Cousin Bette (59 page)

While this conversation, apparently so frivolous, was going on on Carabine's right, on her left the discussion about love continued between the Duc d'Hérouville, Lousteau, Josépha, Jenny Cadine, and Massol. They were considering whether this rare phenomenon were the product of passion, obstinacy, or infatuation. Josépha, completely bored by all this theory-spinning, was anxious to change the subject.

‘You're talking of something you know absolutely nothing about! Is there a single person here who has ever loved a woman, and a woman quite unworthy of him, enough to run through all his money and his children's money for her, to
pawn his future and tarnish his past, risk prison hulks for robbing the state, to kill an uncle and a brother, and let the wool be pulled over his eyes so completely that it never even occurs to him that he is being blindfolded to prevent him from seeing the abyss into which he is being pushed as a crowning jest? Du Tillet has a cash-box under his left breast; Léon de Lora keeps wit there; Bixiou would think himself a fool to care for anyone but himself; Massol has a Minister's portfolio for a heart; Lousteau has nothing there but a stomach, or he could never have let Madame de la Baudraye leave him; Monsieur le Duc is too rich to be able to prove his love by ruining himself; Vauvinet does not count, because I can't think a moneylender really a member of the human race. So none of you has ever loved, and neither have I, nor has Jenny, nor Carabine.… For my part, I have seen the phenomenon I've been describing only once. It was our poor Baron Hulot,' she said, turning to Jenny Cadine; ‘and I'm advertising for him as if he were a lost dog, for I want to find him.'

‘Well, well!' said Carabine to herself, looking at Josépha out of the corners of her eyes. ‘Can Madame Nourrisson have two Raphael pictures, or what's making Josépha play my game?'

‘Poor fellow!' said Vauvinet. ‘He was a fine man, very impressive. He carried himself with such dignity, such style! He looked like François I. What a volcano he was! And so ingenious, with a real talent for getting hold of money! Wherever he is, he must be looking for money now; and he's quite capable of finding it too, extracting it from those walls of bones you see on the outskirts of Paris, near the city gates, where he is probably hiding.…'

‘And all that,' said Bixiou, ‘for that little Madame Marneffe! There's a sly baggage, if ever there was one!'

‘She's going to marry my friend Crevell' observed du Tillet.

‘And she's crazy about my friend Steinbock!' added Léon de Lora.

These three remarks were three pistol-shots that struck Montès full in the chest. He turned pale, so shocked that he stumbled to his feet with some difficulty.

‘You utter swine!' he said. ‘How can you dare even speak an honourable lady's name in the same breath with all your fallen women, much less make her a target for your slanders?'

Shouts of ‘Bravo!' and applause from all sides cut Montès short. Bixiou, Léon de Lora, Vauvinet, du Tillet, and Massol gave the signal, and a chorus followed.

‘Long live the Emperor!' said Bixiou.

‘Give him a crown!' exclaimed Vauvinet.

‘
Groans
for
Médor, hurrah
for Brazil!' cried Lousteau.

‘Ah! my copper Baron, so you love our Valérie?' said Léon de Lora. ‘Does it not make you sick?'

‘What he said was not exactly parliamentary, but it was magnificent!' observed Massol.

‘But my dear honoured client, you're under my wing as your banker. Your innocence is going to damage my reputation!'

‘Ah, tell me – you are a reasonable man…' the Brazilian implored du Tillet.

‘Thank you, on behalf of the company,' said Bixiou, bowing.

‘Tell me, is there any truth in this at all?…' Montés went on, taking no notice of Bixiou's interruption.,

‘Well,' replied du Tillet, ‘I have the honour to inform you that I am invited to Crevel's wedding.'

‘Ah! Combabus takes on the defence of Madame Marneffe!' said Josépha, rising solemnly.

She moved with an air of mock tragedy towards Montès, gave him a friendly little pat on the head, regarded him for a moment with a comical expression of admiration, and shook her head.

‘Hulot is my first example of love through hell and high water; behold the second!' she said. ‘But we really shouldn't count him, because he comes from the tropics!'

As Josépha gently tapped his forehead, the Brazilian sank back into his chair again and looked in appeal towards du Tillet.

‘If I am the victim of one of your Paris jokes,' he said; ‘if you have done this to induce me to give away my secret…' –
and his stare ringed the table with flame, transfixing the circle of guests with eyes behind which the fires of a Brazilian sun were blazing –‘… for God's sake, tell me so,' he concluded, in almost childish supplication, ‘but do not blacken the name of the woman I love.…'

‘Well, then!' Carabine said in a low voice, in reply. ‘Supposing it's true that you have been shamefully betrayed, tricked, and deceived by Valérie, and I give you proofs of it, within an hour, at my house, what will you do?'

‘I can't tell you here, before all these lagos…' said the Brazilian baron.

Carabine thought he said
magots
– apes.

‘Ah, hush!' she answered, smiling. ‘Don't give darts they can turn against you to the wittiest men in Paris. Come home with me, and we can talk.'

Montès was shattered.

‘Proofs!' he stammered. ‘Consider…'

‘You shall have only too many, answered Carabine; ‘and if the mere suspicion affects you like this, I fear for your reason.…'

‘He isn't half obstinate, this fellow; he's worse than the late King of Holland. See here, Lousteau, Bixiou, Massol – listen all of you. Aren't you all invited to lunch by Madame Mar-neffe the day after tomorrow?' demanded Léon de Lora.

‘
Fa
' replied du Tillet. ‘With all respect, I repeat, Baron, that if by any chance you had the idea of marrying Madame Marneffe, you are thrown out like a Bill in Parliament, blackballed, by a fat ball called Crevel. My old comrade Crevel has eighty thousand livres a year, and you, my friend, have not flashed so much money, or so I imagine, for if you had, then you, no doubt, would have been the preferred one.'

Montès listened with a half-absent air, with a half-smile on his lips, that everyone there found terrifying. The head waiter came in just then to announce discreetly to Carabine that a relative of hers was in the hall and wished to speak to her. The girl rose, went out, and found Madame Nourrisson waiting, swathed in black lace.

‘Well, am I to go to your house, daughter? Has he taken the bait?'

‘Yes, Mother. The pistol is rammed so full that I'm afraid of its exploding.'

An hour later, Montès, Cydalise, and Carabine, returning from the Rocher de Cancale, walked into Carabine's little drawing-room in the rue Saint-Georges. The courtesan found Madame Nourrisson sitting in a low chair by the fire.

‘Ah, here's Aunt…' she said.

‘Yes, girl. I've come to fetch my bit of money myself. You might forget all about me, although you are a good-hearted child, and I have bills to pay tomorrow. A ladies' wardrobe-dealer, you know, is always pinched for cash. Who's this you've got lagging behind you? This gentleman looks as if he were in some sort of trouble.'

The hideous Madame Nourrisson, who had undergone a complete metamorphosis and now looked like a respectable old woman, rose to kiss Carabine, one of the hundred and one prostitutes whom she had launched in their horrible profession of vice.

‘He's an Othello who has made no mistake about the grounds for his jealousy. I have the honour to present to you Monsieur le Baron Montès de Montejanos…'

‘Oh, I know Monsieur, I've heard such a lot about him. They call you Combabus because you love only one woman; in Paris that's just the same as having none at all. Now is it by any chance the object of your affection that's the trouble? Madame Marneffe, Crevel's woman? Well, my dear sir, you ought to bless your lucky stars instead of blaming them. She's a complete bad lot, that little woman. I know her goings-on!'

‘Ah, bah!' said Carabine, into whose hand Madame Nourrisson had slipped a letter as she kissed her. ‘You don't know these Brazilians. They're fire-eaters, absolutely set on having knives stuck in their hearts! The more jealous they are, the more jealous they want to be. Monsieur here is talking of wading through blood, but he's in love so he's not likely to massacre anyone. Well, I've brought Monsieur le Baron here to give him proofs of his bad luck that I got from little Stein-bock.'

Montès was drunk. He listened as if the matter concerned
someone else. Carabine went to take off her short velvet cape, and read a facsimile of the following note:

My pet,
be
is going to dinner with Popinot this evening, and is to call for me at the Opera at eleven. I will leave the house at half past five, and count on finding you in our paradise; you can have dinner sent in from the Maison d'Or. Dress, so that you can escort me to the Opera. We shall have four hours together. Send me back this little note – not that your Valérie doesn't trust you, for you know I would give you my life, my fortune, and my honour, but I am afraid of some trick that accident may play us.

‘Well, Baron, this is the
billet doux
sent this morning to Count Steinbock; read the address! The original has been burned.'

Montès turned the note over and over, recognized the handwriting, and was struck by a thought, suggesting a gleam of hope, which showed the perturbed state of his mind.

‘Ah, indeed? And what is your motive? What do you get out of inflicting this misery on me? For you must have paid solid cash to have this note in your hands long enough to get it lithographed!' he said, staring at Carabine.

‘Idiot!' said Carabine, at a nod from Madame Nourrisson. ‘Don't you see poor Cydalise… only sixteen, and so much in love with you that neither a bite nor a sup has passed her lips in three months, and breaking her heart because you won't even give her a glance?'

Cydalise held her handkerchief to her eyes.

‘She's furious, even though she
looks
as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, to see the man she's mad about given the run around by a crafty bitch,' Carabine went on, ‘and she could kill Valérie.…'

‘Oh, that!' said the Brazilian. ‘That's my business!'

‘Kill her? You, my lad? We don't do that sort of thing here, these days.'

‘Oh!' returned Montès. ‘I don't belong here! I live in a jurisdiction where the law is in my hands, where I bite my thumb at your laws, and if you give me proof…'

‘Why, is this note not proof enough?'

‘No,' said the Brazilian. ‘I don't trust writing. I must see…'

‘Oh, as to seeing!' said Carabine, interpreting another nod
from her so-called aunt. ‘We'll let you see as much as you want to, dear tiger, but on one condition.…'

‘What condition?'

‘Look at Cydalise!'

Madame Nourrisson signed to Cydalise, who looked languishingly at the Baron.

‘Will you be her lover? Will you set her up in life?' demanded Carabine. ‘A girl as beautiful as that is worth a house and a carriage. It would be a crying shame to let her go about on foot. And she has… a few debts. How much do you owe?' asked Carabine, pinching Cydalise's arm.

‘She's worth what she's worth!' said the old woman. ‘So long as the condition is agreed, let that do!'

‘Listen!' exclaimed Montès, at last waking up to the girl's beauty. ‘You will show me Valérie?…'

‘And Count Steinbock, naturally!' agreed Madame Nourrisson, nodding again.

During the past ten minutes, as the old woman watched, he had seen that the Brazilian was the instrument tuned to murderous pitch that she required. She saw that he was sufficiently blinded, too, to be no longer on his guard against those who were leading him on; and now she intervened.

‘Cydalise, my dear friend from Brazil, is my niece, so I must take an interest in this arrangement. All the old affair can be cleared up and swept off in ten minutes, because it's one of my friends who lets the furnished room to Count Steinbock, where Valérie is taking her coffee at this moment – odd coffee, but that's what she calls it, her coffee. So now let's come to business, Brazil! I like Brazil, a hot country. What are you going to do about my niece?'

‘Old ostrich!' said Montès, struck by the feathers in the woman's hat. ‘Don't interrupt me. If you show me… show me Valérie and that artist together…'

‘As you would like to be with her yourself,' said Carabine. ‘That's understood.'

‘Well, I'll take this Norman girl, I'll take her…'

‘Take her where?…' demanded Carabine.

‘To Brazil!' replied the Baron. ‘I'll marry her. My uncle left me an estate twenty-five miles square, entailed, which is why I

still possess the place. I have a hundred Negroes there, no one but Negroes, and Negresses, and piccaninnies, bought by my uncle…'

‘A slave-dealer's nephew!…' said Carabine, making a face. ‘That needs thinking about. Cydalise, my child, are you fond of black men?'

‘That's enough, Carabine; no more tomfoolery, now,' said Madame Nourrisson. ‘A nice way to behave! This gentleman and I are talking business.'

‘If I take a Frenchwoman again, I intend her to be entirely mine,' the Baron went on. ‘I warn you, Mademoiselle, I am a king, but not a constitutional monarch. I am a czar. All my subjects have been bought, and no one ever leaves the confines of my kingdom, which is two hundred and fifty miles away from any inhabited place. Savages live beyond it in the interior, and it is separated from the coast by a wilderness as large as the whole of your France.…'