame Marneffe is
my
mistress, and if our friend Marneffe pops off, she will be my wife.'

Madame Hulot stared at Crevel with fixed distraught eyes.

‘Hector knew that!' she said.

‘And he went back to her!' Crevel replied. ‘I put up with it because Valérie wanted to be the wife of a head clerk, but she swore to me that she would fix things so that our Baron should get such a drubbing that he wouldn't appear again. And my little duchess (for she was born a duchess, that woman, word of honour!) has kept her word. She has given you back your Hector “virtuous in perpetuity” as she said so wittily! He's been taught a good lesson, believe me! The Baron has had some hard knocks; he'll keep no more dancers, nor real ladies either. He's been reformed root and branch, as clean as a whistle, rinsed like a beer-glass. If you had listened to Papa Crevel instead of humiliating him, showing him the door, you would have had four hundred thousand francs, for my revenge has cost me at least that much. But I'll get my money back, I hope, when Marneffe dies… I have invested in my future wife. That's the secret of my extravagant spending. I have solved the problem of being lordly on the cheap.'

‘You would give a step-mother like that to your daughter?' exclaimed Madame Hulot.

‘You don't know Valérie, Madame,' replied Crevel solemnly, striking an attitude in his first manner. ‘She's a well-born woman, a well-bred woman, and a woman who enjoys the highest public esteem, as well. Why, yesterday the vicar of her parish dined at her house. We have given a magnificent monstrance to the church, for she's devout. Oh! she is clever, she is witty, she's delightful, she knows everything, she has everything. As for me, dear Adeline, I owe everything
to that charming woman. She has smartened me up, improved my way of speaking, as you see; she prunes the jokes I crack, gives me words to say, and ideas. I never say anything that's not quite proper any more. One can see great changes in me; you must have noticed it. And what's more too, she has stirred up my ambition. I might be a Deputy and I should not make any bloomers, for I would consult my Egeria about every single thing. All great men in politics, like Numa and our present illustrious Prime Minister, have had their Comical… Comfortean… Cumaean Sibyl. Valérie entertains a score of Deputies; she's becoming very influential, and now that she's going to have a charming house and a carriage she'll be one of the secret ruling powers of Paris. She's a famous locomotive, a woman like that! Ah! I have very often thanked you for being so stubborn!'

‘It's enough to make one doubt the goodness of God,' said Adeline, whose indignation had dried her tears. ‘But no. Divine Justice must surely hover over that head!'

‘You don't know the world, fair lady,' retorted Crevel, that great politician, deeply offended. ‘The world, my dear Adeline, loves success. Well, look, does it come in search of your sublime virtue, with its price of two hundred thousand francs?'

This shot made Adeline shudder, and she was seized again with her nervous trembling. She understood that the retired perfumer was meanly revenging himself upon her, as he had revenged himself on Hulot. Disgust sickened her, and made her nerves so tense that her throat was constricted and she could not speak.

‘Money!… always money!' she said, at last.

‘You certainly made me feel sorry,' Crevel went on, remembering, as he heard the exclamation, this woman's humiliation, ‘when I saw you there crying, at my feet! Well, you won't believe me perhaps, but, well, if I'd had my wallet it would have been yours. You really need all that money?'

When she heard the question, big with two hundred thousand francs, Adeline forgot the abominable insults of this fine gentleman on the cheap, seeing the bait of success dangled before her with such Machiavellian cunning by Crevel, whose
only motive was to penetrate Adeline's secrets in order to laugh at them with Valérie.

‘Oh! I'll do anything!' cried the unfortunate woman. ‘Monsieur, I'll sell myself… I'll become, if need be, a Valérie.'

‘You would find it hard to do that,' replied Crevel. ‘Valérie is the supreme achievement of her kind. Dear old lady, twenty-five years of virtue are always rather off-putting, like a neglected disease. And your virtue has grown mouldy here, my child. But you are going to see just how fond I am of you. I'm going to arrange for you to have your two hundred thousand francs.'

Adeline seized Crevel's hand, held it, and laid it on her heart, incapable of articulating a word; and her eyelids were wet with tears of joy.

‘Oh, wait a minute! It will have to be worked for. I'm a good-natured chap, a fellow who enjoys a good time, with no prejudices, and I'm going to tell you quite plainly just how things are. You want to be like Valérie; well and good. But that's not enough, you need a
gogo
, a sucker, a shareholder, a Hulot. Now, I know a big retired tradesman, a hosier as it happens. He's rather thick-headed and heavy in the hand, and very dull. I'm licking him into shape, and I don't know when he'll be in a state to do me credit. My man is a Deputy, a conceited boring sort of chap, who has been kept buried in the depths of the country by a female tyrant, a kind of virago, and he's a complete greenhorn with regard to the luxury and pleasures of life in Paris. But Beauvisage (he's called Beau-visage) is a millionaire, and he would give, as three years ago I would have given, my child, a hundred thousand crowns to have a lady for his mistress. Yes,' he said, thinking that he had interpreted aright the gesture that Adeline made, ‘he is jealous of me, you seel Yes, jealous of my happiness with Madame Marneffe, and the lad is just the fellow to sell a piece of property in order to become proprietor of a…'