Poor Relations

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Ti­tle: Poor Re­la­tions

Au­thor: Hon­ore de Balzac

Re­lease Date: Ju­ly 13, 2004 [EBook #12900]

Lan­guage: En­glish

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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTEN­BERG EBOOK POOR RE­LA­TIONS ***

Pro­duced by Dag­ny, and John Bick­ers,

POOR RE­LA­TIONS

BY

HON­ORE DE BALZAC

IN­TRO­DUC­TION

_La Cou­sine Bette_ was per­haps the last re­al­ly great thing that Balzac did--for _Le Cousin Pons_, which now fol­lows it, was ac­tu­al­ly writ­ten be­fore--and it is be­yond all ques­tion one of the very great­est of his works. It was writ­ten at the high­est pos­si­ble pres­sure, and (con­trary to the au­thor's more usu­al sys­tem) in parts, with­out even see­ing a proof, for the _Con­sti­tu­tion­nel_ in the au­tumn, win­ter, and ear­ly spring of 1846-47, be­fore his de­par­ture from Vierzschov­nia, the ob­ject be­ing to se­cure a cer­tain sum of ready mon­ey to clear off in­debt­ed­ness. And it has been some­times as­sert­ed that this la­bor, com­ing on the top of many years of scarce­ly less hard works, was al­most the last straw which broke down Balzac's gi­gan­tic strength. Of these things it is nev­er pos­si­ble to be cer­tain; as to the great­ness of _La Cou­sine Bette_, there is no un­cer­tain­ty.

In the first place, it is a very long book for Balzac; it is, I think, putting aside books like _Les Il­lu­sions Per­dues_, and _Les Celi­bataires_, and _Splen­deurs et Mis­eres des Cour­tisanes_, which are re­al­ly groups of work writ­ten at dif­fer­ent times, the longest of all his nov­els, if we ex­cept the still lat­er and rather doubt­ful _Pe­tits Bour­geois_. In the sec­ond place, this length is not ob­tained--as length with him is too of­ten ob­tained--by di­gres­sions, by long ret­ro­spec­tive nar­ra­tions, or even by the in­ser­tion of such “padding” as the col­lec­tion busi­ness in _Le Cousin Pons_. The whole stuff and sub­stance of _La Cou­sine Bette_ is hon­est­ly wo­ven nov­el-​stuff, of one piece and one tenor and tex­ture, with for con­stant sub­ject the sub­ter­ranean ma­lig­ni­ty of the hero­ine, the ero­to­ma­nia of Hu­lot and Crev­el, the suf­fer­ings of Ade­line, and the _pieu­vre_ op­er­ations of Marn­effe and his wife,--all of which fit in and work to­geth­er with each oth­er as ex­act­ly as the cogs and gear of a har­mo­nious piece of ma­chin­ery do. Even such much sim­pler and short­er books as _Le Pere Gori­ot_ by no means pos­sess this seam­less uni­ty of con­struc­tion, this even march, shoul­der to shoul­der, of all the per­son­ages of the sto­ry.

In the sec­ond place, this sto­ry it­self strikes hold on the read­er with a force not less ir­re­sistible than that of the old­er and sim­pler sto­ries just re­ferred to. As com­pared even with its com­pan­ion, this force of grasp is re­mark­able. It is not ab­so­lute­ly crim­inal or con­temptible to feel that _Le Cousin Pons_ some­times lan­guish­es and los­es it­self; this can nev­er be said of the his­to­ry of the evil des­tiny part­ly per­son­ified in Eliz­abeth Fis­ch­er, which hov­ers over the house of Hu­lot.

Some, I be­lieve, have felt in­clined to ques­tion the pro­pri­ety of the ti­tle of the book, and to as­sign the true hero­ine­ship to Va­lerie Marn­effe, whom al­so the same and oth­er per­sons are fond of com­par­ing with her con­tem­po­rary Becky Sharp, not to the ad­van­tage of the lat­ter. This is no place for a de­tailed ex­am­ina­tion of the com­par­ison, as to which I shall on­ly say that I do not think Thack­er­ay has any­thing to fear from it. Va­lerie her­self is, be­yond all doubt, a pow­er­ful study of the “strange wom­an,” en­forc­ing the Bib­li­cal view of that per­son­age with sin­gu­lar force and ef­fec­tive­ness. But her meth­ods are coars­er and more com­mon­place than Becky's; she nev­er could have long sus­tained such an or­deal as the tenure of the house in Cur­zon Street with­out los­ing even an equiv­ocal po­si­tion in de­cent En­glish so­ci­ety; and it must al­ways be re­mem­bered that she was un­der the or­ders, so to speak, of Lis­beth, and in­spired by her.

Lis­beth her­self, on the oth­er hand, is not one of a class; she stands alone as much as Becky her­self does. It is, no doubt, an ar­du­ous and, some milky-​veined crit­ics would say, a doubt­ful­ly healthy or praise­wor­thy task to de­pict al­most pure wicked­ness; it is ex­ces­sive­ly hard to ren­der it hu­man; and if the dif­fi­cul­ty is not in­creased, it is cer­tain­ly not much less­ened by the artist's de­ter­mi­na­tion to rep­re­sent the male­fac­tress as undis­cov­ered and even un­sus­pect­ed through­out. Balzac, how­ev­er, has sur­mount­ed these dif­fi­cul­ties with al­most com­plete suc­cess. The on­ly ad­van­tage--it is no doubt a con­sid­er­able one--which he has tak­en over Shake­speare, when Shake­speare de­vised Ia­go, is that of mak­ing Made­moi­selle Fis­ch­er a per­son of low birth, nar­row ed­uca­tion, and in­tel­lec­tu­al fac­ul­ties nar­row­er still, for all their keen­ness and in­ten­si­ty. The large­ness of brain with which Shake­speare en­dows his hu­man dev­il, and the large­ness of heart of which he does not seem to wish us to imag­ine him as in cer­tain cir­cum­stances in­ca­pable, con­trast sharply enough with the peas­ant mean­ness of Lis­beth. In­deed, Balzac, whose sel­dom erring in­stinct in fix­ing on the vil­er parts of hu­man na­ture may have been some­what too much dwelt on, but is un­de­ni­able, has here and else­where hit the fault of the low­er class gen­er­al­ly very well. It does not ap­pear that the Hu­lots, though they treat­ed her with­out much cer­emo­ny, gave Bette any re­al cause of com­plaint, or that there was any­thing in their con­duct cor­re­spond­ing to that of the Ca­mu­sots to the luck­less Pons. That her cousin Ade­line had been pret­ti­er than her­self in child­hood, and was rich­er and more high­ly placed in mid­dle life, was enough for Lis­beth --the in­car­na­tion of the Rad­ical ha­tred of su­pe­ri­or­ity in any kind. And so she set to work to ru­in and de­grade the un­hap­py fam­ily, to set it at vari­ance, and make it mis­er­able, as best she could.

The way of her do­ing this is won­der­ful­ly told, and the var­ious char­ac­ters, mi­nor as well as ma­jor, muster in won­der­ful strength. I do not know that Balzac has made quite the most of Hec­tor Hu­lot's vice --in fact, here, as else­where, I think the nov­el­ist is not hap­py in treat­ing this par­tic­ular dead­ly sin. The man is a rather dis­gust­ing and whol­ly id­iot­ic old frib­ble rather than a trag­ic vic­tim of Li­biti­na. So al­so his wife is too an­gel­ic. But Crev­el, the very pat­tern and mod­el of the vi­cious bour­geois who had made his for­tune; and Wences­las Stein­bock, pat­tern again and mod­el of the foibles of _Polen aus der Po­lack­ei_; and Hort­ense, with the bet­ter en­er­gy of the Hu­lots in her; and the loath­some rep­tile Marn­effe, and Vic­to­ria, and Ce­les­tine, and the Brazil­ian (though he, to be sure, is rather a transpon­tine _ras­taqouere_), and all the rest are cap­ital, and do their work cap­ital­ly. But they would not be half so fine as they are if, be­hind them, there were not the sav­age Pa­gan nat­ural­ism of Lis­beth Fis­ch­er, the “an­gel of the fam­ily”--and a black an­gel in­deed.

One of the last and largest of Balzac's great works--the very last of them, if we ac­cept _La Cou­sine Bette_, to which is pen­dant and con­trast--_Le Cousin Pons_ has al­ways unit­ed suf­frages from very dif­fer­ent class­es of ad­mir­ers. In the first place, it is not “dis­agree­able,” as the com­mon eu­phemism has it, and as _La Cou­sine Bette_ cer­tain­ly is. In the sec­ond, it can­not be ac­cused of be­ing a _berquinade_, as those who like Balzac best when he is do­ing moral rag-​pick­ing are apt to de­scribe books like _Le Medecin de Cam­pagne_ and _Le Lys dans la Vallee_, if not even like _Eu­ge­nie Grandet_. It has a con­sid­er­able va­ri­ety of in­ter­est; its cen­tral fig­ure is cu­ri­ous­ly pa­thet­ic and at­trac­tive, even though the curse of some­thing like fol­ly, which so of­ten at­tends Balzac's good char­ac­ters, may a lit­tle weigh on him. It would be a book of ex­cep­tion­al charm even if it were anony­mous, or if we knew no more about the au­thor than we know about Shake­speare.

As it hap­pens, how­ev­er, _Le Cousin Pons_ has oth­er at­trac­tions than this. In the first place, Balzac is al­ways great--per­haps he is at his great­est--in de­pict­ing a ma­nia, a pas­sion, whether the sub­ject be plea­sure or gold-​hunger or parental af­fec­tion. Pons has two ma­nias, and the one does not in­ter­fere with, but rather helps, the oth­er. But this would be noth­ing if it were not that his chief ma­nia, his rul­ing pas­sion, is one of Balzac's own. For, as we have of­ten had oc­ca­sion to no­tice, Balzac is not by any means one of the great im­per­son­al artists. He can do many things; but he is nev­er at his best in do­ing any un­less his own per­son­al in­ter­ests, his lik­ings and ha­treds, his suf­fer­ings and en­joy­ments, are con­cerned. He was a kind of ac­tor-​man­ag­er in his _Come­die Hu­maine_; and per­haps, like oth­er ac­tor-​man­agers, he took rather dis­pro­por­tion­ate care of the parts which he played him­self.

Now, he was even more des­per­ate as a col­lec­tor and fanci­er of bibelots than he was as a spec­ula­tor; and while the one ma­nia was near­ly as re­spon­si­ble for his pe­cu­niary trou­bles and his need to over­work him­self as the oth­er, it cer­tain­ly gave him more con­stant and more com­par­ative­ly harm­less sat­is­fac­tions. His con­nois­seur­ship would be noth­ing if he did not ques­tion the com­pe­tence of an­oth­er, if not of all oth­ers. It seems cer­tain that Balzac fre­quent­ly bought things for what they were not; and prob­able that his own ac­qui­si­tions went, in his own eyes, through that suc­ces­sion of stages which Charles Lamb (a sort of Cousin Pons in his way too) de­scribed inim­itably. His pic­tures, like John Lamb's, were apt to be­gin as Raphaels, and end as Car­lo Marat­tis. Balzac, too, like Pons, was even more ad­dict­ed to bric-​a-​brac than to art prop­er; and af­ter many vi­cis­si­tudes, he and Madame Han­ska seem to have suc­ceed­ed in get­ting to­geth­er a very con­sid­er­able, if al­so a very mis­cel­la­neous and un­equal col­lec­tion in the house in the Rue du Par­adis, the con­tents of which were dis­persed in part (though, I be­lieve, the Rochschild who bought it, bought most of them too) not many years ago. Pons, in­deed, was too poor, and prob­ably too queer, to in­dulge in one fan­cy which Balzac had, and which, I think, all col­lec­tors of the no­bler and more po­et­ic class have, though this num­ber may not be large. Balzac liked to have new beau­ti­ful things as well as old--to have beau­ti­ful things made for him. He was an un­wea­ried cus­tomer, though not an un­com­plain­ing one, of the great jew­el­er Fro­ment Meurice, whose tar­di­ness in car­ry­ing out his be­hests he pa­thet­ical­ly up­braids in more than one ex­tant let­ter.

There­fore, Balzac “did more than sym­pa­thize, he felt”--and it has been well put--with Pons in the bric-​a-​brac mat­ter; and would ap­pear that he did so like­wise in that of mu­sic, though we have rather less di­rect ev­idence. This oth­er sym­pa­thy has re­sult­ed in the ad­di­tion to Pons him­self of the fig­ure of Schmucke, a mi­nor and more parochial fig­ure, but good in it­self, and very much ap­pre­ci­at­ed, I be­lieve, by fel­low _melo­manes_.

It is with even more than his usu­al art that Balzac has sur­round­ed these two orig­inals--these “hu­morists,” as our own an­ces­tors would have called them--with fig­ures much, very much, more of the or­di­nary world than them­selves. The grasp­ing world­li­ness of the _par­venue_ fam­ily of Ca­mu­sot in one de­gree and the greed of the portress, Madame Ci­bot, in the oth­er, are ad­mirably rep­re­sent­ed; the lat­ter, in par­tic­ular, must al­ways hold a very high place among Balzac's great­est suc­cess­es. She is, in­deed a sort of com­pan­ion sketch to Cou­sine Bette her­self in a still low­er rank of life rep­re­sent­ing the di­abol­ical in wom­an; and per­haps we should not wrong the au­thor's in­ten­tions if we sus­pect­ed that Di­ane de Maufrigneuse has some claims to make up the trio in a sphere even more above Lis­beth's than Lis­beth's is above Madame Ci­bot's own.

Dif­fer­ent opin­ions have been held of the ac­tu­al “bric-​a-​brac­ery” of this piece--that is to say, not of Balzac's com­pe­tence in the mat­ter but of the artis­tic val­ue of his in­tro­duc­tion of it. Per­haps his en­thu­si­asm does a lit­tle run away with him; per­haps he gives us a lit­tle too much of it, and avails him­self too freely of the li­cense, at least of the temp­ta­tion, to di­gress which the in­tro­duc­tion of such per­sons as Elie Ma­gus af­fords. And it is al­so open to any one to say that the cli­max, or what is in ef­fect the cli­max, is in­tro­duced some­what too soon; that the strug­gle, first over the body and then over the prop­er­ty of Pa­tro­clus-​Pons, is in­or­di­nate­ly spun out, and that, even grant­ing the au­thor's ma­nia, he might have uti­lized it bet­ter by giv­ing us more of the harm­less and ill-​treat­ed cousin's hap­py hunts, and less of the dis­putes over his ac­cu­mu­lat­ed quar­ry. This, how­ev­er, means sim­ply the old, and gen­er­al­ly rather im­per­ti­nent, sug­ges­tion to the artist that he shall do with his art some­thing dif­fer­ent from that which he has him­self cho­sen to do. It is, or should be, suf­fi­cient that _Le Cousin Pons_ is a very agree­able book, more pa­thet­ic if less “grimy,” than its com­pan­ion, full of its au­thor's id­iosyn­cra­cy, and char­ac­ter­is­tic of his ge­nius. It may not be un­in­ter­est­ing to add that _Le Cousin Pons_ was orig­inal­ly called _Le Deux Mu­si­ciens_, or _Le Par­asite_, and that the change, which is a great im­prove­ment, was due to the in­stances of Madame Han­ska.

The bib­li­og­ra­phy of the two di­vi­sions of _Les Par­ents Pau­vres_ is so close­ly con­nect­ed, that it is dif­fi­cult to ex­tri­cate the sep­arate his­to­ries. Orig­inal­ly the au­thor had in­tend­ed to be­gin with _Le Cousin Pons_ (which then bore the ti­tle of _Les Deux Mu­si­ciens_), and to make it the more im­por­tant of the two; but _La Cou­sine Bette_ grew un­der his hands, and be­came, in more than one sense, the lead­er. Both ap­peared in the _Con­sti­tu­tion­nel_; the first be­tween Oc­to­ber 8th and De­cem­ber 3rd, 1846, the sec­ond be­tween March 18th and May of the next year. In the win­ter of 1847-48 the two were pub­lished as a book in twelve vol­umes by Chlen­dows­ki and Petion. In the news­pa­per (where Balzac re­ceived--a rarely ex­act de­tail--12,836 francs for the _Cou­sine_, and 9,238 for the _Cousin_) the first-​named had thir­ty-​eight head­ed chap­ter-​di­vi­sions, which in book form be­came a hun­dred and thir­ty-​two. _Le Cousin Pons_ had two parts in _feuil­leton_, and thir­ty-​one chap­ters, which in book form be­came no parts and sev­en­ty-​eight chap­ters. All di­vi­sions were swept away when, at the end of 1848, the books were added to­geth­er to the _Come­die_.

George Saints­bury

I

COUSIN BET­TY

BY

HON­ORE DE BALZAC

Trans­lat­ed by

James War­ing

DED­ICA­TION

To Don Michele An­ge­lo Ca­je­tani, Prince of Teano.

It is nei­ther to the Ro­man Prince, nor to the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the il­lus­tri­ous house of Ca­je­tani, which has giv­en more than one Pope to the Chris­tian Church, that I ded­icate this short por­tion of a long his­to­ry; it is to the learned com­men­ta­tor of Dante.

It was you who led me to un­der­stand the mar­velous frame­work of ideas on which the great Ital­ian po­et built his po­em, the on­ly work which the mod­erns can place by that of Homer. Till I heard you, the Di­vine Com­edy was to me a vast enig­ma to which none had found the clue--the com­men­ta­tors least of all. Thus, to un­der­stand Dante is to be as great as he; but ev­ery form of great­ness is fa­mil­iar to you.

A French sa­vant could make a rep­uta­tion, earn a pro­fes­sor's chair, and a dozen dec­ora­tions, by pub­lish­ing in a dog­mat­ic vol­ume the im­pro­vised lec­ture by which you lent en­chant­ment to one of those evenings which are rest af­ter see­ing Rome. You do not know, per­haps, that most of our pro­fes­sors live on Ger­many, on Eng­land, on the East, or on the North, as an in­sect lives on a tree; and, like the in­sect, be­come an in­te­gral part of it, bor­row­ing their mer­it from that of what they feed on. Now, Italy hith­er­to has not yet been worked out in pub­lic lec­tures. No one will ev­er give me cred­it for my lit­er­ary hon­esty. Mere­ly by plun­der­ing you I might have been as learned as three Schlegels in one, where­as I mean to re­main a hum­ble Doc­tor of the Fac­ul­ty of So­cial Medicine, a vet­eri­nary sur­geon for in­cur­able mal­adies. Were it on­ly to lay a to­ken of grat­itude at the feet of my ci­cerone, I would fain add your il­lus­tri­ous name to those of Por­cia, of San-​Sev­eri­no, of Pare­to, of di Ne­gro, and of Bel­gio­joso, who will rep­re­sent in this “Hu­man Com­edy” the close and con­stant al­liance be­tween Italy and France, to which Ban­del­lo did hon­or in the same way in the six­teenth cen­tu­ry--Ban­del­lo, the bish­op and au­thor of some strange tales in­deed, who left us the splen­did col­lec­tion of ro­mances whence Shake­speare de­rived many of his plots and even com­plete char­ac­ters, word for word.

The two sketch­es I ded­icate to you are the two eter­nal as­pects of one and the same fact. Ho­mo du­plex, said the great Buf­fon: why not add Res du­plex? Ev­ery­thing has two sides, even virtue. Hence Moliere al­ways shows us both sides of ev­ery hu­man prob­lem; and Diderot, im­itat­ing him, once wrote, “This is not a mere tale”--in what is per­haps Diderot's mas­ter­piece, where he shows us the beau­ti­ful pic­ture of Made­moi­selle de Lachaux sac­ri­ficed by Gar­danne, side by side with that of a per­fect lover dy­ing for his mis­tress.

In the same way, these two ro­mances form a pair, like twins of op­po­site sex­es. This is a lit­er­ary va­gary to which a writ­er may for once give way, es­pe­cial­ly as part of a work in which I am en­deav­or­ing to de­pict ev­ery form that can serve as a garb to mind.

Most hu­man quar­rels arise from the fact that both wise men and dunces ex­ist who are so con­sti­tut­ed as to be in­ca­pable of see­ing more than one side of any fact or idea, while each as­serts that the side he sees is the on­ly true and right one. Thus it is writ­ten in the Holy Book, “God will de­liv­er the world over to di­vi­sions.” I must con­fess that this pas­sage of Scrip­ture alone should per­suade the Pa­pal See to give you the con­trol of the two Cham­bers to car­ry out the text which found its com­men­tary in 1814, in the de­cree of Louis XVI­II.

May your wit and the po­et­ry that is in you ex­tend a pro­tect­ing hand over these two his­to­ries of “The Poor Re­la­tions”

Of your af­fec­tion­ate hum­ble ser­vant,

DE BALZAC. PARIS, Au­gust-​Septem­ber, 1846.

COUSIN BET­TY

One day, about the mid­dle of Ju­ly 1838, one of the car­riages, then late­ly in­tro­duced to Paris cab­stands, and known as _Milords_, was driv­ing down the Rue de l'Uni­ver­site, con­vey­ing a stout man of mid­dle height in the uni­form of a cap­tain of the Na­tion­al Guard.

Among the Paris crowd, who are sup­posed to be so clever, there are some men who fan­cy them­selves in­finite­ly more at­trac­tive in uni­form than in their or­di­nary clothes, and who at­tribute to wom­en so de­praved a taste that they be­lieve they will be fa­vor­ably im­pressed by the as­pect of a bus­by and of mil­itary ac­cou­trements.

The coun­te­nance of this Cap­tain of the Sec­ond Com­pa­ny beamed with a self-​sat­is­fac­tion that added splen­dor to his rud­dy and some­what chub­by face. The ha­lo of glo­ry that a for­tune made in busi­ness gives to a re­tired trades­man sat on his brow, and stamped him as one of the elect of Paris--at least a re­tired deputy-​may­or of his quar­ter of the town. And you may be sure that the rib­bon of the Le­gion of Hon­or was not miss­ing from his breast, gal­lant­ly padded _a la Prussi­enne_. Proud­ly seat­ed in one cor­ner of the _milord_, this splen­did per­son let his gaze wan­der over the passers-​by, who, in Paris, of­ten thus meet an in­gra­ti­at­ing smile meant for sweet eyes that are ab­sent.

The ve­hi­cle stopped in the part of the street be­tween the Rue de Bel­lechas­se and the Rue de Bour­gogne, at the door of a large, new­ly-​build house, stand­ing on part of the court-​yard of an an­cient man­sion that had a gar­den. The old house re­mained in its orig­inal state, be­yond the court­yard cur­tailed by half its ex­tent.

On­ly from the way in which the of­fi­cer ac­cept­ed the as­sis­tance of the coach­man to help him out, it was plain that he was past fifty. There are cer­tain move­ments so undis­guis­ed­ly heavy that they are as tell-​tale as a reg­is­ter of birth. The cap­tain put on his lemon-​col­ored right-​hand glove, and, with­out any ques­tion to the gate­keep­er, went up the out­er steps to the ground of the new house with a look that pro­claimed, “She is mine!”

The _concierges_ of Paris have sharp eyes; they do not stop vis­itors who wear an or­der, have a blue uni­form, and walk pon­der­ous­ly; in short, they know a rich man when they see him.

This ground floor was en­tire­ly oc­cu­pied by Mon­sieur le Baron Hu­lot d'Ervy, Com­mis­sary Gen­er­al un­der the Re­pub­lic, re­tired army con­trac­tor, and at the present time at the head of one of the most im­por­tant de­part­ments of the War Of­fice, Coun­cil­lor of State, of­fi­cer of the Le­gion of Hon­or, and so forth.

This Baron Hu­lot had tak­en the name of d'Ervy--the place of his birth --to dis­tin­guish him from his broth­er, the fa­mous Gen­er­al Hu­lot, Colonel of the Grenadiers of the Im­pe­ri­al Guard, cre­at­ed by the Em­per­or Comte de Forzheim af­ter the cam­paign of 1809. The Count, the el­der broth­er, be­ing re­spon­si­ble for his ju­nior, had, with pa­ter­nal care, placed him in the com­mis­sari­at, where, thanks to the ser­vices of the two broth­ers, the Baron de­served and won Napoleon's good graces. Af­ter 1807, Baron Hu­lot was Com­mis­sary Gen­er­al for the army in Spain.

Hav­ing rung the bell, the cit­izen-​cap­tain made stren­uous ef­forts to pull his coat in­to place, for it had rucked up as much at the back as in front, pushed out of shape by the work­ing of a pir­iform stom­ach. Be­ing ad­mit­ted as soon as the ser­vant in liv­ery saw him, the im­por­tant and im­pos­ing per­son­age fol­lowed the man, who opened the door of the draw­ing-​room, an­nounc­ing:

“Mon­sieur Crev­el.”

On hear­ing the name, sin­gu­lar­ly ap­pro­pri­ate to the fig­ure of the man who bore it, a tall, fair wom­an, ev­ident­ly young-​look­ing for her age, rose as if she had re­ceived an elec­tric shock.

“Hort­ense, my dar­ling, go in­to the gar­den with your Cousin Bet­ty,” she said hasti­ly to her daugh­ter, who was work­ing at some em­broi­dery at her moth­er's side.

Af­ter curt­sey­ing pret­ti­ly to the cap­tain, Made­moi­selle Hort­ense went out by a glass door, tak­ing with her a with­ered-​look­ing spin­ster, who looked old­er than the Baroness, though she was five years younger.

“They are set­tling your mar­riage,” said Cousin Bet­ty in the girl's ear, with­out seem­ing at all of­fend­ed at the way in which the Baroness had dis­missed them, count­ing her al­most as ze­ro.

The cousin's dress might, at need, have ex­plained this free-​and-​easy de­meanor. The old maid wore a meri­no gown of a dark plum col­or, of which the cut and trim­ming dat­ed from the year of the Restora­tion; a lit­tle worked col­lar, worth per­haps three francs; and a com­mon straw hat with blue satin rib­bons edged with straw plait, such as the old-​clothes buy­ers wear at mar­ket. On look­ing down at her kid shoes, made, it was ev­ident, by the ver­iest cob­bler, a stranger would have hes­itat­ed to rec­og­nize Cousin Bet­ty as a mem­ber of the fam­ily, for she looked ex­act­ly like a jour­ney­wom­an semp­stress. But she did not leave the room with­out be­stow­ing a lit­tle friend­ly nod on Mon­sieur Crev­el, to which that gen­tle­man re­spond­ed by a look of mu­tu­al un­der­stand­ing.

“You are com­ing to us to-​mor­row, I hope, Made­moi­selle Fis­ch­er?” said he.

“You have no com­pa­ny?” asked Cousin Bet­ty.

“My chil­dren and your­self, no one else,” replied the vis­itor.

“Very well,” replied she; “de­pend on me.”

“And here am I, madame, at your or­ders,” said the cit­izen-​cap­tain, bow­ing again to Madame Hu­lot.

He gave such a look at Madame Hu­lot as Tartuffe casts at Elmire--when a provin­cial ac­tor plays the part and thinks it nec­es­sary to em­pha­size its mean­ing--at Poitiers, or at Coutances.

“If you will come in­to this room with me, we shall be more con­ve­nient­ly placed for talk­ing busi­ness than we are in this room,” said Madame Hu­lot, go­ing to an ad­join­ing room, which, as the apart­ment was ar­ranged, served as a card­room.

It was di­vid­ed by a slight par­ti­tion from a boudoir look­ing out on the gar­den, and Madame Hu­lot left her vis­itor to him­self for a minute, for she thought it wise to shut the win­dow and the door of the boudoir, so that no one should get in and lis­ten. She even took the pre­cau­tion of shut­ting the glass door of the draw­ing-​room, smil­ing on her daugh­ter and her cousin, whom she saw seat­ed in an old sum­mer-​house at the end of the gar­den. As she came back she left the card­room door open, so as to hear if any one should open that of the draw­ing-​room to come in.

As she came and went, the Baroness, seen by no­body, al­lowed her face to be­tray all her thoughts, and any one who could have seen her would have been shocked to see her ag­ita­tion. But when she fi­nal­ly came back from the glass door of the draw­ing-​room, as she en­tered the card­room, her face was hid­den be­hind the im­pen­etra­ble re­serve which ev­ery wom­an, even the most can­did, seems to have at her com­mand.

Dur­ing all these prepa­ra­tions--odd, to say the least--the Na­tion­al Guards­man stud­ied the fur­ni­ture of the room in which he found him­self. As he not­ed the silk cur­tains, once red, now fad­ed to dull pur­ple by the sun­shine, and frayed in the pleats by long wear; the car­pet, from which the hues had fad­ed; the dis­col­ored gild­ing of the fur­ni­ture; and the silk seats, dis­col­ored in patch­es, and wear­ing in­to strips --ex­pres­sions of scorn, sat­is­fac­tion, and hope dawned in suc­ces­sion with­out dis­guise on his stupid trades­man's face. He looked at him­self in the glass over an old clock of the Em­pire, and was con­tem­plat­ing the gen­er­al ef­fect, when the rus­tle of her silk skirt an­nounced the Baroness. He at once struck at at­ti­tude.

Af­ter drop­ping on to a so­fa, which had been a very hand­some one in the year 1809, the Baroness, point­ing to an arm­chair with the arms end­ing in bronze sphinx­es' heads, while the paint was peel­ing from the wood, which showed through in many places, signed to Crev­el to be seat­ed.

“All the pre­cau­tions you are tak­ing, madame, would seem full of promise to a----”

“To a lover,” said she, in­ter­rupt­ing him.

“The word is too fee­ble,” said he, plac­ing his right hand on his heart, and rolling his eyes in a way which al­most al­ways makes a wom­an laugh when she, in cold blood, sees such a look. “A lover! A lover? Say a man be­witched----”

“Lis­ten, Mon­sieur Crev­el,” said the Baroness, too anx­ious to be able to laugh, “you are fifty--ten years younger than Mon­sieur Hu­lot, I know; but at my age a wom­an's fol­lies ought to be jus­ti­fied by beau­ty, youth, fame, su­pe­ri­or mer­it--some one of the splen­did qual­ities which can daz­zle us to the point of mak­ing us for­get all else--even at our age. Though you may have fifty thou­sand francs a year, your age coun­ter­bal­ances your for­tune; thus you have noth­ing what­ev­er of what a wom­an looks for----”

“But love!” said the of­fi­cer, ris­ing and com­ing for­ward. “Such love as----”

“No, mon­sieur, such ob­sti­na­cy!” said the Baroness, in­ter­rupt­ing him to put an end to his ab­sur­di­ty.

“Yes, ob­sti­na­cy,” said he, “and love; but some­thing stronger still--a claim----”

“A claim!” cried Madame Hu­lot, ris­ing sub­lime with scorn, de­fi­ance, and in­dig­na­tion. “But,” she went on, “this will bring us to no is­sues; I did not ask you to come here to dis­cuss the mat­ter which led to your ban­ish­ment in spite of the con­nec­tion be­tween our fam­ilies----”

“I had fan­cied so.”

“What! still?” cried she. “Do you not see, mon­sieur, by the en­tire ease and free­dom with which I can speak of lovers and love, of ev­ery­thing least cred­itable to a wom­an, that I am per­fect­ly se­cure in my own virtue? I fear noth­ing--not even to shut my­self in alone with you. Is that the con­duct of a weak wom­an? You know full well why I begged you to come.”

“No, madame,” replied Crev­el, with an as­sump­tion of great cold­ness. He pursed up his lips, and again struck an at­ti­tude.

“Well, I will be brief, to short­en our com­mon dis­com­fort,” said the Baroness, look­ing at Crev­el.

Crev­el made an iron­ical bow, in which a man who knew the race would have rec­og­nized the graces of a bag­man.

“Our son mar­ried your daugh­ter----”

“And if it were to do again----” said Crev­el.

“It would not be done at all, I sus­pect,” said the baroness hasti­ly. “How­ev­er, you have noth­ing to com­plain of. My son is not on­ly one of the lead­ing plead­ers of Paris, but for the last year he has sat as Deputy, and his maid­en speech was bril­liant enough to lead us to sup­pose that ere long he will be in of­fice. Vic­torin has twice been called up­on to re­port on im­por­tant mea­sures; and he might even now, if he chose, be made At­tor­ney-​Gen­er­al in the Court of Ap­peal. So, if you mean to say that your son-​in-​law has no for­tune----”

“Worse than that, madame, a son-​in-​law whom I am obliged to main­tain,” replied Crev­el. “Of the five hun­dred thou­sand francs that formed my daugh­ter's mar­riage por­tion, two hun­dred thou­sand have van­ished--God knows how!--in pay­ing the young gen­tle­man's debts, in fur­nish­ing his house splen­da­cious­ly--a house cost­ing five hun­dred thou­sand francs, and bring­ing in scarce­ly fif­teen thou­sand, since he oc­cu­pies the larg­er part of it, while he owes two hun­dred and six­ty thou­sand francs of the pur­chase-​mon­ey. The rent he gets bare­ly pays the in­ter­est on the debt. I have had to give my daugh­ter twen­ty thou­sand francs this year to help her to make both ends meet. And then my son-​in-​law, who was mak­ing thir­ty thou­sand francs a year at the As­sizes, I am told, is go­ing to throw that up for the Cham­ber----”

“This, again, Mon­sieur Crev­el, is be­side the mark; we are wan­der­ing from the point. Still, to dis­pose of it fi­nal­ly, it may be said that if my son gets in­to of­fice, if he has you made an of­fi­cer of the Le­gion of Hon­or and coun­cil­lor of the mu­nic­ipal­ity of Paris, you, as a re­tired per­fumer, will not have much to com­plain of----”

“Ah! there we are again, madame! Yes, I am a trades­man, a shop­keep­er, a re­tail deal­er in al­mond-​paste, eau-​de-​Por­tu­gal, and hair-​oil, and was on­ly too much hon­ored when my on­ly daugh­ter was mar­ried to the son of Mon­sieur le Baron Hu­lot d'Ervy--my daugh­ter will be a Baroness! This is Re­gen­cy, Louis XV., (Eil-​de-​boeuf--quite tip-​top!--very good.) I love Ce­les­tine as a man loves his on­ly child--so well in­deed, that, to pre­serve her from hav­ing ei­ther broth­er or sis­ter, I re­signed my­self to all the pri­va­tions of a wid­ow­er--in Paris, and in the prime of life, madame. But you must un­der­stand that, in spite of this ex­trav­agant af­fec­tion for my daugh­ter, I do not in­tend to re­duce my for­tune for the sake of your son, whose ex­pens­es are not whol­ly ac­count­ed for--in my eyes, as an old man of busi­ness.”

“Mon­sieur, you may at this day see in the Min­istry of Com­merce Mon­sieur Popinot, for­mer­ly a drug­gist in the Rue des Lom­bards----”

“And a friend of mine, madame,” said the ex-​per­fumer. “For I, Ce­lestin Crev­el, fore­man once to old Ce­sar Birot­teau, brought up the said Ce­sar Birot­teau's stock; and he was Popinot's fa­ther-​in-​law. Why, that very Popinot was no more than a shop­man in the es­tab­lish­ment, and he is the first to re­mind me of it; for he is not proud, to do him jus­tice, to men in a good po­si­tion with an in­come of six­ty thou­sand francs in the funds.”

“Well then, mon­sieur, the no­tions you term 'Re­gen­cy' are quite out of date at a time when a man is tak­en at his per­son­al worth; and that is what you did when you mar­ried your daugh­ter to my son.”

“But you do not know how the mar­riage was brought about!” cried Crev­el. “Oh, that cursed bach­elor life! But for my mis­con­duct, my Ce­les­tine might at this day be Vi­comtesse Popinot!”

“Once more have done with re­crim­ina­tions over ac­com­plished facts,” said the Baroness anx­ious­ly. “Let us rather dis­cuss the com­plaints I have found on your strange be­hav­ior. My daugh­ter Hort­ense had a chance of mar­ry­ing; the match de­pend­ed en­tire­ly on you; I be­lieved you felt some sen­ti­ments of gen­eros­ity; I thought you would do jus­tice to a wom­an who has nev­er had a thought in her heart for any man but her hus­band, that you would have un­der­stood how nec­es­sary it is for her not to re­ceive a man who may com­pro­mise her, and that for the hon­or of the fam­ily with which you are al­lied you would have been ea­ger to pro­mote Hort­ense's set­tle­ment with Mon­sieur le Con­seiller Lebas.--And it is you, mon­sieur, you have hin­dered the mar­riage.”

“Madame,” said the ex-​per­fumer, “I act­ed the part of an hon­est man. I was asked whether the two hun­dred thou­sand francs to be set­tled on Made­moi­selle Hort­ense would be forth­com­ing. I replied ex­act­ly in these words: 'I would not an­swer for it. My son-​in-​law, to whom the Hu­lots had promised the same sum, was in debt; and I be­lieve that if Mon­sieur Hu­lot d'Ervy were to die to-​mor­row, his wid­ow would have noth­ing to live on.'--There, fair la­dy.”

“And would you have said as much, mon­sieur,” asked Madame Hu­lot, look­ing Crev­el steadi­ly in the face, “if I had been false to my du­ty?”

“I should not be in a po­si­tion to say it, dear­est Ade­line,” cried this sin­gu­lar ador­er, in­ter­rupt­ing the Baroness, “for you would have found the amount in my pock­et-​book.”

And adding ac­tion to word, the fat guards­man knelt down on one knee and kissed Madame Hu­lot's hand, see­ing that his speech had filled her with speech­less hor­ror, which he took for hes­itan­cy.

“What, buy my daugh­ter's for­tune at the cost of----? Rise, mon­sieur --or I ring the bell.”

Crev­el rose with great dif­fi­cul­ty. This fact made him so fu­ri­ous that he again struck his fa­vorite at­ti­tude. Most men have some ha­bit­ual po­si­tion by which they fan­cy that they show to the best ad­van­tage the good points be­stowed on them by na­ture. This at­ti­tude in Crev­el con­sist­ed in cross­ing his arms like Napoleon, his head show­ing three-​quar­ters face, and his eyes fixed on the hori­zon, as the painter has shown the Em­per­or in his por­trait.

“To be faith­ful,” he be­gan, with well-​act­ed in­dig­na­tion, “so faith­ful to a liber----”

“To a hus­band who is wor­thy of such fi­deli­ty,” Madame Hu­lot put in, to hin­der Crev­el from say­ing a word she did not choose to hear.

“Come, madame; you wrote to bid me here, you ask the rea­sons for my con­duct, you drive me to ex­trem­ities with your im­pe­ri­al airs, your scorn, and your con­tempt! Any one might think I was a Ne­gro. But I re­peat it, and you may be­lieve me, I have a right to--to make love to you, for---- But no; I love you well enough to hold my tongue.”

“You may speak, mon­sieur. In a few days I shall be eight-​and-​forty; I am no prude; I can hear what­ev­er you can say.”

“Then will you give me your word of hon­or as an hon­est wom­an--for you are, alas for me! an hon­est wom­an--nev­er to men­tion my name or to say that it was I who be­trayed the se­cret?”

“If that is the con­di­tion on which you speak, I will swear nev­er to tell any one from whom I heard the hor­rors you pro­pose to tell me, not even my hus­band.”

“I should think not in­deed, for on­ly you and he are con­cerned.”

Madame Hu­lot turned pale.

“Oh, if you still re­al­ly love Hu­lot, it will dis­tress you. Shall I say no more?”

“Speak, mon­sieur; for by your ac­count you wish to jus­ti­fy in my eyes the ex­traor­di­nary dec­la­ra­tions you have cho­sen to make me, and your per­sis­ten­cy in tor­ment­ing a wom­an of my age, whose on­ly wish is to see her daugh­ter mar­ried, and then--to die in peace----”

“You see; you are un­hap­py.”

“I, mon­sieur?”

“Yes, beau­ti­ful, no­ble crea­ture!” cried Crev­el. “You have in­deed been too wretched!”

“Mon­sieur, be silent and go--or speak to me as you ought.”

“Do you know, madame, how Mas­ter Hu­lot and I first made ac­quain­tance? --At our mis­tress­es', madame.”

“Oh, mon­sieur!”

“Yes, madame, at our mis­tress­es',” Crev­el re­peat­ed in a melo­dra­mat­ic tone, and leav­ing his po­si­tion to wave his right hand.

“Well, and what then?” said the Baroness cool­ly, to Crev­el's great amaze­ment.

Such mean se­duc­ers can­not un­der­stand a great soul.

“I, a wid­ow­er five years since,” Crev­el be­gan, in the tone of a man who has a sto­ry to tell, "and not wish­ing to mar­ry again for the sake of the daugh­ter I adore, not choos­ing ei­ther to cul­ti­vate any such con­nec­tion in my own es­tab­lish­ment, though I had at the time a very pret­ty la­dy-​ac­coun­tant. I set up, 'on her own ac­count,' as they say, a lit­tle semp­stress of fif­teen--re­al­ly a mir­acle of beau­ty, with whom I fell des­per­ate­ly in love. And in fact, madame, I asked an aunt of my own, my moth­er's sis­ter, whom I sent for from the coun­try, to live with the sweet crea­ture and keep an eye on her, that she might be­have as well as might be in this rather--what shall I say--shady?--no, del­icate po­si­tion.

“The child, whose tal­ent for mu­sic was strik­ing, had mas­ters, she was ed­ucat­ed--I had to give her some­thing to do. Be­sides, I wished to be at once her fa­ther, her bene­fac­tor, and--well, out with it--her lover; to kill two birds with one stone, a good ac­tion and a sweet­heart. For five years I was very hap­py. The girl had one of those voic­es that make the for­tune of a the­atre; I can on­ly de­scribe her by say­ing that she is a Duprez in pet­ti­coats. It cost me two thou­sand francs a year on­ly to cul­ti­vate her tal­ent as a singer. She made me mu­sic-​mad; I took a box at the opera for her and for my daugh­ter, and went there al­ter­nate evenings with Ce­les­tine or Josepha.”

“What, the fa­mous singer?”

“Yes, madame,” said Crev­el with pride, “the fa­mous Josepha owes ev­ery­thing to me.--At last, in 1834, when the child was twen­ty, be­liev­ing that I had at­tached her to me for ev­er, and be­ing very weak where she was con­cerned, I thought I would give her a lit­tle amuse­ment, and I in­tro­duced her to a pret­ty lit­tle ac­tress, Jen­ny Ca­dine, whose life had been some­what like her own. This ac­tress al­so owed ev­ery­thing to a pro­tec­tor who had brought her up in lead­ing-​strings. That pro­tec­tor was Baron Hu­lot.”

“I know that,” said the Baroness, in a calm voice with­out the least ag­ita­tion.

“Bless me!” cried Crev­el, more and more as­tound­ed. “Well! But do you know that your mon­ster of a hus­band took Jen­ny Ca­dine in hand at the age of thir­teen?”

“What then?” said the Baroness.

“As Jen­ny Ca­dine and Josepha were both aged twen­ty when they first met,” the ex-​trades­man went on, “the Baron had been play­ing the part of Louis XV. to Made­moi­selle de Ro­mans ev­er since 1826, and you were twelve years younger then----”

“I had my rea­sons, mon­sieur, for leav­ing Mon­sieur Hu­lot his lib­er­ty.”

“That false­hood, madame, will sure­ly be enough to wipe out ev­ery sin you have ev­er com­mit­ted, and to open to you the gates of Par­adise,” replied Crev­el, with a know­ing air that brought the col­or to the Baroness' cheeks. “Sub­lime and adored wom­an, tell that to those who will be­lieve it, but not to old Crev­el, who has, I may tell you, feast­ed too of­ten as one of four with your ras­cal­ly hus­band not to know what your high mer­its are! Many a time has he blamed him­self when half tip­sy as he has ex­pa­ti­at­ed on your per­fec­tions. Oh, I know you well!--A lib­er­tine might hes­itate be­tween you and a girl of twen­ty. I do not hes­itate----”

“Mon­sieur!”

“Well, I say no more. But you must know, saint­ly and no­ble wom­an, that a hus­band un­der cer­tain cir­cum­stances will tell things about his wife to his mis­tress that will might­ily amuse her.”

Tears of shame hang­ing to Madame Hu­lot's long lash­es checked the Na­tion­al Guards­man. He stopped short, and for­got his at­ti­tude.

“To pro­ceed,” said he. "We be­came in­ti­mate, the Baron and I, through the two hussies. The Baron, like all bad lots, is very pleas­ant, a thor­ough­ly jol­ly good fel­low. Yes, he took my fan­cy, the old ras­cal. He could be so fun­ny!--Well, enough of those rem­inis­cences. We got to be like broth­ers. The scoundrel--quite Re­gen­cy in his no­tions--tried in­deed to de­prave me al­to­geth­er, preached Saint-​Si­monism as to wom­en, and all sorts of lord­ly ideas; but, you see, I was fond enough of my girl to have mar­ried her, on­ly I was afraid of hav­ing chil­dren.

"Then be­tween two old dad­dies, such friends as--as we were, what more nat­ural than that we should think of our chil­dren mar­ry­ing each oth­er? --Three months af­ter his son had mar­ried my Ce­les­tine, Hu­lot--I don't know how I can ut­ter the wretch's name! he has cheat­ed us both, madame --well, the vil­lain did me out of my lit­tle Josepha. The scoundrel knew that he was sup­plant­ed in the heart of Jen­ny Ca­dine by a young lawyer and by an artist--on­ly two of them!--for the girl had more and more of a howl­ing suc­cess, and he stole my sweet lit­tle girl, a per­fect dar­ling--but you must have seen her at the opera; he got her an en­gage­ment there. Your hus­band is not so well be­haved as I am. I am ruled as straight as a sheet of mu­sic-​pa­per. He had dropped a good deal of mon­ey on Jen­ny Ca­dine, who must have cost him near on thir­ty thou­sand francs a year. Well, I can on­ly tell you that he is ru­in­ing him­self out­right for Josepha.

"Josepha, madame, is a Jew­ess. Her name is Mi­rah, the ana­gram of Hi­ram, an Is­raelite mark that stamps her, for she was a foundling picked up in Ger­many, and the in­quiries I have made prove that she is the il­le­git­imate child of a rich Jew banker. The life of the the­atre, and, above all, the teach­ing of Jen­ny Ca­dine, Madame Schontz, Mala­ga, and Cara­bine, as to the way to treat an old man, have de­vel­oped, in the child whom I had kept in a re­spectable and not too ex­pen­sive way of life, all the na­tive He­brew in­stinct for gold and jew­els--for the gold­en calf.

"So this fa­mous singer, hun­ger­ing for plun­der, now wants to be rich, very rich. She tried her 'pren­tice hand on Baron Hu­lot, and soon plucked him bare--plucked him, ay, and singed him to the skin. The mis­er­able man, af­ter try­ing to vie with one of the Kellers and with the Mar­quis d'Es­grignon, both per­fect­ly mad about Josepha, to say noth­ing of un­known wor­shipers, is about to see her car­ried off by that very rich Duke, who is such a pa­tron of the arts. Oh, what is his name?--a dwarf.--Ah, the Duc d'Her­ou­ville. This fine gen­tle­man in­sists on hav­ing Josepha for his very own, and all that set are talk­ing about it; the Baron knows noth­ing of it as yet; for it is the same in the Thir­teenth Ar­rondisse­ment as in ev­ery oth­er: the lover, like the hus­band, is last to get the news.

“Now, do you un­der­stand my claim? Your hus­band, dear la­dy, has robbed me of my joy in life, the on­ly hap­pi­ness I have known since I be­came a wid­ow­er. Yes, if I had not been so un­lucky as to come across that old rip, Josepha would still be mine; for I, you know, should nev­er have placed her on the stage. She would have lived ob­scure, well con­duct­ed, and mine. Oh! if you could but have seen her eight years ago, slight and wiry, with the gold­en skin of an An­dalu­sian, as they say, black hair as shiny as satin, an eye that flashed light­ning un­der long brown lash­es, the style of a duchess in ev­ery move­ment, the mod­esty of a de­pen­dent, de­cent grace, and the pret­ty ways of a wild fawn. And by that Hu­lot's do­ing all this charm and pu­ri­ty has been de­grad­ed to a man-​trap, a mon­ey-​box for five-​franc pieces! The girl is the Queen of Trol­lops; and nowa­days she hum­bugs ev­ery one--she who knew noth­ing, not even that word.”

At this stage the re­tired per­fumer wiped his eyes, which were full of tears. The sin­cer­ity of his grief touched Madame Hu­lot, and roused her from the med­ita­tion in­to which she had sunk.

“Tell me, madame, is a man of fifty-​two like­ly to find such an­oth­er jew­el? At my age love costs thir­ty thou­sand francs a year. It is through your hus­band's ex­pe­ri­ence that I know the price, and I love Ce­les­tine too tru­ly to be her ru­in. When I saw you, at the first evening par­ty you gave in our hon­or, I won­dered how that scoundrel Hu­lot could keep a Jen­ny Ca­dine--you had the man­ner of an Em­press. You do not look thir­ty,” he went on. "To me, madame, you look young, and you are beau­ti­ful. On my word of hon­or, that evening I was struck to the heart. I said to my­self, 'If I had not Josepha, since old Hu­lot ne­glects his wife, she would fit me like a glove.' For­give me--it is a rem­inis­cence of my old busi­ness. The per­fumer will crop up now and then, and that is what keeps me from stand­ing to be elect­ed deputy.

“And then, when I was so abom­inably de­ceived by the Baron, for re­al­ly be­tween old rips like us our friend's mis­tress should be sa­cred, I swore I would have his wife. It is but jus­tice. The Baron could say noth­ing; we are cer­tain of im­puni­ty. You showed me the door like a mangy dog at the first words I ut­tered as to the state of my feel­ings; you on­ly made my pas­sion--my ob­sti­na­cy, if you will--twice as strong, and you shall be mine.”

“In­deed; how?”

“I do not know; but it will come to pass. You see, madame, an id­iot of a per­fumer--re­tired from busi­ness--who has but one idea in his head, is stronger than a clever fel­low who has a thou­sand. I am smit­ten with you, and you are the means of my re­venge; it is like be­ing in love twice over. I am speak­ing to you quite frankly, as a man who knows what he means. I speak cold­ly to you, just as you do to me, when you say, 'I nev­er will be yours,' In fact, as they say, I play the game with the cards on the ta­ble. Yes, you shall be mine, soon­er or lat­er; if you were fifty, you should still be my mis­tress. And it will be; for I ex­pect any­thing from your hus­band!”

Madame Hu­lot looked at this vul­gar in­triguer with such a fixed stare of ter­ror, that he thought she had gone mad, and he stopped.

“You in­sist­ed on it, you heaped me with scorn, you de­fied me--and I have spo­ken,” said he, feel­ing that he must jus­ti­fy the fe­roc­ity of his last words.

“Oh, my daugh­ter, my daugh­ter,” moaned the Baroness in a voice like a dy­ing wom­an's.

“Oh! I have for­got­ten all else,” Crev­el went on. “The day when I was robbed of Josepha I was like a ti­gress robbed of her cubs; in short, as you see me now.--Your daugh­ter? Yes, I re­gard her as the means of win­ning you. Yes, I put a spoke in her mar­riage--and you will not get her mar­ried with­out my help! Hand­some as Made­moi­selle Hort­ense is, she needs a for­tune----”

“Alas! yes,” said the Baroness, wip­ing her eyes.

“Well, just ask your hus­band for ten thou­sand francs,” said Crev­el, strik­ing his at­ti­tude once more. He wait­ed a minute, like an ac­tor who has made a point.

“If he had the mon­ey, he would give it to the wom­an who will take Josepha's place,” he went on, em­pha­siz­ing his tones. “Does a man ev­er pull up on the road he has tak­en? In the first place, he is too sweet on wom­en. There is a hap­py medi­um in all things, as our King has told us. And then his van­ity is im­pli­cat­ed! He is a hand­some man!--He would bring you all to ru­in for his plea­sure; in fact, you are al­ready on the high­road to the work­house. Why, look, nev­er since I set foot in your house have you been able to do up your draw­ing-​room fur­ni­ture. 'Hard up' is the word shout­ed by ev­ery slit in the stuff. Where will you find a son-​in-​law who would not turn his back in hor­ror of the ill-​con­cealed ev­idence of the most cru­el mis­ery there is--that of peo­ple in de­cent so­ci­ety? I have kept shop, and I know. There is no eye so quick as that of the Paris trades­man to de­tect re­al wealth from its sham.--You have no mon­ey,” he said, in a low­er voice. "It is writ­ten ev­ery­where, even on your man-​ser­vant's coat.

“Would you like me to dis­close any more hideous mys­ter­ies that are kept from you?”

“Mon­sieur,” cried Madame Hu­lot, whose hand­ker­chief was wet through with her tears, “enough, enough!”

“My son-​in-​law, I tell you, gives his fa­ther mon­ey, and this is what I par­tic­ular­ly want­ed to come to when I be­gan by speak­ing of your son's ex­pens­es. But I keep an eye on my daugh­ter's in­ter­ests, be easy.”

“Oh, if I could but see my daugh­ter mar­ried, and die!” cried the poor wom­an, quite los­ing her head.

“Well, then, this is the way,” said the ex-​per­fumer.

Madame Hu­lot looked at Crev­el with a hope­ful ex­pres­sion, which so com­plete­ly changed her coun­te­nance, that this alone ought to have touched the man's feel­ings and have led him to aban­don his mon­strous schemes.

“You will still be hand­some ten years hence,” Crev­el went on, with his arms fold­ed; “be kind to me, and Made­moi­selle Hu­lot will mar­ry. Hu­lot has giv­en me the right, as I have ex­plained to you, to put the mat­ter crude­ly, and he will not be an­gry. In three years I have saved the in­ter­est on my cap­ital, for my dis­si­pa­tions have been re­strict­ed. I have three hun­dred thou­sand francs in the bank over and above my in­vest­ed for­tune--they are yours----”

“Go,” said Madame Hu­lot. “Go, mon­sieur, and nev­er let me see you again. But for the ne­ces­si­ty in which you placed me to learn the se­cret of your cow­ard­ly con­duct with re­gard to the match I had planned for Hort­ense--yes, cow­ard­ly!” she re­peat­ed, in an­swer to a ges­ture from Crev­el. “How can you load a poor girl, a pret­ty, in­no­cent crea­ture, with such a weight of en­mi­ty? But for the ne­ces­si­ty that goad­ed me as a moth­er, you would nev­er have spo­ken to me again, nev­er again have come with­in my doors. Thir­ty-​two years of an hon­or­able and loy­al life shall not be swept away by a blow from Mon­sieur Crev­el----”

“The re­tired per­fumer, suc­ces­sor to Ce­sar Birot­teau at the _Queen of the Ros­es_, Rue Saint-​Hon­ore,” added Crev­el, in mock­ing tones. “Deputy-​may­or, cap­tain in the Na­tion­al Guard, Cheva­lier of the Le­gion of Hon­or--ex­act­ly what my pre­de­ces­sor was!”

“Mon­sieur,” said the Baroness, “if, af­ter twen­ty years of con­stan­cy, Mon­sieur Hu­lot is tired of his wife, that is no­body's con­cern but mine. As you see, he has kept his in­fi­deli­ty a mys­tery, for I did not know that he had suc­ceed­ed you in the af­fec­tions of Made­moi­selle Josepha----”

“Oh, it has cost him a pret­ty pen­ny, madame. His singing-​bird has cost him more than a hun­dred thou­sand francs in these two years. Ah, ha! you have not seen the end of it!”

“Have done with all this, Mon­sieur Crev­el. I will not, for your sake, forego the hap­pi­ness a moth­er knows who can em­brace her chil­dren with­out a sin­gle pang of re­morse in her heart, who sees her­self re­spect­ed and loved by her fam­ily; and I will give up my soul to God unspot­ted----”

“Amen!” ex­claimed Crev­el, with the di­abol­ical rage that em­bit­ters the face of these pre­tenders when they fail for the sec­ond time in such an at­tempt. “You do not yet know the lat­ter end of pover­ty--shame, dis­grace.--I have tried to warn you; I would have saved you, you and your daugh­ter. Well, you must study the mod­ern para­ble of the _Prodi­gal Fa­ther_ from A to Z. Your tears and your pride move me deeply,” said Crev­el, seat­ing him­self, “for it is fright­ful to see the wom­an one loves weep­ing. All I can promise you, dear Ade­line, is to do noth­ing against your in­ter­ests or your hus­band's. On­ly nev­er send to me for in­for­ma­tion. That is all.”

“What is to be done?” cried Madame Hu­lot.

Up to now the Baroness had brave­ly faced the three­fold tor­ment which this ex­pla­na­tion in­flict­ed on her; for she was wound­ed as a wom­an, as a moth­er, and as a wife. In fact, so long as her son's fa­ther-​in-​law was in­so­lent and of­fen­sive, she had found the strength in her re­sis­tance to the ag­gres­sive trades­man; but the sort of good-​na­ture he showed, in spite of his ex­as­per­ation as a mor­ti­fied ador­er and as a hu­mil­iat­ed Na­tion­al Guards­man, broke down her nerve, strung to the point of snap­ping. She wrung her hands, melt­ed in­to tears, and was in a state of such help­less de­jec­tion, that she al­lowed Crev­el to kneel at her feet, kiss­ing her hands.

“Good God! what will be­come of us!” she went on, wip­ing away her tears. “Can a moth­er sit still and see her child pine away be­fore her eyes? What is to be the fate of that splen­did crea­ture, as strong in her pure life un­der her moth­er's care as she is by ev­ery gift of na­ture? There are days when she wan­ders round the gar­den, out of spir­its with­out know­ing why; I find her with tears in her eyes----”

“She is one-​and-​twen­ty,” said Crev­el.

“Must I place her in a con­vent?” asked the Baroness. “But in such cas­es re­li­gion is im­po­tent to sub­due na­ture, and the most pi­ous­ly trained girls lose their head!--Get up, pray, mon­sieur; do you not un­der­stand that ev­ery­thing is fi­nal be­tween us? that I look up­on you with hor­ror? that you have crushed a moth­er's last hopes----”

“But if I were to re­store them,” asked he.

Madame Hu­lot looked at Crev­el with a fren­zied ex­pres­sion that re­al­ly touched him. But he drove pity back to the depths of his heart; she had said, “I look up­on you with hor­ror.”

Virtue is al­ways a lit­tle too rigid; it over­looks the shades and in­stincts by help of which we are able to tack when in a false po­si­tion.

“So hand­some a girl as Made­moi­selle Hort­ense does not find a hus­band nowa­days if she is pen­ni­less,” Crev­el re­marked, re­sum­ing his starchi­est man­ner. “Your daugh­ter is one of those beau­ties who rather alarm in­tend­ing hus­bands; like a thor­ough­bred horse, which is too ex­pen­sive to keep up to find a ready pur­chas­er. If you go out walk­ing with such a wom­an on your arm, ev­ery one will turn to look at you, and fol­low and cov­et his neigh­bor's wife. Such suc­cess is a source of much un­easi­ness to men who do not want to be killing lovers; for, af­ter all, no man kills more than one. In the po­si­tion in which you find your­self there are just three ways of get­ting your daugh­ter mar­ried: Ei­ther by my help--and you will have none of it! That is one.--Or by find­ing some old man of six­ty, very rich, child­less, and anx­ious to have chil­dren; that is dif­fi­cult, still such men are to be met with. Many old men take up with a Josepha, a Jen­ny Ca­dine, why should not one be found who is ready to make a fool of him­self un­der le­gal for­mal­ities? If it were not for Ce­les­tine and our two grand­chil­dren, I would mar­ry Hort­ense my­self. That is two.--The last way is the eas­iest----”

Madame Hu­lot raised her head, and looked un­easi­ly at the ex-​per­fumer.

“Paris is a town whith­er ev­ery man of en­er­gy--and they sprout like saplings on French soil--comes to meet his kind; tal­ent swarms here with­out hearth or home, and en­er­gy equal to any­thing, even to mak­ing a for­tune. Well, these young­sters--your hum­ble ser­vant was such a one in his time, and how many he has known! What had du Tillet or Popinot twen­ty years since? They were both pot­ter­ing round in Dad­dy Birot­teau's shop, with not a pen­ny of cap­ital but their de­ter­mi­na­tion to get on, which, in my opin­ion, is the best cap­ital a man can have. Mon­ey may be eat­en through, but you don't eat through your de­ter­mi­na­tion. Why, what had I? The will to get on, and plen­ty of pluck. At this day du Tillet is a match for the great­est folks; lit­tle Popinot, the rich­est drug­gist of the Rue des Lom­bards, be­came a deputy, now he is in of­fice.--Well, one of these free lances, as we say on the stock mar­ket, of the pen, or of the brush, is the on­ly man in Paris who would mar­ry a pen­ni­less beau­ty, for they have courage enough for any­thing. Mon­sieur Popinot mar­ried Made­moi­selle Birot­teau with­out ask­ing for a far­thing. Those men are mad­men, to be sure! They trust in love as they trust in good luck and brains!--Find a man of en­er­gy who will fall in love with your daugh­ter, and he will mar­ry with­out a thought of mon­ey. You must con­fess that by way of an en­emy I am not un­gen­er­ous, for this ad­vice is against my own in­ter­ests.”

“Oh, Mon­sieur Crev­el, if you would in­deed be my friend and give up your ridicu­lous no­tions----”

"Ridicu­lous? Madame, do not run your­self down. Look at your­self--I love you, and you will come to be mine. The day will come when I shall say to Hu­lot, 'You took Josepha, I have tak­en your wife!'

“It is the old law of tit-​for-​tat! And I will per­se­vere till I have at­tained my end, un­less you should be­come ex­treme­ly ug­ly.--I shall suc­ceed; and I will tell you why,” he went on, re­sum­ing his at­ti­tude, and look­ing at Madame Hu­lot. “You will not meet with such an old man, or such a young lover,” he said af­ter a pause, "be­cause you love your daugh­ter too well to hand her over to the ma­noeu­vres of an old lib­er­tine, and be­cause you--the Baronne Hu­lot, sis­ter of the old Lieu­tenant-​Gen­er­al who com­mand­ed the vet­er­an Grenadiers of the Old Guard--will not con­de­scend to take a man of spir­it wher­ev­er you may find him; for he might be a mere crafts­man, as many a mil­lion­aire of to-​day was ten years ago, a work­ing ar­ti­san, or the fore­man of a fac­to­ry.

“And then, when you see the girl, urged by her twen­ty years, ca­pa­ble of dis­hon­or­ing you all, you will say to your­self, 'It will be bet­ter that I should fall! If Mon­sieur Crev­el will but keep my se­cret, I will earn my daugh­ter's por­tion--two hun­dred thou­sand francs for ten years' at­tach­ment to that old gloveseller--old Crev­el!'--I dis­gust you no doubt, and what I am say­ing is hor­ri­bly im­moral, you think? But if you hap­pened to have been bit­ten by an over­whelm­ing pas­sion, you would find a thou­sand ar­gu­ments in fa­vor of yield­ing--as wom­en do when they are in love.--Yes, and Hort­ense's in­ter­ests will sug­gest to your feel­ings such terms of sur­ren­der­ing your con­science----”

“Hort­ense has still an un­cle.”

“What! Old Fis­ch­er? He is wind­ing up his con­cerns, and that again is the Baron's fault; his rake is dragged over ev­ery till with­in his reach.”

“Comte Hu­lot----”

“Oh, madame, your hus­band has al­ready made thin air of the old Gen­er­al's sav­ings. He spent them in fur­nish­ing his singer's rooms. --Now, come; am I to go with­out a hope?”

“Good-​bye, mon­sieur. A man eas­ily gets over a pas­sion for a wom­an of my age, and you will fall back on Chris­tian prin­ci­ples. God takes care of the wretched----”

The Baroness rose to oblige the cap­tain to re­treat, and drove him back in­to the draw­ing-​room.

“Ought the beau­ti­ful Madame Hu­lot to be liv­ing amid such squalor?” said he, and he point­ed to an old lamp, a chan­de­lier bereft of its gild­ing, the thread­bare car­pet, the very rags of wealth which made the large room, with its red, white, and gold, look like a corpse of Im­pe­ri­al fes­tiv­ities.

“Mon­sieur, virtue shines on it all. I have no wish to owe a hand­some abode to hav­ing made of the beau­ty you are pleased to as­cribe to me a _man-​trap_ and _a mon­ey-​box for five-​franc pieces_!”

The cap­tain bit his lips as he rec­og­nized the words he had used to vil­ify Josepha's avarice.

“And for whom are you so mag­nan­imous?” said he. By this time the baroness had got her re­ject­ed ad­mir­er as far as the door.--“For a lib­er­tine!” said he, with a lofty gri­mace of virtue and su­pe­ri­or wealth.

“If you are right, my con­stan­cy has some mer­it, mon­sieur. That is all.”

Af­ter bow­ing to the of­fi­cer as a wom­an bows to dis­miss an im­por­tune vis­itor, she turned away too quick­ly to see him once more fold his arms. She un­locked the doors she had closed, and did not see the threat­en­ing ges­ture which was Crev­el's part­ing greet­ing. She walked with a proud, de­fi­ant step, like a mar­tyr to the Col­ise­um, but her strength was ex­haust­ed; she sank on the so­fa in her blue room, as if she were ready to faint, and sat there with her eyes fixed on the tum­ble-​down sum­mer-​house, where her daugh­ter was gos­sip­ing with Cousin Bet­ty.

From the first days of her mar­ried life to the present time the Baroness had loved her hus­band, as Josephine in the end had loved Napoleon, with an ad­mir­ing, ma­ter­nal, and cow­ard­ly de­vo­tion. Though ig­no­rant of the de­tails giv­en her by Crev­el, she knew that for twen­ty years past Baron Hu­lot been any­thing rather than a faith­ful hus­band; but she had sealed her eyes with lead, she had wept in si­lence, and no word of re­proach had ev­er es­caped her. In re­turn for this an­gel­ic sweet­ness, she had won her hus­band's ven­er­ation and some­thing ap­proach­ing to wor­ship from all who were about her.

A wife's af­fec­tion for her hus­band and the re­spect she pays him are in­fec­tious in a fam­ily. Hort­ense be­lieved her fa­ther to be a per­fect mod­el of con­ju­gal af­fec­tion; as to their son, brought up to ad­mire the Baron, whom ev­ery­body re­gard­ed as one of the gi­ants who so ef­fec­tu­al­ly backed Napoleon, he knew that he owed his ad­vance­ment to his fa­ther's name, po­si­tion, and cred­it; and be­sides, the im­pres­sions of child­hood ex­ert an en­dur­ing in­flu­ence. He still was afraid of his fa­ther; and if he had sus­pect­ed the mis­deeds re­vealed by Crev­el, as he was too much over­awed by him to find fault, he would have found ex­cus­es in the view ev­ery man takes of such mat­ters.

It now will be nec­es­sary to give the rea­sons for the ex­traor­di­nary self-​de­vo­tion of a good and beau­ti­ful wom­an; and this, in a few words, is her past his­to­ry.

Three broth­ers, sim­ple la­bor­ing men, named Fis­ch­er, and liv­ing in a vil­lage sit­uat­ed on the fur­thest fron­tier of Lor­raine, were com­pelled by the Re­pub­li­can con­scrip­tion to set out with the so-​called army of the Rhine.

In 1799 the sec­ond broth­er, An­dre, a wid­ow­er, and Madame Hu­lot's fa­ther, left his daugh­ter to the care of his el­der broth­er, Pierre Fis­ch­er, dis­abled from ser­vice by a wound re­ceived in 1797, and made a small pri­vate ven­ture in the mil­itary trans­port ser­vice, an open­ing he owed to the fa­vor of Hu­lot d'Ervy, who was high in the com­mis­sari­at. By a very ob­vi­ous chance Hu­lot, com­ing to Stras­bourg, saw the Fis­ch­er fam­ily. Ade­line's fa­ther and his younger broth­er were at that time con­trac­tors for for­age in the province of Al­sace.

Ade­line, then six­teen years of age, might be com­pared with the fa­mous Madame du Bar­ry, like her, a daugh­ter of Lor­raine. She was one of those per­fect and strik­ing beau­ties--a wom­an like Madame Tal­lien, fin­ished with pe­cu­liar care by Na­ture, who be­stows on them all her choic­est gifts--dis­tinc­tion, dig­ni­ty, grace, re­fine­ment, el­egance, flesh of a su­pe­ri­or tex­ture, and a com­plex­ion min­gled in the un­known lab­ora­to­ry where good luck pre­sides. These beau­ti­ful crea­tures all have some­thing in com­mon: Bian­ca Capel­la, whose por­trait is one of Bronzi­no's mas­ter­pieces; Jean Gou­jon's Venus, paint­ed from the fa­mous Di­ane de Poitiers; Sig­no­ra Olympia, whose pic­ture adorns the Do­ria gallery; Ni­non, Madame du Bar­ry, Madame Tal­lien, Made­moi­selle Georges, Madame Re­cami­er.--all these wom­en who pre­served their beau­ty in spite of years, of pas­sion, and of their life of ex­cess and plea­sure, have in fig­ure, frame, and in the char­ac­ter of their beau­ty cer­tain strik­ing re­sem­blances, enough to make one be­lieve that there is in the ocean of gen­er­ations an Aphro­disian cur­rent whence ev­ery such Venus is born, all daugh­ters of the same salt wave.

Ade­line Fis­ch­er, one of the loveli­est of this race of god­dess­es, had the splen­did type, the flow­ing lines, the exquisite tex­ture of a wom­an born a queen. The fair hair that our moth­er Eve re­ceived from the hand of God, the form of an Em­press, an air of grandeur, and an au­gust line of pro­file, with her ru­ral mod­esty, made ev­ery man pause in de­light as she passed, like am­ateurs in front of a Raphael; in short, hav­ing once seen her, the Com­mis­sari­at of­fi­cer made Made­moi­selle Ade­line Fis­ch­er his wife as quick­ly as the law would per­mit, to the great as­ton­ish­ment of the Fis­ch­ers, who had all been brought up in the fear of their bet­ters.

The el­dest, a sol­dier of 1792, severe­ly wound­ed in the at­tack on the lines at Wis­sem­bourg, adored the Em­per­or Napoleon and ev­ery­thing that had to do with the _Grande Armee_. An­dre and Jo­hann spoke with re­spect of Com­mis­sary Hu­lot, the Em­per­or's pro­tege, to whom in­deed they owed their pros­per­ity; for Hu­lot d'Ervy, find­ing them in­tel­li­gent and hon­est, had tak­en them from the army pro­vi­sion wag­ons to place them in charge of a gov­ern­ment con­tract need­ing despatch. The broth­ers Fis­ch­er had done fur­ther ser­vice dur­ing the cam­paign of 1804. At the peace Hu­lot had se­cured for them the con­tract for for­age from Al­sace, not know­ing that he would present­ly be sent to Stras­bourg to pre­pare for the cam­paign of 1806.

This mar­riage was like an As­sump­tion to the young peas­ant girl. The beau­ti­ful Ade­line was trans­lat­ed at once from the mire of her vil­lage to the par­adise of the Im­pe­ri­al Court; for the con­trac­tor, one of the most con­sci­en­tious and hard-​work­ing of the Com­mis­sari­at staff, was made a Baron, ob­tained a place near the Em­per­or, and was at­tached to the Im­pe­ri­al Guard. The hand­some rus­tic brave­ly set to work to ed­ucate her­self for love of her hus­band, for she was sim­ply crazy about him; and, in­deed, the Com­mis­sari­at of­fice was as a man a per­fect match for Ade­line as a wom­an. He was one of the picked corps of fine men. Tall, well-​built, fair, with beau­ti­ful blue eyes full of ir­re­sistible fire and life, his el­egant ap­pear­ance made him re­mark­able by the side of d'Or­say, Forbin, Ou­vrard; in short, in the bat­tal­ion of fine men that sur­round­ed the Em­per­or. A con­quer­ing “buck,” and hold­ing the ideas of the Di­rec­toire with re­gard to wom­en, his ca­reer of gal­lantry was in­ter­rupt­ed for some long time by his con­ju­gal af­fec­tion.

To Ade­line the Baron was from the first a sort of god who could do no wrong. To him she owed ev­ery­thing: for­tune--she had a car­riage, a fine house, ev­ery lux­ury of the day; hap­pi­ness--he was de­vot­ed to her in the face of the world; a ti­tle, for she was a Baroness; fame, for she was spo­ken of as the beau­ti­ful Madame Hu­lot--and in Paris! Fi­nal­ly, she had the hon­or of re­fus­ing the Em­per­or's ad­vances, for Napoleon made her a present of a di­amond neck­lace, and al­ways re­mem­bered her, ask­ing now and again, “And is the beau­ti­ful Madame Hu­lot still a mod­el of virtue?” in the tone of a man who might have tak­en his re­venge on one who should have tri­umphed where he had failed.

So it needs no great in­tu­ition to dis­cern what were the mo­tives in a sim­ple, guile­less, and no­ble soul for the fa­nati­cism of Madame Hu­lot's love. Hav­ing ful­ly per­suad­ed her­self that her hus­band could do her no wrong, she made her­self in the depths of her heart the hum­ble, ab­ject, and blind­fold slave of the man who had made her. It must be not­ed, too, that she was gift­ed with great good sense--the good sense of the peo­ple, which made her ed­uca­tion sound. In so­ci­ety she spoke lit­tle, and nev­er spoke evil of any one; she did not try to shine; she thought out many things, lis­tened well, and formed her­self on the mod­el of the best-​con­duct­ed wom­en of good birth.

In 1815 Hu­lot fol­lowed the lead of the Prince de Wis­sem­bourg, his in­ti­mate friend, and be­came one of the of­fi­cers who or­ga­nized the im­pro­vised troops whose rout brought the Napoleon­ic cy­cle to a close at Wa­ter­loo. In 1816 the Baron was one of the men best hat­ed by the Fel­tre ad­min­is­tra­tion, and was not re­in­stat­ed in the Com­mis­sari­at till 1823, when he was need­ed for the Span­ish war. In 1830 he took of­fice as the fourth wheel of the coach, at the time of the levies, a sort of con­scrip­tion made by Louis Philippe on the old Napoleon­ic sol­diery. From the time when the younger branch as­cend­ed the throne, hav­ing tak­en an ac­tive part in bring­ing that about, he was re­gard­ed as an in­dis­pens­able au­thor­ity at the War Of­fice. He had al­ready won his Mar­shal's ba­ton, and the King could do no more for him un­less by mak­ing him min­is­ter or a peer of France.

From 1818 till 1823, hav­ing no of­fi­cial oc­cu­pa­tion, Baron Hu­lot had gone on ac­tive ser­vice to wom­ankind. Madame Hu­lot dat­ed her Hec­tor's first in­fi­deli­ties from the grand _fi­nale_ of the Em­pire. Thus, for twelve years the Baroness had filled the part in her house­hold of _pri­ma don­na as­so­lu­ta_, with­out a ri­val. She still could boast of the old-​fash­ioned, in­vet­er­ate af­fec­tion which hus­bands feel for wives who are re­signed to be gen­tle and vir­tu­ous help­mates; she knew that if she had a ri­val, that ri­val would not sub­sist for two hours un­der a word of re­proof from her­self; but she shut her eyes, she stopped her ears, she would know noth­ing of her hus­band's pro­ceed­ings out­side his home. In short, she treat­ed her Hec­tor as a moth­er treats a spoilt child.

Three years be­fore the con­ver­sa­tion re­port­ed above, Hort­ense, at the The­atre des Va­ri­etes, had rec­og­nized her fa­ther in a low­er tier stage-​box with Jen­ny Ca­dine, and had ex­claimed:

“There is pa­pa!”

“You are mis­tak­en, my dar­ling; he is at the Mar­shal's,” the Baroness replied.

She too had seen Jen­ny Ca­dine; but in­stead of feel­ing a pang when she saw how pret­ty she was, she said to her­self, “That ras­cal Hec­tor must think him­self very lucky.”

She suf­fered nev­er­the­less; she gave her­self up in se­cret to rages of tor­ment; but as soon as she saw Hec­tor, she al­ways re­mem­bered her twelve years of per­fect hap­pi­ness, and could not find it in her to ut­ter a word of com­plaint. She would have been glad if the Baron would have tak­en her in­to his con­fi­dence; but she nev­er dared to let him see that she knew of his kick­ing over the traces, out of re­spect for her hus­band. Such an ex­cess of del­ica­cy is nev­er met with but in those grand crea­tures, daugh­ters of the soil, whose in­stinct it is to take blows with­out ev­er re­turn­ing them; the blood of the ear­ly mar­tyrs still lives in their veins. Well-​born wom­en, their hus­bands' equals, feel the im­pulse to an­noy them, to mark the points of their tol­er­ance, like points at bil­liards, by some sting­ing word, part­ly in the spir­it of di­abol­ical mal­ice, and to se­cure the up­per hand or the right of turn­ing the ta­bles.

The Baroness had an ar­dent ad­mir­er in her broth­er-​in-​law, Lieu­tenant-​Gen­er­al Hu­lot, the ven­er­able Colonel of the Grenadiers of the Im­pe­ri­al In­fantry Guard, who was to have a Mar­shal's ba­ton in his old age. This vet­er­an, af­ter hav­ing served from 1830 to 1834 as Com­man­dant of the mil­itary di­vi­sion, in­clud­ing the de­part­ments of Brit­tany, the scene of his ex­ploits in 1799 and 1800, had come to set­tle in Paris near his broth­er, for whom he had a fa­ther­ly af­fec­tion.

This old sol­dier's heart was in sym­pa­thy with his sis­ter-​in-​law; he ad­mired her as the no­blest and saintli­est of her sex. He had nev­er mar­ried, be­cause he hoped to find a sec­ond Ade­line, though he had vain­ly sought for her through twen­ty cam­paigns in as many lands. To main­tain her place in the es­teem of this blame­less and spot­less old re­pub­li­can--of whom Napoleon had said, “That brave old Hu­lot is the most ob­sti­nate re­pub­li­can, but he will nev­er be false to me”--Ade­line would have en­dured griefs even greater than those that had just come up­on her. But the old sol­dier, sev­en­ty-​two years of age, bat­tered by thir­ty cam­paigns, and wound­ed for the twen­ty-​sev­enth time at Wa­ter­loo, was Ade­line's ad­mir­er, and not a “pro­tec­tor.” The poor old Count, among oth­er in­fir­mi­ties, could on­ly hear through a speak­ing trum­pet.

So long as Baron Hu­lot d'Ervy was a fine man, his flir­ta­tions did not dam­age his for­tune; but when a man is fifty, the Graces claim pay­ment. At that age love be­comes vice; in­sen­sate van­ities come in­to play. Thus, at about that time, Ade­line saw that her hus­band was in­cred­ibly par­tic­ular about his dress; he dyed his hair and whiskers, and wore a belt and stays. He was de­ter­mined to re­main hand­some at any cost. This care of his per­son, a weak­ness he had once mer­ci­less­ly mocked at, was car­ried out in the min­utest de­tails.

At last Ade­line per­ceived that the Pacto­lus poured out be­fore the Baron's mis­tress­es had its source in her pock­et. In eight years he had dis­si­pat­ed a con­sid­er­able amount of mon­ey; and so ef­fec­tu­al­ly, that, on his son's mar­riage two years pre­vi­ous­ly, the Baron had been com­pelled to ex­plain to his wife that his pay con­sti­tut­ed their whole in­come.

“What shall we come to?” asked Ade­line.

“Be quite easy,” said the of­fi­cial, “I will leave the whole of my salary in your hands, and I will make a for­tune for Hort­ense, and some sav­ings for the fu­ture, in busi­ness.”

The wife's deep be­lief in her hus­band's pow­er and su­pe­ri­or tal­ents, in his ca­pa­bil­ities and char­ac­ter, had, in fact, for the mo­ment al­layed her anx­iety.

What the Baroness' re­flec­tions and tears were af­ter Crev­el's de­par­ture may now be clear­ly imag­ined. The poor wom­an had for two years past known that she was at the bot­tom of a pit, but she had fan­cied her­self alone in it. How her son's mar­riage had been fi­nal­ly ar­ranged she had not known; she had known noth­ing of Hec­tor's con­nec­tion with the grasp­ing Jew­ess; and, above all, she hoped that no one in the world knew any­thing of her trou­bles. Now, if Crev­el went about so ready to talk of the Baron's ex­cess­es, Hec­tor's rep­uta­tion would suf­fer. She could see, un­der the an­gry ex-​per­fumer's coarse ha­rangue, the odi­ous gos­sip be­hind the scenes which led to her son's mar­riage. Two repro­bate hussies had been the priestess­es of this union planned at some or­gy amid the de­grad­ing fa­mil­iar­ities of two tip­sy old sin­ners.

“And has he for­got­ten Hort­ense!” she won­dered.

“But he sees her ev­ery day; will he try to find her a hus­band among his good-​for-​noth­ing sluts?”

At this mo­ment it was the moth­er that spoke rather than the wife, for she saw Hort­ense laugh­ing with her Cousin Bet­ty--the reck­less laugh­ter of heed­less youth; and she knew that such hys­ter­ical laugh­ter was quite as dis­tress­ing a symp­tom as the tear­ful rever­ie of soli­tary walks in the gar­den.

Hort­ense was like her moth­er, with gold­en hair that waved nat­ural­ly, and was amaz­ing­ly long and thick. Her skin had the lus­tre of moth­er-​of-​pearl. She was vis­ibly the off­spring of a true mar­riage, of a pure and no­ble love in its prime. There was a pas­sion­ate vi­tal­ity in her coun­te­nance, a bril­lian­cy of fea­ture, a full fount of youth, a fresh vig­or and abun­dance of health, which ra­di­at­ed from her with elec­tric flash­es. Hort­ense in­vit­ed the eye.

When her eye, of deep ul­tra­ma­rine blue, liq­uid with the mois­ture of in­no­cent youth, rest­ed on a pass­er-​by, he was in­vol­un­tar­ily thrilled. Nor did a sin­gle freck­le mar her skin, such as those with which many a white and gold­en maid pays toll for her milky white­ness. Tall, round with­out be­ing fat, with a slen­der dig­ni­ty as no­ble as her moth­er's, she re­al­ly de­served the name of god­dess, of which old au­thors were so lav­ish. In fact, those who saw Hort­ense in the street could hard­ly re­strain the ex­cla­ma­tion, “What a beau­ti­ful girl!”

She was so gen­uine­ly in­no­cent, that she could say to her moth­er:

“What do they mean, mam­ma, by call­ing me a beau­ti­ful girl when I am with you? Are not you much hand­somer than I am?”

And, in point of fact, at sev­en-​and-​forty the Baroness might have been pre­ferred to her daugh­ter by am­ateurs of sun­set beau­ty; for she had not yet lost any of her charms, by one of those phe­nom­ena which are es­pe­cial­ly rare in Paris, where Ni­non was re­gard­ed as scan­dalous, sim­ply be­cause she thus seemed to en­joy such an un­fair ad­van­tage over the plain­er wom­en of the sev­en­teenth cen­tu­ry.

Think­ing of her daugh­ter brought her back to the fa­ther; she saw him sink­ing by de­grees, day af­ter day, down to the so­cial mire, and even dis­missed some day from his ap­point­ment. The idea of her idol's fall, with a vague vi­sion of the dis­as­ters proph­esied by Crev­el, was such a ter­ror to the poor wom­an, that she be­came rapt in the con­tem­pla­tion like an ec­stat­ic.

Cousin Bet­ty, from time to time, as she chat­ted with Hort­ense, looked round to see when they might re­turn to the draw­ing-​room; but her young cousin was pelt­ing her with ques­tions, and at the mo­ment when the Baroness opened the glass door she did not hap­pen to be look­ing.

Lis­beth Fis­ch­er, though the daugh­ter of the el­dest of the three broth­ers, was five years younger than Madame Hu­lot; she was far from be­ing as hand­some as her cousin, and had been des­per­ate­ly jeal­ous of Ade­line. Jeal­ousy was the fun­da­men­tal pas­sion of this char­ac­ter, marked by ec­cen­tric­ities--a word in­vent­ed by the En­glish to de­scribe the crazi­ness not of the asy­lum, but of re­spectable house­holds. A na­tive of the Vos­ges, a peas­ant in the fullest sense of the word, lean, brown, with shin­ing black hair and thick eye­brows join­ing in a tuft, with long, strong arms, thick feet, and some moles on her nar­row simi­an face--such is a brief de­scrip­tion of the el­der­ly vir­gin.

The fam­ily, liv­ing all un­der one roof, had sac­ri­ficed the com­mon-​look­ing girl to the beau­ty, the bit­ter fruit to the splen­did flow­er. Lis­beth worked in the fields, while her cousin was in­dulged; and one day, when they were alone to­geth­er, she had tried to de­stroy Ade­line's nose, a tru­ly Greek nose, which the old moth­ers ad­mired. Though she was beat­en for this mis­deed, she per­sist­ed nev­er­the­less in tear­ing the fa­vorite's gowns and crum­pling her col­lars.

At the time of Ade­line's won­der­ful mar­riage, Lis­beth had bowed to fate, as Napoleon's broth­ers and sis­ters bowed be­fore the splen­dor of the throne and the force of au­thor­ity.

Ade­line, who was ex­treme­ly sweet and kind, re­mem­bered Lis­beth when she found her­self in Paris, and in­vit­ed her there in 1809, in­tend­ing to res­cue her from pover­ty by find­ing her a hus­band. But see­ing that it was im­pos­si­ble to mar­ry the girl out of hand, with her black eyes and sooty brows, un­able, too, to read or write, the Baron be­gan by ap­pren­tic­ing her to a busi­ness; he placed her as a learn­er with the em­broi­der­ers to the Im­pe­ri­al Court, the well-​known Pons Broth­ers.

Lis­beth, called Bet­ty for short, hav­ing learned to em­broi­der in gold and sil­ver, and pos­sess­ing all the en­er­gy of a moun­tain race, had de­ter­mi­na­tion enough to learn to read, write, and keep ac­counts; for her cousin the Baron had point­ed out the ne­ces­si­ty for these ac­com­plish­ments if she hoped to set up in busi­ness as an em­broi­der­er.

She was bent on mak­ing a for­tune; in two years she was an­oth­er crea­ture. In 1811 the peas­ant wom­an had be­come a very pre­sentable, skilled, and in­tel­li­gent fore­wom­an.

Her de­part­ment, that of gold and sil­ver lace-​work, as it is called, in­clud­ed epaulettes, sword-​knots, aigu­il­lettes; in short, the im­mense mass of glit­ter­ing or­na­ments that sparkled on the rich uni­forms of the French army and civ­il of­fi­cials. The Em­per­or, a true Ital­ian in his love of dress, had over­laid the coats of all his ser­vants with sil­ver and gold, and the Em­pire in­clud­ed a hun­dred and thir­ty-​three De­part­ments. These or­na­ments, usu­al­ly sup­plied to tai­lors who were sol­vent and wealthy pay­mas­ters, were a very se­cure branch of trade.

Just when Cousin Bet­ty, the best hand in the house of Pons Broth­ers, where she was fore­wom­an of the em­broi­dery de­part­ment, might have set up in busi­ness on her own ac­count, the Em­pire col­lapsed. The olive-​branch of peace held out by the Bour­bons did not re­as­sure Lis­beth; she feared a diminu­tion of this branch of trade, since hence­forth there were to be but eighty-​six De­part­ments to plun­der, in­stead of a hun­dred and thir­ty-​three, to say noth­ing of the im­mense re­duc­tion of the army. Ut­ter­ly scared by the ups and downs of in­dus­try, she re­fused the Baron's of­fers of help, and he thought she must be mad. She con­firmed this opin­ion by quar­rel­ing with Mon­sieur Riv­et, who bought the busi­ness of Pons Broth­ers, and with whom the Baron wished to place her in part­ner­ship; she would be no more than a work­wom­an. Thus the Fis­ch­er fam­ily had re­lapsed in­to the pre­car­ious medi­ocrity from which Baron Hu­lot had raised it.

The three broth­ers Fis­ch­er, who had been ru­ined by the ab­di­ca­tion at Fontainebleau, in de­spair joined the ir­reg­ular troops in 1815. The el­dest, Lis­beth's fa­ther, was killed. Ade­line's fa­ther, sen­tenced to death by court-​mar­tial, fled to Ger­many, and died at Treves in 1820. Jo­hann, the youngest, came to Paris, a pe­ti­tion­er to the queen of the fam­ily, who was said to dine off gold and sil­ver plate, and nev­er to be seen at a par­ty but with di­amonds in her hair as big as hazel-​nuts, giv­en to her by the Em­per­or.

Jo­hann Fis­ch­er, then aged forty-​three, ob­tained from Baron Hu­lot a cap­ital of ten thou­sand francs with which to start a small busi­ness as for­age-​deal­er at Ver­sailles, un­der the pa­tron­age of the War Of­fice, through the in­flu­ence of the friends still in of­fice, of the late Com­mis­sary-​Gen­er­al.

These fam­ily catas­tro­phes, Baron Hu­lot's dis­missal, and the knowl­edge that he was a mere ci­pher in that im­mense stir of men and in­ter­ests and things which makes Paris at once a par­adise and a hell, quite quelled Lis­beth Fis­ch­er. She gave up all idea of ri­val­ry and com­par­ison with her cousin af­ter feel­ing her great su­pe­ri­or­ity; but en­vy still lurked in her heart, like a plague-​germ that may hatch and dev­as­tate a city if the fa­tal bale of wool is opened in which it is con­cealed.

Now and again, in­deed, she said to her­self:

“Ade­line and I are the same flesh and blood, our fa­thers were broth­ers --and she is in a man­sion, while I am in a gar­ret.”

But ev­ery New Year Lis­beth had presents from the Baron and Baroness; the Baron, who was al­ways good to her, paid for her fire­wood in the win­ter; old Gen­er­al Hu­lot had her to din­ner once a week; and there was al­ways a cov­er laid for her at her cousin's ta­ble. They laughed at her no doubt, but they nev­er were ashamed to own her. In short, they had made her in­de­pen­dent in Paris, where she lived as she pleased.

The old maid had, in fact, a ter­ror of any kind of tie. Her cousin had of­fered her a room in her own house--Lis­beth sus­pect­ed the hal­ter of do­mes­tic servi­tude; sev­er­al times the Baron had found a so­lu­tion of the dif­fi­cult prob­lem of her mar­riage; but though tempt­ed in the first in­stance, she would present­ly de­cline, fear­ing lest she should be scorned for her want of ed­uca­tion, her gen­er­al ig­no­rance, and her pover­ty; fi­nal­ly, when the Baroness sug­gest­ed that she should live with their un­cle Jo­hann, and keep house for him, in­stead of the up­per ser­vant, who must cost him dear, Lis­beth replied that that was the very last way she should think of mar­ry­ing.

Lis­beth Fis­ch­er had the sort of strangeness in her ideas which is of­ten no­tice­able in char­ac­ters that have de­vel­oped late, in sav­ages, who think much and speak lit­tle. Her peas­ant's wit had ac­quired a good deal of Parisian as­per­ity from hear­ing the talk of work­shops and mix­ing with work­men and work­wom­en. She, whose char­ac­ter had a marked re­sem­blance to that of the Cor­si­cans, worked up­on with­out fruition by the in­stincts of a strong na­ture, would have liked to be the pro­tec­tress of a weak man; but, as a re­sult of liv­ing in the cap­ital, the cap­ital had al­tered her su­per­fi­cial­ly. Parisian pol­ish be­came rust on this coarse­ly tem­pered soul. Gift­ed with a cun­ning which had be­come un­fath­omable, as it al­ways does in those whose celiba­cy is gen­uine, with the orig­inal­ity and sharp­ness with which she clothed her ideas, in any oth­er po­si­tion she would have been formidable. Full of spite, she was ca­pa­ble of bring­ing dis­cord in­to the most unit­ed fam­ily.

In ear­ly days, when she in­dulged in cer­tain se­cret hopes which she con­fid­ed to none, she took to wear­ing stays, and dress­ing in the fash­ion, and so shone in splen­dor for a short time, that the Baron thought her mar­riage­able. Lis­beth at that stage was the pi­quante brunette of old-​fash­ioned nov­els. Her pierc­ing glance, her olive skin, her reed-​like fig­ure, might in­vite a half-​pay ma­jor; but she was sat­is­fied, she would say laugh­ing, with her own ad­mi­ra­tion.

And, in­deed, she found her life pleas­ant enough when she had freed it from prac­ti­cal anx­ieties, for she dined out ev­ery evening af­ter work­ing hard from sun­rise. Thus she had on­ly her rent and her mid­day meal to pro­vide for; she had most of her clothes giv­en her, and a va­ri­ety of very ac­cept­able stores, such as cof­fee, sug­ar, wine, and so forth.

In 1837, af­ter liv­ing for twen­ty-​sev­en years, half main­tained by the Hu­lots and her Un­cle Fis­ch­er, Cousin Bet­ty, re­signed to be­ing no­body, al­lowed her­self to be treat­ed so. She her­self re­fused to ap­pear at any grand din­ners, pre­fer­ring the fam­ily par­ty, where she held her own and was spared all slights to her pride.

Wher­ev­er she went--at Gen­er­al Hu­lot's, at Crev­el's, at the house of the young Hu­lots, or at Riv­et's (Pons' suc­ces­sor, with whom she made up her quar­rel, and who made much of her), and at the Baroness' ta­ble --she was treat­ed as one of the fam­ily; in fact, she man­aged to make friends of the ser­vants by mak­ing them an oc­ca­sion­al small present, and al­ways gos­sip­ing with them for a few min­utes be­fore go­ing in­to the draw­ing-​room. This fa­mil­iar­ity, by which she un­com­pro­mis­ing­ly put her­self on their lev­el, con­cil­iat­ed their servile good-​na­ture, which is in­dis­pens­able to a par­asite. “She is a good, steady wom­an,” was ev­ery­body's ver­dict.

Her will­ing­ness to oblige, which knew no bounds when it was not de­mand­ed of her, was in­deed, like her as­sumed blunt­ness, a ne­ces­si­ty of her po­si­tion. She had at length un­der­stood what her life must be, see­ing that she was at ev­ery­body's mer­cy; and need­ing to please ev­ery­body, she would laugh with young peo­ple, who liked her for a sort of wheedling flat­tery which al­ways wins them; guess­ing and tak­ing part with their fan­cies, she would make her­self their spokeswom­an, and they thought her a de­light­ful _con­fi­dante_, since she had no right to find fault with them.

Her ab­so­lute se­cre­cy al­so won her the con­fi­dence of their se­niors; for, like Ni­non, she had cer­tain man­ly qual­ities. As a rule, our con­fi­dence is giv­en to those be­low rather than above us. We em­ploy our in­fe­ri­ors rather than our bet­ters in se­cret trans­ac­tions, and they thus be­come the re­cip­ients of our in­most thoughts, and look on at our med­ita­tions; Riche­lieu thought he had achieved suc­cess when he was ad­mit­ted to the Coun­cil. This pen­ni­less wom­an was sup­posed to be so de­pen­dent on ev­ery one about her, that she seemed doomed to per­fect si­lence. She her­self called her­self the Fam­ily Con­fes­sion­al.

The Baroness on­ly, re­mem­ber­ing her ill-​us­age in child­hood by the cousin who, though younger, was stronger than her­self, nev­er whol­ly trust­ed her. Be­sides, out of sheer mod­esty, she would nev­er have told her do­mes­tic sor­rows to any one but God.

It may here be well to add that the Baron's house pre­served all its mag­nif­icence in the eyes of Lis­beth Fis­ch­er, who was not struck, as the par­venu per­fumer had been, with the penury stamped on the shab­by chairs, the dirty hang­ings, and the ripped silk. The fur­ni­ture we live with is in some sort like our own per­son; see­ing our­selves ev­ery day, we end, like the Baron, by think­ing our­selves but lit­tle al­tered, and still youth­ful, when oth­ers see that our head is cov­ered with chin­chilla, our fore­head scarred with cir­cum­flex ac­cents, our stom­ach as­sum­ing the ro­tun­di­ty of a pump­kin. So these rooms, al­ways blaz­ing in Bet­ty's eyes with the Ben­gal fire of Im­pe­ri­al vic­to­ry, were to her peren­ni­al­ly splen­did.

As time went on, Lis­beth had con­tract­ed some rather strange old-​maid­ish habits. For in­stance, in­stead of fol­low­ing the fash­ions, she ex­pect­ed the fash­ion to ac­cept her ways and yield to her al­ways out-​of-​date no­tions. When the Baroness gave her a pret­ty new bon­net, or a gown in the fash­ion of the day, Bet­ty re­made it com­plete­ly at home, and spoilt it by pro­duc­ing a dress of the style of the Em­pire or of her old Lor­raine cos­tume. A thir­ty-​franc bon­net came out a rag, and the gown a dis­grace. On this point, Lis­beth was as ob­sti­nate as a mule; she would please no one but her­self and be­lieved her­self charm­ing; where­as this as­sim­ila­tive pro­cess--har­mo­nious, no doubt, in so far as that it stamped her for an old maid from head to foot--made her so ridicu­lous, that, with the best will in the world, no one could ad­mit her on any smart oc­ca­sion.

This re­frac­to­ry, capri­cious, and in­de­pen­dent spir­it, and the in­ex­pli­ca­ble wild shy­ness of the wom­an for whom the Baron had four times found a match--an em­ploye in his of­fice, a re­tired ma­jor, an army con­trac­tor, and a half-​pay cap­tain--while she had re­fused an army lace­mak­er, who had since made his for­tune, had won her the name of the Nan­ny Goat, which the Baron gave her in jest. But this nick­name on­ly met the pe­cu­liar­ities that lay on the sur­face, the ec­cen­tric­ities which each of us dis­plays to his neigh­bors in so­cial life. This wom­an, who, if close­ly stud­ied, would have shown the most sav­age traits of the peas­ant class, was still the girl who had clawed her cousin's nose, and who, if she had not been trained to rea­son, would per­haps have killed her in a fit of jeal­ousy.

It was on­ly her knowl­edge of the laws and of the world that en­abled her to con­trol the swift in­stinct with which coun­try folk, like wild men, re­duce im­pulse to ac­tion. In this alone, per­haps, lies the dif­fer­ence be­tween nat­ural and civ­ilized man. The sav­age has on­ly im­pulse; the civ­ilized man has im­puls­es and ideas. And in the sav­age the brain re­tains, as we may say, but few im­pres­sions, it is whol­ly at the mer­cy of the feel­ing that rush­es in up­on it; while in the civ­ilized man, ideas sink in­to the heart and change it; he has a thou­sand in­ter­ests and many feel­ings, where the sav­age has but one at a time. This is the cause of the tran­sient as­cen­den­cy of a child over its par­ents, which ceas­es as soon as it is sat­is­fied; in the man who is still one with na­ture, this con­trast is con­stant. Cousin Bet­ty, a sav­age of Lor­raine, some­what treach­er­ous too, was of this class of na­tures, which are com­mon­er among the low­er or­ders than is sup­posed, ac­count­ing for the con­duct of the pop­ulace dur­ing rev­olu­tions.

At the time when this _Dra­ma_ opens, if Cousin Bet­ty would have al­lowed her­self to be dressed like oth­er peo­ple; if, like the wom­en of Paris, she had been ac­cus­tomed to wear each fash­ion in its turn, she would have been pre­sentable and ac­cept­able, but she pre­served the stiff­ness of a stick. Now a wom­an de­void of all the graces, in Paris sim­ply does not ex­ist. The fine but hard eyes, the se­vere fea­tures, the Cal­abri­an fix­ity of com­plex­ion which made Lis­beth like a fig­ure by Giot­to, and of which a true Parisian would have tak­en ad­van­tage, above all, her strange way of dress­ing, gave her such an ex­traor­di­nary ap­pear­ance that she some­times looked like one of those mon­keys in pet­ti­coats tak­en about by lit­tle Savo­yards. As she was well known in the hous­es con­nect­ed by fam­ily which she fre­quent­ed, and re­strict­ed her so­cial ef­forts to that lit­tle cir­cle, as she liked her own home, her sin­gu­lar­ities no longer as­ton­ished any­body; and out of doors they were lost in the im­mense stir of Paris street-​life, where on­ly pret­ty wom­en are ev­er looked at.

Hort­ense's laugh­ter was at this mo­ment caused by a vic­to­ry won over her Cousin Lis­beth's per­ver­si­ty; she had just wrung from her an avow­al she had been hop­ing for these three years past. How­ev­er se­cre­tive an old maid may be, there is one sen­ti­ment which will al­ways avail to make her break her fast from words, and that is her van­ity. For the last three years, Hort­ense, hav­ing be­come very in­quis­itive on such mat­ters, had pestered her cousin with ques­tions, which, how­ev­er, bore the stamp of per­fect in­no­cence. She want­ed to know why her cousin had nev­er mar­ried. Hort­ense, who knew of the five of­fers that she had re­fused, had con­struct­ed her lit­tle ro­mance; she sup­posed that Lis­beth had had a pas­sion­ate at­tach­ment, and a war of ban­ter was the re­sult. Hort­ense would talk of “We young girls!” when speak­ing of her­self and her cousin.

Cousin Bet­ty had on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions an­swered in the same tone--“And who says I have not a lover?” So Cousin Bet­ty's lover, re­al or fic­ti­tious, be­came a sub­ject of mild jest­ing. At last, af­ter two years of this pet­ty war­fare, the last time Lis­beth had come to the house Hort­ense's first ques­tion had been:

“And how is your lover?”

“Pret­ty well, thank you,” was the an­swer. “He is rather ail­ing, poor young man.”

“He has del­icate health?” asked the Baroness, laugh­ing.

“I should think so! He is fair. A sooty thing like me can love none but a fair man with a col­or like the moon.”

“But who is he? What does he do?” asked Hort­ense. “Is he a prince?”

“A prince of ar­ti­sans, as I am queen of the bob­bin. Is a poor wom­an like me like­ly to find a lover in a man with a fine house and mon­ey in the funds, or in a duke of the realm, or some Prince Charm­ing out of a fairy tale?”

“Oh, I should so much like to see him!” cried Hort­ense, smil­ing.

“To see what a man can be like who can love the Nan­ny Goat?” re­tort­ed Lis­beth.

“He must be some mon­ster of an old clerk, with a goat's beard!” Hort­ense said to her moth­er.

“Well, then, you are quite mis­tak­en, made­moi­selle.”

“Then you mean that you re­al­ly have a lover?” Hort­ense ex­claimed in tri­umph.

“As sure as you have not!” re­tort­ed Lis­beth, net­tled.

“But if you have a lover, why don't you mar­ry him, Lis­beth?” said the Baroness, shak­ing her head at her daugh­ter. “We have been hear­ing ru­mors about him these three years. You have had time to study him; and if he has been faith­ful so long, you should not per­sist in a de­lay which must be hard up­on him. Af­ter all, it is a mat­ter of con­science; and if he is young, it is time to take a brevet of dig­ni­ty.”

Cousin Bet­ty had fixed her gaze on Ade­line, and see­ing that she was jest­ing, she replied:

“It would be mar­ry­ing hunger and thirst; he is a work­man, I am a work­wom­an. If we had chil­dren, they would be work­men.--No, no; we love each oth­er spir­itu­al­ly; it is less ex­pen­sive.”

“Why do you keep him in hid­ing?” Hort­ense asked.

“He wears a round jack­et,” replied the old maid, laugh­ing.

“You tru­ly love him?” the Baroness in­quired.

“I be­lieve you! I love him for his own sake, the dear cherub. For four years his home has been in my heart.”

“Well, then, if you love him for him­self,” said the Baroness grave­ly, “and if he re­al­ly ex­ists, you are treat­ing him crim­inal­ly. You do not know how to love tru­ly.”

“We all know that from our birth,” said Lis­beth.

“No, there are wom­en who love and yet are self­ish, and that is your case.”

Cousin Bet­ty's head fell, and her glance would have made any one shiv­er who had seen it; but her eyes were on her reel of thread.

“If you would in­tro­duce your so-​called lover to us, Hec­tor might find him em­ploy­ment, or put him in a po­si­tion to make mon­ey.”

“That is out of the ques­tion,” said Cousin Bet­ty.

“And why?”

“He is a sort of Pole--a refugee----”

“A con­spir­ator?” cried Hort­ense. “What luck for you!--Has he had any ad­ven­tures?”

“He has fought for Poland. He was a pro­fes­sor in the school where the stu­dents be­gan the re­bel­lion; and as he had been placed there by the Grand Duke Con­stan­tine, he has no hope of mer­cy----”

“A pro­fes­sor of what?”

“Of fine arts.”

“And he came to Paris when the re­bel­lion was quelled?”

“In 1833. He came through Ger­many on foot.”

“Poor young man! And how old is he?”

“He was just four-​and-​twen­ty when the in­sur­rec­tion broke out--he is twen­ty-​nine now.”

“Fif­teen years your ju­nior,” said the Baroness.

“And what does he live on?” asked Hort­ense.

“His tal­ent.”

“Oh, he gives lessons?”

“No,” said Cousin Bet­ty; “he gets them, and hard ones too!”

“And his Chris­tian name--is it a pret­ty name?”

“Wences­las.”

“What a won­der­ful imag­ina­tion you old maids have!” ex­claimed the Baroness. “To hear you talk, Lis­beth, one might re­al­ly be­lieve you.”

“You see, mam­ma, he is a Pole, and so ac­cus­tomed to the knout that Lis­beth re­minds him of the joys of his na­tive land.”

They all three laughed, and Hort­ense sang _Wences­las! idole de mon ame!_ in­stead of _O Mathilde_.

Then for a few min­utes there was a truce.

“These chil­dren,” said Cousin Bet­ty, look­ing at Hort­ense as she went up to her, “fan­cy that no one but them­selves can have lovers.”

“Lis­ten,” Hort­ense replied, find­ing her­self alone with her cousin, “if you prove to me that Wences­las is not a pure in­ven­tion, I will give you my yel­low cash­mere shawl.”

“He is a Count.”

“Ev­ery Pole is a Count!”

“But he is not a Pole; he comes from Li­va--Litha----”

“Lithua­nia?”

“No.”

“Livo­nia?”

“Yes, that's it!”

“But what is his name?”

“I won­der if you are ca­pa­ble of keep­ing a se­cret.”

“Cousin Bet­ty, I will be as mute!----”

“As a fish?”

“As a fish.”

“By your life eter­nal?”

“By my life eter­nal!”

“No, by your hap­pi­ness in this world?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, his name is Wences­las Stein­bock.”

“One of Charles XII.'s Gen­er­als was named Stein­bock.”

“He was his grand-​un­cle. His own fa­ther set­tled in Livo­nia af­ter the death of the King of Swe­den; but he lost all his for­tune dur­ing the cam­paign of 1812, and died, leav­ing the poor boy at the age of eight with­out a pen­ny. The Grand Duke Con­stan­tine, for the hon­or of the name of Stein­bock, took him un­der his pro­tec­tion and sent him to school.”

“I will not break my word,” Hort­ense replied; “prove his ex­is­tence, and you shall have the yel­low shawl. The col­or is most be­com­ing to dark skins.”

“And you will keep my se­cret?”

“And tell you mine.”

“Well, then, the next time I come you shall have the proof.”

“But the proof will be the lover,” said Hort­ense.

Cousin Bet­ty, who, since her first ar­rival in Paris, had been bit­ten by a ma­nia for shawls, was be­witched by the idea of own­ing the yel­low cash­mere giv­en to his wife by the Baron in 1808, and hand­ed down from moth­er to daugh­ter af­ter the man­ner of some fam­ilies in 1830. The shawl had been a good deal worn ten years ago; but the cost­ly ob­ject, now al­ways kept in its san­dal-​wood box, seemed to the old maid ev­er new, like the draw­ing-​room fur­ni­ture. So she brought in her hand­bag a present for the Baroness' birth­day, by which she pro­posed to prove the ex­is­tence of her ro­man­tic lover.

This present was a sil­ver seal formed of three lit­tle fig­ures back to back, wreathed with fo­liage, and sup­port­ing the Globe. They rep­re­sent­ed Faith, Hope, and Char­ity; their feet rest­ed on mon­sters rend­ing each oth­er, among them the sym­bol­ical ser­pent. In 1846, now that such im­mense strides have been made in the art of which Ben­venu­to Celli­ni was the mas­ter, by Made­moi­selle de Fau­veau, Wag­ner, Jean­est, Fro­ment-​Meurice, and wood-​carvers like Lien­ard, this lit­tle mas­ter­piece would amaze no­body; but at that time a girl who un­der­stood the sil­ver­smith's art stood as­ton­ished as she held the seal which Lis­beth put in­to her hands, say­ing:

“There! what do you think of that?”

In de­sign, at­ti­tude, and drap­ery the fig­ures were of the school of Raphael; but the ex­ecu­tion was in the style of the Flo­ren­tine met­al work­ers--the school cre­at­ed by Do­natel­lo, Brunelleschi, Ghib­er­ti, Ben­venu­to Celli­ni, John of Bologna, and oth­ers. The French mas­ters of the Re­nais­sance had nev­er in­vent­ed more strange­ly twin­ing mon­sters than these that sym­bol­ized the evil pas­sions. The palms, ferns, reeds, and fo­liage that wreathed the Virtues showed a style, a taste, a han­dling that might have driv­en a prac­tised crafts­man to de­spair; a scroll float­ed above the three fig­ures; and on its sur­face, be­tween the heads, were a W, a chamois, and the word _fecit_.

“Who carved this?” asked Hort­ense.

“Well, just my lover,” replied Lis­beth. “There are ten months' work in it; I could earn more at mak­ing sword-​knots.--He told me that Stein­bock means a rock goat, a chamois, in Ger­man. And he in­tends to mark all his work in that way.--Ah, ha! I shall have the shawl.”

“What for?”

“Do you sup­pose I could buy such a thing, or or­der it? Im­pos­si­ble! Well, then, it must have been giv­en to me. And who would make me such a present? A lover!”

Hort­ense, with an art­ful­ness that would have fright­ened Lis­beth Fis­ch­er if she had de­tect­ed it, took care not to ex­press all her ad­mi­ra­tion, though she was full of the de­light which ev­ery soul that is open to a sense of beau­ty must feel on see­ing a fault­less piece of work--per­fect and un­ex­pect­ed.

“On my word,” said she, “it is very pret­ty.”

“Yes, it is pret­ty,” said her cousin; “but I like an or­ange-​col­ored shawl bet­ter.--Well, child, my lover spends his time in do­ing such work as that. Since he came to Paris he has turned out three or four lit­tle tri­fles in that style, and that is the fruit of four years' study and toil. He has served as ap­pren­tice to founders, met­al-​cast­ers, and gold­smiths.--There he has paid away thou­sands and hun­dreds of francs. And my gen­tle­man tells me that in a few months now he will be fa­mous and rich----”

“Then you of­ten see him?”

“Bless me, do you think it is all a fa­ble? I told you truth in jest.”

“And he is in love with you?” asked Hort­ense ea­ger­ly.

“He adores me,” replied Lis­beth very se­ri­ous­ly. “You see, child, he had nev­er seen any wom­en but the washed out, pale things they all are in the north, and a slen­der, brown, youth­ful thing like me warmed his heart.--But, mum; you promised, you know!”

“And he will fare like the five oth­ers,” said the girl iron­ical­ly, as she looked at the seal.

“Six oth­ers, miss. I left one in Lor­raine, who, to this day, would fetch the moon down for me.”

“This one does bet­ter than that,” said Hort­ense; “he has brought down the sun.”

“Where can that be turned in­to mon­ey?” asked her cousin. “It takes wide lands to ben­efit by the sun­shine.”

These wit­ti­cisms, fired in quick re­tort, and lead­ing to the sort of gid­dy play that may be imag­ined, had giv­en cause for the laugh­ter which had added to the Baroness' trou­bles by mak­ing her com­pare her daugh­ter's fu­ture lot with the present, when she was free to in­dulge the light-​heart­ed­ness of youth.

“But to give you a gem which cost him six months of work, he must be un­der some great obli­ga­tions to you?” said Hort­ense, in whom the sil­ver seal had sug­gest­ed very se­ri­ous re­flec­tions.

“Oh, you want to know too much at once!” said her cousin. “But, lis­ten, I will let you in­to a lit­tle plot.”

“Is your lover in it too?”

“Oh, ho! you want so much to see him! But, as you may sup­pose, an old maid like Cousin Bet­ty, who had man­aged to keep a lover for five years, keeps him well hid­den.--Now, just let me alone. You see, I have nei­ther cat nor ca­nary, nei­ther dog nor a par­rot, and the old Nan­ny Goat want­ed some­thing to pet and tease--so I treat­ed my­self to a Pol­ish Count.”

“Has he a mous­tache?”

“As long as that,” said Lis­beth, hold­ing up her shut­tle filled with gold thread. She al­ways took her lace-​work with her, and worked till din­ner was served.

“If you ask too many ques­tions, you will be told noth­ing,” she went on. “You are but two-​and-​twen­ty, and you chat­ter more than I do though I am forty-​two--not to say forty-​three.”

“I am lis­ten­ing; I am a wood­en im­age,” said Hort­ense.

“My lover has fin­ished a bronze group ten inch­es high,” Lis­beth went on. “It rep­re­sents Sam­son slay­ing a li­on, and he has kept it buried till it is so rusty that you might be­lieve it to be as old as Sam­son him­self. This fine piece is shown at the shop of one of the old cu­rios­ity sell­ers on the Place du Car­rousel, near my lodg­ings. Now, your fa­ther knows Mon­sieur Popinot, the Min­is­ter of Com­merce and Agri­cul­ture, and the Comte de Rastignac, and if he would men­tion the group to them as a fine an­tique he had seen by chance! It seems that such things take the fan­cy of your grand folks, who don't care so much about gold lace, and that my man's for­tune would be made if one of them would buy or even look at the wretched piece of met­al. The poor fel­low is sure that it might be mis­tak­en for old work, and that the rub­bish is worth a great deal of mon­ey. And then, if one of the min­is­ters should pur­chase the group, he would go to pay his re­spects, and prove that he was the mak­er, and be al­most car­ried in tri­umph! Oh! he be­lieves he has reached the pin­na­cle; poor young man, and he is as proud as two new­ly-​made Counts.”

“Michael An­ge­lo over again; but, for a lover, he has kept his head on his shoul­ders!” said Hort­ense. “And how much does he want for it?”

“Fif­teen hun­dred francs. The deal­er will not let it go for less, since he must take his com­mis­sion.”

“Pa­pa is in the King's house­hold just now,” said Hort­ense. “He sees those two min­is­ters ev­ery day at the Cham­ber, and he will do the thing --I un­der­take that. You will be a rich wom­an, Madame la Comtesse de Stein­bock.”

“No, the boy is too lazy; for whole weeks he sits twid­dling with bits of red wax, and noth­ing comes of it. Why, he spends all his days at the Lou­vre and the Li­brary, look­ing at prints and sketch­ing things. He is an idler!”

The cousins chat­ted and gig­gled; Hort­ense laugh­ing a forced laugh, for she was in­vad­ed by a kind of love which ev­ery girl has gone through --the love of the un­known, love in its vaguest form, when ev­ery thought is ac­cret­ed round some form which is sug­gest­ed by a chance word, as the ef­flo­res­cence of hoar-​frost gath­ers about a straw that the wind has blown against the win­dow-​sill.

For the past ten months she had made a re­al­ity of her cousin's imag­inary ro­mance, be­liev­ing, like her moth­er, that Lis­beth would nev­er mar­ry; and now, with­in a week, this vi­sion­ary be­ing had be­come Comte Wences­las Stein­bock, the dream had a cer­tifi­cate of birth, the wraith had so­lid­ified in­to a young man of thir­ty. The seal she held in her hand--a sort of An­nun­ci­ation in which ge­nius shone like an im­ma­nent light--had the pow­ers of a tal­is­man. Hort­ense felt such a surge of hap­pi­ness, that she al­most doubt­ed whether the tale were true; there was a fer­ment in her blood, and she laughed wild­ly to de­ceive her cousin.

“But I think the draw­ing-​room door is open,” said Lis­beth; “let us go and see if Mon­sieur Crev­el is gone.”

“Mam­ma has been very much out of spir­its these two days. I sup­pose the mar­riage un­der dis­cus­sion has come to noth­ing!”

“Oh, it may come on again. He is--I may tell you so much--a Coun­cil­lor of the Supreme Court. How would you like to be Madame la Pres­idente? If Mon­sieur Crev­el has a fin­ger in it, he will tell me about it if I ask him. I shall know by to-​mor­row if there is any hope.”

“Leave the seal with me,” said Hort­ense; “I will not show it--mam­ma's birth­day is not for a month yet; I will give it to you that morn­ing.”

“No, no. Give it back to me; it must have a case.”

“But I will let pa­pa see it, that he may know what he is talk­ing about to the min­is­ters, for men in au­thor­ity must be care­ful what they say,” urged the girl.

“Well, do not show it to your moth­er--that is all I ask; for if she be­lieved I had a lover, she would make game of me.”

“I promise.”

The cousins reached the draw­ing-​room just as the Baroness turned faint. Her daugh­ter's cry of alarm re­called her to her­self. Lis­beth went off to fetch some salts. When she came back, she found the moth­er and daugh­ter in each oth­er's arms, the Baroness sooth­ing her daugh­ter's fears, and say­ing:

“It was noth­ing; a lit­tle ner­vous at­tack.--There is your fa­ther,” she added, rec­og­niz­ing the Baron's way of ring­ing the bell. “Say not a word to him.”

Ade­line rose and went to meet her hus­band, in­tend­ing to take him in­to the gar­den and talk to him till din­ner should be served of the dif­fi­cul­ties about the pro­posed match, get­ting him to come to some de­ci­sion as to the fu­ture, and try­ing to hint at some warn­ing ad­vice.

Baron Hec­tor Hu­lot came in, in a dress at once lawyer-​like and Napoleon­ic, for Im­pe­ri­al men--men who had been at­tached to the Em­per­or --were eas­ily dis­tin­guish­able by their mil­itary de­port­ment, their blue coats with gilt but­tons, but­toned to the chin, their black silk stock, and an au­thor­ita­tive de­meanor ac­quired from a habit of com­mand in cir­cum­stances re­quir­ing despot­ic ra­pid­ity. There was noth­ing of the old man in the Baron, it must be ad­mit­ted; his sight was still so good, that he could read with­out spec­ta­cles; his hand­some oval face, framed in whiskers that were in­deed too black, showed a bril­liant com­plex­ion, rud­dy with the veins that char­ac­ter­ize a san­guine tem­per­ament; and his stom­ach, kept in or­der by a belt, had not ex­ceed­ed the lim­its of “the ma­jes­tic,” as Bril­lat-​Savarin says. A fine aris­to­crat­ic air and great af­fa­bil­ity served to con­ceal the lib­er­tine with whom Crev­el had had such high times. He was one of those men whose eyes al­ways light up at the sight of a pret­ty wom­an, even of such as mere­ly pass by, nev­er to be seen again.

“Have you been speak­ing, my dear?” asked Ade­line, see­ing him with an anx­ious brow.

“No,” replied Hec­tor, “but I am worn out with hear­ing oth­ers speak for two hours with­out com­ing to a vote. They car­ry on a war of words, in which their speech­es are like a cav­al­ry charge which has no ef­fect on the en­emy. Talk has tak­en the place of ac­tion, which goes very much against the grain with men who are ac­cus­tomed to march­ing or­ders, as I said to the Mar­shal when I left him. How­ev­er, I have enough of be­ing bored on the min­is­ters' bench; here I may play.--How do, la Chevre! --Good morn­ing, lit­tle kid,” and he took his daugh­ter round the neck, kissed her, and made her sit on his knee, rest­ing her head on his shoul­der, that he might feel her soft gold­en hair against his cheek.

“He is tired and wor­ried,” said his wife to her­self. “I shall on­ly wor­ry him more.--I will wait.--Are you go­ing to be at home this evening?” she asked him.

“No, chil­dren. Af­ter din­ner I must go out. If it had not been the day when Lis­beth and the chil­dren and my broth­er come to din­ner, you would not have seen me at all.”

The Baroness took up the news­pa­per, looked down the list of the­atres, and laid it down again when she had seen that Robert _le Di­able_ was to be giv­en at the Opera. Josepha, who had left the Ital­ian Opera six months since for the French Opera, was to take the part of Al­ice.

This lit­tle pan­tomime did not es­cape the Baron, who looked hard at his wife. Ade­line cast down her eyes and went out in­to the gar­den; her hus­band fol­lowed her.

“Come, what is it, Ade­line?” said he, putting his arm round her waist and press­ing her to his side. “Do not you know that I love you more than----”

“More than Jen­ny Ca­dine or Josepha!” said she, bold­ly in­ter­rupt­ing him.

“Who put that in­to your head?” ex­claimed the Baron, re­leas­ing his wife, and start­ing back a step or two.

“I got an anony­mous let­ter, which I burnt at once, in which I was told, my dear, that the rea­son Hort­ense's mar­riage was bro­ken off was the pover­ty of our cir­cum­stances. Your wife, my dear Hec­tor, would nev­er have said a word; she knew of your con­nec­tion with Jen­ny Ca­dine, and did she ev­er com­plain?--But as the moth­er of Hort­ense, I am bound to speak the truth.”

Hu­lot, af­ter a short si­lence, which was ter­ri­ble to his wife, whose heart beat loud enough to be heard, opened his arms, clasped her to his heart, kissed her fore­head, and said with the ve­he­mence of en­thu­si­asm:

“Ade­line, you are an an­gel, and I am a wretch----”

“No, no,” cried the Baroness, hasti­ly lay­ing her hand up­on his lips to hin­der him from speak­ing evil of him­self.

“Yes, for I have not at this mo­ment a sou to give to Hort­ense, and I am most un­hap­py. But since you open your heart to me, I may pour in­to it the trou­ble that is crush­ing me.--Your Un­cle Fis­ch­er is in dif­fi­cul­ties, and it is I who dragged him there, for he has ac­cept­ed bills for me to the amount of twen­ty-​five thou­sand francs! And all for a wom­an who de­ceives me, who laughs at me be­hind my back, and calls me an old dyed Tom. It is fright­ful! A vice which costs me more than it would to main­tain a fam­ily!--And I can­not re­sist!--I would promise you here and now nev­er to see that abom­inable Jew­ess again; but if she wrote me two lines, I should go to her, as we marched in­to fire un­der the Em­per­or.”

“Do not be so dis­tressed,” cried the poor wom­an in de­spair, but for­get­ting her daugh­ter as she saw the tears in her hus­band's eyes. “There are my di­amonds; what­ev­er hap­pens, save my un­cle.”

“Your di­amonds are worth scarce­ly twen­ty thou­sand francs nowa­days. That would not be enough for old Fis­ch­er, so keep them for Hort­ense; I will see the Mar­shal to-​mor­row.”

“My poor dear!” said the Baroness, tak­ing her Hec­tor's hands and kiss­ing them.

This was all the scold­ing he got. Ade­line sac­ri­ficed her jew­els, the fa­ther made them a present to Hort­ense, she re­gard­ed this as a sub­lime ac­tion, and she was help­less.

“He is the mas­ter; he could take ev­ery­thing, and he leaves me my di­amonds; he is di­vine!”

This was the cur­rent of her thoughts; and in­deed the wife had gained more by her sweet­ness than an­oth­er per­haps could have achieved by a fit of an­gry jeal­ousy.

The moral­ist can­not de­ny that, as a rule, well-​bred though very wicked men are far more at­trac­tive and lov­able than vir­tu­ous men; hav­ing crimes to atone for, they crave in­dul­gence by an­tic­ipa­tion, by be­ing le­nient to the short­com­ings of those who judge them, and they are thought most kind. Though there are no doubt some charm­ing peo­ple among the vir­tu­ous, Virtue con­sid­ers it­self fair enough, un­adorned, to be at no pains to please; and then all re­al­ly vir­tu­ous per­sons, for the hyp­ocrites do not count, have some slight doubts as to their po­si­tion; they be­lieve that they are cheat­ed in the bar­gain of life on the whole, and they in­dulge in acid com­ments af­ter the fash­ion of those who think them­selves un­ap­pre­ci­at­ed.

Hence the Baron, who ac­cused him­self of ru­in­ing his fam­ily, dis­played all his charm of wit and his most se­duc­tive graces for the ben­efit of his wife, for his chil­dren, and his Cousin Lis­beth.

Then, when his son ar­rived with Ce­les­tine, Crev­el's daugh­ter, who was nurs­ing the in­fant Hu­lot, he was de­light­ful to his daugh­ter-​in-​law, load­ing her with com­pli­ments--a treat to which Ce­les­tine's van­ity was lit­tle ac­cus­tomed for no mon­eyed bride more com­mon­place or more ut­ter­ly in­signif­icant was ev­er seen. The grand­fa­ther took the ba­by from her, kissed it, de­clared it was a beau­ty and a dar­ling; he spoke to it in ba­by lan­guage, proph­esied that it would grow to be taller than him­self, in­sin­uat­ed com­pli­ments for his son's ben­efit, and re­stored the child to the Nor­mandy nurse who had charge of it. Ce­les­tine, on her part, gave the Baroness a look, as much as to say, “What a de­light­ful man!” and she nat­ural­ly took her fa­ther-​in-​law's part against her fa­ther.

Af­ter thus play­ing the charm­ing fa­ther-​in-​law and the in­dul­gent grand­pa­pa, the Baron took his son in­to the gar­den, and laid be­fore him a va­ri­ety of ob­ser­va­tions full of good sense as to the at­ti­tude to be tak­en up by the Cham­ber on a cer­tain tick­lish ques­tion which had that morn­ing come un­der dis­cus­sion. The young lawyer was struck with ad­mi­ra­tion for the depth of his fa­ther's in­sight, touched by his cor­dial­ity, and es­pe­cial­ly by the def­er­en­tial tone which seemed to place the two men on a foot­ing of equal­ity.

Mon­sieur Hu­lot _ju­nior_ was in ev­ery re­spect the young French­man, as he has been mould­ed by the Rev­olu­tion of 1830; his mind in­fat­uat­ed with pol­itics, re­spect­ful of his own hopes, and con­ceal­ing them un­der an af­fec­ta­tion of grav­ity, very en­vi­ous of suc­cess­ful men, mak­ing sen­ten­tious­ness do the du­ty of wit­ty re­join­ders--the gems of the French lan­guage--with a high sense of im­por­tance, and mis­tak­ing ar­ro­gance for dig­ni­ty.

Such men are walk­ing coffins, each con­tain­ing a French­man of the past; now and again the French­man wakes up and kicks against his En­glish-​made cas­ing; but am­bi­tion sti­fles him, and he sub­mits to be smoth­ered. The cof­fin is al­ways cov­ered with black cloth.

“Ah, here is my broth­er!” said Baron Hu­lot, go­ing to meet the Count at the draw­ing-​room door.

Hav­ing greet­ed the prob­able suc­ces­sor of the late Mar­shal Mont­cor­net, he led him for­ward by the arm with ev­ery show of af­fec­tion and re­spect.

The old­er man, a mem­ber of the Cham­ber of Peers, but ex­cused from at­ten­dance on ac­count of his deaf­ness, had a hand­some head, chilled by age, but with enough gray hair still to be marked in a cir­cle by the pres­sure of his hat. He was short, square, and shrunk­en, but car­ried his hale old age with a free-​and-​easy air; and as he was full of ex­ces­sive ac­tiv­ity, which had now no pur­pose, he di­vid­ed his time be­tween read­ing and tak­ing ex­er­cise. In a draw­ing-​room he de­vot­ed his at­ten­tion to wait­ing on the wish­es of the ladies.

“You are very mer­ry here,” said he, see­ing that the Baron shed a spir­it of an­ima­tion on the lit­tle fam­ily gath­er­ing. “And yet Hort­ense is not mar­ried,” he added, notic­ing a trace of melan­choly on his sis­ter-​in-​law's coun­te­nance.

“That will come all in good time,” Lis­beth shout­ed in his ear in a formidable voice.

“So there you are, you wretched seedling that could nev­er blos­som,” said he, laugh­ing.

The hero of Forzheim rather liked Cousin Bet­ty, for there were cer­tain points of re­sem­blance be­tween them. A man of the ranks, with­out any ed­uca­tion, his courage had been the sole main­spring of his mil­itary pro­mo­tion, and sound sense had tak­en the place of bril­lian­cy. Of the high­est hon­or and clean-​hand­ed, he was end­ing a no­ble life in full con­tent­ment in the cen­tre of his fam­ily, which claimed all his af­fec­tions, and with­out a sus­pi­cion of his broth­er's still undis­cov­ered mis­con­duct. No one en­joyed more than he the pleas­ing sight of this fam­ily par­ty, where there nev­er was the small­est dis­agree­ment, for the broth­ers and sis­ters were all equal­ly at­tached, Ce­les­tine hav­ing been at once ac­cept­ed as one of the fam­ily. But the wor­thy lit­tle Count won­dered now and then why Mon­sieur Crev­el nev­er joined the par­ty. “Pa­pa is in the coun­try,” Ce­les­tine shout­ed, and it was ex­plained to him that the ex-​per­fumer was away from home.

This per­fect union of all her fam­ily made Madame Hu­lot say to her­self, “This, af­ter all, is the best kind of hap­pi­ness, and who can de­prive us of it?”

The Gen­er­al, on see­ing his fa­vorite Ade­line the ob­ject of her hus­band's at­ten­tions, laughed so much about it that the Baron, fear­ing to seem ridicu­lous, trans­ferred his gal­lantries to his daugh­ter-​in-​law, who at these fam­ily din­ners was al­ways the ob­ject of his flat­tery and kind care, for he hoped to win Crev­el back through her, and make him forego his re­sent­ment.

Any one see­ing this do­mes­tic scene would have found it hard to be­lieve that the fa­ther was at his wits' end, the moth­er in de­spair, the son anx­ious be­yond words as to his fa­ther's fu­ture fate, and the daugh­ter on the point of rob­bing her cousin of her lover.

At sev­en o'clock the Baron, see­ing his broth­er, his son, the Baroness, and Hort­ense all en­gaged at whist, went off to ap­plaud his mis­tress at the Opera, tak­ing with him Lis­beth Fis­ch­er, who lived in the Rue du Doyenne, and who al­ways made an ex­cuse of the soli­tude of that de­sert­ed quar­ter to take her­self off as soon as din­ner was over. Parisians will all ad­mit that the old maid's pru­dence was but ra­tio­nal.

The ex­is­tence of the maze of hous­es un­der the wing of the old Lou­vre is one of those protests against ob­vi­ous good sense which French­men love, that Eu­rope may re­as­sure it­self as to the quan­tum of brains they are known to have, and not be too much alarmed. Per­haps with­out know­ing it, this re­veals some pro­found po­lit­ical idea.

It will sure­ly not be a work of su­pereroga­tion to de­scribe this part of Paris as it is even now, when we could hard­ly ex­pect its sur­vival; and our grand­sons, who will no doubt see the Lou­vre fin­ished, may refuse to be­lieve that such a rel­ic of bar­barism should have sur­vived for six-​and-​thir­ty years in the heart of Paris and in the face of the palace where three dy­nas­ties of kings have re­ceived, dur­ing those thir­ty-​six years, the elite of France and of Eu­rope.

Be­tween the lit­tle gate lead­ing to the Bridge of the Car­rousel and the Rue du Musee, ev­ery one hav­ing come to Paris, were it but for a few days, must have seen a dozen of hous­es with a de­cayed frontage where the de­ject­ed own­ers have at­tempt­ed no re­pairs, the re­mains of an old block of build­ings of which the de­struc­tion was be­gun at the time when Napoleon de­ter­mined to com­plete the Lou­vre. This street, and the blind al­ley known as the Im­passe du Doyenne, are the on­ly pas­sages in­to this gloomy and for­sak­en block, in­hab­it­ed per­haps by ghosts, for there nev­er is any­body to be seen. The pave­ment is much be­low the foot­way of the Rue du Musee, on a lev­el with that of the Rue Froid­man­teau. Thus, half sunken by the rais­ing of the soil, these hous­es are al­so wrapped in the per­pet­ual shad­ow cast by the lofty build­ings of the Lou­vre, dark­ened on that side by the north­ern blast. Dark­ness, si­lence, an icy chill, and the cav­ernous depth of the soil com­bine to make these hous­es a kind of crypt, tombs of the liv­ing. As we drive in a hack­ney cab past this dead-​alive spot, and chance to look down the lit­tle Rue du Doyenne, a shud­der freezes the soul, and we won­der who can lie there, and what things may be done there at night, at an hour when the al­ley is a cut-​throat pit, and the vices of Paris run ri­ot there un­der the cloak of night. This ques­tion, fright­ful in it­self, be­comes ap­palling when we note that these dwelling-​hous­es are shut in on the side to­wards the Rue de Riche­lieu by marshy ground, by a sea of tum­bled paving-​stones be­tween them and the Tu­ileries, by lit­tle gar­den-​plots and sus­pi­cious-​look­ing hov­els on the side of the great gal­leries, and by a desert of build­ing-​stone and old rub­bish on the side to­wards the old Lou­vre. Hen­ri III. and his fa­vorites in search of their trunk-​hose, and Mar­guerite's lovers in search of their heads, must dance sara­bands by moon­light in this wilder­ness over­looked by the roof of a chapel still stand­ing there as if to prove that the Catholic re­li­gion--so deeply root­ed in France--sur­vives all else.

For forty years now has the Lou­vre been cry­ing out by ev­ery gap in these dam­aged walls, by ev­ery yawn­ing win­dow, “Rid me of these warts up­on my face!” This cut­throat lane has no doubt been re­gard­ed as use­ful, and has been thought nec­es­sary as sym­bol­iz­ing in the heart of Paris the in­ti­mate con­nec­tion be­tween pover­ty and the splen­dor that is char­ac­ter­is­tic of the queen of cities. And in­deed these chill ru­ins, among which the Le­git­imist news­pa­per con­tract­ed the dis­ease it is dy­ing of--the abom­inable hov­els of the Rue du Musee, and the hoard­ing ap­pro­pri­at­ed by the shop stalls that flour­ish there--will per­haps live longer and more pros­per­ous­ly than three suc­ces­sive dy­nas­ties.

In 1823 the low rents in these al­ready con­demned hous­es had tempt­ed Lis­beth Fis­ch­er to set­tle there, notwith­stand­ing the ne­ces­si­ty im­posed up­on her by the state of the neigh­bor­hood to get home be­fore night­fall. This ne­ces­si­ty, how­ev­er, was in ac­cor­dance with the coun­try habits she re­tained, of ris­ing and go­ing to bed with the sun, an ar­range­ment which saves coun­try folk con­sid­er­able sums in lights and fu­el. She lived in one of the hous­es which, since the de­mo­li­tion of the fa­mous Ho­tel Cam­bac­eres, com­mand a view of the square.

Just as Baron Hu­lot set his wife's cousin down at the door of this house, say­ing, “Good-​night, Cousin,” an el­egant-​look­ing wom­an, young, small, slen­der, pret­ty, beau­ti­ful­ly dressed, and redo­lent of some del­icate per­fume, passed be­tween the wall and the car­riage to go in. This la­dy, with­out any pre­med­ita­tion, glanced up at the Baron mere­ly to see the lodger's cousin, and the lib­er­tine at once felt the swift im­pres­sion which all Parisians know on meet­ing a pret­ty wom­an, re­al­iz­ing, as en­to­mol­ogists have it, their _desider­ata_; so he wait­ed to put on one of his gloves with ju­di­cious de­lib­er­ation be­fore get­ting in­to the car­riage again, to give him­self an ex­cuse for al­low­ing his eye to fol­low the young wom­an, whose skirts were pleas­ing­ly set out by some­thing else than these odi­ous and delu­sive crino­line bus­tles.

“That,” said he to him­self, “is a nice lit­tle per­son whose hap­pi­ness I should like to pro­vide for, as she would cer­tain­ly se­cure mine.”

When the un­known fair had gone in­to the hall at the foot of the stairs go­ing up to the front rooms, she glanced at the gate out of the cor­ner of her eye with­out pre­cise­ly look­ing round, and she could see the Baron riv­et­ed to the spot in ad­mi­ra­tion, con­sumed by cu­rios­ity and de­sire. This is to ev­ery Parisian wom­an a sort of flow­er which she smells at with de­light, if she meets it on her way. Nay, cer­tain wom­en, though faith­ful to their du­ties, pret­ty, and vir­tu­ous, come home much put out if they have failed to cull such a posy in the course of their walk.

The la­dy ran up­stairs, and in a mo­ment a win­dow on the sec­ond floor was thrown open, and she ap­peared at it, but ac­com­pa­nied by a man whose bald­head and some­what scowl­ing looks an­nounced him as her hus­band.

“If they aren't sharp and in­ge­nious, the cun­ning jades!” thought the Baron. “She does that to show me where she lives. But this is get­ting rather warm, es­pe­cial­ly for this part of Paris. We must mind what we are at.”

As he got in­to the _milord_, he looked up, and the la­dy and the hus­band hasti­ly van­ished, as though the Baron's face had af­fect­ed them like the mytho­log­ical head of Medusa.

“It would seem that they know me,” thought the Baron. “That would ac­count for ev­ery­thing.”

As the car­riage went up the Rue du Musee, he leaned for­ward to see the la­dy again, and in fact she was again at the win­dow. Ashamed of be­ing caught gaz­ing at the hood un­der which her ad­mir­er was sit­ting, the un­known start­ed back at once.

“Nan­ny shall tell me who it is,” said the Baron to him­self.

The sight of the Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial had, as will be seen, made a deep im­pres­sion on this cou­ple.

“Why, it is Baron Hu­lot, the chief of the de­part­ment to which my of­fice be­longs!” ex­claimed the hus­band as he left the win­dow.

“Well, Marn­effe, the old maid on the third floor at the back of the court­yard, who lives with that young man, is his cousin. Is it not odd that we should nev­er have known that till to-​day, and now find it out by chance?”

“Made­moi­selle Fis­ch­er liv­ing with a young man?” re­peat­ed the hus­band. “That is porter's gos­sip; do not speak so light­ly of the cousin of a Coun­cil­lor of State who can blow hot and cold in the of­fice as he pleas­es. Now, come to din­ner; I have been wait­ing for you since four o'clock.”

Pret­ty--very pret­ty--Madame Marn­effe, the nat­ural daugh­ter of Comte Mont­cor­net, one of Napoleon's most fa­mous of­fi­cers, had, on the strength of a mar­riage por­tion of twen­ty thou­sand francs, found a hus­band in an in­fe­ri­or of­fi­cial at the War Of­fice. Through the in­ter­est of the fa­mous lieu­tenant-​gen­er­al--made mar­shal of France six months be­fore his death--this quill-​driv­er had risen to un­hoped-​for dig­ni­ty as head-​clerk of his of­fice; but just as he was to be pro­mot­ed to be deputy-​chief, the mar­shal's death had cut off Marn­effe's am­bi­tions and his wife's at the root. The very small salary en­joyed by Sieur Marn­effe had com­pelled the cou­ple to econ­omize in the mat­ter of rent; for in his hands Made­moi­selle Va­lerie Fortin's for­tune had al­ready melt­ed away--part­ly in pay­ing his debts, and part­ly in the pur­chase of nec­es­saries for fur­nish­ing a house, but chiefly in grat­ify­ing the re­quire­ments of a pret­ty young wife, ac­cus­tomed in her moth­er's house to lux­uries she did not choose to dis­pense with. The sit­ua­tion of the Rue du Doyenne, with­in easy dis­tance of the War Of­fice, and the gay part of Paris, smiled on Mon­sieur and Madame Marn­effe, and for the last four years they had dwelt un­der the same roof as Lis­beth Fis­ch­er.

Mon­sieur Jean-​Paul-​Stanis­las Marn­effe was one of the class of em­ployes who es­cape sheer brutish­ness by the kind of pow­er that comes of de­prav­ity. The small, lean crea­ture, with thin hair and a starved beard, an un­whole­some pasty face, worn rather than wrin­kled, with red-​lid­ded eyes har­nessed with spec­ta­cles, shuf­fling in his gait, and yet mean­er in his ap­pear­ance, re­al­ized the type of man that any one would con­ceive of as like­ly to be placed in the dock for an of­fence against de­cen­cy.

The rooms in­hab­it­ed by this cou­ple had the il­lu­so­ry ap­pear­ance of sham lux­ury seen in many Paris homes, and typ­ical of a cer­tain class of house­hold. In the draw­ing-​room, the fur­ni­ture cov­ered with shab­by cot­ton vel­vet, the plas­ter stat­uettes pre­tend­ing to be Flo­ren­tine bronze, the clum­sy cast chan­de­lier mere­ly lac­quered, with cheap glass saucers, the car­pet, whose small cost was ac­count­ed for in ad­vanc­ing life by the qual­ity of cot­ton used in the man­ufac­ture, now vis­ible to the naked eye,--ev­ery­thing, down to the cur­tains, which plain­ly showed that worsted damask has not three years of prime, pro­claimed pover­ty as loud­ly as a beg­gar in rags at a church door.

The din­ing-​room, bad­ly kept by a sin­gle ser­vant, had the sick­en­ing as­pect of a coun­try inn; ev­ery­thing looked greasy and un­clean.

Mon­sieur's room, very like a school­boy's, fur­nished with the bed and fit­tings re­main­ing from his bach­elor days, as shab­by and worn as he was, dust­ed per­haps once a week--that hor­ri­ble room where ev­ery­thing was in a lit­ter, with old socks hang­ing over the horse­hair-​seat­ed chairs, the pat­tern out­lined in dust, was that of a man to whom home is a mat­ter of in­dif­fer­ence, who lives out of doors, gam­bling in cafes or else­where.

Madame's room was an ex­cep­tion to the squalid sloven­li­ness that dis­graced the liv­ing rooms, where the cur­tains were yel­low with smoke and dust, and where the child, ev­ident­ly left to him­self, lit­tered ev­ery spot with his toys. Va­lerie's room and dress­ing-​room were sit­uat­ed in the part of the house which, on one side of the court­yard, joined the front half, look­ing out on the street, to the wing form­ing the in­ner side of the court back­ing against the ad­join­ing prop­er­ty. Hand­some­ly hung with chintz, fur­nished with rose­wood, and thick­ly car­pet­ed, they pro­claimed them­selves as be­long­ing to a pret­ty wom­an --and in­deed sug­gest­ed the kept mis­tress. A clock in the fash­ion­able style stood on the vel­vet-​cov­ered man­tel­piece. There was a nice­ly fit­ted cab­inet, and the Chi­nese flow­er-​stands were hand­some­ly filled. The bed, the toi­let-​ta­ble, the wardrobe with its mir­ror, the lit­tle so­fa, and all the la­dy's frip­pery bore the stamp of fash­ion or caprice. Though ev­ery­thing was quite third-​rate as to el­egance or qual­ity, and noth­ing was ab­so­lute­ly new­er than three years old, a dandy would have had no fault to find but that the taste of all this lux­ury was com­mon­place. Art, and the dis­tinc­tion that comes of the choice of things that taste as­sim­ilates, was en­tire­ly want­ing. A doc­tor of so­cial sci­ence would have de­tect­ed a lover in two or three spec­imens of cost­ly trumpery, which could on­ly have come there through that de­mi-​god--al­ways ab­sent, but al­ways present if the la­dy is mar­ried.

The din­ner, four hours be­hind time, to which the hus­band, wife, and child sat down, be­trayed the fi­nan­cial straits in which the house­hold found it­self, for the ta­ble is the surest ther­mome­ter for gaug­ing the in­come of a Parisian fam­ily. Veg­etable soup made with the wa­ter hari­cot beans had been boiled in, a piece of stewed veal and pota­toes sod­den with wa­ter by way of gravy, a dish of hari­cot beans, and cheap cher­ries, served and eat­en in cracked plates and dish­es, with the dull-​look­ing and dull-​sound­ing forks of Ger­man sil­ver--was this a ban­quet wor­thy of this pret­ty young wom­an? The Baron would have wept could he have seen it. The dingy de­canters could not dis­guise the vile hue of wine bought by the pint at the near­est wineshop. The ta­ble-​nap­kins had seen a week's use. In short, ev­ery­thing be­trayed undig­ni­fied penury, and the equal in­dif­fer­ence of the hus­band and wife to the de­cen­cies of home. The most su­per­fi­cial ob­serv­er on see­ing them would have said that these two be­ings had come to the stage when the ne­ces­si­ty of liv­ing had pre­pared them for any kind of dis­hon­or that might bring luck to them. Va­lerie's first words to her hus­band will ex­plain the de­lay that had post­poned the din­ner by the not dis­in­ter­est­ed de­vo­tion of the cook.

“Samanon will on­ly take your bills at fifty per cent, and in­sists on a lien on your salary as se­cu­ri­ty.”

So pover­ty, still un­con­fessed in the house of the su­pe­ri­or of­fi­cial, and hid­den un­der a stipend of twen­ty-​four thou­sand francs, ir­re­spec­tive of presents, had reached its low­est stage in that of the clerk.

“You have caught on with the chief,” said the man, look­ing at his wife.

“I rather think so,” replied she, un­der­stand­ing the full mean­ing of his slang ex­pres­sion.

“What is to be­come of us?” Marn­effe went on. “The land­lord will be down on us to-​mor­row. And to think of your fa­ther dy­ing with­out mak­ing a will! On my hon­or, those men of the Em­pire all think them­selves as im­mor­tal as their Em­per­or.”

“Poor fa­ther!” said she. “I was his on­ly child, and he was very fond of me. The Count­ess prob­ably burned the will. How could he for­get me when he used to give us as much as three or four thou­sand-​franc notes at once, from time to time?”

“We owe four quar­ters' rent, fif­teen hun­dred francs. Is the fur­ni­ture worth so much? _That is the ques­tion_, as Shake­speare says.”

“Now, good-​bye, ducky!” said Va­lerie, who had on­ly eat­en a few mouth­fuls of the veal, from which the maid had ex­tract­ed all the gravy for a brave sol­dier just home from Al­giers. “Great evils de­mand hero­ic reme­dies.”

“Va­lerie, where are you off to?” cried Marn­effe, stand­ing be­tween his wife and the door.

“I am go­ing to see the land­lord,” she replied, ar­rang­ing her ringlets un­der her smart bon­net. “You had bet­ter try to make friends with that old maid, if she re­al­ly is your chief's cousin.”

The ig­no­rance in which the dwellers un­der one roof can ex­ist as to the so­cial po­si­tion of their fel­low-​lodgers is a per­ma­nent fact which, as much as any oth­er, shows what the rush of Paris life is. Still, it is eas­ily con­ceiv­able that a clerk who goes ear­ly ev­ery morn­ing to his of­fice, comes home on­ly to din­ner, and spends ev­ery evening out, and a wom­an swal­lowed up in a round of plea­sures, should know noth­ing of an old maid liv­ing on the third floor be­yond the court­yard of the house they dwell in, es­pe­cial­ly when she lives as Made­moi­selle Fis­ch­er did.

Up in the morn­ing be­fore any one else, Lis­beth went out to buy her bread, milk, and live char­coal, nev­er speak­ing to any one, and she went to bed with the sun; she nev­er had a let­ter or a vis­itor, nor chat­ted with her neigh­bors. Here was one of those anony­mous, en­to­mo­log­ical ex­is­tences such as are to be met with in many large ten­ements where, at the end of four years, you un­ex­pect­ed­ly learn that up on the fourth floor there is an old man lodg­ing who knew Voltaire, Pi­la­tre de Rozi­er, Beau­jon, Mar­cel, Mole, So­phie Arnould, Franklin, and Robe­spierre. What Mon­sieur and Madame Marn­effe had just said con­cern­ing Lis­beth Fis­ch­er they had come to know, in con­se­quence, part­ly, of the lone­li­ness of the neigh­bor­hood, and of the al­liance, to which their ne­ces­si­ties had led, be­tween them and the door­keep­ers, whose good­will was too im­por­tant to them not to have been care­ful­ly en­cour­aged.

Now, the old maid's pride, si­lence, and re­serve had en­gen­dered in the porter and his wife the ex­ag­ger­at­ed re­spect and cold ci­vil­ity which be­tray the un­con­fessed an­noy­ance of an in­fe­ri­or. Al­so, the porter thought him­self in all es­sen­tials the equal of any lodger whose rent was no more than two hun­dred and fifty francs. Cousin Bet­ty's con­fi­dences to Hort­ense were true; and it is ev­ident that the porter's wife might be very like­ly to slan­der Made­moi­selle Fis­ch­er in her in­ti­mate gos­sip with the Marn­effes, while on­ly in­tend­ing to tell tales.

When Lis­beth had tak­en her can­dle from the hands of wor­thy Madame Olivi­er the portress, she looked up to see whether the win­dows of the gar­ret over her own rooms were light­ed up. At that hour, even in Ju­ly, it was so dark with­in the court­yard that the old maid could not get to bed with­out a light.

“Oh, you may be quite easy, Mon­sieur Stein­bock is in his room. He has not been out even,” said Madame Olivi­er, with mean­ing.

Lis­beth made no re­ply. She was still a peas­ant, in so far that she was in­dif­fer­ent to the gos­sip of per­sons un­con­nect­ed with her. Just as a peas­ant sees noth­ing be­yond his vil­lage, she cared for no­body's opin­ion out­side the lit­tle cir­cle in which she lived. So she bold­ly went up, not to her own room, but to the gar­ret; and this is why. At dessert she had filled her bag with fruit and sweets for her lover, and she went to give them to him, ex­act­ly as an old la­dy brings home a bis­cuit for her dog.

She found the hero of Hort­ense's dreams work­ing by the light of a small lamp, of which the light was in­ten­si­fied by the use of a bot­tle of wa­ter as a lens--a pale young man, seat­ed at a work­man's bench cov­ered with a mod­el­er's tools, wax, chis­els, rough-​hewn stone, and bronze cast­ings; he wore a blouse, and had in his hand a lit­tle group in red wax, which he gazed at like a po­et ab­sorbed in his labors.

“Here, Wences­las, see what I have brought you,” said she, lay­ing her hand­ker­chief on a cor­ner of the ta­ble; then she care­ful­ly took the sweet­meats and fruit out of her bag.

“You are very kind, made­moi­selle,” replied the ex­ile in melan­choly tones.

“It will do you good, poor boy. You get fever­ish by work­ing so hard; you were not born to such a rough life.”

Wences­las Stein­bock looked at her with a be­wil­dered air.

“Eat--come, eat,” said she sharply, “in­stead of look­ing at me as you do at one of your im­ages when you are sat­is­fied with it.”

On be­ing thus smacked with words, the young man seemed less puz­zled, for this, in­deed, was the fe­male Men­tor whose ten­der moods were al­ways a sur­prise to him, so much more ac­cus­tomed was he to be scold­ed.

Though Stein­bock was nine-​and-​twen­ty, like many fair men, he looked five or six years younger; and see­ing his youth, though its fresh­ness had fad­ed un­der the fa­tigue and stress of life in ex­ile, by the side of that dry, hard face, it seemed as though Na­ture had blun­dered in the dis­tri­bu­tion of sex. He rose and threw him­self in­to a deep chair of Louis XV. pat­tern, cov­ered with yel­low Utrecht vel­vet, as if to rest him­self. The old maid took a green­gage and of­fered it to him.

“Thank you,” said he, tak­ing the plum.

“Are you tired?” said she, giv­ing him an­oth­er.

“I am not tired with work, but tired of life,” said he.

“What ab­surd no­tions you have!” she ex­claimed with some an­noy­ance. “Have you not had a good ge­nius to keep an eye on you?” she said, of­fer­ing him the sweet­meats, and watch­ing him with plea­sure as he ate them all. “You see, I thought of you when din­ing with my cousin.”

“I know,” said he, with a look at Lis­beth that was at once af­fec­tion­ate and plain­tive, “but for you I should long since have ceased to live. But, my dear la­dy, artists re­quire re­lax­ation----”

“Ah! there we come to the point!” cried she, in­ter­rupt­ing him, her hands on her hips, and her flash­ing eyes fixed on him. “You want to go wast­ing your health in the vile re­sorts of Paris, like so many ar­ti­sans, who end by dy­ing in the work­house. No, no, make a for­tune, and then, when you have mon­ey in the funds, you may amuse your­self, child; then you will have enough to pay for the doc­tor and for your plea­sure, lib­er­tine that you are.”

Wences­las Stein­bock, on re­ceiv­ing this broad­side, with an ac­com­pa­ni­ment of looks that pierced him like a mag­net­ic flame, bent his head. The most ma­lig­nant slan­der­er on see­ing this scene would at once have un­der­stood that the hints thrown out by the Oliviers were false. Ev­ery­thing in this cou­ple, their tone, man­ner, and way of look­ing at each oth­er, proved the pu­ri­ty of their pri­vate live. The old maid showed the af­fec­tion of rough but very gen­uine ma­ter­nal feel­ing; the young man sub­mit­ted, as a re­spect­ful son yields to the tyran­ny of a moth­er. The strange al­liance seemed to be the out­come of a strong will act­ing con­stant­ly on a weak char­ac­ter, on the flu­id na­ture pe­cu­liar to the Slavs, which, while it does not hin­der them from show­ing hero­ic courage in bat­tle, gives them an amaz­ing in­co­heren­cy of con­duct, a moral soft­ness of which phys­iol­ogists ought to try to de­tect the caus­es, since phys­iol­ogists are to po­lit­ical life what en­to­mol­ogists are to agri­cul­ture.

“But if I die be­fore I am rich?” said Wences­las dole­ful­ly.

“Die!” cried she. “Oh, I will not let you die. I have life enough for both, and I would have my blood in­ject­ed in­to your veins if nec­es­sary.”

Tears rose to Stein­bock's eyes as he heard her ve­he­ment and art­less speech.

“Do not be un­hap­py, my lit­tle Wences­las,” said Lis­beth with feel­ing. “My cousin Hort­ense thought your seal quite pret­ty, I am sure; and I will man­age to sell your bronze group, you will see; you will have paid me off, you will be able to do as you please, you will soon be free. Come, smile a lit­tle!”

“I can nev­er re­pay you, made­moi­selle,” said the ex­ile.

“And why not?” asked the peas­ant wom­an, tak­ing the Livo­ni­an's part against her­self.

“Be­cause you not on­ly fed me, lodged me, cared for me in my pover­ty, but you al­so gave me strength. You have made me what I am; you have of­ten been stern, you have made me very un­hap­py----”

“I?” said the old maid. "Are you go­ing to pour out all your non­sense once more about po­et­ry and the arts, and to crack your fin­gers and stretch your arms while you spout about the ide­al, and beau­ty, and all your north­ern mad­ness?--Beau­ty is not to com­pare with sol­id pud­ding --and what am I!--You have ideas in your brain? What is the use of them? I too have ideas. What is the good of all the fine things you may have in your soul if you can make no use of them? Those who have ideas do not get so far as those who have none, if they don't know which way to go.

“In­stead of think­ing over your ideas you must work.--Now, what have you done while I was out?”

“What did your pret­ty cousin say?”

“Who told you she was pret­ty?” asked Lis­beth sharply, in a tone hol­low with tiger-​like jeal­ousy.

“Why, you did.”

"That was on­ly to see your face. Do you want to go trot­ting af­ter pet­ti­coats? You who are so fond of wom­en, well, make them in bronze. Let us see a cast of your de­sires, for you will have to do with­out the ladies for some lit­tle time yet, and cer­tain­ly with­out my cousin, my good fel­low. She is not game for your bag; that young la­dy wants a man with six­ty thou­sand francs a year--and has found him!

“Why, your bed is not made!” she ex­claimed, look­ing in­to the ad­join­ing room. “Poor dear boy, I quite for­got you!”

The stur­dy wom­an pulled off her gloves, her cape and bon­net, and re­made the artist's lit­tle camp bed as briskly as any house­maid. This mix­ture of abrupt­ness, of rough­ness even, with re­al kind­ness, per­haps ac­counts for the as­cen­den­cy Lis­beth had ac­quired over the man whom she re­gard­ed as her per­son­al prop­er­ty. Is not our at­tach­ment to life based on its al­ter­na­tions of good and evil?

If the Livo­ni­an had hap­pened to meet Madame Marn­effe in­stead of Lis­beth Fis­ch­er, he would have found a pro­tec­tress whose com­plai­sance must have led him in­to some bog­gy or dis­cred­itable path, where he would have been lost. He would cer­tain­ly nev­er have worked, nor the artist have been hatched out. Thus, while he de­plored the old maid's grasp­ing avarice, his rea­son bid him pre­fer her iron hand to the life of idle­ness and per­il led by many of his fel­low-​coun­try­men.

This was the in­ci­dent that had giv­en rise to the coali­tion of fe­male en­er­gy and mas­cu­line fee­ble­ness--a con­trast in union said not to be un­com­mon in Poland.

In 1833 Made­moi­selle Fis­ch­er, who some­times worked in­to the night when busi­ness was good, at about one o'clock one morn­ing per­ceived a strong smell of car­bon­ic acid gas, and heard the groans of a dy­ing man. The fumes and the gasp­ing came from a gar­ret over the two rooms form­ing her dwelling, and she sup­posed that a young man who had but late­ly come to lodge in this at­tic--which had been va­cant for three years --was com­mit­ting sui­cide. She ran up­stairs, broke in the door by a push with her peas­ant strength, and found the lodger writhing on a camp-​bed in the con­vul­sions of death. She ex­tin­guished the bra­zier; the door was open, the air rushed in, and the ex­ile was saved. Then, when Lis­beth had put him to bed like a pa­tient, and he was asleep, she could de­tect the mo­tives of his sui­cide in the des­ti­tu­tion of the rooms, where there was noth­ing what­ev­er but a wretched ta­ble, the camp-​bed, and two chairs.

On the ta­ble lay a doc­ument, which she read:

"I am Count Wences­las Stein­bock, born at Pre­lia, in Livo­nia.

"No one is to be ac­cused of my death; my rea­sons for killing my­self are, in the words of Kosciusko, _Fi­nis Polo­nioe_!

"The grand-​nephew of a valiant Gen­er­al un­der Charles XII. could not beg. My weak­ly con­sti­tu­tion for­bids my tak­ing mil­itary ser­vice, and I yes­ter­day saw the last of the hun­dred thalers which I had brought with me from Dres­den to Paris. I have left twen­ty-​five francs in the draw­er of this ta­ble to pay the rent I owe to the land­lord.

"My par­ents be­ing dead, my death will af­fect no­body. I de­sire that my coun­try­men will not blame the French Gov­ern­ment. I have nev­er reg­is­tered my­self as a refugee, and I have asked for noth­ing; I have met none of my fel­low-​ex­iles; no one in Paris knows of my ex­is­tence.

"I am dy­ing in Chris­tian be­liefs. May God for­give the last of the Stein­bocks!

“WENCES­LAS.”

Made­moi­selle Fis­ch­er, deeply touched by the dy­ing man's hon­esty, opened the draw­er and found the five five-​franc pieces to pay his rent.

“Poor young man!” cried she. “And with no one in the world to care about him!”

She went down­stairs to fetch her work, and sat stitch­ing in the gar­ret, watch­ing over the Livo­ni­an gen­tle­man.

When he awoke his as­ton­ish­ment may be imag­ined on find­ing a wom­an sit­ting by his bed; it was like the pro­lon­ga­tion of a dream. As she sat there, cov­er­ing aigu­il­lettes with gold thread, the old maid had re­solved to take charge of the poor youth whom she ad­mired as he lay sleep­ing.

As soon as the young Count was ful­ly awake, Lis­beth talked to give him courage, and ques­tioned him to find out how he might make a liv­ing. Wences­las, af­ter telling his sto­ry, added that he owed his po­si­tion to his ac­knowl­edged tal­ent for the fine arts. He had al­ways had a pref­er­ence for sculp­ture; the nec­es­sary time for study had, how­ev­er, seemed to him too long for a man with­out mon­ey; and at this mo­ment he was far too weak to do any hard man­ual la­bor or un­der­take an im­por­tant work in sculp­ture. All this was Greek to Lis­beth Fis­ch­er. She replied to the un­hap­py man that Paris of­fered so many open­ings that any man with will and courage might find a liv­ing there. A man of spir­it need nev­er per­ish if he had a cer­tain stock of en­durance.

“I am but a poor girl my­self, a peas­ant, and I have man­aged to make my­self in­de­pen­dent,” said she in con­clu­sion. “If you will work in earnest, I have saved a lit­tle mon­ey, and I will lend you, month by month, enough to live up­on; but to live fru­gal­ly, and not to play ducks and drakes with or squan­der in the streets. You can dine in Paris for twen­ty-​five sous a day, and I will get you your break­fast with mine ev­ery day. I will fur­nish your rooms and pay for such teach­ing as you may think nec­es­sary. You shall give me for­mal ac­knowl­edg­ment for the mon­ey I may lay out for you, and when you are rich you shall re­pay me all. But if you do not work, I shall not re­gard my­self as in any way pledged to you, and I shall leave you to your fate.”

“Ah!” cried the poor fel­low, still smart­ing from the bit­ter­ness of his first strug­gle with death, “ex­iles from ev­ery land may well stretch out their hands to France, as the souls in Pur­ga­to­ry do to Par­adise. In what oth­er coun­try is such help to be found, and gen­er­ous hearts even in such a gar­ret as this? You will be ev­ery­thing to me, my beloved bene­fac­tress; I am your slave! Be my sweet­heart,” he added, with one of the ca­ress­ing ges­tures fa­mil­iar to the Poles, for which they are un­just­ly ac­cused of ser­vil­ity.

“Oh, no; I am too jeal­ous, I should make you un­hap­py; but I will glad­ly be a sort of com­rade,” replied Lis­beth.

“Ah, if on­ly you knew how I longed for some fel­low-​crea­ture, even a tyrant, who would have some­thing to say to me when I was strug­gling in the vast soli­tude of Paris!” ex­claimed Wences­las. “I re­gret­ted Siberia, whith­er I should be sent by the Em­per­or if I went home.--Be my Prov­idence!--I will work; I will be a bet­ter man than I am, though I am not such a bad fel­low!”

“Will you do what­ev­er I bid you?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, then, I will adopt you as my child,” said she light­ly. “Here I am with a son risen from the grave. Come! we will be­gin at once. I will go out and get what I want; you can dress, and come down to break­fast with me when I knock on the ceil­ing with the broom­stick.”

That day, Made­moi­selle Fis­ch­er made some in­quiries, at the hous­es to which she car­ried her work home, as to the busi­ness of a sculp­tor. By dint of many ques­tions she end­ed by hear­ing of the stu­dio kept by Flo­rent and Chanor, a house that made a spe­cial busi­ness of cast­ing and fin­ish­ing dec­ora­tive bronzes and hand­some sil­ver plate. Thith­er she went with Stein­bock, rec­om­mend­ing him as an ap­pren­tice in sculp­ture, an idea that was re­gard­ed as too ec­cen­tric. Their busi­ness was to copy the works of the great­est artists, but they did not teach the craft. The old maid's per­sis­tent ob­sti­na­cy so far suc­ceed­ed that Stein­bock was tak­en on to de­sign or­na­ment. He very soon learned to mod­el or­na­ment, and in­vent­ed nov­el­ties; he had a gift for it.

Five months af­ter he was out of his ap­pren­tice­ship as a fin­ish­er, he made ac­quain­tance with Stid­mann, the fa­mous head of Flo­rent's stu­dios. With­in twen­ty months Wences­las was ahead of his mas­ter; but in thir­ty months the old maid's sav­ings of six­teen years had melt­ed en­tire­ly. Two thou­sand five hun­dred francs in gold!--a sum with which she had in­tend­ed to pur­chase an an­nu­ity; and what was there to show for it? A Pole's re­ceipt! And at this mo­ment Lis­beth was work­ing as hard as in her young days to sup­ply the needs of her Livo­ni­an.

When she found her­self the pos­ses­sor of a piece of pa­per in­stead of her gold louis, she lost her head, and went to con­sult Mon­sieur Riv­et, who for fif­teen years had been his clever head-​work­er's friend and coun­selor. On hear­ing her sto­ry, Mon­sieur and Madame Riv­et scold­ed Lis­beth, told her she was crazy, abused all refugees whose plots for re­con­struct­ing their na­tion com­pro­mised the pros­per­ity of the coun­try and the main­te­nance of peace; and they urged Lis­beth to find what in trade is called se­cu­ri­ty.

“The on­ly hold you have over this fel­low is on his lib­er­ty,” ob­served Mon­sieur Riv­et.

Mon­sieur Achille Riv­et was as­ses­sor at the Tri­bunal of Com­merce.

“Im­pris­on­ment is no joke for a for­eign­er,” said he. “A French­man re­mains five years in prison and comes out, free of his debts to be sure, for he is thence­forth bound on­ly by his con­science, and that nev­er trou­bles him; but a for­eign­er nev­er comes out.--Give me your promis­so­ry note; my book­keep­er will take it up; he will get it protest­ed; you will both be pros­ecut­ed and both be con­demned to im­pris­on­ment in de­fault of pay­ment; then, when ev­ery­thing is in due form, you must sign a dec­la­ra­tion. By do­ing this your in­ter­est will be ac­cu­mu­lat­ing, and you will have a pis­tol al­ways primed to fire at your Pole!”

The old maid al­lowed these le­gal steps to be tak­en, telling her pro­tege not to be un­easy, as the pro­ceed­ings were mere­ly to af­ford a guar­an­tee to a mon­ey-​lender who agreed to ad­vance them cer­tain sums. This sub­terfuge was due to the in­ven­tive ge­nius of Mon­sieur Riv­et. The guile­less artist, blind­ly trust­ing to his bene­fac­tress, light­ed his pipe with the stamped pa­per, for he smoked as all men do who have sor­rows or en­er­gies that need sooth­ing.

One fine day Mon­sieur Riv­et showed Made­moi­selle Fis­ch­er a sched­ule, and said to her:

“Here you have Wences­las Stein­bock bound hand and foot, and so ef­fec­tu­al­ly, that with­in twen­ty-​four hours you can have him snug in Clichy for the rest of his days.”

This wor­thy and hon­est judge at the Cham­ber of Com­merce ex­pe­ri­enced that day the sat­is­fac­tion that must come of hav­ing done a ma­lig­nant good ac­tion. Benef­icence has so many as­pects in Paris that this con­tra­dic­to­ry ex­pres­sion re­al­ly rep­re­sents one of them. The Livo­ni­an be­ing fair­ly en­tan­gled in the toils of com­mer­cial pro­ce­dure, the point was to ob­tain pay­ment; for the il­lus­tri­ous trades­man looked on Wences­las as a swindler. Feel­ing, sin­cer­ity, po­et­ry, were in his eyes mere fol­ly in busi­ness mat­ters.

So Riv­et went off to see, in be­half of that poor Made­moi­selle Fis­ch­er, who, as he said, had been “done” by the Pole, the rich man­ufac­tur­ers for whom Stein­bock had worked. It hap­pened that Stid­mann--who, with the help of these dis­tin­guished mas­ters of the gold­smiths' art, was rais­ing French work to the per­fec­tion it has now reached, al­low­ing it to hold its own against Flo­rence and the Re­nais­sance--Stid­mann was in Chanor's pri­vate room when the army lace man­ufac­tur­er called to make in­quiries as to “One Stein­bock, a Pol­ish refugee.”

“Whom do you call 'One Stein­bock'? Do you mean a young Livo­ni­an who was a pupil of mine?” cried Stid­mann iron­ical­ly. “I may tell you, mon­sieur, that he is a very great artist. It is said of me that I be­lieve my­self to be the Dev­il. Well, that poor fel­low does not know that he is ca­pa­ble of be­com­ing a god.”

“In­deed,” said Riv­et, well pleased. And then he added, “Though you take a rather cav­alier tone with a man who has the hon­or to be an As­ses­sor on the Tri­bunal of Com­merce of the De­part­ment of the Seine.”

“Your par­don, Con­sul!” said Stid­mann, with a mil­itary salute.

“I am de­light­ed,” the As­ses­sor went on, “to hear what you say. The man may make mon­ey then?”

“Cer­tain­ly,” said Chanor; “but he must work. He would have a tidy sum by now if he had stayed with us. What is to be done? Artists have a hor­ror of not be­ing free.”

“They have a prop­er sense of their val­ue and dig­ni­ty,” replied Stid­mann. “I do not blame Wences­las for walk­ing alone, try­ing to make a name, and to be­come a great man; he had a right to do so! But he was a great loss to me when he left.”

“That, you see,” ex­claimed Riv­et, “is what all young stu­dents aim at as soon as they are hatched out of the school-​egg. Be­gin by sav­ing mon­ey, I say, and seek glo­ry af­ter­wards.”

“It spoils your touch to be pick­ing up coin,” said Stid­mann. “It is Glo­ry's busi­ness to bring us wealth.”

“And, af­ter all,” said Chanor to Riv­et, “you can­not teth­er them.”

“They would eat the hal­ter,” replied Stid­mann.

“All these gen­tle­men have as much caprice as tal­ent,” said Chanor, look­ing at Stid­mann. “They spend no end of mon­ey; they keep their girls, they throw coin out of win­dow, and then they have no time to work. They ne­glect their or­ders; we have to em­ploy work­men who are very in­fe­ri­or, but who grow rich; and then they com­plain of the hard times, while, if they were but steady, they might have piles of gold.”

“You old Lu­mignon,” said Stid­mann, “you re­mind me of the pub­lish­er be­fore the Rev­olu­tion who said--'If on­ly I could keep Mon­tesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau very poor in my back­shed, and lock up their breech­es in a cup­board, what a lot of nice lit­tle books they would write to make my for­tune.'--If works of art could be ham­mered out like nails, work­men would make them.--Give me a thou­sand francs, and don't talk non­sense.”

Wor­thy Mon­sieur Riv­et went home, de­light­ed for poor Made­moi­selle Fis­ch­er, who dined with him ev­ery Mon­day, and whom he found wait­ing for him.

“If you can on­ly make him work,” said he, “you will have more luck than wis­dom; you will be re­paid, in­ter­est, cap­ital, and costs. This Pole has tal­ent, he can make a liv­ing; but lock up his trousers and his shoes, do not let him go to the _Chau­miere_ or the parish of Notre-​Dame de Lorette, keep him in lead­ing-​strings. If you do not take such pre­cau­tions, your artist will take to loaf­ing, and if you on­ly knew what these artists mean by loaf­ing! Shock­ing! Why, I have just heard that they will spend a thou­sand-​franc note in a day!”

This episode had a fa­tal in­flu­ence on the home-​life of Wences­las and Lis­beth. The bene­fac­tress fla­vored the ex­ile's bread with the worm­wood of re­proof, now that she saw her mon­ey in dan­ger, and of­ten be­lieved it to be lost. From a kind moth­er she be­came a step­moth­er; she took the poor boy to task, she nagged him, scold­ed him for work­ing too slow­ly, and blamed him for hav­ing cho­sen so dif­fi­cult a pro­fes­sion. She could not be­lieve that those mod­els in red wax--lit­tle fig­ures and sketch­es for or­na­men­tal work--could be of any val­ue. Be­fore long, vexed with her­self for her sever­ity, she would try to ef­face the tears by her care and at­ten­tion.

Then the poor young man, af­ter groan­ing to think that he was de­pen­dent on this shrew and un­der the thumb of a peas­ant of the Vos­ges, was be­witched by her coax­ing ways and by a ma­ter­nal af­fec­tion that at­tached it­self sole­ly to the phys­ical and ma­te­ri­al side of life. He was like a wom­an who for­gives a week of ill-​us­age for the sake of a kiss and a brief rec­on­cil­ia­tion.

Thus Made­moi­selle Fis­ch­er ob­tained com­plete pow­er over his mind. The love of do­min­ion that lay as a germ in the old maid's heart de­vel­oped rapid­ly. She could now sat­is­fy her pride and her crav­ing for ac­tion; had she not a crea­ture be­long­ing to her, to be schooled, scold­ed, flat­tered, and made hap­py, with­out any fear of a ri­val? Thus the good and bad sides of her na­ture alike found play. If she some­times vic­tim­ized the poor artist, she had, on the oth­er hand, del­icate im­puls­es like the grace of wild flow­ers; it was a joy to her to pro­vide for all his wants; she would have giv­en her life for him, and Wences­las knew it. Like ev­ery no­ble soul, the poor fel­low for­got the bad points, the de­fects of the wom­an who had told him the sto­ry of her life as an ex­cuse for her rough ways, and he re­mem­bered on­ly the ben­efits she had done him.

One day, ex­as­per­at­ed with Wences­las for hav­ing gone out walk­ing in­stead of sit­ting at work, she made a great scene.

“You be­long to me,” said she. “If you were an hon­est man, you would try to re­pay me the mon­ey you owe as soon as pos­si­ble.”

The gen­tle­man, in whose veins the blood of the Stein­bocks was fired, turned pale.

“Bless me,” she went on, “we soon shall have noth­ing to live on but the thir­ty sous I earn--a poor work-​wom­an!”

The two pen­ni­less crea­tures, worked up by their own war of words, grew ve­he­ment; and for the first time the un­hap­py artist re­proached his bene­fac­tress for hav­ing res­cued him from death on­ly to make him lead the life of a gal­ley slave, worse than the bot­tom­less void, where at least, said he, he would have found rest. And he talked of flight.

“Flight!” cried Lis­beth. “Ah, Mon­sieur Riv­et was right.”

And she clear­ly ex­plained to the Pole that with­in twen­ty-​four hours he might be clapped in­to prison for the rest of his days. It was a crush­ing blow. Stein­bock sank in­to deep melan­choly and to­tal si­lence.

In the course of the fol­low­ing night, Lis­beth hear­ing over­head some prepa­ra­tions for sui­cide, went up to her pen­sion­er's room, and gave him the sched­ule and a for­mal re­lease.

“Here, dear child, for­give me,” she said with tears in her eyes. “Be hap­py; leave me! I am too cru­el to you; on­ly tell me that you will some­times re­mem­ber the poor girl who has en­abled you to make a liv­ing. --What can I say? You are the cause of my ill-​hu­mor. I might die; where would you be with­out me? That is the rea­son of my be­ing im­pa­tient to see you do some sal­able work. I do not want my mon­ey back for my­self, I as­sure you! I am on­ly fright­ened at your idle­ness, which you call med­ita­tion; at your ideas, which take up so many hours when you sit gaz­ing at the sky; I want you to get in­to habits of in­dus­try.”

All this was said with an em­pha­sis, a look, and tears that moved the high-​mind­ed artist; he clasped his bene­fac­tress to his heart and kissed her fore­head.

“Keep these pieces,” said he with a sort of cheer­ful­ness. “Why should you send me to Clichy? Am I not a pris­on­er here out of grat­itude?”

This episode of their se­cret do­mes­tic life had oc­curred six months pre­vi­ous­ly, and had led to Stein­bock's pro­duc­ing three fin­ished works: the seal in Hort­ense's pos­ses­sion, the group he had placed with the cu­rios­ity deal­er, and a beau­ti­ful clock to which he was putting the last touch­es, screw­ing in the last riv­ets.

This clock rep­re­sent­ed the twelve Hours, charm­ing­ly per­son­ified by twelve fe­male fig­ures whirling round in so mad and swift a dance that three lit­tle Loves perched on a pile of fruit and flow­ers could not stop one of them; on­ly the torn skirts of Mid­night re­mained in the hand of the most dar­ing cherub. The group stood on an ad­mirably treat­ed base, or­na­ment­ed with grotesque beasts. The hours were told by a mon­strous mouth that opened to yawn, and each Hour bore some in­ge­nious­ly ap­pro­pri­ate sym­bol char­ac­ter­is­tic of the var­ious oc­cu­pa­tions of the day.

It is now easy to un­der­stand the ex­traor­di­nary at­tach­ment of Made­moi­selle Fis­ch­er for her Livo­ni­an; she want­ed him to be hap­py, and she saw him pin­ing, fad­ing away in his at­tic. The caus­es of this wretched state of af­fairs may be eas­ily imag­ined. The peas­ant wom­an watched this son of the North with the af­fec­tion of a moth­er, with the jeal­ousy of a wife, and the spir­it of a drag­on; hence she man­aged to put ev­ery kind of fol­ly or dis­si­pa­tion out of his pow­er by leav­ing him des­ti­tute of mon­ey. She longed to keep her vic­tim and com­pan­ion for her­self alone, well con­duct­ed per­force, and she had no con­cep­tion of the cru­el­ty of this sense­less wish, since she, for her own part, was ac­cus­tomed to ev­ery pri­va­tion. She loved Stein­bock well enough not to mar­ry him, and too much to give him up to any oth­er wom­an; she could not re­sign her­self to be no more than a moth­er to him, though she saw that she was mad to think of play­ing the oth­er part.

These con­tra­dic­tions, this fe­ro­cious jeal­ousy, and the joy of hav­ing a man to her­self, all ag­itat­ed her old maid's heart be­yond mea­sure. Re­al­ly in love as she had been for four years, she cher­ished the fool­ish hope of pro­long­ing this im­pos­si­ble and aim­less way of life in which her per­sis­tence would on­ly be the ru­in of the man she thought of as her child. This con­test be­tween her in­stincts and her rea­son made her un­just and tyran­ni­cal. She wreaked on the young man her vengeance for her own lot in be­ing nei­ther young, rich, nor hand­some; then, af­ter each fit of rage, rec­og­niz­ing her­self wrong, she stooped to un­lim­it­ed hu­mil­ity, in­fi­nite ten­der­ness. She nev­er could sac­ri­fice to her idol till she had as­sert­ed her pow­er by blows of the axe. In fact, it was the con­verse of Shake­speare's _Tem­pest_--Cal­iban rul­ing Ariel and Pros­pero.

As to the poor youth him­self, high-​mind­ed, med­ita­tive, and in­clined to be lazy, the desert that his pro­tec­tress made in his soul might be seen in his eyes, as in those of a caged li­on. The pe­nal servi­tude forced on him by Lis­beth did not ful­fil the crav­ings of his heart. His weari­ness be­came a phys­ical mal­ady, and he was dy­ing with­out dar­ing to ask, or know­ing where to pro­cure, the price of some lit­tle nec­es­sary dis­si­pa­tion. On some days of spe­cial en­er­gy, when a feel­ing of ut­ter ill-​luck added to his ex­as­per­ation, he would look at Lis­beth as a thirsty trav­el­er on a sandy shore must look at the bit­ter sea-​wa­ter.

These harsh fruits of in­di­gence, and this iso­la­tion in the midst of Paris, Lis­beth rel­ished with de­light. And be­sides, she fore­saw that the first pas­sion would rob her of her slave. Some­times she even blamed her­self be­cause her own tyran­ny and re­proach­es had com­pelled the po­et­ic youth to be­come so great an artist of del­icate work, and she had thus giv­en him the means of cast­ing her off.

On the day af­ter, these three lives, so dif­fer­ent­ly but so ut­ter­ly wretched--that of a moth­er in de­spair, that of the Marn­effe house­hold, and that of the un­hap­py ex­ile--were all to be in­flu­enced by Hort­ense's guile­less pas­sion, and by the strange out­come of the Baron's luck­less pas­sion for Josepha.

Just as Hu­lot was go­ing in­to the opera-​house, he was stopped by the dark­ened ap­pear­ance of the build­ing and of the Rue le Peleti­er, where there were no gen­darmes, no lights, no the­atre-​ser­vants, no bar­ri­er to reg­ulate the crowd. He looked up at the an­nounce­ment-​board, and be­held a strip of white pa­per, on which was print­ed the solemn no­tice:

“CLOSED ON AC­COUNT OF ILL­NESS.”

He rushed off to Josepha's lodg­ings in the Rue Chauchat; for, like all the singers, she lived close at hand.

“Whom do you want, sir?” asked the porter, to the Baron's great as­ton­ish­ment.

“Have you for­got­ten me?” said Hu­lot, much puz­zled.

“On the con­trary, sir, it is be­cause I have the hon­or to re­mem­ber you that I ask you, Where are you go­ing?”

A mor­tal chill fell up­on the Baron.

“What has hap­pened?” he asked.

“If you go up to Made­moi­selle Mi­rah's rooms, Mon­sieur le Baron, you will find Made­moi­selle Heloise Brisetout there--and Mon­sieur Bix­iou, Mon­sieur Leon de Lo­ra, Mon­sieur Lousteau, Mon­sieur de Vernis­set, Mon­sieur Stid­mann; and ladies smelling of patchouli--hold­ing a house­warm­ing.”

“Then, where--where is----?”

“Made­moi­selle Mi­rah?--I don't know that I ought to tell you.”

The Baron slipped two five-​franc pieces in­to the porter's hand.

“Well, she is now in the Rue de la Ville l'Eveque, in a fine house, giv­en to her, they say, by the Duc d'Her­ou­ville,” replied the man in a whis­per.

Hav­ing as­cer­tained the num­ber of the house, Mon­sieur Hu­lot called a _milord_ and drove to one of those pret­ty mod­ern hous­es with dou­ble doors, where ev­ery­thing, from the gaslight at the en­trance, pro­claims lux­ury.

The Baron, in his blue cloth coat, white neck­cloth, nan­keen trousers, patent leather boots, and stiffly starched shirt-​frill, was sup­posed to be a guest, though a late ar­rival, by the jan­itor of this new Eden. His alacrity of man­ner and quick step jus­ti­fied this opin­ion.

The porter rang a bell, and a foot­man ap­peared in the hall. This man, as new as the house, ad­mit­ted the vis­itor, who said to him in an im­pe­ri­ous tone, and with a lord­ly ges­ture:

“Take in this card to Made­moi­selle Josepha.”

The vic­tim me­chan­ical­ly looked round the room in which he found him­self--an an­te­room full of choice flow­ers and of fur­ni­ture that must have cost twen­ty thou­sand francs. The ser­vant, on his re­turn, begged mon­sieur to wait in the draw­ing-​room till the com­pa­ny came to their cof­fee.

Though the Baron had been fa­mil­iar with Im­pe­ri­al lux­ury, which was un­doubt­ed­ly prodi­gious, while its pro­duc­tions, though not durable in kind, had nev­er­the­less cost enor­mous sums, he stood daz­zled, dum­found­ed, in this draw­ing-​room with three win­dows look­ing out on a gar­den like fairy­land, one of those gar­dens that are cre­at­ed in a month with a made soil and trans­plant­ed shrubs, while the grass seems as if it must be made to grow by some chem­ical pro­cess. He ad­mired not on­ly the dec­ora­tion, the gild­ing, the carv­ing, in the most ex­pen­sive Pom­padour style, as it is called, and the mag­nif­icent bro­cades, all of which any en­riched trades­man could have pro­cured for mon­ey; but he al­so not­ed such trea­sures as on­ly princes can se­lect and find, can pay for and give away; two pic­tures by Greuze, two by Wat­teau, two heads by Vandy­ck, two land­scapes by Ruys­dael, and two by le Guaspre, a Rem­brandt, a Hol­bein, a Muril­lo, and a Titian, two paint­ings, by Te­niers, and a pair by Met­zu, a Van Huy­sum, and an Abra­ham Mignon--in short, two hun­dred thou­sand francs' worth of pic­tures su­perbly framed. The gild­ing was worth al­most as much as the paint­ings.

“Ah, ha! Now you un­der­stand, my good man?” said Josepha.

She had stolen in on tip­toe through a noise­less door, over Per­sian car­pets, and came up­on her ador­er, stand­ing lost in amaze­ment--in the stupid amaze­ment when a man's ears tin­gle so loud­ly that he hears noth­ing but that fa­tal knell.

The words “my good man,” spo­ken to an of­fi­cial of such high im­por­tance, so per­fect­ly ex­em­pli­fied the au­dac­ity with which these crea­tures pour con­tempt on the lofti­est, that the Baron was nailed to the spot. Josepha, in white and yel­low, was so beau­ti­ful­ly dressed for the ban­quet, that amid all this lav­ish mag­nif­icence she still shone like a rare jew­el.

“Isn't this re­al­ly fine?” said she. “The Duke has spent all the mon­ey on it that he got out of float­ing a com­pa­ny, of which the shares all sold at a pre­mi­um. He is no fool, is my lit­tle Duke. There is noth­ing like a man who has been a grandee in his time for turn­ing coals in­to gold. Just be­fore din­ner the no­tary brought me the ti­tle-​deeds to sign and the bills re­ceipt­ed!--They are all a first-​class set in there --d'Es­grignon, Rastignac, Maxime, Lenon­court, Verneuil, La­gin­ski, Rochefide, la Palfer­ine, and from among the bankers Nucin­gen and du Tillet, with An­to­nia, Mala­ga, Cara­bine, and la Schontz; and they all feel for you deeply.--Yes, old boy, and they hope you will join them, but on con­di­tion that you forth­with drink up to two bot­tles full of Hun­gar­ian wine, Cham­pagne, or Cape, just to bring you up to their mark.--My dear fel­low, we are all so much _on_ here, that it was nec­es­sary to close the Opera. The man­ag­er is as drunk as a cor­net-​a-​pis­ton; he is hic­cup­ing al­ready.”

“Oh, Josepha!----” cried the Baron.

“Now, can any­thing be more ab­surd than ex­pla­na­tions?” she broke in with a smile. “Look here; can you stand six hun­dred thou­sand francs which this house and fur­ni­ture cost? Can you give me a bond to the tune of thir­ty thou­sand francs a year, which is what the Duke has just giv­en me in a pack­et of com­mon sug­ared al­monds from the gro­cer's?--a pret­ty no­tion that----”

“What an atroc­ity!” cried Hu­lot, who in his fury would have giv­en his wife's di­amonds to stand in the Duc d'Her­ou­ville's shoes for twen­ty-​four hours.

“Atroc­ity is my trade,” said she. “So that is how you take it? Well, why don't you float a com­pa­ny? Good­ness me! my poor dyed Tom, you ought to be grate­ful to me; I have thrown you over just when you would have spent on me your wid­ow's for­tune, your daugh­ter's por­tion.--What, tears! The Em­pire is a thing of the past--I hail the com­ing Em­pire!”

She struck a trag­ic at­ti­tude, and ex­claimed:

“They call you Hu­lot! Nay, I know you not--”

And she went in­to the oth­er room.

Through the door, left ajar, there came, like a light­ning-​flash, a streak of light with an ac­com­pa­ni­ment of the crescen­do of the or­gy and the fra­grance of a ban­quet of the choic­est de­scrip­tion.

The singer peeped through the part­ly open door, and see­ing Hu­lot trans­fixed as if he had been a bronze im­age, she came one step for­ward in­to the room.

“Mon­sieur,” said she, “I have hand­ed over the rub­bish in the Rue Chauchat to Bix­iou's lit­tle Heloise Brisetout. If you wish to claim your cot­ton night­cap, your boot­jack, your belt, and your wax dye, I have stip­ulat­ed for their re­turn.”

This in­so­lent ban­ter made the Baron leave the room as pre­cip­itate­ly as Lot de­part­ed from Go­mor­rah, but he did not look back like Mrs. Lot.

Hu­lot went home, strid­ing along in a fury, and talk­ing to him­self; he found his fam­ily still play­ing the game of whist at two sous a point, at which he left them. On see­ing her hus­band re­turn, poor Ade­line imag­ined some­thing dread­ful, some dis­hon­or; she gave her cards to Hort­ense, and led Hec­tor away in­to the very room where, on­ly five hours since, Crev­el had fore­told her the ut­most dis­grace of pover­ty.

“What is the mat­ter?” she said, ter­ri­fied.

“Oh, for­give me--but let me tell you all these hor­rors.” And for ten min­utes he poured out his wrath.

“But, my dear,” said the un­hap­py wom­an, with hero­ic courage, “these crea­tures do not know what love means--such pure and de­vot­ed love as you de­serve. How could you, so clear-​sight­ed as you are, dream of com­pet­ing with mil­lions?”

“Dear­est Ade­line!” cried the Baron, clasp­ing her to his heart.

The Baroness' words had shed balm on the bleed­ing wounds to his van­ity.

“To be sure, take away the Duc d'Her­ou­ville's for­tune, and she could not hes­itate be­tween us!” said the Baron.

“My dear,” said Ade­line with a fi­nal ef­fort, “if you pos­itive­ly must have mis­tress­es, why do you not seek them, like Crev­el, among wom­en who are less ex­trav­agant, and of a class that can for a time be con­tent with lit­tle? We should all gain by that ar­range­ment.--I un­der­stand your need--but I do not un­der­stand that van­ity----”

“Oh, what a kind and per­fect wife you are!” cried he. “I am an old lu­natic, I do not de­serve to have such a wife!”

“I am sim­ply the Josephine of my Napoleon,” she replied, with a touch of melan­choly.

“Josephine was not to com­pare with you!” said he. “Come; I will play a game of whist with my broth­er and the chil­dren. I must try my hand at the busi­ness of a fam­ily man; I must get Hort­ense a hus­band, and bury the lib­er­tine.”

His frank­ness so great­ly touched poor Ade­line, that she said:

“The crea­ture has no taste to pre­fer any man in the world to my Hec­tor. Oh, I would not give you up for all the gold on earth. How can any wom­an throw you over who is so hap­py as to be loved by you?”

The look with which the Baron re­ward­ed his wife's fa­nati­cism con­firmed her in her opin­ion that gen­tle­ness and docil­ity were a wom­an's strongest weapons.

But in this she was mis­tak­en. The no­blest sen­ti­ments, car­ried to an ex­cess, can pro­duce mis­chief as great as do the worst vices. Bona­parte was made Em­per­or for hav­ing fired on the peo­ple, at a stone's throw from the spot where Louis XVI. lost his throne and his head be­cause he would not al­low a cer­tain Mon­sieur Sauce to be hurt.

On the fol­low­ing morn­ing, Hort­ense, who had slept with the seal un­der her pil­low, so as to have it close to her all night, dressed very ear­ly, and sent to beg her fa­ther to join her in the gar­den as soon as he should be down.

By about half-​past nine, the fa­ther, ac­ced­ing to his daugh­ter's pe­ti­tion, gave her his arm for a walk, and they went along the quays by the Pont Roy­al to the Place du Car­rousel.

“Let us look in­to the shop win­dows, pa­pa,” said Hort­ense, as they went through the lit­tle gate to cross the wide square.

“What--here?” said her fa­ther, laugh­ing at her.

“We are sup­posed to have come to see the pic­tures, and over there” --and she point­ed to the stalls in front of the hous­es at a right an­gle to the Rue du Doyenne--“look! there are deal­ers in cu­riosi­ties and pic­tures----”

“Your cousin lives there.”

“I know it, but she must not see us.”

“And what do you want to do?” said the Baron, who, find­ing him­self with­in thir­ty yards of Madame Marn­effe's win­dows, sud­den­ly re­mem­bered her.

Hort­ense had dragged her fa­ther in front of one of the shops form­ing the an­gle of a block of hous­es built along the front of the Old Lou­vre, and fac­ing the Ho­tel de Nantes. She went in­to this shop; her fa­ther stood out­side, ab­sorbed in gaz­ing at the win­dows of the pret­ty lit­tle la­dy, who, the evening be­fore, had left her im­age stamped on the old beau's heart, as if to al­le­vi­ate the wound he was so soon to re­ceive; and he could not help putting his wife's sage ad­vice in­to prac­tice.

“I will fall back on a sim­ple lit­tle cit­izen's wife,” said he to him­self, re­call­ing Madame Marn­effe's adorable graces. “Such a wom­an as that will soon make me for­get that grasp­ing Josepha.”

Now, this was what was hap­pen­ing at the same mo­ment out­side and in­side the cu­rios­ity shop.

As he fixed his eyes on the win­dows of his new _belle_, the Baron saw the hus­band, who, while brush­ing his coat with his own hands, was ap­par­ent­ly on the look­out, ex­pect­ing to see some one on the square. Fear­ing lest he should be seen, and sub­se­quent­ly rec­og­nized, the amorous Baron turned his back on the Rue du Doyenne, or rather stood at three-​quar­ters' face, as it were, so as to be able to glance round from time to time. This ma­noeu­vre brought him face to face with Madame Marn­effe, who, com­ing up from the quay, was dou­bling the promon­to­ry of hous­es to go home.

Va­lerie was ev­ident­ly star­tled as she met the Baron's as­ton­ished eye, and she re­spond­ed with a prud­ish drop­ping of her eye­lids.

“A pret­ty wom­an,” ex­claimed he, “for whom a man would do many fool­ish things.”

“In­deed, mon­sieur?” said she, turn­ing sud­den­ly, like a wom­an who has just come to some ve­he­ment de­ci­sion, “you are Mon­sieur le Baron Hu­lot, I be­lieve?”

The Baron, more and more be­wil­dered, bowed as­sent.

“Then, as chance has twice made our eyes meet, and I am so for­tu­nate as to have in­ter­est­ed or puz­zled you, I may tell you that, in­stead of do­ing any­thing fool­ish, you ought to do jus­tice.--My hus­band's fate rests with you.”

“And how may that be?” asked the gal­lant Baron.

“He is em­ployed in your de­part­ment in the War Of­fice, un­der Mon­sieur Le­brun, in Mon­sieur Co­quet's room,” said she with a smile.

“I am quite dis­posed, Madame--Madame----?”

“Madame Marn­effe.”

“Dear lit­tle Madame Marn­effe, to do in­jus­tice for your sake.--I have a cousin liv­ing in your house; I will go to see her one day soon--as soon as pos­si­ble; bring your pe­ti­tion to me in her rooms.”

“Par­don my bold­ness, Mon­sieur le Baron; you must un­der­stand that if I dare to ad­dress you thus, it is be­cause I have no friend to pro­tect me----”

“Ah, ha!”

“Mon­sieur, you mis­un­der­stand me,” said she, low­er­ing her eye­lids.

Hu­lot felt as if the sun had dis­ap­peared.

“I am at my wits' end, but I am an hon­est wom­an!” she went on. “About six months ago my on­ly pro­tec­tor died, Mar­shal Mont­cor­net--”

“Ah! You are his daugh­ter?”

“Yes, mon­sieur; but he nev­er ac­knowl­edged me.”

“That was that he might leave you part of his for­tune.”

“He left me noth­ing; he made no will.”

“In­deed! Poor lit­tle wom­an! The Mar­shal died sud­den­ly of apoplexy. But, come, madame, hope for the best. The State must do some­thing for the daugh­ter of one of the Cheva­lier Ba­yards of the Em­pire.”

Madame Marn­effe bowed grace­ful­ly and went off, as proud of her suc­cess as the Baron was of his.

“Where the dev­il has she been so ear­ly?” thought he watch­ing the flow of her skirts, to which she con­trived to im­part a some­what ex­ag­ger­at­ed grace. “She looks too tired to have just come from a bath, and her hus­band is wait­ing for her. It is strange, and puz­zles me al­to­geth­er.”

Madame Marn­effe hav­ing van­ished with­in, the Baron won­dered what his daugh­ter was do­ing in the shop. As he went in, still star­ing at Madame Marn­effe's win­dows, he ran against a young man with a pale brow and sparkling gray eyes, wear­ing a sum­mer coat of black meri­no, coarse drill trousers, and tan shoes, with gaiters, rush­ing away head­long; he saw him run to the house in the Rue du Doyenne, in­to which he went.

Hort­ense, on go­ing in­to the shop, had at once rec­og­nized the fa­mous group, con­spic­uous­ly placed on a ta­ble in the mid­dle and in front of the door. Even with­out the cir­cum­stances to which she owed her knowl­edge of this mas­ter­piece, it would prob­ably have struck her by the pe­cu­liar pow­er which we must call the _brio_--the _go_--of great works; and the girl her­self might in Italy have been tak­en as a mod­el for the per­son­ifi­ca­tion of _Brio_.

Not ev­ery work by a man of ge­nius has in the same de­gree that bril­lian­cy, that glo­ry which is at once patent even to the most ig­no­ble be­hold­er. Thus, cer­tain pic­tures by Raphael, such as the fa­mous _Trans­fig­ura­tion_, the _Madon­na di Folig­no_, and the fres­coes of the _Stanze_ in the Vat­ican, do not at first cap­ti­vate our ad­mi­ra­tion, as do the _Vi­olin-​play­er_ in the Scia­rra Palace, the por­traits of the Do­ria fam­ily, and the _Vi­sion of Ezekiel_ in the Pit­ti Gallery, the _Christ bear­ing His Cross_ in the Borgh­ese col­lec­tion, and the _Mar­riage of the Vir­gin_ in the Br­era at Mi­lan. The _Saint John the Bap­tist_ of the Tri­buna, and _Saint Luke paint­ing the Vir­gin's por­trait_ in the Ac­cademia at Rome, have not the charm of the _Por­trait of Leo X._, and of the _Vir­gin_ at Dres­den.

And yet they are all of equal mer­it. Nay, more. The _Stanze_, the _Trans­fig­ura­tion_, the pan­els, and the three easel pic­tures in the Vat­ican are in the high­est de­gree per­fect and sub­lime. But they de­mand a stress of at­ten­tion, even from the most ac­com­plished be­hold­er, and se­ri­ous study, to be ful­ly un­der­stood; while the _Vi­olin-​play­er_, the _Mar­riage of the Vir­gin_, and the _Vi­sion of Ezekiel_ go straight to the heart through the por­tal of sight, and make their home there. It is a plea­sure to re­ceive them thus with­out an ef­fort; if it is not the high­est phase of art, it is the hap­pi­est. This fact proves that, in the beget­ting of works of art, there is as much chance in the char­ac­ter of the off­spring as there is in a fam­ily of chil­dren; that some will be hap­pi­ly graced, born beau­ti­ful, and cost­ing their moth­ers lit­tle suf­fer­ing, crea­tures on whom ev­ery­thing smiles, and with whom ev­ery­thing suc­ceeds; in short, ge­nius, like love, has its fair­er blos­soms.

This _brio_, an Ital­ian word which the French have be­gun to use, is char­ac­ter­is­tic of youth­ful work. It is the fruit of an im­pe­tus and fire of ear­ly tal­ent--an im­pe­tus which is met with again lat­er in some hap­py hours; but this par­tic­ular _brio_ no longer comes from the artist's heart; in­stead of his fling­ing it in­to his work as a vol­cano flings up its fires, it comes to him from out­side, in­spired by cir­cum­stances, by love, or ri­val­ry, of­ten by ha­tred, and more of­ten still by the im­pe­ri­ous need of glo­ry to be lived up to.

This group by Wences­las was to his lat­er works what the _Mar­riage of the Vir­gin_ is to the great mass of Raphael's, the first step of a gift­ed artist tak­en with the inim­itable grace, the ea­ger­ness, and de­light­ful over­flow­ing­ness of a child, whose strength is con­cealed un­der the pink-​and-​white flesh full of dim­ples which seem to echo to a moth­er's laugh­ter. Prince Eu­gene is said to have paid four hun­dred thou­sand francs for this pic­ture, which would be worth a mil­lion to any na­tion that owned no pic­ture by Raphael, but no one would give that sum for the finest of the fres­coes, though their val­ue is far greater as works of art.

Hort­ense re­strained her ad­mi­ra­tion, for she re­flect­ed on the amount of her girl­ish sav­ings; she as­sumed an air of in­dif­fer­ence, and said to the deal­er:

“What is the price of that?”

“Fif­teen hun­dred francs,” replied the man, send­ing a glance of in­tel­li­gence to a young man seat­ed on a stool in the cor­ner.

The young man him­self gazed in a stu­pe­fac­tion at Mon­sieur Hu­lot's liv­ing mas­ter­piece. Hort­ense, fore­warned, at once iden­ti­fied him as the artist, from the col­or that flushed a face pale with en­durance; she saw the spark light­ed up in his gray eyes by her ques­tion; she looked on the thin, drawn fea­tures, like those of a monk con­sumed by as­ceti­cism; she loved the red, well-​formed mouth, the del­icate chin, and the Pole's silky chest­nut hair.

“If it were twelve hun­dred,” said she, “I would beg you to send it to me.”

“It is an­tique, made­moi­selle,” the deal­er re­marked, think­ing, like all his fra­ter­ni­ty, that, hav­ing ut­tered this _ne plus ul­tra_ of bric-​a-​brac, there was no more to be said.

“Ex­cuse me, mon­sieur,” she replied very qui­et­ly, “it was made this year; I came ex­press­ly to beg you, if my price is ac­cept­ed, to send the artist to see us, as it might be pos­si­ble to pro­cure him some im­por­tant com­mis­sions.”

“And if he is to have the twelve hun­dred francs, what am I to get? I am the deal­er,” said the man, with can­did good-​hu­mor.

“To be sure!” replied the girl, with a slight curl of dis­dain.

“Oh! made­moi­selle, take it; I will make terms with the deal­er,” cried the Livo­ni­an, be­side him­self.

Fas­ci­nat­ed by Hort­ense's won­der­ful beau­ty and the love of art she dis­played, he added:

“I am the sculp­tor of the group, and for ten days I have come here three times a day to see if any­body would rec­og­nize its mer­it and bar­gain for it. You are my first ad­mir­er--take it!”

“Come, then, mon­sieur, with the deal­er, an hour hence.--Here is my fa­ther's card,” replied Hort­ense.

Then, see­ing the shop­keep­er go in­to a back room to wrap the group in a piece of linen rag, she added in a low voice, to the great as­ton­ish­ment of the artist, who thought he must be dream­ing:

“For the ben­efit of your fu­ture prospects, Mon­sieur Wences­las, do not men­tion the name of the pur­chas­er to Made­moi­selle Fis­ch­er, for she is our cousin.”

The word cousin daz­zled the artist's mind; he had a glimpse of Par­adise whence this daugh­ter of Eve had come to him. He had dreamed of the beau­ti­ful girl of whom Lis­beth had told him, as Hort­ense had dreamed of her cousin's lover; and, as she had en­tered the shop--

“Ah!” thought he, “if she could but be like this!”

The look that passed be­tween the lovers may be imag­ined; it was a flame, for vir­tu­ous lovers have no hypocrisies.

“Well, what the deuce are you do­ing here?” her fa­ther asked her.

“I have been spend­ing twelve hun­dred francs that I had saved. Come.” And she took her fa­ther's arm.

“Twelve hun­dred francs?” he re­peat­ed.

“To be ex­act, thir­teen hun­dred; you will lend me the odd hun­dred?”

“And on what, in such a place, could you spend so much?”

“Ah! that is the ques­tion!” replied the hap­py girl. “If I have got a hus­band, he is not dear at the mon­ey.”

“A hus­band! In that shop, my child?”

“Lis­ten, dear lit­tle fa­ther; would you for­bid my mar­ry­ing a great artist?”

“No, my dear. A great artist in these days is a prince with­out a ti­tle --he has glo­ry and for­tune, the two chief so­cial ad­van­tages--next to virtue,” he added, in a smug tone.

“Oh, of course!” said Hort­ense. “And what do you think of sculp­ture?”

“It is very poor busi­ness,” replied Hu­lot, shak­ing his head. “It needs high pa­tron­age as well as great tal­ent, for Gov­ern­ment is the on­ly pur­chas­er. It is an art with no de­mand nowa­days, where there are no prince­ly hous­es, no great for­tunes, no en­tailed man­sions, no hered­itary es­tates. On­ly small pic­tures and small fig­ures can find a place; the arts are en­dan­gered by this need of small things.”

“But if a great artist could find a de­mand?” said Hort­ense.

“That in­deed would solve the prob­lem.”

“Or had some one to back him?”

“That would be even bet­ter.”

“If he were of no­ble birth?”

“Pooh!”

“A Count.”

“And a sculp­tor?”

“He has no mon­ey.”

“And so he counts on that of Made­moi­selle Hort­ense Hu­lot?” said the Baron iron­ical­ly, with an in­quisi­to­ri­al look in­to his daugh­ter's eyes.

“This great artist, a Count and a sculp­tor, has just seen your daugh­ter for the first time in his life, and for the space of five min­utes, Mon­sieur le Baron,” Hort­ense calm­ly replied. “Yes­ter­day, you must know, dear lit­tle fa­ther, while you were at the Cham­ber, mam­ma had a faint­ing fit. This, which she as­cribed to a ner­vous at­tack, was the re­sult of some wor­ry that had to do with the fail­ure of my mar­riage, for she told me that to get rid of me---”

“She is too fond of you to have used an ex­pres­sion----”

“So un­par­lia­men­tary!” Hort­ense put in with a laugh. “No, she did not use those words; but I know that a girl old enough to mar­ry and who does not find a hus­band is a heavy cross for re­spectable par­ents to bear.--Well, she thinks that if a man of en­er­gy and tal­ent could be found, who would be sat­is­fied with thir­ty thou­sand francs for my mar­riage por­tion, we might all be hap­py. In fact, she thought it ad­vis­able to pre­pare me for the mod­esty of my fu­ture lot, and to hin­der me from in­dulging in too fer­vid dreams.--Which ev­ident­ly meant an end to the in­tend­ed mar­riage, and no set­tle­ments for me!”

“Your moth­er is a very good wom­an, no­ble, ad­mirable!” replied the fa­ther, deeply hu­mil­iat­ed, though not sor­ry to hear this con­fes­sion.

“She told me yes­ter­day that she had your per­mis­sion to sell her di­amonds so as to give me some­thing to mar­ry on; but I should like her to keep her jew­els, and to find a hus­band my­self. I think I have found the man, the pos­si­ble hus­band, an­swer­ing to mam­ma's prospec­tus----”

“There?--in the Place du Car­rousel?--and in one morn­ing?”

“Oh, pa­pa, the mis­chief lies deep­er!” said she arch­ly.

“Well, come, my child, tell the whole sto­ry to your good old fa­ther,” said he per­sua­sive­ly, and con­ceal­ing his un­easi­ness.

Un­der promise of ab­so­lute se­cre­cy, Hort­ense re­peat­ed the up­shot of her var­ious con­ver­sa­tions with her Cousin Bet­ty. Then, when they got home, she showed the much-​talked-​of-​seal to her fa­ther in ev­idence of the sagac­ity of her views. The fa­ther, in the depth of his heart, won­dered at the skill and acu­men of girls who act on in­stinct, dis­cern­ing the sim­plic­ity of the scheme which her ide­al­ized love had sug­gest­ed in the course of a sin­gle night to his guile­less daugh­ter.

“You will see the mas­ter­piece I have just bought; it is to be brought home, and that dear Wences­las is to come with the deal­er.--The man who made that group ought to make a for­tune; on­ly use your in­flu­ence to get him an or­der for a stat­ue, and rooms at the In­sti­tut----”

“How you run on!” cried her fa­ther. “Why, if you had your own way, you would be man and wife with­in the le­gal pe­ri­od--in eleven days----”

“Must we wait so long?” said she, laugh­ing. “But I fell in love with him in five min­utes, as you fell in love with mam­ma at first sight. And he loves me as if we had known each oth­er for two years. Yes,” she said in re­ply to her fa­ther's look, “I read ten vol­umes of love in his eyes. And will not you and mam­ma ac­cept him as my hus­band when you see that he is a man of ge­nius? Sculp­ture is the great­est of the Arts,” she cried, clap­ping her hands and jump­ing. “I will tell you ev­ery­thing----”

“What, is there more to come?” asked her fa­ther, smil­ing.

The child's com­plete and ef­fer­ves­cent in­no­cence had re­stored her fa­ther's peace of mind.

“A con­fes­sion of the first im­por­tance,” said she. “I loved him with­out know­ing him; and, for the last hour, since see­ing him, I am crazy about him.”

“A lit­tle too crazy!” said the Baron, who was en­joy­ing the sight of this guile­less pas­sion.

“Do not pun­ish me for con­fid­ing in you,” replied she. “It is so de­light­ful to say to my fa­ther's heart, 'I love him! I am so hap­py in lov­ing him!'--You will see my Wences­las! His brow is so sad. The sun of ge­nius shines in his gray eyes--and what an air he has! What do you think of Livo­nia? Is it a fine coun­try?--The idea of Cousin Bet­ty's mar­ry­ing that young fel­low! She might be his moth­er. It would be mur­der! I am quite jeal­ous of all she has ev­er done for him. But I don't think my mar­riage will please her.”

“See, my dar­ling, we must hide noth­ing from your moth­er.”

“I should have to show her the seal, and I promised not to be­tray Cousin Lis­beth, who is afraid, she says, of mam­ma's laugh­ing at her,” said Hort­ense.

“You have scru­ples about the seal, and none about rob­bing your cousin of her lover.”

“I promised about the seal--I made no promise about the sculp­tor.”

This ad­ven­ture, pa­tri­ar­chal in its sim­plic­ity, came ad­mirably _a pro­pos_ to the un­con­fessed pover­ty of the fam­ily; the Baron, while prais­ing his daugh­ter for her can­dor, ex­plained to her that she must now leave mat­ters to the dis­cre­tion of her par­ents.

“You un­der­stand, my child, that it is not your part to as­cer­tain whether your cousin's lover is a Count, if he has all his pa­pers prop­er­ly cer­ti­fied, and if his con­duct is a guar­an­tee for his re­spectabil­ity.--As for your cousin, she re­fused five of­fers when she was twen­ty years younger; that will prove no ob­sta­cle, I un­der­take to say.”

“Lis­ten to me, pa­pa; if you re­al­ly wish to see me mar­ried, nev­er say a word to Lis­beth about it till just be­fore the con­tract is signed. I have been cat­echiz­ing her about this busi­ness for the last six months! Well, there is some­thing about her quite in­ex­pli­ca­ble----”

“What?” said her fa­ther, puz­zled.

“Well, she looks evil when I say too much, even in joke, about her lover. Make in­quiries, but leave me to row my own boat. My con­fi­dence ought to re­as­sure you.”

“The Lord said, 'Suf­fer lit­tle chil­dren to come un­to Me.' You are one of those who have come back again,” replied the Baron with a touch of irony.

Af­ter break­fast the deal­er was an­nounced, and the artist with his group. The sud­den flush that red­dened her daugh­ter's face at once made the Baroness sus­pi­cious and then watch­ful, and the girl's con­fu­sion and the light in her eyes soon be­trayed the mys­tery so bad­ly guard­ed in her sim­ple heart.

Count Stein­bock, dressed in black, struck the Baron as a very gen­tle­man­ly young man.

“Would you un­der­take a bronze stat­ue?” he asked, as he held up the group.

Af­ter ad­mir­ing it on trust, he passed it on to his wife, who knew noth­ing about sculp­ture.

“It is beau­ti­ful, isn't it, mam­ma?” said Hort­ense in her moth­er' ear.

“A stat­ue! Mon­sieur, it is less dif­fi­cult to ex­ecute a stat­ue than to make a clock like this, which my friend here has been kind enough to bring,” said the artist in re­ply.

The deal­er was plac­ing on the din­ing-​room side­board the wax mod­el of the twelve Hours that the Loves were try­ing to de­lay.

“Leave the clock with me,” said the Baron, as­tound­ed at the beau­ty of the sketch. “I should like to show it to the Min­is­ters of the In­te­ri­or and of Com­merce.”

“Who is the young man in whom you take so much in­ter­est?” the Baroness asked her daugh­ter.

“An artist who could af­ford to ex­ecute this mod­el could get a hun­dred thou­sand francs for it,” said the cu­rios­ity-​deal­er, putting on a know­ing and mys­te­ri­ous look as he saw that the artist and the girl were in­ter­chang­ing glances. “He would on­ly need to sell twen­ty copies at eight thou­sand francs each--for the ma­te­ri­als would cost about a thou­sand crowns for each ex­am­ple. But if each copy were num­bered and the mould de­stroyed, it would cer­tain­ly be pos­si­ble to meet with twen­ty am­ateurs on­ly too glad to pos­sess a repli­ca of such a work.”

“A hun­dred thou­sand francs!” cried Stein­bock, look­ing from the deal­er to Hort­ense, the Baron, and the Baroness.

“Yes, a hun­dred thou­sand francs,” re­peat­ed the deal­er. “If I were rich enough, I would buy it of you my­self for twen­ty thou­sand francs; for by de­stroy­ing the mould it would be­come a valu­able prop­er­ty. But one of the princes ought to pay thir­ty or forty thou­sand francs for such a work to or­na­ment his draw­ing-​room. No man has ev­er suc­ceed­ed in mak­ing a clock sat­is­fac­to­ry alike to the vul­gar and to the con­nois­seur, and this one, sir, solves the dif­fi­cul­ty.”

“This is for your­self, mon­sieur,” said Hort­ense, giv­ing six gold pieces to the deal­er.

“Nev­er breath a word of this vis­it to any one liv­ing,” said the artist to his friend, at the door. “If you should be asked where we sold the group, men­tion the Duc d'Her­ou­ville, the fa­mous col­lec­tor in the Rue de Varenne.”

The deal­er nod­ded as­sent.

“And your name?” said Hu­lot to the artist when he came back.

“Count Stein­bock.”

“Have you the pa­pers that prove your iden­ti­ty?”

“Yes, Mon­sieur le Baron. They are in Rus­sian and in Ger­man, but not le­gal­ized.”

“Do you feel equal to un­der­tak­ing a stat­ue nine feet high?”

“Yes, mon­sieur.”

“Well, then, if the per­sons whom I shall con­sult are sat­is­fied with your work, I can se­cure you the com­mis­sion for the stat­ue of Mar­shal Mont­cor­net, which is to be erect­ed on his mon­ument at Pere-​Lachaise. The Min­is­ter of War and the old of­fi­cers of the Im­pe­ri­al Guard have sub­scribed a sum large enough to en­able us to se­lect our artist.”

“Oh, mon­sieur, it will make my for­tune!” ex­claimed Stein­bock, over­pow­ered by so much hap­pi­ness at once.

“Be easy,” replied the Baron gra­cious­ly. “If the two min­is­ters to whom I pro­pose to show your group and this sketch in wax are de­light­ed with these two pieces, your prospects of a for­tune are good.”

Hort­ense hugged her fa­ther's arm so tight­ly as to hurt him.

“Bring me your pa­pers, and say noth­ing of your hopes to any­body, not even to our old Cousin Bet­ty.”

“Lis­beth?” said Madame Hu­lot, at last un­der­stand­ing the end of all this, though un­able to guess the means.

“I could give proof of my skill by mak­ing a bust of the Baroness,” added Wences­las.

The artist, struck by Madame Hu­lot's beau­ty, was com­par­ing the moth­er and daugh­ter.

“In­deed, mon­sieur, life may smile up­on you,” said the Baron, quite charmed by Count Stein­bock's re­fined and el­egant man­ner. “You will find out that in Paris no man is clever for noth­ing, and that per­se­ver­ing toil al­ways finds its re­ward here.”

Hort­ense, with a blush, held out to the young man a pret­ty Al­ger­ine purse con­tain­ing six­ty gold pieces. The artist, with some­thing still of a gen­tle­man's pride, re­spond­ed with a mount­ing col­or easy enough to in­ter­pret.

“This, per­haps, is the first mon­ey your works have brought you?” said Ade­line.

“Yes, madame--my works of art. It is not the first-​fruits of my la­bor, for I have been a work­man.”

“Well, we must hope my daugh­ter's mon­ey will bring you good luck,” said she.

“And take it with­out scru­ple,” added the Baron, see­ing that Wences­las held the purse in his hand in­stead of pock­et­ing it. “The sum will be re­paid by some rich man, a prince per­haps, who will of­fer it with in­ter­est to pos­sess so fine a work.”

“Oh, I want it too much my­self, pa­pa, to give it up to any­body in the world, even a roy­al prince!”

“I can make a far pret­ti­er thing than that for you, made­moi­selle.”

“But it would not be this one,” replied she; and then, as if ashamed of hav­ing said too much, she ran out in­to the gar­den.

“Then I shall break the mould and the mod­el as soon as I go home,” said Stein­bock.

“Fetch me your pa­pers, and you will hear of me be­fore long, if you are equal to what I ex­pect of you, mon­sieur.”

The artist on this could but take leave. Af­ter bow­ing to Madame Hu­lot and Hort­ense, who came in from the gar­den on pur­pose, he went off to walk in the Tu­ileries, not bear­ing--not dar­ing--to re­turn to his at­tic, where his tyrant would pelt him with ques­tions and wring his se­cret from him.

Hort­ense's ador­er con­ceived of groups and stat­ues by the hun­dred; he felt strong enough to hew the mar­ble him­self, like Cano­va, who was al­so a fee­ble man, and near­ly died of it. He was trans­fig­ured by Hort­ense, who was to him in­spi­ra­tion made vis­ible.

“Now then,” said the Baroness to her daugh­ter, “what does all this mean?”

“Well, dear mam­ma, you have just seen Cousin Lis­beth's lover, who now, I hope, is mine. But shut your eyes, know noth­ing. Good Heav­ens! I was to keep it all from you, and I can­not help telling you ev­ery­thing----”

“Good-​bye, chil­dren!” said the Baron, kiss­ing his wife and daugh­ter; “I shall per­haps go to call on the Nan­ny, and from her I shall hear a great deal about our young man.”

“Pa­pa, be cau­tious!” said Hort­ense.

“Oh! lit­tle girl!” cried the Baroness when Hort­ense had poured out her po­em, of which the morn­ing's ad­ven­ture was the last can­to, “dear lit­tle girl, Art­less­ness will al­ways be the art­fulest puss on earth!”

Gen­uine pas­sions have an unerring in­stinct. Set a greedy man be­fore a dish of fruit and he will make no mis­take, but take the choic­est even with­out see­ing it. In the same way, if you al­low a girl who is well brought up to choose a hus­band for her­self, if she is in a po­si­tion to meet the man of her heart, rarely will she blun­der. The act of na­ture in such cas­es is known as love at first sight; and in love, first sight is prac­ti­cal­ly sec­ond sight.

The Baroness' sat­is­fac­tion, though dis­guised un­der ma­ter­nal dig­ni­ty, was as great as her daugh­ter's; for, of the three ways of mar­ry­ing Hort­ense of which Crev­el had spo­ken, the best, as she opined, was about to be re­al­ized. And she re­gard­ed this lit­tle dra­ma as an an­swer by Prov­idence to her fer­vent prayers.

Made­moi­selle Fis­ch­er's gal­ley slave, obliged at last to go home, thought he might hide his joy as a lover un­der his glee as an artist re­joic­ing over his first suc­cess.

“Vic­to­ry! my group is sold to the Duc d'Her­ou­ville, who is go­ing to give me some com­mis­sions,” cried he, throw­ing the twelve hun­dred francs in gold on the ta­ble be­fore the old maid.

He had, as may be sup­posed con­cealed Hort­ense's purse; it lay next to his heart.

“And a very good thing too,” said Lis­beth. “I was work­ing my­self to death. You see, child, mon­ey comes in slow­ly in the busi­ness you have tak­en up, for this is the first you have earned, and you have been grind­ing at it for near on five years now. That mon­ey bare­ly re­pays me for what you have cost me since I took your promis­so­ry note; that is all I have got by my sav­ings. But be sure of one thing,” she said, af­ter count­ing the gold, “this mon­ey will all be spent on you. There is enough there to keep us go­ing for a year. In a year you may now be able to pay your debt and have a snug lit­tle sum of your own, if you go on in the same way.”

Wences­las, find­ing his trick suc­cess­ful, ex­pa­ti­at­ed on the Duc d'Her­ou­ville.

“I will fit you out in a black suit, and get you some new linen,” said Lis­beth, “for you must ap­pear pre­sentably be­fore your pa­trons; and then you must have a larg­er and bet­ter apart­ment than your hor­ri­ble gar­ret, and fur­nish it prop­er­ty.--You look so bright, you are not like the same crea­ture,” she added, gaz­ing at Wences­las.

“But my work is pro­nounced a mas­ter­piece.”

“Well, so much the bet­ter! Do some more,” said the arid crea­ture, who was noth­ing but prac­ti­cal, and in­ca­pable of un­der­stand­ing the joy of tri­umph or of beau­ty in Art. “Trou­ble your head no fur­ther about what you have sold; make some­thing else to sell. You have spent two hun­dred francs in mon­ey, to say noth­ing of your time and your la­bor, on that dev­il of a _Sam­son_. Your clock will cost you more than two thou­sand francs to ex­ecute. I tell you what, if you will lis­ten to me, you will fin­ish the two lit­tle boys crown­ing the lit­tle girl with corn­flow­ers; that would just suit the Parisians.--I will go round to Mon­sieur Graff the tai­lor be­fore go­ing to Mon­sieur Crev­el.--Go up now and leave me to dress.”

Next day the Baron, per­fect­ly crazy about Madame Marn­effe, went to see Cousin Bet­ty, who was con­sid­er­ably amazed on open­ing the door to see who her vis­itor was, for he had nev­er called on her be­fore. She at once said to her­self, “Can it be that Hort­ense wants my lover?”--for she had heard the evening be­fore, at Mon­sieur Crev­el's, that the mar­riage with the Coun­cil­lor of the Supreme Court was bro­ken off.

“What, Cousin! you here? This is the first time you have ev­er been to see me, and it is cer­tain­ly not for love of my fine eyes that you have come now.”

“Fine eyes is the truth,” said the Baron; “you have as fine eyes as I have ev­er seen----”

“Come, what are you here for? I re­al­ly am ashamed to re­ceive you in such a ken­nel.”

The out­er room of the two in­hab­it­ed by Lis­beth served her as sit­ting-​room, din­ing-​room, kitchen, and work­room. The fur­ni­ture was such as be­seemed a well-​to-​do ar­ti­san--wal­nut-​wood chairs with straw seats, a small wal­nut-​wood din­ing ta­ble, a work ta­ble, some col­ored prints in black wood­en frames, short muslin cur­tains to the win­dows, the floor well pol­ished and shin­ing with clean­li­ness, not a speck of dust any­where, but all cold and dingy, like a pic­ture by Ter­burg in ev­ery par­tic­ular, even to the gray tone giv­en by a wall pa­per once blue and now fad­ed to gray. As to the bed­room, no hu­man be­ing had ev­er pen­etrat­ed its se­crets.

The Baron took it all in at a glance, saw the sign-​man­ual of com­mon­ness on ev­ery de­tail, from the cast-​iron stove to the house­hold uten­sils, and his gorge rose as he said to him­self, “And _this_ is virtue!--What am I here for?” said he aloud. “You are far too cun­ning not to guess, and I had bet­ter tell you plain­ly,” cried he, sit­ting down and look­ing out across the court­yard through an open­ing he made in the puck­ered cur­tain. “There is a very pret­ty wom­an in the house----”

“Madame Marn­effe! Now I un­der­stand!” she ex­claimed, see­ing it all. “But Josepha?”

“Alas, Cousin, Josepha is no more. I was turned out of doors like a dis­card­ed foot­man.”

“And you would like . . .?” said Lis­beth, look­ing at the Baron with the dig­ni­ty of a prude on her guard a quar­ter of an hour too soon.

“As Madame Marn­effe is very much the la­dy, and the wife of an em­ploye, you can meet her with­out com­pro­mis­ing your­self,” the Baron went on, “and I should like to see you neigh­bor­ly. Oh! you need not be alarmed; she will have the great­est con­sid­er­ation for the cousin of her hus­band's chief.”

At this mo­ment the rus­tle of a gown was heard on the stairs and the foot­step of a wom­an wear­ing the thinnest boots. The sound ceased on the land­ing. There was a tap at the door, and Madame Marn­effe came in.

“Pray ex­cuse me, made­moi­selle, for thus in­trud­ing up­on you, but I failed to find you yes­ter­day when I came to call; we are near neigh­bors; and if I had known that you were re­lat­ed to Mon­sieur le Baron, I should long since have craved your kind in­ter­est with him. I saw him come in, so I took the lib­er­ty of com­ing across; for my hus­band, Mon­sieur le Baron, spoke to me of a re­port on the of­fice clerks which is to be laid be­fore the min­is­ter to-​mor­row.”

She seemed quite ag­itat­ed and ner­vous--but she had on­ly run up­stairs.

“You have no need to play the pe­ti­tion­er, fair la­dy,” replied the Baron. “It is I who should ask the fa­vor of see­ing you.”

“Very well, if made­moi­selle al­lows it, pray come!” said Madame Marn­effe.

“Yes--go, Cousin, I will join you,” said Lis­beth ju­di­cious­ly.

The Parisi­enne had so con­fi­dent­ly count­ed on the chief's vis­it and in­tel­li­gence, that not on­ly had she dressed her­self for so im­por­tant an in­ter­view--she had dressed her room. Ear­ly in the day it had been fur­nished with flow­ers pur­chased on cred­it. Marn­effe had helped his wife to pol­ish the fur­ni­ture, down to the small­est ob­jects, wash­ing, brush­ing, and dust­ing ev­ery­thing. Va­lerie wished to be found in an at­mo­sphere of sweet­ness, to at­tract the chief and to please him enough to have a right to be cru­el; to tan­ta­lize him as a child would, with all the tricks of fash­ion­able tac­tics. She had gauged Hu­lot. Give a Paris wom­an at bay four-​and-​twen­ty hours, and she will over­throw a min­istry.

The man of the Em­pire, ac­cus­tomed to the ways to the Em­pire, was no doubt quite ig­no­rant of the ways of mod­ern love-​mak­ing, of the scru­ples in vogue and the var­ious styles of con­ver­sa­tion in­vent­ed since 1830, which led to the poor weak wom­an be­ing re­gard­ed as the vic­tim of her lover's de­sires--a Sis­ter of Char­ity salv­ing a wound, an an­gel sac­ri­fic­ing her­self.

This mod­ern art of love us­es a vast amount of evan­gel­ical phras­es in the ser­vice of the Dev­il. Pas­sion is mar­tyr­dom. Both par­ties as­pire to the Ide­al, to the In­fi­nite; love is to make them so much bet­ter. All these fine words are but a pre­text for putting in­creased ar­dor in­to the prac­ti­cal side of it, more fren­zy in­to a fall than of old. This hypocrisy, a char­ac­ter­is­tic of the times, is a gan­grene in gal­lantry. The lovers are both an­gels, and they be­have, if they can, like two dev­ils.

Love had no time for such sub­tle anal­ysis be­tween two cam­paigns, and in 1809 its suc­cess­es were as rapid as those of the Em­pire. So, un­der the Restora­tion, the hand­some Baron, a la­dy's man once more, had be­gun by con­sol­ing some old friends now fall­en from the po­lit­ical fir­ma­ment, like ex­tin­guished stars, and then, as he grew old, was cap­tured by Jen­ny Ca­dine and Josepha.

Madame Marn­effe had placed her bat­ter­ies af­ter due study of the Baron's past life, which her hus­band had nar­rat­ed in much de­tail, af­ter pick­ing up some in­for­ma­tion in the of­fices. The com­edy of mod­ern sen­ti­ment might have the charm of nov­el­ty to the Baron; Va­lerie had made up her mind as to her scheme; and we may say the tri­al of her pow­er that she made this morn­ing an­swered her high­est ex­pec­ta­tions. Thanks to her ma­noeu­vres, sen­ti­men­tal, high-​flown, and ro­man­tic, Va­lerie, with­out com­mit­ting her­self to any promis­es, ob­tained for her hus­band the ap­point­ment as deputy head of the of­fice and the Cross of the Le­gion of Hon­or.

The cam­paign was not car­ried out with­out lit­tle din­ners at the _Rocher de Can­cale_, par­ties to the play, and gifts in the form of lace, scarves, gowns, and jew­el­ry. The apart­ment in the Rue du Doyenne was not sat­is­fac­to­ry; the Baron pro­posed to fur­nish an­oth­er mag­nif­icent­ly in a charm­ing new house in the Rue Van­neau.

Mon­sieur Marn­effe got a fort­night's leave, to be tak­en a month hence for ur­gent pri­vate af­fairs in the coun­try, and a present in mon­ey; he promised him­self that he would spend both in a lit­tle town in Switzer­land, study­ing the fair sex.

While Mon­sieur Hu­lot thus de­vot­ed him­self to the la­dy he was “pro­tect­ing,” he did not for­get the young artist. Comte Popinot, Min­is­ter of Com­merce, was a pa­tron of Art; he paid two thou­sand francs for a copy of the _Sam­son_ on con­di­tion that the mould should be bro­ken, and that there should be no _Sam­son_ but his and Made­moi­selle Hu­lot's. The group was ad­mired by a Prince, to whom the mod­el sketch for the clock was al­so shown, and who or­dered it; but that again was to be unique, and he of­fered thir­ty thou­sand francs for it.

Artists who were con­sult­ed, and among them Stid­mann, were of opin­ion that the man who had sketched those two mod­els was ca­pa­ble of achiev­ing a stat­ue. The Mar­shal Prince de Wis­sem­bourg, Min­is­ter of War, and Pres­ident of the Com­mit­tee for the sub­scrip­tions to the mon­ument of Mar­shal Mont­cor­net, called a meet­ing, at which it was de­cid­ed that the ex­ecu­tion of the work should be placed in Stein­bock's hands. The Comte de Rastignac, at that time Un­der-​sec­re­tary of State, wished to pos­sess a work by the artist, whose glo­ry was wax­ing amid the ac­cla­ma­tions of his ri­vals. Stein­bock sold to him the charm­ing group of two lit­tle boys crown­ing a lit­tle girl, and he promised to se­cure for the sculp­tor a stu­dio at­tached to the Gov­ern­ment mar­ble-​quar­ries, sit­uat­ed, as all the world knows, at Le Gros-​Cail­lou.

This was a suc­cess, such suc­cess as is won in Paris, that is to say, stu­pen­dous suc­cess, that crush­es those whose shoul­ders and loins are not strong enough to bear it--as, be it said, not un­fre­quent­ly is the case. Count Wences­las Stein­bock was writ­ten about in all the news­pa­pers and re­views with­out his hav­ing the least sus­pi­cion of it, any more than had Made­moi­selle Fis­ch­er. Ev­ery day, as soon as Lis­beth had gone out to din­ner, Wences­las went to the Baroness' and spent an hour or two there, ex­cept­ing on the evenings when Lis­beth dined with the Hu­lots.

This state of things last­ed for sev­er­al days.

The Baron, as­sured of Count Stein­bock's ti­tles and po­si­tion; the Baroness, pleased with his char­ac­ter and habits; Hort­ense, proud of her per­mit­ted love and of her suit­or's fame, none of them hes­itat­ed to speak of the mar­riage; in short, the artist was in the sev­enth heav­en, when an in­dis­cre­tion on Madame Marn­effe's part spoilt all.

And this was how.

Lis­beth, whom the Baron wished to see in­ti­mate with Madame Marn­effe, that she might keep an eye on the cou­ple, had al­ready dined with Va­lerie; and she, on her part, anx­ious to have an ear in the Hu­lot house, made much of the old maid. It oc­curred to Va­lerie to in­vite Made­moi­selle Fis­ch­er to a house-​warm­ing in the new apart­ments she was about to move in­to. Lis­beth, glad to have found an­oth­er house to dine in, and be­witched by Madame Marn­effe, had tak­en a great fan­cy to Va­lerie. Of all the per­sons she had made ac­quain­tance with, no one had tak­en so much pains to please her. In fact, Madame Marn­effe, full of at­ten­tions for Made­moi­selle Fis­ch­er, found her­self in the po­si­tion to­wards Lis­beth that Lis­beth held to­wards the Baroness, Mon­sieur Riv­et, Crev­el, and the oth­ers who in­vit­ed her to din­ner.

The Marn­effes had ex­cit­ed Lis­beth's com­pas­sion by al­low­ing her to see the ex­treme pover­ty of the house, while var­nish­ing it as usu­al with the fairest col­ors; their friends were un­der obli­ga­tions to them and un­grate­ful; they had had much ill­ness; Madame Fortin, her moth­er, had nev­er known of their dis­tress, and had died be­liev­ing her­self wealthy to the end, thanks to their su­per­hu­man ef­forts--and so forth.

“Poor peo­ple!” said she to her Cousin Hu­lot, “you are right to do what you can for them; they are so brave and so kind! They can hard­ly live on the thou­sand crowns he gets as deputy-​head of the of­fice, for they have got in­to debt since Mar­shal Mont­cor­net's death. It is bar­bar­ity on the part of the Gov­ern­ment to sup­pose that a clerk with a wife and fam­ily can live in Paris on two thou­sand four hun­dred francs a year.”

And so, with­in a very short time, a young wom­an who af­fect­ed re­gard for her, who told her ev­ery­thing, and con­sult­ed her, who flat­tered her, and seemed ready to yield to her guid­ance, had be­come dear­er to the ec­cen­tric Cousin Lis­beth than all her re­la­tions.

The Baron, on his part, ad­mir­ing in Madame Marn­effe such pro­pri­ety, ed­uca­tion, and breed­ing as nei­ther Jen­ny Ca­dine nor Josepha, nor any friend of theirs had to show, had fall­en in love with her in a month, de­vel­op­ing a se­nile pas­sion, a sense­less pas­sion, which had an ap­pear­ance of rea­son. In fact, he found here nei­ther the ban­ter, nor the or­gies, nor the reck­less ex­pen­di­ture, nor the de­prav­ity, nor the scorn of so­cial de­cen­cies, nor the in­so­lent in­de­pen­dence which had brought him to grief alike with the ac­tress and the singer. He was spared, too, the ra­pac­ity of the cour­te­san, like un­to the thirst of dry sand.

Madame Marn­effe, of whom he had made a friend and con­fi­dante, made the great­est dif­fi­cul­ties over ac­cept­ing any gift from him.

“Ap­point­ments, of­fi­cial presents, any­thing you can ex­tract from the Gov­ern­ment; but do not be­gin by in­sult­ing a wom­an whom you pro­fess to love,” said Va­lerie. “If you do, I shall cease to be­lieve you--and I like to be­lieve you,” she added, with a glance like Saint There­sa leer­ing at heav­en.

Ev­ery time he made her a present there was a fortress to be stormed, a con­science to be over-​per­suad­ed. The hap­less Baron laid deep stratagems to of­fer her some tri­fle--cost­ly, nev­er­the­less--proud of hav­ing at last met with virtue and the re­al­iza­tion of his dreams. In this prim­itive house­hold, as he as­sured him­self, he was the god as much as in his own. And Mon­sieur Marn­effe seemed at a thou­sand leagues from sus­pect­ing that the Jupiter of his of­fice in­tend­ed to de­scend on his wife in a show­er of gold; he was his au­gust chief's hum­blest slave.

Madame Marn­effe, twen­ty-​three years of age, a pure and bash­ful mid­dle-​class wife, a blos­som hid­den in the Rue du Doyenne, could know noth­ing of the de­prav­ity and de­mor­al­iz­ing har­lotry which the Baron could no longer think of with­out dis­gust, for he had nev­er known the charm of re­cal­ci­trant virtue, and the coy Va­lerie made him en­joy it to the ut­most--all along the line, as the say­ing goes.

The ques­tion hav­ing come to this point be­tween Hec­tor and Va­lerie, it is not as­ton­ish­ing that Va­lerie should have heard from Hec­tor the se­cret of the in­tend­ed mar­riage be­tween the great sculp­tor Stein­bock and Hort­ense Hu­lot. Be­tween a lover on his pro­mo­tion and a la­dy who hes­itates long be­fore be­com­ing his mis­tress, there are con­tests, ut­tered or un­ex­pressed, in which a word of­ten be­trays a thought; as, in fenc­ing, the foils fly as briskly as the swords in du­el. Then a pru­dent man fol­lows the ex­am­ple of Mon­sieur de Turenne. Thus the Baron had hint­ed at the greater free­dom his daugh­ter's mar­riage would al­low him, in re­ply to the ten­der Va­lerie, who more than once had ex­claimed:

“I can­not imag­ine how a wom­an can go wrong for a man who is not whol­ly hers.”

And a thou­sand times al­ready the Baron had de­clared that for five-​and-​twen­ty years all had been at an end be­tween Madame Hu­lot and him­self.

“And they say she is so hand­some!” replied Madame Marn­effe. “I want proof.”

“You shall have it,” said the Baron, made hap­py by this de­mand, by which his Va­lerie com­mit­ted her­self.

Hec­tor had then been com­pelled to re­veal his plans, al­ready be­ing car­ried in­to ef­fect in the Rue Van­neau, to prove to Va­lerie that he in­tend­ed to de­vote to her that half of his life which be­longed to his law­ful wife, sup­pos­ing that day and night equal­ly di­vide the ex­is­tence of civ­ilized hu­man­ity. He spoke of de­cent­ly de­sert­ing his wife, leav­ing her to her­self as soon as Hort­ense should be mar­ried. The Baroness would then spend all her time with Hort­ense or the young Hu­lot cou­ple; he was sure of her sub­mis­sion.

“And then, my an­gel, my true life, my re­al home will be in the Rue Van­neau.”

“Bless me, how you dis­pose of me!” said Madame Marn­effe. “And my hus­band----”

“That rag!”

“To be sure, as com­pared with you so he is!” said she with a laugh.

Madame Marn­effe, hav­ing heard Stein­bock's his­to­ry, was fran­ti­cal­ly ea­ger to see the young Count; per­haps she wished to have some tri­fle of his work while they still lived un­der the same roof. This cu­rios­ity so se­ri­ous­ly an­noyed the Baron that Va­lerie swore to him that she would nev­er even look at Wences­las. But though she ob­tained, as the re­ward of her sur­ren­der of this wish, a lit­tle tea-​ser­vice of old Sevres _pate ten­dre_, she kept her wish at the bot­tom of her heart, as if writ­ten on tablets.

So one day when she had begged “_my_ Cousin Bet­ty” to come to take cof­fee with her in her room, she opened on the sub­ject of her lover, to know how she might see him with­out risk.

“My dear child,” said she, for they called each my dear, “why have you nev­er in­tro­duced your lover to me? Do you know that with­in a short time he has be­come fa­mous?”

“He fa­mous?”

“He is the one sub­ject of con­ver­sa­tion.”

“Pooh!” cried Lis­beth.

“He is go­ing to ex­ecute the stat­ue of my fa­ther, and I could be of great use to him and help him to suc­ceed in the work; for Madame Mont­cor­net can­not lend him, as I can, a minia­ture by Sain, a beau­ti­ful thing done in 1809, be­fore the Wa­gram Cam­paign, and giv­en to my poor moth­er--Mont­cor­net when he was young and hand­some.”

Sain and Au­gustin be­tween them held the scep­tre of minia­ture paint­ing un­der the Em­pire.

“He is go­ing to make a stat­ue, my dear, did you say?”

“Nine feet high--by the or­ders of the Min­is­ter of War. Why, where have you dropped from that I should tell you the news? Why, the Gov­ern­ment is go­ing to give Count Stein­bock rooms and a stu­dio at Le Gros-​Cail­lou, the de­pot for mar­ble; your Pole will be made the Di­rec­tor, I should not won­der, with two thou­sand francs a year and a ring on his fin­ger.”

“How do you know all this when I have heard noth­ing about it?” said Lis­beth at last, shak­ing off her amaze­ment.

“Now, my dear lit­tle Cousin Bet­ty,” said Madame Marn­effe, in an in­sin­uat­ing voice, “are you ca­pa­ble of de­vot­ed friend­ship, put to any test? Shall we hence­forth be sis­ters? Will you swear to me nev­er to have a se­cret from me any more than I from you--to act as my spy, as I will be yours?--Above all, will you pledge your­self nev­er to be­tray me ei­ther to my hus­band or to Mon­sieur Hu­lot, and nev­er re­veal that it was I who told you----?”

Madame Marn­effe broke off in this spurring ha­rangue; Lis­beth fright­ened her. The peas­ant-​wom­an's face was ter­ri­ble; her pierc­ing black eyes had the glare of the tiger's; her face was like that we as­cribe to a pythoness; she set her teeth to keep them from chat­ter­ing, and her whole frame quiv­ered con­vul­sive­ly. She had pushed her clenched fin­gers un­der her cap to clutch her hair and sup­port her head, which felt too heavy; she was on fire. The smoke of the flame that scorched her seemed to em­anate from her wrin­kles as from the crevass­es rent by a vol­canic erup­tion. It was a startling spec­ta­cle.

“Well, why do you stop?” she asked in a hol­low voice. “I will be all to you that I have been to him.--Oh, I would have giv­en him my life-​blood!”

“You loved him then?”

“Like a child of my own!”

“Well, then,” said Madame Marn­effe, with a breath of re­lief, “if you on­ly love him in that way, you will be very hap­py--for you wish him to be hap­py?”

Lis­beth replied by a nod as hasty as a mad­wom­an's.

“He is to mar­ry your Cousin Hort­ense in a month's time.”

“Hort­ense!” shrieked the old maid, strik­ing her fore­head, and start­ing to her feet.

“Well, but then you were re­al­ly in love with this young man?” asked Va­lerie.

“My dear, we are bound for life and death, you and I,” said Made­moi­selle Fis­ch­er. “Yes, if you have any love af­fairs, to me they are sa­cred. Your vices will be virtues in my eyes.--For I shall need your vices!”

“Then did you live with him?” asked Va­lerie.

“No; I meant to be a moth­er to him.”

“I give it up. I can­not un­der­stand,” said Va­lerie. “In that case you are nei­ther be­trayed nor cheat­ed, and you ought to be very hap­py to see him so well mar­ried; he is now fair­ly afloat. And, at any rate, your day is over. Our artist goes to Madame Hu­lot's ev­ery evening as soon as you go out to din­ner.”

“Ade­line!” mut­tered Lis­beth. “Oh, Ade­line, you shall pay for this! I will make you ugli­er than I am.”

“You are as pale as death!” ex­claimed Va­lerie. “There is some­thing wrong?--Oh, what a fool I am! The moth­er and daugh­ter must have sus­pect­ed that you would raise some ob­sta­cles in the way of this af­fair since they have kept it from you,” said Madame Marn­effe. “But if you did not live with the young man, my dear, all this is a greater puz­zle to me than my hus­band's feel­ings----”

“Ah, you don't know,” said Lis­beth; “you have no idea of all their tricks. It is the last blow that kills. And how many such blows have I had to bruise my soul! You don't know that from the time when I could first feel, I have been vic­tim­ized for Ade­line. I was beat­en, and she was pet­ted; I was dressed like a scul­lion, and she had clothes like a la­dy's; I dug in the gar­den and cleaned the veg­eta­bles, and she--she nev­er lift­ed a fin­ger for any­thing but to make up some fin­ery!--She mar­ried the Baron, she came to shine at the Em­per­or's Court, while I stayed in our vil­lage till 1809, wait­ing for four years for a suit­able match; they brought me away, to be sure, but on­ly to make me a work-​wom­an, and to of­fer me clerks or cap­tains like coal­heavers for a hus­band! I have had their leav­ings for twen­ty-​six years!--And now like the sto­ry in the Old Tes­ta­ment, the poor re­la­tion has one ewe-​lamb which is all her joy, and the rich man who has flocks cov­ets the ewe-​lamb and steals it--with­out warn­ing, with­out ask­ing. Ade­line has mean­ly robbed me of my hap­pi­ness!--Ade­line! Ade­line! I will see you in the mire, and sunk low­er than my­self!--And Hort­ense--I loved her, and she has cheat­ed me. The Baron.--No, it is im­pos­si­ble. Tell me again what is re­al­ly true of all this.”

“Be calm, my dear child.”

“Va­lerie, my dar­ling, I will be calm,” said the strange crea­ture, sit­ting down again. “One thing on­ly can re­store me to rea­son; give me proofs.”

“Your Cousin Hort­ense has the _Sam­son_ group--here is a litho­graph from it pub­lished in a re­view. She paid for it out of her pock­et-​mon­ey, and it is the Baron who, to ben­efit his fu­ture son-​in-​law, is push­ing him, get­ting ev­ery­thing for him.”

“Wa­ter!--wa­ter!” said Lis­beth, af­ter glanc­ing at the print, be­low which she read, “A group be­long­ing to Made­moi­selle Hu­lot d'Ervy.” “Wa­ter! my head is burn­ing, I am go­ing mad!”

Madame Marn­effe fetched some wa­ter. Lis­beth took off her cap, un­fas­tened her black hair, and plunged her head in­to the basin her new friend held for her. She dipped her fore­head in­to it sev­er­al times, and checked the in­cip­ient in­flam­ma­tion. Af­ter this douche she com­plete­ly re­cov­ered her self-​com­mand.

“Not a word,” said she to Madame Marn­effe as she wiped her face--“not a word of all this.--You see, I am quite calm; ev­ery­thing is for­got­ten. I am think­ing of some­thing very dif­fer­ent.”

“She will be in Char­en­ton to-​mor­row, that is very cer­tain,” thought Madame Marn­effe, look­ing at the old maid.

“What is to be done?” Lis­beth went on. “You see, my an­gel, there is noth­ing for it but to hold my tongue, bow my head, and drift to the grave, as all wa­ter runs to the riv­er. What could I try to do? I should like to grind them all--Ade­line, her daugh­ter, and the Baron --all to dust! But what can a poor re­la­tion do against a rich fam­ily? It would be the sto­ry of the earth­en pot and the iron pot.”

“Yes; you are right,” said Va­lerie. “You can on­ly pull as much hay as you can to your side of the manger. That is all the up­shot of life in Paris.”

“Be­sides,” said Lis­beth, “I shall soon die, I can tell you, if I lose that boy to whom I fan­cied I could al­ways be a moth­er, and with whom I count­ed on liv­ing all my days----”

There were tears in her eyes, and she paused. Such emo­tion in this wom­an made of sul­phur and flame, made Va­lerie shud­der.

“Well, at any rate, I have found you,” said Lis­beth, tak­ing Va­lerie's hand, “that is some con­so­la­tion in this dread­ful trou­ble.--We shall be true friends; and why should we ev­er part? I shall nev­er cross your track. No one will ev­er be in love with me!--Those who would have mar­ried me, would on­ly have done it to se­cure my Cousin Hu­lot's in­ter­est. With en­er­gy enough to scale Par­adise, to have to de­vote it to procur­ing bread and wa­ter, a few rags, and a gar­ret!--That is mar­tyr­dom, my dear, and I have with­ered un­der it.”

She broke off sud­den­ly, and shot a black flash in­to Madame Marn­effe's blue eyes, a glance that pierced the pret­ty wom­an's soul, as the point of a dag­ger might have pierced her heart.

“And what is the use of talk­ing?” she ex­claimed in re­proof to her­self. “I nev­er said so much be­fore, be­lieve me! The ta­bles will be turned yet!” she added af­ter a pause. “As you so wise­ly say, let us sharp­en our teeth, and pull down all the hay we can get.”

“You are very wise,” said Madame Marn­effe, who had been fright­ened by this scene, and had no re­mem­brance of hav­ing ut­tered this max­im. “I am sure you are right, my dear child. Life is not so long af­ter all, and we must make the best of it, and make use of oth­ers to con­tribute to our en­joy­ment. Even I have learned that, young as I am. I was brought up a spoilt child, my fa­ther mar­ried am­bi­tious­ly, and al­most for­got me, af­ter mak­ing me his idol and bring­ing me up like a queen's daugh­ter! My poor moth­er, who filled my head with splen­did vi­sions, died of grief at see­ing me mar­ried to an of­fice clerk with twelve hun­dred francs a year, at nine-​and-​thir­ty an aged and hard­ened lib­er­tine, as cor­rupt as the hulks, look­ing on me, as oth­ers looked on you, as a means of for­tune!--Well, in that wretched man, I have found the best of hus­bands. He prefers the squalid sluts he picks up at the street cor­ners, and leaves me free. Though he keeps all his salary to him­self, he nev­er asks me where I get mon­ey to live on----”

And she in her turn stopped short, as a wom­an does who feels her­self car­ried away by the tor­rent of her con­fes­sions; struck, too, by Lis­beth's ea­ger at­ten­tion, she thought well to make sure of Lis­beth be­fore re­veal­ing her last se­crets.

“You see, dear child, how en­tire is my con­fi­dence in you!” she present­ly added, to which Lis­beth replied by a most com­fort­ing nod.

An oath may be tak­en by a look and a nod more solemn­ly than in a court of jus­tice.

“I keep up ev­ery ap­pear­ance of re­spectabil­ity,” Va­lerie went on, lay­ing her hand on Lis­beth's as if to ac­cept her pledge. "I am a mar­ried wom­an, and my own mis­tress, to such a de­gree, that in the morn­ing, when Marn­effe sets out for the of­fice, if he takes it in­to his head to say good-​bye and finds my door locked, he goes off with­out a word. He cares less for his boy than I care for one of the mar­ble chil­dren that play at the feet of one of the riv­er-​gods in the Tu­ileries. If I do not come home to din­ner, he dines quite con­tent­ed­ly with the maid, for the maid is de­vot­ed to mon­sieur; and he goes out ev­ery evening af­ter din­ner, and does not come in till twelve or one o'clock. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, for a year past, I have had no ladies' maid, which is as much as to say that I am a wid­ow!

“I have had one pas­sion, once have been hap­py--a rich Brazil­ian--who went away a year ago--my on­ly lapse!--He went away to sell his es­tates, to re­al­ize his land, and come back to live in France. What will he find left of his Va­lerie? A dunghill. Well! it is his fault and not mine; why does he de­lay com­ing so long? Per­haps he has been wrecked--like my virtue.”

“Good-​bye, my dear,” said Lis­beth abrupt­ly; “we are friends for ev­er. I love you, I es­teem you, I am whol­ly yours! My cousin is tor­ment­ing me to go and live in the house you are mov­ing to, in the Rue Van­neau; but I would not go, for I saw at once the rea­sons for this fresh piece of kind­ness----”

“Yes; you would have kept an eye on me, I know!” said Madame Marn­effe.

“That was, no doubt, the mo­tive of his gen­eros­ity,” replied Lis­beth. “In Paris, most benef­icence is a spec­ula­tion, as most acts of in­grat­itude are re­venge! To a poor re­la­tion you be­have as you do to rats to whom you of­fer a bit of ba­con. Now, I will ac­cept the Baron's of­fer, for this house has grown in­tol­er­able to me. You and I have wit enough to hold our tongues about ev­ery­thing that would dam­age us, and tell all that needs telling. So, no blab­bing--and we are friends.”

“Through thick and thin!” cried Madame Marn­effe, de­light­ed to have a sheep-​dog, a con­fi­dante, a sort of re­spectable aunt. “Lis­ten to me; the Baron is do­ing a great deal in the Rue Van­neau----”

“I be­lieve you!” in­ter­rupt­ed Lis­beth. “He has spent thir­ty thou­sand francs! Where he got the mon­ey, I am sure I don't know, for Josepha the singer bled him dry.--Oh! you are in luck,” she went on. “The Baron would steal for a wom­an who held his heart in two lit­tle white satin hands like yours!”

“Well, then,” said Madame Marn­effe, with the lib­er­al­ity of such crea­tures, which is mere reck­less­ness, “look here, my dear child; take away from here ev­ery­thing that may serve your turn in your new quar­ters--that chest of draw­ers, that wardrobe and mir­ror, the car­pet, the cur­tains----”

Lis­beth's eyes di­lat­ed with ex­ces­sive joy; she was in­cred­ulous of such a gift.

“You are do­ing more for me in a breath than my rich re­la­tions have done in thir­ty years!” she ex­claimed. “They have nev­er even asked them­selves whether I had any fur­ni­ture at all. On his first vis­it, a few weeks ago, the Baron made a rich man's face on see­ing how poor I was.--Thank you, my dear; and I will give you your mon­ey's worth, you will see how by and by.”

Va­lerie went out on the land­ing with _her_ Cousin Bet­ty, and the two wom­en em­braced.

“Pouh! How she stinks of hard work!” said the pret­ty lit­tle wom­an to her­self when she was alone. “I shall not em­brace you of­ten, my dear cousin! At the same time, I must look sharp. She must be skil­ful­ly man­aged, for she can be of use, and help me to make my for­tune.”

Like the true Cre­ole of Paris, Madame Marn­effe ab­horred trou­ble; she had the calm in­dif­fer­ence of a cat, which nev­er jumps or runs but when urged by ne­ces­si­ty. To her, life must be all plea­sure; and the plea­sure with­out dif­fi­cul­ties. She loved flow­ers, pro­vid­ed they were brought to her. She could not imag­ine go­ing to the play but to a good box, at her own com­mand, and in a car­riage to take her there. Va­lerie in­her­it­ed these cour­te­san tastes from her moth­er, on whom Gen­er­al Mont­cor­net had lav­ished lux­ury when he was in Paris, and who for twen­ty years had seen all the world at her feet; who had been waste­ful and prodi­gal, squan­der­ing her all in the lux­uri­ous liv­ing of which the pro­gramme has been lost since the fall of Napoleon.

The grandees of the Em­pire were a match in their fol­lies for the great no­bles of the last cen­tu­ry. Un­der the Restora­tion the no­bil­ity can­not for­get that it has been beat­en and robbed, and so, with two or three ex­cep­tions, it has be­come thrifty, pru­dent, and stay-​at-​home, in short, bour­geois and penu­ri­ous. Since then, 1830 has crowned the work of 1793. In France, hence­forth, there will be great names, but no great hous­es, un­less there should be po­lit­ical changes which we can hard­ly fore­see. Ev­ery­thing takes the stamp of in­di­vid­ual­ity. The wis­est in­vest in an­nu­ities. Fam­ily pride is de­stroyed.

The bit­ter pres­sure of pover­ty which had stung Va­lerie to the quick on the day when, to use Marn­effe's ex­pres­sion, she had “caught on” with Hu­lot, had brought the young wom­an to the con­clu­sion that she would make a for­tune by means of her good looks. So, for some days, she had been feel­ing the need of hav­ing a friend about her to take the place of a moth­er--a de­vot­ed friend, to whom such things may be told as must be hid­den from a wait­ing-​maid, and who could act, come and go, and think for her, a beast of bur­den re­signed to an un­equal share of life. Now, she, quite as keen­ly as Lis­beth, had un­der­stood the Baron's mo­tives for fos­ter­ing the in­ti­ma­cy be­tween his cousin and her­self.

Prompt­ed by the formidable per­spi­cac­ity of the Parisian half-​breed, who spends her days stretched on a so­fa, turn­ing the lantern of her de­tec­tive spir­it on the ob­scurest depths of souls, sen­ti­ments, and in­trigues, she had de­cid­ed on mak­ing an al­ly of the spy. This supreme­ly rash step was, per­haps pre­med­itat­ed; she had dis­cerned the true na­ture of this ar­dent crea­ture, burn­ing with wast­ed pas­sion, and meant to at­tach her to her­self. Thus, their con­ver­sa­tion was like the stone a trav­el­er casts in­to an abyss to demon­strate its depth. And Madame Marn­effe had been ter­ri­fied to find this old maid a com­bi­na­tion of Ia­go and Richard III., so fee­ble as she seemed, so hum­ble, and so lit­tle to be feared.

For that in­stant, Lis­beth Fis­ch­er had been her re­al self; that Cor­si­can and sav­age tem­per­ament, burst­ing the slen­der bonds that held it un­der, had sprung up to its ter­ri­ble height, as the branch of a tree flies up from the hand of a child that has bent it down to gath­er the green fruit.

To those who study the so­cial world, it must al­ways be a mat­ter of as­ton­ish­ment to see the ful­ness, the per­fec­tion, and the ra­pid­ity with which an idea de­vel­ops in a vir­gin na­ture.

Vir­gin­ity, like ev­ery oth­er mon­stros­ity, has its spe­cial rich­ness, its ab­sorb­ing great­ness. Life, whose forces are al­ways econ­omized, as­sumes in the vir­gin crea­ture an in­cal­cu­la­ble pow­er of re­sis­tance and en­durance. The brain is re­in­forced in the sum-​to­tal of its re­served en­er­gy. When re­al­ly chaste na­tures need to call on the re­sources of body or soul, and are re­quired to act or to think, they have mus­cles of steel, or in­tu­itive knowl­edge in their in­tel­li­gence--di­abol­ical strength, or the black mag­ic of the Will.

From this point of view the Vir­gin Mary, even if we re­gard her on­ly as a sym­bol, is supreme­ly great above ev­ery oth­er type, whether Hin­doo, Egyp­tian, or Greek. Vir­gin­ity, the moth­er of great things, _magna parens re­rum_, holds in her fair white hands the keys of the up­per worlds. In short, that grand and ter­ri­ble ex­cep­tion de­serves all the hon­ors de­creed to her by the Catholic Church.

Thus, in one mo­ment, Lis­beth Fis­ch­er had be­come the Mo­hi­can whose snares none can es­cape, whose dis­sim­ula­tion is in­scrutable, whose swift de­ci­sive­ness is the out­come of the in­cred­ible per­fec­tion of ev­ery or­gan of sense. She was Ha­tred and Re­venge, as im­pla­ca­ble as they are in Italy, Spain, and the East. These two feel­ings, the ob­verse of friend­ship and love car­ried to the ut­most, are known on­ly in lands scorched by the sun. But Lis­beth was al­so a daugh­ter of Lor­raine, bent on de­ceit.

She ac­cept­ed this de­tail of her part against her will; she be­gan by mak­ing a cu­ri­ous at­tempt, due to her ig­no­rance. She fan­cied, as chil­dren do, that be­ing im­pris­oned meant the same thing as soli­tary con­fine­ment. But this is the su­perla­tive de­gree of im­pris­on­ment, and that su­perla­tive is the priv­ilege of the Crim­inal Bench.

As soon as she left Madame Marn­effe, Lis­beth hur­ried off to Mon­sieur Riv­et, and found him in his of­fice.

“Well, my dear Mon­sieur Riv­et,” she be­gan, when she had bolt­ed the door of the room. “You were quite right. Those Poles! They are low vil­lains--all alike, men who know nei­ther law nor fi­deli­ty.”

“And who want to set Eu­rope on fire,” said the peace­able Riv­et, "to ru­in ev­ery trade and ev­ery trad­er for the sake of a coun­try that is all bog-​land, they say, and full of hor­ri­ble Jews, to say noth­ing of the Cos­sacks and the peas­ants--a sort of wild beasts classed by mis­take with hu­man be­ings. Your Poles do not un­der­stand the times we live in; we are no longer bar­bar­ians. War is com­ing to an end, my dear made­moi­selle; it went out with the Monar­chy. This is the age of tri­umph for com­merce, and in­dus­try, and mid­dle-​class pru­dence, such as were the mak­ing of Hol­land.

“Yes,” he went on with an­ima­tion, "we live in a pe­ri­od when na­tions must ob­tain all they need by the le­gal ex­ten­sion of their lib­er­ties and by the pa­cif­ic ac­tion of Con­sti­tu­tion­al In­sti­tu­tions; that is what the Poles do not see, and I hope----

“You were say­ing, my dear?--” he added, in­ter­rupt­ing him­self when he saw from his work-​wom­an's face that high pol­itics were be­yond her com­pre­hen­sion.

“Here is the sched­ule,” said Lis­beth. “If I don't want to lose my three thou­sand two hun­dred and ten francs, I must clap this rogue in­to prison.”

“Didn't I tell you so?” cried the or­acle of the Saint-​De­nis quar­ter.

The Riv­ets, suc­ces­sor to Pons Broth­ers, had kept their shop still in the Rue des Mau­vais­es-​Paroles, in the an­cient Ho­tel Langeais, built by that il­lus­tri­ous fam­ily at the time when the no­bil­ity still gath­ered round the Lou­vre.

“Yes, and I blessed you on my way here,” replied Lis­beth.

“If he sus­pects noth­ing, he can be safe in prison by eight o'clock in the morn­ing,” said Riv­et, con­sult­ing the al­manac to as­cer­tain the hour of sun­rise; “but not till the day af­ter to-​mor­row, for he can­not be im­pris­oned till he has had no­tice that he is to be ar­rest­ed by writ, with the op­tion of pay­ment or im­pris­on­ment. And so----”

“What an id­iot­ic law!” ex­claimed Lis­beth. “Of course the debtor es­capes.”

“He has ev­ery right to do so,” said the As­ses­sor, smil­ing. “So this is the way----”

“As to that,” said Lis­beth, in­ter­rupt­ing him, “I will take the pa­per and hand it to him, say­ing that I have been obliged to raise the mon­ey, and that the lender in­sists on this for­mal­ity. I know my gen­tle­man. He will not even look at the pa­per; he will light his pipe with it.”

“Not a bad idea, not bad, Made­moi­selle Fis­ch­er! Well, make your mind easy; the job shall be done.--But stop a minute; to put your man in prison is not the on­ly point to be con­sid­ered; you on­ly want to in­dulge in that le­gal lux­ury in or­der to get your mon­ey. Who is to pay you?”

“Those who give him mon­ey.”

“To be sure; I for­got that the Min­is­ter of War had com­mis­sioned him to erect a mon­ument to one of our late cus­tomers. Ah! the house has sup­plied many an uni­form to Gen­er­al Mont­cor­net; he soon black­ened them with the smoke of can­non. A brave man, he was! and he paid on the nail.”

A mar­shal of France may have saved the Em­per­or or his coun­try; “He paid on the nail” will al­ways be the high­est praise he can have from a trades­man.

“Very well. And on Sat­ur­day, Mon­sieur Riv­et, you shall have the flat tas­sels.--By the way, I am mov­ing from the Rue du Doyenne; I am go­ing to live in the Rue Van­neau.”

“You are very right. I could not bear to see you in that hole which, in spite of my aver­sion to the Op­po­si­tion, I must say is a dis­grace; I re­peat it, yes! is a dis­grace to the Lou­vre and the Place du Car­rousel. I am de­vot­ed to Louis-​Philippe, he is my idol; he is the au­gust and ex­act rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the class on whom he found­ed his dy­nasty, and I can nev­er for­get what he did for the trim­ming-​mak­ers by restor­ing the Na­tion­al Guard----”

“When I hear you speak so, Mon­sieur Riv­et, I can­not help won­der­ing why you are not made a deputy.”

“They are afraid of my at­tach­ment to the dy­nasty,” replied Riv­et. “My po­lit­ical en­emies are the King's. He has a no­ble char­ac­ter! They are a fine fam­ily; in short,” said he, re­turn­ing to the charge, “he is our ide­al: moral­ity, econ­omy, ev­ery­thing. But the com­ple­tion of the Lou­vre is one of the con­di­tions on which we gave him the crown, and the civ­il list, which, I ad­mit, had no lim­its set to it, leaves the heart of Paris in a most melan­choly state.--It is be­cause I am so strong­ly in fa­vor of the mid­dle course that I should like to see the mid­dle of Paris in a bet­ter con­di­tion. Your part of the town is pos­itive­ly ter­ri­fy­ing. You would have been mur­dered there one fine day.--And so your Mon­sieur Crev­el has been made Ma­jor of his di­vi­sion! He will come to us, I hope, for his big epaulette.”

“I am din­ing with him to-​night, and will send him to you.”

Lis­beth be­lieved that she had se­cured her Livo­ni­an to her­self by cut­ting him off from all com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the out­er world. If he could no longer work, the artist would be for­got­ten as com­plete­ly as a man buried in a cel­lar, where she alone would go to see him. Thus she had two hap­py days, for she hoped to deal a mor­tal blow at the Baroness and her daugh­ter.

To go to Crev­el's house, in the Rue des Saus­sayes, she crossed the Pont du Car­rousel, went along the Quai Voltaire, the Quai d'Or­say, the Rue Bel­lechas­se, Rue de l'Uni­ver­site, the Pont de la Con­corde, and the Av­enue de Marigny. This il­log­ical route was traced by the log­ic of pas­sion, al­ways the foe of the legs.

Cousin Bet­ty, as long as she fol­lowed the line of the quays, kept watch on the op­po­site shore of the Seine, walk­ing very slow­ly. She had guessed right­ly. She had left Wences­las dress­ing; she at once un­der­stood that, as soon as he should be rid of her, the lover would go off to the Baroness' by the short­est road. And, in fact, as she wan­dered along by the para­pet of the Quai Voltaire, in fan­cy sup­press­ing the riv­er and walk­ing along the op­po­site bank, she rec­og­nized the artist as he came out of the Tu­ileries to cross the Pont Roy­al. She there came up with the faith­less one, and could fol­low him un­seen, for lovers rarely look be­hind them. She es­cort­ed him as far as Madame Hu­lot's house, where he went in like an ac­cus­tomed vis­itor.

This crown­ing proof, con­firm­ing Madame Marn­effe's rev­ela­tions, put Lis­beth quite be­side her­self.

She ar­rived at the new­ly pro­mot­ed Ma­jor's door in the state of men­tal ir­ri­ta­tion which prompts men to com­mit mur­der, and found Mon­sieur Crev­el _se­nior_ in his draw­ing-​room await­ing his chil­dren, Mon­sieur and Madame Hu­lot _ju­nior_.

But Ce­lestin Crev­el was so un­con­scious and so per­fect a type of the Parisian par­venu, that we can scarce­ly ven­ture so un­cer­emo­ni­ous­ly in­to the pres­ence of Ce­sar Birot­teau's suc­ces­sor. Ce­lestin Crev­el was a world in him­self; and he, even more than Riv­et, de­serves the hon­ors of the palette by rea­son of his im­por­tance in this do­mes­tic dra­ma.

Have you ev­er ob­served how in child­hood, or at the ear­ly stages of so­cial life, we cre­ate a mod­el for our own im­ita­tion, with our own hands as it were, and of­ten with­out know­ing it? The banker's clerk, for in­stance, as he en­ters his mas­ter's draw­ing-​room, dreams of pos­sess­ing such an­oth­er. If he makes a for­tune, it will not be the lux­ury of the day, twen­ty years lat­er, that you will find in his house, but the old-​fash­ioned splen­dor that fas­ci­nat­ed him of yore. It is im­pos­si­ble to tell how many ab­sur­di­ties are due to this ret­ro­spec­tive jeal­ousy; and in the same way we know noth­ing of the fol­lies due to the covert ri­val­ry that urges men to copy the type they have set them­selves, and ex­haust their pow­ers in shin­ing with a re­flect­ed light, like the moon.

Crev­el was deputy may­or be­cause his pre­de­ces­sor had been; he was Ma­jor be­cause he cov­et­ed Ce­sar Birot­teau's epaulettes. In the same way, struck by the mar­vels wrought by Grindot the ar­chi­tect, at the time when For­tune had car­ried his mas­ter to the top of the wheel, Crev­el had “nev­er looked at both sides of a crown-​piece,” to use his own lan­guage, when he want­ed to “do up” his rooms; he had gone with his purse open and his eyes shut to Grindot, who by this time was quite for­got­ten. It is im­pos­si­ble to guess how long an ex­tinct rep­uta­tion may sur­vive, sup­port­ed by such stale ad­mi­ra­tion.

So Grindot, for the thou­sandth time had dis­played his white-​and-​gold draw­ing-​room pan­eled with crim­son damask. The fur­ni­ture, of rose­wood, clum­si­ly carved, as such work is done for the trade, had in the coun­try been the source of just pride in Paris work­man­ship on the oc­ca­sion of an in­dus­tri­al ex­hi­bi­tion. The can­de­labra, the fire-​dogs, the fend­er, the chan­de­lier, the clock, were all in the most un­mean­ing style of scroll-​work; the round ta­ble, a fix­ture in the mid­dle of the room, was a mo­sa­ic of frag­ments of Ital­ian and an­tique mar­bles, brought from Rome, where these dis­sect­ed maps are made of min­er­alog­ical spec­imens--for all the world like tai­lors' pat­terns--an ob­ject of peren­ni­al ad­mi­ra­tion to Crev­el's cit­izen friends. The por­traits of the late lament­ed Madame Crev­el, of Crev­el him­self, of his daugh­ter and his son-​in-​law, hung on the walls, two and two; they were the work of Pierre Gras­sou, the fa­vored painter of the bour­geoisie, to whom Crev­el owed his ridicu­lous By­ron­ic at­ti­tude. The frames, cost­ing a thou­sand francs each, were quite in har­mo­ny with this cof­fee-​house mag­nif­icence, which would have made any true artist shrug his shoul­ders.

Mon­ey nev­er yet missed the small­est op­por­tu­ni­ty of be­ing stupid. We should have in Paris ten Venices if our re­tired mer­chants had had the in­stinct for fine things char­ac­ter­is­tic of the Ital­ians. Even in our own day a Mi­lanese mer­chant could leave five hun­dred thou­sand francs to the Duo­mo, to regild the colos­sal stat­ue of the Vir­gin that crowns the ed­ifice. Cano­va, in his will, de­sired his broth­er to build a church cost­ing four mil­lion francs, and that broth­er adds some­thing on his own ac­count. Would a cit­izen of Paris--and they all, like Riv­et, love their Paris in their heart--ev­er dream of build­ing the spires that are lack­ing to the tow­ers of Notre-​Dame? And on­ly think of the sums that re­vert to the State in prop­er­ty for which no heirs are found.

All the im­prove­ments of Paris might have been com­plet­ed with the mon­ey spent on stuc­co cast­ings, gilt mould­ings, and sham sculp­ture dur­ing the last fif­teen years by in­di­vid­uals of the Crev­el stamp.

Be­yond this draw­ing-​room was a splen­did boudoir fur­nished with ta­bles and cab­inets in im­ita­tion of Boulle.

The bed­room, smart with chintz, al­so opened out of the draw­ing-​room. Ma­hogany in all its glo­ry in­fest­ed the din­ing-​room, and Swiss views, gor­geous­ly framed, graced the pan­els. Crev­el, who hoped to trav­el in Switzer­land, had set his heart on pos­sess­ing the scenery in paint­ing till the time should come when he might see it in re­al­ity.

So, as will have been seen, Crev­el, the May­or's deputy, of the Le­gion of Hon­or and of the Na­tion­al Guard, had faith­ful­ly re­pro­duced all the mag­nif­icence, even as to fur­ni­ture, of his luck­less pre­de­ces­sor. Un­der the Restora­tion, where one had sunk, this oth­er, quite over­looked, had come to the top--not by any strange stroke of for­tune, but by the force of cir­cum­stance. In rev­olu­tions, as in storms at sea, sol­id trea­sure goes to the bot­tom, and light tri­fles are float­ed to the sur­face. Ce­sar Birot­teau, a Roy­al­ist, in fa­vor and en­vied, had been made the mark of bour­geois hos­til­ity, while bour­geoisie tri­umphant found its in­car­na­tion in Crev­el.

This apart­ment, at a rent of a thou­sand crowns, crammed with all the vul­gar mag­nif­icence that mon­ey can buy, oc­cu­pied the first floor of a fine old house be­tween a court­yard and a gar­den. Ev­ery­thing was as spick-​and-​span as the bee­tles in an en­to­mo­log­ical case, for Crev­el lived very lit­tle at home.

This gor­geous res­idence was the am­bi­tious cit­izen's le­gal domi­cile. His es­tab­lish­ment con­sist­ed of a wom­an-​cook and a valet; he hired two ex­tra men, and had a din­ner sent in by Chevet, when­ev­er he gave a ban­quet to his po­lit­ical friends, to men he want­ed to daz­zle or to a fam­ily par­ty.

The seat of Crev­el's re­al do­mes­tic­ity, for­mer­ly in the Rue Notre-​Dame de Lorette, with Made­moi­selle Heloise Brisetout, had late­ly been trans­ferred, as we have seen, to the Rue Chauchat. Ev­ery morn­ing the re­tired mer­chant--ev­ery ex-​trades­man is a re­tired mer­chant--spent two hours in the Rue des Saus­sayes to at­tend to busi­ness, and gave the rest of his time to Made­moi­selle Zaire, which an­noyed Zaire very much. Oros­man­es-​Crev­el had a fixed bar­gain with Made­moi­selle Heloise; she owed him five hun­dred francs worth of en­joy­ment ev­ery month, and no “bills de­liv­ered.” He paid sep­arate­ly for his din­ner and all ex­tras. This agree­ment, with cer­tain bonus­es, for he made her a good many presents, seemed cheap to the ex-​at­tache of the great singer; and he would say to wid­ow­ers who were fond of their daugh­ters, that it paid bet­ter to job your hors­es than to have a sta­ble of your own. At the same time, if the read­er re­mem­bers the speech made to the Baron by the porter at the Rue Chauchat, Crev­el did not es­cape the coach­man and the groom.

Crev­el, as may be seen, had turned his pas­sion­ate af­fec­tion for his daugh­ter to the ad­van­tage of his self-​in­dul­gence. The im­moral as­pect of the sit­ua­tion was jus­ti­fied by the high­est moral­ity. And then the ex-​per­fumer de­rived from this style of liv­ing--it was the in­evitable, a free-​and-​easy life, _Re­gence, Pom­padour, Marechal de Riche­lieu_, what not--a cer­tain ve­neer of su­pe­ri­or­ity. Crev­el set up for be­ing a man of broad views, a fine gen­tle­man with an air and grace, a lib­er­al man with noth­ing nar­row in his ideas--and all for the small sum of about twelve to fif­teen hun­dred francs a month. This was the re­sult not of hyp­ocrit­ical pol­icy, but of mid­dle-​class van­ity, though it came to the same in the end.

On the Bourse Crev­el was re­gard­ed as a man su­pe­ri­or to his time, and es­pe­cial­ly as a man of plea­sure, a _bon vi­vant_. In this par­tic­ular Crev­el flat­tered him­self that he had over­topped his wor­thy friend Birot­teau by a hun­dred cu­bits.

“And is it you?” cried Crev­el, fly­ing in­to a rage as he saw Lis­beth en­ter the room, “who have plot­ted this mar­riage be­tween Made­moi­selle Hu­lot and your young Count, whom you have been bring­ing up by hand for her?”

“You don't seem best pleased at it?” said Lis­beth, fix­ing a pierc­ing eye on Crev­el. “What in­ter­est can you have in hin­der­ing my cousin's mar­riage? For it was you, I am told, who hin­dered her mar­ry­ing Mon­sieur Lebas' son.”

“You are a good soul and to be trust­ed,” said Crev­el. “Well, then, do you sup­pose that I will ev­er for­give Mon­sieur Hu­lot for the crime of hav­ing robbed me of Josepha--es­pe­cial­ly when he turned a de­cent girl, whom I should have mar­ried in my old age, in­to a good-​for-​noth­ing slut, a moun­te­bank, an opera singer!--No, no. Nev­er!”

“He is a very good fel­low, too, is Mon­sieur Hu­lot,” said Cousin Bet­ty.

“Ami­able, very ami­able--too ami­able,” replied Crev­el. “I wish him no harm; but I do wish to have my re­venge, and I will have it. It is my one idea.”

“And is that de­sire the rea­son why you no longer vis­it Madame Hu­lot?”

“Pos­si­bly.”

“Ah, ha! then you were court­ing my fair cousin?” said Lis­beth, with a smile. “I thought as much.”

“And she treat­ed me like a dog!--worse, like a foot­man; nay, I might say like a po­lit­ical pris­on­er.--But I will suc­ceed yet,” said he, strik­ing his brow with his clenched fist.

“Poor man! It would be dread­ful to catch his wife de­ceiv­ing him af­ter be­ing packed off by his mis­tress.”

“Josepha?” cried Crev­el. "Has Josepha thrown him over, packed him off, turned him out neck and crop? Bra­vo, Josepha, you have avenged me! I will send you a pair of pearls to hang in your ears, my ex-​sweet­heart! --I knew noth­ing of it; for af­ter I had seen you, on the day af­ter that when the fair Ade­line had shown me the door, I went back to vis­it the Lebas, at Cor­beil, and have but just come back. Heloise played the very dev­il to get me in­to the coun­try, and I have found out the pur­pose of her game; she want­ed me out of the way while she gave a house-​warm­ing in the Rue Chauchat, with some artists, and play­ers, and writ­ers.--She took me in! But I can for­give her, for Heloise amus­es me. She is a De­jazet un­der a bushel. What a char­ac­ter the hussy is! There is the note I found last evening:

"'DEAR OLD CHAP,--I have pitched my tent in the Rue Chauchat. I have tak­en the pre­cau­tion of get­ting a few friends to clean up the paint. All is well. Come when you please, mon­sieur; Ha­gar awaits her Abra­ham.'

“Heloise will have some news for me, for she has her bo­hemia at her fin­gers' end.”

“But Mon­sieur Hu­lot took the dis­as­ter very calm­ly,” said Lis­beth.

“Im­pos­si­ble!” cried Crev­el, stop­ping in a pa­rade as reg­ular as the swing of a pen­du­lum.

“Mon­sieur Hu­lot is not as young as he was,” Lis­beth re­marked sig­nif­icant­ly.

“I know that,” said Crev­el, “but in one point we are alike: Hu­lot can­not do with­out an at­tach­ment. He is ca­pa­ble of go­ing back to his wife. It would be a nov­el­ty for him, but an end to my vengeance. You smile, Made­moi­selle Fis­ch­er--ah! per­haps you know some­thing?”

“I am smil­ing at your no­tions,” replied Lis­beth. “Yes, my cousin is still hand­some enough to in­spire a pas­sion. I should cer­tain­ly fall in love with her if I were a man.”

“Cut and come again!” ex­claimed Crev­el. “You are laugh­ing at me.--The Baron has al­ready found con­so­la­tion?”

Lis­beth bowed af­fir­ma­tive­ly.

“He is a lucky man if he can find a sec­ond Josepha with­in twen­ty-​four hours!” said Crev­el. “But I am not al­to­geth­er sur­prised, for he told me one evening at sup­per that when he was a young man he al­ways had three mis­tress­es on hand that he might not be left high and dry--the one he was giv­ing over, the one in pos­ses­sion, and the one he was court­ing for a fu­ture emer­gen­cy. He had some smart lit­tle work-​wom­an in re­serve, no doubt--in his fish-​pond--his _Parc-​aux-​cerfs_! He is very Louis XV., is my gen­tle­man. He is in luck to be so hand­some! --How­ev­er, he is age­ing; his face shows it.--He has tak­en up with some lit­tle milliner?”

“Dear me, no,” replied Lis­beth.

“Oh!” cried Crev­el, “what would I not do to hin­der him from hang­ing up his hat! I could not win back Josepha; wom­en of that kind nev­er come back to their first love.--Be­sides, it is tru­ly said, such a re­turn is not love.--But, Cousin Bet­ty, I would pay down fifty thou­sand francs --that is to say, I would spend it--to rob that great good-​look­ing fel­low of his mis­tress, and to show him that a Ma­jor with a port­ly stom­ach and a brain made to be­come May­or of Paris, though he is a grand­fa­ther, is not to have his mis­tress tick­led away by a poach­er with­out turn­ing the ta­bles.”

“My po­si­tion,” said Lis­beth, “com­pels me to hear ev­ery­thing and know noth­ing. You may talk to me with­out fear; I nev­er re­peat a word of what any one may choose to tell me. How can you sup­pose I should ev­er break that rule of con­duct? No one would ev­er trust me again.”

“I know,” said Crev­el; “you are the very jew­el of old maids. Still, come, there are ex­cep­tions. Look here, the fam­ily have nev­er set­tled an al­lowance on you?”

“But I have my pride,” said Lis­beth. “I do not choose to be an ex­pense to any­body.”

“If you will but help me to my re­venge,” the trades­man went on, “I will sink ten thou­sand francs in an an­nu­ity for you. Tell me, my fair cousin, tell me who has stepped in­to Josepha's shoes, and you will have mon­ey to pay your rent, your lit­tle break­fast in the morn­ing, the good cof­fee you love so well--you might al­low your­self pure Mocha, heh! And a very good thing is pure Mocha!”

“I do not care so much for the ten thou­sand francs in an an­nu­ity, which would bring me near­ly five hun­dred francs a year, as for ab­so­lute se­cre­cy,” said Lis­beth. “For, you see, my dear Mon­sieur Crev­el, the Baron is very good to me; he is to pay my rent----”

“Oh yes, long may that last! I ad­vise you to trust him,” cried Crev­el. “Where will he find the mon­ey?”

“Ah, that I don't know. At the same time, he is spend­ing more than thir­ty thou­sand francs on the rooms he is fur­nish­ing for this lit­tle la­dy.”

“A la­dy! What, a wom­an in so­ci­ety; the ras­cal, what luck he has! He is the on­ly fa­vorite!”

“A mar­ried wom­an, and quite the la­dy,” Lis­beth af­firmed.

“Re­al­ly and tru­ly?” cried Crev­el, open­ing wide eyes flash­ing with en­vy, quite as much as at the mag­ic words _quite the la­dy_.

“Yes, re­al­ly,” said Lis­beth. “Clever, a mu­si­cian, three-​and-​twen­ty, a pret­ty, in­no­cent face, a daz­zling white skin, teeth like a pup­py's, eyes like stars, a beau­ti­ful fore­head--and tiny feet, I nev­er saw the like, they are not wider than her stay-​busk.”

“And ears?” asked Crev­el, keen­ly alive to this cat­alogue of charms.

“Ears for a mod­el,” she replied.

“And small hands?”

“I tell you, in few words, a gem of a wom­an--and high-​mind­ed, and mod­est, and re­fined! A beau­ti­ful soul, an an­gel--and with ev­ery dis­tinc­tion, for her fa­ther was a Mar­shal of France----”

“A Mar­shal of France!” shrieked Crev­el, pos­itive­ly bound­ing with ex­cite­ment. “Good Heav­ens! by the Holy Piper! By all the joys in Par­adise!--The ras­cal!--I beg your par­don, Cousin, I am go­ing crazy! --I think I would give a hun­dred thou­sand francs----”

“I dare say you would, and, I tell you, she is a re­spectable wom­an--a wom­an of virtue. The Baron has forked out hand­some­ly.”

“He has not a sou, I tell you.”

“There is a hus­band he has pushed----”

“Where did he push him?” asked Crev­el, with a bit­ter laugh.

“He is pro­mot­ed to be sec­ond in his of­fice--this hus­band who will oblige, no doubt;--and his name is down for the Cross of the Le­gion of Hon­or.”

“The Gov­ern­ment ought to be ju­di­cious and re­spect those who have the Cross by not fling­ing it broad­cast,” said Crev­el, with the look of an ag­grieved politi­cian. “But what is there about the man--that old bull­dog of a Baron?” he went on. “It seems to me that I am quite a match for him,” and he struck an at­ti­tude as he looked at him­self in the glass. “Heloise has told me many a time, at mo­ments when a wom­an speaks the truth, that I was won­der­ful.”

“Oh,” said Lis­beth, “wom­en like big men; they are al­most al­ways good-​na­tured; and if I had to de­cide be­tween you and the Baron, I should choose you. Mon­sieur Hu­lot is amus­ing, hand­some, and has a fig­ure; but you, you are sub­stan­tial, and then--you see--you look an even greater scamp than he does.”

“It is in­cred­ible how all wom­en, even pi­ous wom­en, take to men who have that about them!” ex­claimed Crev­el, putting his arm round Lis­beth's waist, he was so ju­bi­lant.

“The dif­fi­cul­ty does not lie there,” said Bet­ty. “You must see that a wom­an who is get­ting so many ad­van­tages will not be un­faith­ful to her pa­tron for noth­ing; and it would cost you more than a hun­dred odd thou­sand francs, for our lit­tle friend can look for­ward to see­ing her hus­band at the head of his of­fice with­in two years' time.--It is pover­ty that is drag­ging the poor lit­tle an­gel in­to that pit.”

Crev­el was strid­ing up and down the draw­ing-​room in a state of fren­zy.

“He must be un­com­mon­ly fond of the wom­an?” he in­quired af­ter a pause, while his de­sires, thus goad­ed by Lis­beth, rose to a sort of mad­ness.

“You may judge for your­self,” replied Lis­beth. “I don't be­lieve he has had _that_ of her,” said she, snap­ping her thumb­nail against one of her enor­mous white teeth, “and he has giv­en her ten thou­sand francs' worth of presents al­ready.”

“What a good joke it would be!” cried Crev­el, “if I got to the win­ning post first!”

“Good heav­ens! It is too bad of me to be telling you all this tit­tle-​tat­tle,” said Lis­beth, with an air of com­punc­tion.

“No.--I mean to put your re­la­tions to the blush. To-​mor­row I shall in­vest in your name such a sum in five-​per-​cents as will give you six hun­dred francs a year; but then you must tell me ev­ery­thing--his Dul­cinea's name and res­idence. To you I will make a clean breast of it.--I nev­er have had a re­al la­dy for a mis­tress, and it is the height of my am­bi­tion. Ma­homet's houris are noth­ing in com­par­ison with what I fan­cy a wom­an of fash­ion must be. In short, it is my dream, my ma­nia, and to such a point, that I de­clare to you the Baroness Hu­lot to me will nev­er be fifty,” said he, un­con­scious­ly pla­gia­riz­ing one of the great­est wits of the last cen­tu­ry. “I as­sure you, my good Lis­beth, I am pre­pared to sac­ri­fice a hun­dred, two hun­dred--Hush! Here are the young peo­ple, I see them cross­ing the court­yard. I shall nev­er have learned any­thing through you, I give you my word of hon­or; for I do not want you to lose the Baron's con­fi­dence, quite the con­trary. He must be amaz­ing­ly fond of this wom­an--that old boy.”

“He is crazy about her,” said Lis­beth. “He could not find forty thou­sand francs to mar­ry his daugh­ter off, but he has got them some­how for his new pas­sion.”

“And do you think that she loves him?”

“At his age!” said the old maid.

“Oh, what an owl I am!” cried Crev­el, “when I my­self al­lowed Heloise to keep her artist ex­act­ly as Hen­ri IX. al­lowed Gabrielle her Bel­le­grade. Alas! old age, old age!--Good-​morn­ing, Ce­les­tine. How do, my jew­el!--And the brat? Ah! here he comes; on my hon­or, he is be­gin­ning to be like me!--Good-​day, Hu­lot--quite well? We shall soon be hav­ing an­oth­er wed­ding in the fam­ily.”

Ce­les­tine and her hus­band, as a hint to their fa­ther, glanced at the old maid, who au­da­cious­ly asked, in re­ply to Crev­el:

“In­deed--whose?”

Crev­el put on an air of re­serve which was meant to con­vey that he would make up for her in­dis­cre­tions.

“That of Hort­ense,” he replied; “but it is not yet quite set­tled. I have just come from the Lebas', and they were talk­ing of Made­moi­selle Popinot as a suit­able match for their son, the young coun­cil­lor, for he would like to get the pres­iden­cy of a provin­cial court.--Now, come to din­ner.”

By sev­en o'clock Lis­beth had re­turned home in an om­nibus, for she was ea­ger to see Wences­las, whose dupe she had been for three weeks, and to whom she was car­ry­ing a bas­ket filled with fruit by the hands of Crev­el him­self, whose at­ten­tions were dou­bled to­wards _his_ Cousin Bet­ty.

She flew up to the at­tic at a pace that took her breath away, and found the artist fin­ish­ing the or­na­men­ta­tion of a box to be pre­sent­ed to the adored Hort­ense. The frame­work of the lid rep­re­sent­ed hy­drangeas--in French called _Hort­en­sias_--among which lit­tle Loves were play­ing. The poor lover, to en­able him to pay for the ma­te­ri­als of the box, of which the pan­els were of mala­chite, had de­signed two can­dle­sticks for Flo­rent and Chanor, and sold them the copy­right--two ad­mirable pieces of work.

“You have been work­ing too hard these last few days, my dear fel­low,” said Lis­beth, wip­ing the per­spi­ra­tion from his brow, and giv­ing him a kiss. “Such la­bo­ri­ous dili­gence is re­al­ly dan­ger­ous in the month of Au­gust. Se­ri­ous­ly, you may in­jure your health. Look, here are some peach­es and plums from Mon­sieur Crev­el.--Now, do not wor­ry your­self so much; I have bor­rowed two thou­sand francs, and, short of some dis­as­ter, we can re­pay them when you sell your clock. At the same time, the lender seems to me sus­pi­cious, for he has just sent in this doc­ument.”

She laid the writ un­der the mod­el sketch of the stat­ue of Gen­er­al Mont­cor­net.

“For whom are you mak­ing this pret­ty thing?” said she, tak­ing up the mod­el sprays of hy­drangea in red wax which Wences­las had laid down while eat­ing the fruit.

“For a jew­el­er.”

“For what jew­el­er?”

“I do not know. Stid­mann asked me to make some­thing out of them, as he is very busy.”

“But these,” she said in a deep voice, “are _Hort­en­sias_. How is it that you have nev­er made any­thing in wax for me? Is it so dif­fi­cult to de­sign a pin, a lit­tle box--what not, as a keep­sake?” and she shot a fear­ful glance at the artist, whose eyes were hap­pi­ly low­ered. “And yet you say you love me?”

“Can you doubt it, made­moi­selle?”

“That is in­deed an ar­dent _made­moi­selle_!--Why, you have been my on­ly thought since I found you dy­ing--just there. When I saved you, you vowed you were mine, I mean to hold you to that pledge; but I made a vow to my­self! I said to my­self, 'Since the boy says he is mine, I mean to make him rich and hap­py!' Well, and I can make your for­tune.”

“How?” said the hap­less artist, at the height of joy, and too art­less to dream of a snare.

“Why, thus,” said she.

Lis­beth could not de­prive her­self of the sav­age plea­sure of gaz­ing at Wences­las, who looked up at her with fil­ial af­fec­tion, the ex­pres­sion re­al­ly of his love for Hort­ense, which de­lud­ed the old maid. See­ing in a man's eyes, for the first time in her life, the blaz­ing torch of pas­sion, she fan­cied it was for her that it was light­ed.

“Mon­sieur Crev­el will back us to the ex­tent of a hun­dred thou­sand francs to start in busi­ness, if, as he says, you will mar­ry me. He has queer ideas, has the wor­thy man.--Well, what do you say to it?” she added.

The artist, as pale as the dead, looked at his bene­fac­tress with a lus­tre­less eye, which plain­ly spoke his thoughts. He stood stu­pe­fied and open-​mouthed.

“I nev­er be­fore was so dis­tinct­ly told that I am hideous,” said she, with a bit­ter laugh.

“Made­moi­selle,” said Stein­bock, “my bene­fac­tress can nev­er be ug­ly in my eyes; I have the great­est af­fec­tion for you. But I am not yet thir­ty, and----”

“I am forty-​three,” said Lis­beth. “My cousin Ade­line is forty-​eight, and men are still mad­ly in love with her; but then she is hand­some --she is!”

“Fif­teen years be­tween us, made­moi­selle! How could we get on to­geth­er! For both our sakes I think we should be wise to think it over. My grat­itude shall be ful­ly equal to your great kind­ness.--And your mon­ey shall be re­paid in a few days.”

“My mon­ey!” cried she. “You treat me as if I were noth­ing but an un­feel­ing usurer.”

“For­give me,” said Wences­las, “but you re­mind me of it so of­ten. --Well, it is you who have made me; do not crush me.”

“You mean to be rid of me, I can see,” said she, shak­ing her head. “Who has en­dowed you with this strength of in­grat­itude--you who are a man of pa­pi­er-​mache? Have you ceased to trust me--your good ge­nius? --me, when I have spent so many nights work­ing for you--when I have giv­en you ev­ery franc I have saved in my life­time--when for four years I have shared my bread with you, the bread of a hard-​worked wom­an, and giv­en you all I had, to my very courage.”

“Made­moi­selle--no more, no more!” he cried, kneel­ing be­fore her with up­lift­ed hands. “Say not an­oth­er word! In three days I will tell you, you shall know all.--Let me, let me be hap­py,” and he kissed her hands. “I love--and I am loved.”

“Well, well, my child, be hap­py,” she said, lift­ing him up. And she kissed his fore­head and hair with the ea­ger­ness that a man con­demned to death must feel as he lives through the last morn­ing.

“Ah! you are of all crea­tures the no­blest and best! You are a match for the wom­an I love,” said the poor artist.

“I love you well enough to trem­ble for your fu­ture fate,” said she gloomi­ly. "Ju­das hanged him­self--the un­grate­ful al­ways come to a bad end! You are de­sert­ing me, and you will nev­er again do any good work. Con­sid­er whether, with­out be­ing mar­ried--for I know I am an old maid, and I do not want to smoth­er the blos­som of your youth, your po­et­ry, as you call it, in my arms, that are like vine-​stocks--but whether, with­out be­ing mar­ried, we could not get on to­geth­er? Lis­ten; I have the com­mer­cial spir­it; I could save you a for­tune in the course of ten years' work, for Econ­omy is my name!--while, with a young wife, who would be sheer Ex­pen­di­ture, you would squan­der ev­ery­thing; you would work on­ly to in­dulge her. But hap­pi­ness cre­ates noth­ing but mem­ories. Even I, when I am think­ing of you, sit for hours with my hands in my lap----

“Come, Wences­las, stay with me.--Look here, I un­der­stand all about it; you shall have your mis­tress­es; pret­ty ones too, like that lit­tle Marn­effe wom­an who wants to see you, and who will give you hap­pi­ness you could nev­er find with me. Then, when I have saved you thir­ty thou­sand francs a year in the funds----”

“Made­moi­selle, you are an an­gel, and I shall nev­er for­get this hour,” said Wences­las, wip­ing away his tears.

“That is how I like to see you, my child,” said she, gaz­ing at him with rap­ture.

Van­ity is so strong a pow­er in us all that Lis­beth be­lieved in her tri­umph. She had con­ced­ed so much when of­fer­ing him Madame Marn­effe. It was the crown­ing emo­tion of her life; for the first time she felt the full tide of joy ris­ing in her heart. To go through such an ex­pe­ri­ence again she would have sold her soul to the Dev­il.

“I am en­gaged to be mar­ried,” Stein­bock replied, “and I love a wom­an with whom no oth­er can com­pete or com­pare.--But you are, and al­ways will be, to me the moth­er I have lost.”

The words fell like an avalanche of snow on a burn­ing crater. Lis­beth sat down. She gazed with de­spon­dent eyes on the youth be­fore her, on his aris­to­crat­ic beau­ty--the artist's brow, the splen­did hair, ev­ery­thing that ap­pealed to her sup­pressed fem­inine in­stincts, and tiny tears moist­ened her eyes for an in­stant and im­me­di­ate­ly dried up. She looked like one of those mea­gre stat­ues which the sculp­tors of the Mid­dle Ages carved on mon­uments.

“I can­not curse you,” said she, sud­den­ly ris­ing. “You--you are but a boy. God pre­serve you!”

She went down­stairs and shut her­self in­to her own room.

“She is in love with me, poor crea­ture!” said Wences­las to him­self. “And how fer­vent­ly elo­quent! She is crazy.”

This last ef­fort on the part of an arid and nar­row na­ture to keep hold on an em­bod­iment of beau­ty and po­et­ry was, in truth, so vi­olent that it can on­ly be com­pared to the fren­zied ve­he­mence of a ship­wrecked crea­ture mak­ing the last strug­gle to reach shore.

On the next day but one, at half-​past four in the morn­ing, when Count Stein­bock was sunk in the deep­est sleep, he heard a knock at the door of his at­tic; he rose to open it, and saw two men in shab­by cloth­ing, and a third, whose dress pro­claimed him a bailiff down on his luck.

“You are Mon­sieur Wences­las, Count Stein­bock?” said this man.

“Yes, mon­sieur.”

“My name is Gras­set, sir, suc­ces­sor to Louchard, sher­iff's of­fi­cer----”

“What then?”

“You are un­der ar­rest, sir. You must come with us to prison--to Clichy.--Please to get dressed.--We have done the civ­il, as you see; I have brought no po­lice, and there is a hack­ney cab be­low.”

“You are safe­ly nabbed, you see,” said one of the bailiffs; “and we look to you to be lib­er­al.”

Stein­bock dressed and went down­stairs, a man hold­ing each arm; when he was in the cab, the driv­er start­ed with­out or­ders, as know­ing where he was to go, and with­in half an hour the un­hap­py for­eign­er found him­self safe­ly un­der bolt and bar with­out even a re­mon­strance, so ut­ter­ly amazed was he.

At ten o'clock he was sent for to the prison-​of­fice, where he found Lis­beth, who, in tears, gave him some mon­ey to feed him­self ad­equate­ly and to pay for a room large enough to work in.

“My dear boy,” said she, “nev­er say a word of your ar­rest to any­body, do not write to a liv­ing soul; it would ru­in you for life; we must hide this blot on your char­ac­ter. I will soon have you out. I will col­lect the mon­ey--be quite easy. Write down what you want for your work. You shall soon be free, or I will die for it.”

“Oh, I shall owe you my life a sec­ond time!” cried he, “for I should lose more than my life if I were thought a bad fel­low.”

Lis­beth went off in great glee; she hoped, by keep­ing her artist un­der lock and key, to put a stop to his mar­riage by an­nounc­ing that he was a mar­ried man, par­doned by the ef­forts of his wife, and gone off to Rus­sia.

To car­ry out this plan, at about three o'clock she went to the Baroness, though it was not the day when she was due to dine with her; but she wished to en­joy the an­guish which Hort­ense must en­dure at the hour when Wences­las was in the habit of mak­ing his ap­pear­ance.

“Have you come to din­ner?” asked the Baroness, con­ceal­ing her dis­ap­point­ment.

“Well, yes.”

“That's well,” replied Hort­ense. “I will go and tell them to be punc­tu­al, for you do not like to be kept wait­ing.”

Hort­ense nod­ded re­as­sur­ing­ly to her moth­er, for she in­tend­ed to tell the man-​ser­vant to send away Mon­sieur Stein­bock if he should call; the man, how­ev­er, hap­pened to be out, so Hort­ense was obliged to give her or­ders to the maid, and the girl went up­stairs to fetch her needle­work and sit in the ante-​room.

“And about my lover?” said Cousin Bet­ty to Hort­ense, when the girl came back. “You nev­er ask about him now?”

“To be sure, what is he do­ing?” said Hort­ense. “He has be­come fa­mous. You ought to be very hap­py,” she added in an un­der­tone to Lis­beth. “Ev­ery­body is talk­ing of Mon­sieur Wences­las Stein­bock.”

“A great deal too much,” replied she in her clear tones. “Mon­sieur is de­part­ing.--If it were on­ly a mat­ter of charm­ing him so far as to de­fy the at­trac­tions of Paris, I know my pow­er; but they say that in or­der to se­cure the ser­vices of such an artist, the Em­per­or Nichols has par­doned him----”

“Non­sense!” said the Baroness.

“When did you hear that?” asked Hort­ense, who felt as if her heart had the cramp.

“Well,” said the vil­lain­ous Lis­beth, “a per­son to whom he is bound by the most sa­cred ties--his wife--wrote yes­ter­day to tell him so. He wants to be off. Oh, he will be a great fool to give up France to go to Rus­sia!--”

Hort­ense looked at her moth­er, but her head sank on one side; the Baroness was on­ly just in time to sup­port her daugh­ter, who dropped faint­ing, and as white as her lace ker­chief.

“Lis­beth! you have killed my child!” cried the Baroness. “You were born to be our curse!”

“Bless me! what fault of mine is this, Ade­line?” replied Lis­beth, as she rose with a men­ac­ing as­pect, of which the Baroness, in her alarm, took no no­tice.

“I was wrong,” said Ade­line, sup­port­ing the girl. “Ring.”

At this in­stant the door opened, the wom­en both looked round, and saw Wences­las Stein­bock, who had been ad­mit­ted by the cook in the maid's ab­sence.

“Hort­ense!” cried the artist, with one spring to the group of wom­en. And he kissed his be­trothed be­fore her moth­er's eyes, on the fore­head, and so rev­er­ent­ly, that the Baroness could not be an­gry. It was a bet­ter restora­tive than any smelling salts. Hort­ense opened her eyes, saw Wences­las, and her col­or came back. In a few min­utes she had quite re­cov­ered.

“So this was your se­cret?” said Lis­beth, smil­ing at Wences­las, and af­fect­ing to guess the facts from her two cousins' con­fu­sion.

“But how did you steal away my lover?” said she, lead­ing Hort­ense in­to the gar­den.

Hort­ense art­less­ly told the ro­mance of her love. Her fa­ther and moth­er, she said, be­ing con­vinced that Lis­beth would nev­er mar­ry, had au­tho­rized the Count's vis­its. On­ly Hort­ense, like a full-​blown Agnes, at­tribut­ed to chance her pur­chase of the group and the in­tro­duc­tion of the artist, who, by her ac­count, had in­sist­ed on know­ing the name of his first pur­chas­er.

Present­ly Stein­bock came out to join the cousins, and thanked the old maid ef­fu­sive­ly for his prompt re­lease. Lis­beth replied Je­suit­ical­ly that the cred­itor hav­ing giv­en very vague promis­es, she had not hoped to be able to get him out be­fore the mor­row, and that the per­son who had lent her the mon­ey, ashamed, per­haps, of such mean con­duct, had been be­fore­hand with her. The old maid ap­peared to be per­fect­ly con­tent, and con­grat­ulat­ed Wences­las on his hap­pi­ness.

“You bad boy!” said she, be­fore Hort­ense and her moth­er, “if you had on­ly told me the evening be­fore last that you loved my cousin Hort­ense, and that she loved you, you would have spared me many tears. I thought that you were de­sert­ing your old friend, your gov­erness; while, on the con­trary, you are to be­come my cousin; hence­forth, you will be con­nect­ed with me, re­mote­ly, it is true, but by ties that am­ply jus­ti­fy the feel­ings I have for you.” And she kissed Wences­las on the fore­head.

Hort­ense threw her­self in­to Lis­beth's arms and melt­ed in­to tears.

“I owe my hap­pi­ness to you,” said she, “and I will nev­er for­get it.”

“Cousin Bet­ty,” said the Baroness, em­brac­ing Lis­beth in her ex­cite­ment at see­ing mat­ters so hap­pi­ly set­tled, “the Baron and I owe you a debt of grat­itude, and we will pay it. Come and talk things over with me,” she added, lead­ing her away.

So Lis­beth, to all ap­pear­ances, was play­ing the part of a good an­gel to the whole fam­ily; she was adored by Crev­el and Hu­lot, by Ade­line and Hort­ense.

“We wish you to give up work­ing,” said the Baroness. “If you earn forty sous a day, Sun­days ex­cept­ed, that makes six hun­dred francs a year. Well, then, how much have you saved?”

“Four thou­sand five hun­dred francs.”

“Poor Bet­ty!” said her cousin.

She raised her eyes to heav­en, so deeply was she moved at the thought of all the la­bor and pri­va­tion such a sum must rep­re­sent ac­cu­mu­lat­ed dur­ing thir­ty years.

Lis­beth, mis­un­der­stand­ing the mean­ing of the ex­cla­ma­tion, took it as the iron­ical pity of the suc­cess­ful wom­an, and her ha­tred was strength­ened by a large in­fu­sion of ven­om at the very mo­ment when her cousin had cast off her last shred of dis­trust of the tyrant of her child­hood.

“We will add ten thou­sand five hun­dred francs to that sum,” said Ade­line, “and put it in trust so that you shall draw the in­ter­est for life with re­ver­sion to Hort­ense. Thus, you will have six hun­dred francs a year.”

Lis­beth feigned the ut­most sat­is­fac­tion. When she went in, her hand­ker­chief to her eyes, wip­ing away tears of joy, Hort­ense told her of all the fa­vors be­ing show­ered on Wences­las, beloved of the fam­ily.

So when the Baron came home, he found his fam­ily all present; for the Baroness had for­mal­ly ac­cept­ed Wences­las by the ti­tle of Son, and the wed­ding was fixed, if her hus­band should ap­prove, for a day a fort­night hence. The mo­ment he came in­to the draw­ing-​room, Hu­lot was rushed at by his wife and daugh­ter, who ran to meet him, Ade­line to speak to him pri­vate­ly, and Hort­ense to kiss him.

“You have gone too far in pledg­ing me to this, madame,” said the Baron stern­ly. “You are not mar­ried yet,” he added with a look at Stein­bock, who turned pale.

“He has heard of my im­pris­on­ment,” said the luck­less artist to him­self.

“Come, chil­dren,” said he, lead­ing his daugh­ter and the young man in­to the gar­den; they all sat down on the moss-​eat­en seat in the sum­mer-​house.

“Mon­sieur le Comte, do you love my daugh­ter as well as I loved her moth­er?” he asked.

“More, mon­sieur,” said the sculp­tor.

“Her moth­er was a peas­ant's daugh­ter, and had not a far­thing of her own.”

“On­ly give me Made­moi­selle Hort­ense just as she is, with­out a trousseau even----”

“So I should think!” said the Baron, smil­ing. "Hort­ense is the daugh­ter of the Baron Hu­lot d'Ervy, Coun­cil­lor of State, high up in the War Of­fice, Grand Com­man­der of the Le­gion of Hon­or, and the broth­er to Count Hu­lot, whose glo­ry is im­mor­tal, and who will ere long be Mar­shal of France! And--she has a mar­riage por­tion.

“It is true,” said the im­pas­sioned artist. “I must seem very am­bi­tious. But if my dear Hort­ense were a la­bor­er's daugh­ter, I would mar­ry her----”

“That is just what I want­ed to know,” replied the Baron. “Run away, Hort­ense, and leave me to talk busi­ness with Mon­sieur le Comte.--He re­al­ly loves you, you see!”

“Oh, pa­pa, I was sure you were on­ly in jest,” said the hap­py girl.

“My dear Stein­bock,” said the Baron, with elab­orate grace of dic­tion and the most per­fect man­ners, as soon as he and the artist were alone, “I promised my son a for­tune of two hun­dred thou­sand francs, of which the poor boy has nev­er had a sou; and he nev­er will get any of it. My daugh­ter's for­tune will al­so be two hun­dred thou­sand francs, for which you will give a re­ceipt----”

“Yes, Mon­sieur le Baron.”

“You go too fast,” said Hu­lot. "Have the good­ness to hear me out. I can­not ex­pect from a son-​in-​law such de­vo­tion as I look for from my son. My son knew ex­act­ly all I could and would do for his fu­ture pro­mo­tion: he will be a Min­is­ter, and will eas­ily make good his two hun­dred thou­sand francs. But with you, young man, mat­ters are dif­fer­ent. I shall give you a bond for six­ty thou­sand francs in State funds at five per cent, in your wife's name. This in­come will be di­min­ished by a small charge in the form of an an­nu­ity to Lis­beth; but she will not live long; she is con­sump­tive, I know. Tell no one; it is a se­cret; let the poor soul die in peace.--My daugh­ter will have a trousseau worth twen­ty thou­sand francs; her moth­er will give her six thou­sand francs worth of di­amonds.

“Mon­sieur, you over­pow­er me!” said Stein­bock, quite be­wil­dered.

“As to the re­main­ing hun­dred and twen­ty thou­sand francs----”

“Say no more, mon­sieur,” said Wences­las. “I ask on­ly for my beloved Hort­ense----”

“Will you lis­ten to me, ef­fer­ves­cent youth!--As to the re­main­ing hun­dred and twen­ty thou­sand francs, I have not got them; but you will have them--”

“Mon­sieur?”

“You will get them from the Gov­ern­ment, in pay­ment for com­mis­sions which I will se­cure for you, I pledge you my word of hon­or. You are to have a stu­dio, you see, at the Gov­ern­ment de­pot. Ex­hib­it a few fine stat­ues, and I will get you re­ceived at the In­sti­tute. The high­est per­son­ages have a re­gard for my broth­er and for me, and I hope to suc­ceed in se­cur­ing for you a com­mis­sion for sculp­ture at Ver­sailles up to a quar­ter of the whole sum. You will have or­ders from the City of Paris and from the Cham­ber of Peers; in short, my dear fel­low, you will have so many that you will be obliged to get as­sis­tants. In that way I shall pay off my debt to you. You must say whether this way of giv­ing a por­tion will suit you; whether you are equal to it.”

“I am equal to mak­ing a for­tune for my wife sin­gle-​hand­ed if all else failed!” cried the artist-​no­ble­man.

“That is what I ad­mire!” cried the Baron. “High-​mind­ed youth that fears noth­ing. Come,” he added, clasp­ing hands with the young sculp­tor to con­clude the bar­gain, “you have my con­sent. We will sign the con­tract on Sun­day next, and the wed­ding shall be on the fol­low­ing Sat­ur­day, my wife's fete-​day.”

“It is al­right,” said the Baroness to her daugh­ter, who stood glued to the win­dow. “Your suit­or and your fa­ther are em­brac­ing each oth­er.”

On go­ing home in the evening, Wences­las found the so­lu­tion of the mys­tery of his re­lease. The porter hand­ed him a thick sealed pack­et, con­tain­ing the sched­ule of his debts, with a signed re­ceipt af­fixed at the bot­tom of the writ, and ac­com­pa­nied by this let­ter:--

"MY DEAR WENCES­LAS,--I went to fetch you at ten o'clock this morn­ing to in­tro­duce you to a Roy­al High­ness who wish­es to see you. There I learned that the duns had had you con­veyed to a cer­tain lit­tle do­main--chief town, _Clichy Cas­tle_.

"So off I went to Leon de Lo­ra, and told him, for a joke, that you could not leave your coun­try quar­ters for lack of four thou­sand francs, and that you would spoil your fu­ture prospects if you did not make your bow to your roy­al pa­tron. Hap­pi­ly, Bridau was there --a man of ge­nius, who has known what it is to be poor, and has heard your sto­ry. My boy, be­tween them they have found the mon­ey, and I went off to pay the Turk who com­mit­ted trea­son against ge­nius by putting you in quod. As I had to be at the Tu­ileries at noon, I could not wait to see you sniff­ing the out­er air. I know you to be a gen­tle­man, and I an­swered for you to my two friends --but look them up to-​mor­row.

"Leon and Bridau do not want your cash; they will ask you to do them each a group--and they are right. At least, so thinks the man who wish­es he could sign him­self your ri­val, but is on­ly your faith­ful al­ly,

"STID­MANN.

“P. S.--I told the Prince you were away, and would not re­turn till to-​mor­row, so he said, 'Very good--to-​mor­row.'”

Count Wences­las went to bed in sheets of pur­ple, with­out a rose-​leaf to wrin­kle them, that Fa­vor can make for us--Fa­vor, the halt­ing di­vin­ity who moves more slow­ly for men of ge­nius than ei­ther Jus­tice or For­tune, be­cause Jove has not cho­sen to ban­dage her eyes. Hence, light­ly de­ceived by the dis­play of im­pos­tors, and at­tract­ed by their frip­pery and trum­pets, she spends the time in see­ing them and the mon­ey in pay­ing them which she ought to de­vote to seek­ing out men of mer­it in the nooks where they hide.

It will now be nec­es­sary to ex­plain how Mon­sieur le Baron Hu­lot had con­trived to count up his ex­pen­di­ture on Hort­ense's wed­ding por­tion, and at the same time to de­fray the fright­ful cost of the charm­ing rooms where Madame Marn­effe was to make her home. His fi­nan­cial scheme bore that stamp of tal­ent which leads prodi­gals and men in love in­to the quag­mires where so many dis­as­ters await them. Noth­ing can demon­strate more com­plete­ly the strange ca­pac­ity com­mu­ni­cat­ed by vice, to which we owe the strokes of skill which am­bi­tious or volup­tuous men can oc­ca­sion­al­ly achieve--or, in short, any of the Dev­il's pupils.

On the day be­fore, old Jo­hann Fis­ch­er, un­able to pay thir­ty thou­sand francs drawn for on him by his nephew, had found him­self un­der the ne­ces­si­ty of stop­ping pay­ment un­less the Baron could re­mit the sum.

This an­cient wor­thy, with the white hairs of sev­en­ty years, had such blind con­fi­dence in Hu­lot--who, to the old Bona­partist, was an em­ana­tion from the Napoleon­ic sun--that he was calm­ly pac­ing his an­te­room with the bank clerk, in the lit­tle ground-​floor apart­ment that he rent­ed for eight hun­dred francs a year as the head­quar­ters of his ex­ten­sive deal­ings in corn and for­age.

“Mar­guerite is gone to fetch the mon­ey from close by,” said he.

The of­fi­cial, in his gray uni­form braid­ed with sil­ver, was so con­vinced of the old Al­sa­tian's hon­esty, that he was pre­pared to leave the thir­ty thou­sand francs' worth of bills in his hands; but the old man would not let him go, ob­serv­ing that the clock had not yet struck eight. A cab drew up, the old man rushed in­to the street, and held out his hand to the Baron with sub­lime con­fi­dence--Hu­lot hand­ed him out thir­ty thou­sand-​franc notes.

“Go on three doors fur­ther, and I will tell you why,” said Fis­ch­er.

“Here, young man,” he said, re­turn­ing to count out the mon­ey to the bank emis­sary, whom he then saw to the door.

When the clerk was out of sight, Fis­ch­er called back the cab con­tain­ing his au­gust nephew, Napoleon's right hand, and said, as he led him in­to the house:

“You do not want them to know at the Bank of France that you paid me the thir­ty thou­sand francs, af­ter en­dors­ing the bills?--It was bad enough to see them signed by such a man as you!--”

“Come to the bot­tom of your lit­tle gar­den, Fa­ther Fis­ch­er,” said the im­por­tant man. “You are hearty?” he went on, sit­ting down un­der a vine ar­bor and scan­ning the old man from head to foot, as a deal­er in hu­man flesh scans a sub­sti­tute for the con­scrip­tion.

“Ay, hearty enough for a ton­tine,” said the lean lit­tle old man; his sinews were wiry, and his eye bright.

“Does heat dis­agree with you?”

“Quite the con­trary.”

“What do you say to Africa?”

“A very nice coun­try!--The French went there with the lit­tle Cor­po­ral” (Napoleon).

“To get us all out of the present scrape, you must go to Al­giers,” said the Baron.

“And how about my busi­ness?”

“An of­fi­cial in the War Of­fice, who has to re­tire, and has not enough to live on with his pen­sion, will buy your busi­ness.”

“And what am I to do in Al­giers?”

“Sup­ply the Com­mis­sari­at with vict­uals, corn, and for­age; I have your com­mis­sion ready filled in and signed. You can col­lect sup­plies in the coun­try at sev­en­ty per cent be­low the prices at which you can cred­it us.”

“How shall we get them?”

"Oh, by raids, by tax­es in kind, and the Khaliphat.--The coun­try is lit­tle known, though we set­tled there eight years ago; Al­ge­ria pro­duces vast quan­ti­ties of corn and for­age. When this pro­duce be­longs to Arabs, we take it from them un­der var­ious pre­tences; when it be­longs to us, the Arabs try to get it back again. There is a great deal of fight­ing over the corn, and no one ev­er knows ex­act­ly how much each par­ty has stolen from the oth­er. There is not time in the open field to mea­sure the corn as we do in the Paris mar­ket, or the hay as it is sold in the Rue d'En­fer. The Arab chiefs, like our Spahis, pre­fer hard cash, and sell the plun­der at a very low price. The Com­mis­sari­at needs a fixed quan­ti­ty and must have it. It winks at ex­or­bi­tant prices cal­cu­lat­ed on the dif­fi­cul­ty of procur­ing food, and the dan­gers to which ev­ery form of trans­port is ex­posed. That is Al­giers from the army con­trac­tor's point of view.

"It is a mud­dle tem­pered by the ink-​bot­tle, like ev­ery in­cip­ient gov­ern­ment. We shall not see our way through it for an­oth­er ten years --we who have to do the gov­ern­ing; but pri­vate en­ter­prise has sharp eyes.--So I am send­ing you there to make a for­tune; I give you the job, as Napoleon put an im­pov­er­ished Mar­shal at the head of a king­dom where smug­gling might be se­cret­ly en­cour­aged.

“I am ru­ined, my dear Fis­ch­er; I must have a hun­dred thou­sand francs with­in a year.”

“I see no harm in get­ting it out of the Bedouins,” said the Al­sa­tian calm­ly. “It was al­ways done un­der the Em­pire----”

“The man who wants to buy your busi­ness will be here this morn­ing, and pay you ten thou­sand francs down,” the Baron went on. “That will be enough, I sup­pose, to take you to Africa?”

The old man nod­ded as­sent.

“As to cap­ital out there, be quite easy. I will draw the re­main­der of the mon­ey due if I find it nec­es­sary.”

“All I have is yours--my very blood,” said old Fis­ch­er.

“Oh, do not be un­easy,” said Hu­lot, fan­cy­ing that his un­cle saw more clear­ly than was the fact. “As to our ex­cise deal­ings, your char­ac­ter will not be im­pugned. Ev­ery­thing de­pends on the au­thor­ity at your back; now I my­self ap­point­ed the au­thor­ities out there; I am sure of them. This, Un­cle Fis­ch­er, is a dead se­cret be­tween us. I know you well, and I have spo­ken out with­out con­ceal­ment or cir­cum­lo­cu­tion.”

“It shall be done,” said the old man. “And it will go on----?”

“For two years, You will have made a hun­dred thou­sand francs of your own to live hap­py on in the Vos­ges.”

“I will do as you wish; my hon­or is yours,” said the lit­tle old man qui­et­ly.

“That is the sort of man I like.--How­ev­er, you must not go till you have seen your grand-​niece hap­pi­ly mar­ried. She is to be a Count­ess.”

But even tax­es and raids and the mon­ey paid by the War Of­fice clerk for Fis­ch­er's busi­ness could not forth­with pro­vide six­ty thou­sand francs to give Hort­ense, to say noth­ing of her trousseau, which was to cost about five thou­sand, and the forty thou­sand spent--or to be spent --on Madame Marn­effe.

Where, then had the Baron found the thir­ty thou­sand francs he had just pro­duced? This was the his­to­ry.

A few days pre­vi­ous­ly Hu­lot had in­sured his life for the sum of a hun­dred and fifty thou­sand francs, for three years, in two sep­arate com­pa­nies. Armed with the poli­cies, of which he paid the pre­mi­um, he had spo­ken as fol­lows to the Baron de Nucin­gen, a peer of the Cham­ber, in whose car­riage he found him­self af­ter a sit­ting, driv­ing home, in fact, to dine with him:--

“Baron, I want sev­en­ty thou­sand francs, and I ap­ply to you. You must find some one to lend his name, to whom I will make over the right to draw my pay for three years; it amounts to twen­ty-​five thou­sand francs a year--that is, sev­en­ty-​five thou­sand francs.--You will say, 'But you may die'”--the banker sig­ni­fied his as­sent--“Here, then, is a pol­icy of in­sur­ance for a hun­dred and fifty thou­sand francs, which I will de­posit with you till you have drawn up the eighty thou­sand francs,” said Hu­lot, pro­duc­ing the doc­ument form his pock­et.

“But if you should lose your place?” said the mil­lion­aire Baron, laugh­ing.

The oth­er Baron--not a mil­lion­aire--looked grave.

“Be quite easy; I on­ly raised the ques­tion to show you that I was not de­void of mer­it in hand­ing you the sum. Are you so short of cash? for the Bank will take your sig­na­ture.”

“My daugh­ter is to be mar­ried,” said Baron Hu­lot, “and I have no for­tune--like ev­ery one else who re­mains in of­fice in these thank­less times, when five hun­dred or­di­nary men seat­ed on bench­es will nev­er re­ward the men who de­vote them­selves to the ser­vice as hand­some­ly as the Em­per­or did.”

“Well, well; but you had Josepha on your hands!” replied Nucin­gen, “and that ac­counts for ev­ery­thing. Be­tween our­selves, the Duc d'Her­ou­ville has done you a very good turn by re­mov­ing that leech from suck­ing your purse dry. 'I have known what that is, and can pity your case,'” he quot­ed. “Take a friend's ad­vice: Shut up shop, or you will be done for.”

This dirty busi­ness was car­ried out in the name of one Vau­vinet, a small mon­ey-​lender; one of those job­bers who stand for­ward to screen great bank­ing hous­es, like the lit­tle fish that is said to at­tend the shark. This stock-​job­ber's ap­pren­tice was so anx­ious to gain the pa­tron­age of Mon­sieur le Baron Hu­lot, that he promised the great man to ne­go­ti­ate bills of ex­change for thir­ty thou­sand francs at eighty days, and pledged him­self to re­new them four times, and nev­er pass them out of his hands.

Fis­ch­er's suc­ces­sor was to pay forty thou­sand francs for the house and the busi­ness, with the promise that he should sup­ply for­age to a de­part­ment close to Paris.

This was the des­per­ate maze of af­fairs in­to which a man who had hith­er­to been ab­so­lute­ly hon­est was led by his pas­sions--one of the best ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fi­cials un­der Napoleon--pec­ula­tion to pay the mon­ey-​lenders, and bor­row­ing of the mon­ey-​lenders to grat­ify his pas­sions and pro­vide for his daugh­ter. All the ef­forts of this elab­orate prodi­gal­ity were di­rect­ed at mak­ing a dis­play be­fore Madame Marn­effe, and to play­ing Jupiter to this mid­dle-​class Danae. A man could not ex­pend more ac­tiv­ity, in­tel­li­gence, and pres­ence of mind in the hon­est ac­qui­si­tion of a for­tune than the Baron dis­played in shov­ing his head in­to a wasp's nest: He did all the busi­ness of his de­part­ment, he hur­ried on the up­hol­ster­ers, he talked to the work­men, he kept a sharp look­out on the small­est de­tails of the house in the Rue Van­neau. Whol­ly de­vot­ed to Madame Marn­effe, he nev­er­the­less at­tend­ed the sit­tings of the Cham­bers; he was ev­ery­where at once, and nei­ther his fam­ily nor any­body else dis­cov­ered where his thoughts were.

Ade­line, quite amazed to hear that her un­cle was res­cued, and to see a hand­some sum fig­ure in the mar­riage-​con­tract, was not al­to­geth­er easy, in spite of her joy at see­ing her daugh­ter mar­ried un­der such cred­itable cir­cum­stances. But, on the day be­fore the wed­ding, fixed by the Baron to co­in­cide with Madame Marn­effe's re­moval to her new apart­ment, Hec­tor al­layed his wife's as­ton­ish­ment by this min­is­te­ri­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion:--

“Now, Ade­line, our girl is mar­ried; all our anx­ieties on the sub­ject are at an end. The time is come for us to re­tire from the world: I shall not re­main in of­fice more than three years longer--on­ly the time nec­es­sary to se­cure my pen­sion. Why, hence­forth, should we be at any un­nec­es­sary ex­pense? Our apart­ment costs us six thou­sand francs a year in rent, we have four ser­vants, we eat thir­ty thou­sand francs' worth of food in a year. If you want me to pay off my bills--for I have pledged my salary for the sums I need­ed to give Hort­ense her lit­tle mon­ey, and pay off your un­cle----”

“You did very right!” said she, in­ter­rupt­ing her hus­band, and kiss­ing his hands.

This ex­pla­na­tion re­lieved Ade­line of all her fears.

“I shall have to ask some lit­tle sac­ri­fices of you,” he went on, dis­en­gag­ing his hands and kiss­ing his wife's brow. “I have found in the Rue Plumet a very good flat on the first floor, hand­some, splen­did­ly pan­eled, at on­ly fif­teen hun­dred francs a year, where you would on­ly need one wom­an to wait on you, and I could be quite con­tent with a boy.”

“Yes, my dear.”

“If we keep house in a qui­et way, keep­ing up a prop­er ap­pear­ance of course, we should not spend more than six thou­sand francs a year, ex­cept­ing my pri­vate ac­count, which I will pro­vide for.”

The gen­er­ous-​heart­ed wom­an threw her arms round her hus­band's neck in her joy.

“How hap­py I shall be, be­gin­ning again to show you how tru­ly I love you!” she ex­claimed. “And what a cap­ital man­ag­er you are!”

“We will have the chil­dren to dine with us once a week. I, as you know, rarely dine at home. You can very well dine twice a week with Vic­torin and twice a week with Hort­ense. And, as I be­lieve, I may suc­ceed in mak­ing mat­ters up com­plete­ly be­tween Crev­el and us; we can dine once a week with him. These five din­ners and our own at home will fill up the week all but one day, sup­pos­ing that we may oc­ca­sion­al­ly be in­vit­ed to dine else­where.”

“I shall save a great deal for you,” said Ade­line.

“Oh!” he cried, “you are the pearl of wom­en!”

“My kind, di­vine Hec­tor, I shall bless you with my lat­est breath,” said she, “for you have done well for my dear Hort­ense.”

This was the be­gin­ning of the end of the beau­ti­ful Madame Hu­lot's home; and, it may be added, of her be­ing to­tal­ly ne­glect­ed, as Hu­lot had solemn­ly promised Madame Marn­effe.

Crev­el, the im­por­tant and burly, be­ing in­vit­ed as a mat­ter of course to the par­ty giv­en for the sign­ing of the mar­riage-​con­tract, be­haved as though the scene with which this dra­ma opened had nev­er tak­en place, as though he had no grievance against the Baron. Ce­lestin Crev­el was quite ami­able; he was per­haps rather too much the ex-​per­fumer, but as a Ma­jor he was be­gin­ning to ac­quire ma­jes­tic dig­ni­ty. He talked of danc­ing at the wed­ding.

“Fair la­dy,” said he po­lite­ly to the Baroness, “peo­ple like us know how to for­get. Do not ban­ish me from your home; hon­or me, pray, by grac­ing my house with your pres­ence now and then to meet your chil­dren. Be quite easy; I will nev­er say any­thing of what lies buried at the bot­tom of my heart. I be­haved, in­deed, like an id­iot, for I should lose too much by cut­ting my­self off from see­ing you.”

“Mon­sieur, an hon­est wom­an has no ears for such speech­es as those you re­fer to. If you keep your word, you need not doubt that it will give me plea­sure to see the end of a cool­ness which must al­ways be painful in a fam­ily.”

“Well, you sulky old fel­low,” said Hu­lot, drag­ging Crev­el out in­to the gar­den, “you avoid me ev­ery­where, even in my own house. Are two ad­mir­ers of the fair sex to quar­rel for ev­er over a pet­ti­coat? Come; this is re­al­ly too ple­beian!”

“I, mon­sieur, am not such a fine man as you are, and my small at­trac­tions hin­der me from re­pair­ing my loss­es so eas­ily as you can----”

“Sar­cas­tic!” said the Baron.

“Irony is al­low­able from the van­quished to the con­quer­er.”

The con­ver­sa­tion, be­gun in this strain, end­ed in a com­plete rec­on­cil­ia­tion; still Crev­el main­tained his right to take his re­venge.

Madame Marn­effe par­tic­ular­ly wished to be in­vit­ed to Made­moi­selle Hu­lot's wed­ding. To en­able him to re­ceive his fu­ture mis­tress in his draw­ing-​room, the great of­fi­cial was obliged to in­vite all the clerks of his di­vi­sion down to the deputy head-​clerks in­clu­sive. Thus a grand ball was a ne­ces­si­ty. The Baroness, as a pru­dent house­wife, cal­cu­lat­ed that an evening par­ty would cost less than a din­ner, and al­low of a larg­er num­ber of in­vi­ta­tions; so Hort­ense's wed­ding was much talked about.

Mar­shal Prince Wis­sem­bourg and the Baron de Nucin­gen signed in be­half of the bride, the Comtes de Rastignac and Popinot in be­half of Stein­bock. Then, as the high­est no­bil­ity among the Pol­ish em­igrants had been civ­il to Count Stein­bock since he had be­come fa­mous, the artist thought him­self bound to in­vite them. The State Coun­cil, and the War Of­fice to which the Baron be­longed, and the army, anx­ious to do hon­or to the Comte de Forzheim, were all rep­re­sent­ed by their mag­nates. There were near­ly two hun­dred in­dis­pens­able in­vi­ta­tions. How nat­ural, then, that lit­tle Madame Marn­effe was bent on fig­ur­ing in all her glo­ry amid such an as­sem­bly. The Baroness had, a month since, sold her di­amonds to set up her daugh­ter's house, while keep­ing the finest for the trousseau. The sale re­al­ized fif­teen thou­sand francs, of which five thou­sand were sunk in Hort­ense's clothes. And what was ten thou­sand francs for the fur­ni­ture of the young folks' apart­ment, con­sid­er­ing the de­mands of mod­ern lux­ury? How­ev­er, young Mon­sieur and Madame Hu­lot, old Crev­el, and the Comte de Forzheim made very hand­some presents, for the old sol­dier had set aside a sum for the pur­chase of plate. Thanks to these con­tri­bu­tions, even an ex­act­ing Parisian would have been pleased with the rooms the young cou­ple had tak­en in the Rue Saint-​Do­minique, near the In­valides. Ev­ery­thing seemed in har­mo­ny with their love, pure, hon­est, and sin­cere.

At last the great day dawned--for it was to be a great day not on­ly for Wences­las and Hort­ense, but for old Hu­lot too. Madame Marn­effe was to give a house-​warm­ing in her new apart­ment the day af­ter be­com­ing Hu­lot's mis­tress _en titre_, and af­ter the mar­riage of the lovers.

Who but has once in his life been a guest at a wed­ding-​ball? Ev­ery read­er can re­fer to his rem­inis­cences, and will prob­ably smile as he calls up the im­ages of all that com­pa­ny in their Sun­day-​best faces as well as their finest frip­pery.

If any so­cial event can prove the in­flu­ence of en­vi­ron­ment, is it not this? In fact, the Sun­day-​best mood of some re­acts so ef­fec­tu­al­ly on the rest that the men who are most ac­cus­tomed to wear­ing full dress look just like those to whom the par­ty is a high fes­ti­val, unique in their life. And think too of the se­ri­ous old men to whom such things are so com­plete­ly a mat­ter of in­dif­fer­ence, that they are wear­ing their ev­ery­day black coats; the long-​mar­ried men, whose faces be­tray their sad ex­pe­ri­ence of the life the young pair are but just en­ter­ing on; and the lighter el­ements, present as car­bon­ic-​acid gas is in cham­pagne; and the en­vi­ous girls, the wom­en ab­sorbed in won­der­ing if their dress is a suc­cess, the poor re­la­tions whose par­si­mo­nious “get-​up” con­trasts with that of the of­fi­cials in uni­form; and the greedy ones, think­ing on­ly of the sup­per; and the gam­blers, think­ing on­ly of cards.

There are some of ev­ery sort, rich and poor, en­vi­ous and en­vied, philoso­phers and dream­ers, all grouped like the plants in a flow­er-​bed round the rare, choice blos­som, the bride. A wed­ding-​ball is an epit­ome of the world.

At the liveli­est mo­ment of the evening Crev­el led the Baron aside, and said in a whis­per, with the most nat­ural man­ner pos­si­ble:

“By Jove! that's a pret­ty wom­an--the lit­tle la­dy in pink who has opened a rack­ing fire on you from her eyes.”

“Which?”

“The wife of that clerk you are pro­mot­ing, heav­en knows how!--Madame Marn­effe.”

“What do you know about it?”

“Lis­ten, Hu­lot; I will try to for­give you the ill you have done me if on­ly you will in­tro­duce me to her--I will take you to Heloise. Ev­ery­body is ask­ing who is that charm­ing crea­ture. Are you sure that it will strike no one how and why her hus­band's ap­point­ment got it­self signed?--You hap­py ras­cal, she is worth a whole of­fice.--I would serve in her of­fice on­ly too glad­ly.--Come, cin­na, let us be friends.”

“Bet­ter friends than ev­er,” said the Baron to the per­fumer, “and I promise you I will be a good fel­low. With­in a month you shall dine with that lit­tle an­gel.--For it is an an­gel this time, old boy. And I ad­vise you, like me, to have done with the dev­ils.”

Cousin Bet­ty, who had moved to the Rue Van­neau, in­to a nice lit­tle apart­ment on the third floor, left the ball at ten o'clock, but came back to see with her own eyes the two bonds bear­ing twelve hun­dred francs in­ter­est; one of them was the prop­er­ty of the Count­ess Stein­bock, the oth­er was in the name of Madame Hu­lot.

It is thus in­tel­li­gi­ble that Mon­sieur Crev­el should have spo­ken to Hu­lot about Madame Marn­effe, as know­ing what was a se­cret to the rest of the world; for, as Mon­sieur Marn­effe was away, no one but Lis­beth Fis­ch­er, be­sides the Baron and Va­lerie, was ini­ti­at­ed in­to the mys­tery.

The Baron had made a blun­der in giv­ing Madame Marn­effe a dress far too mag­nif­icent for the wife of a sub­or­di­nate of­fi­cial; oth­er wom­en were jeal­ous alike of her beau­ty and of her gown. There was much whis­per­ing be­hind fans, for the pover­ty of the Marn­effes was known to ev­ery one in the of­fice; the hus­band had been pe­ti­tion­ing for help at the very mo­ment when the Baron had been so smit­ten with madame. Al­so, Hec­tor could not con­ceal his ex­ul­ta­tion at see­ing Va­lerie's suc­cess; and she, severe­ly prop­er, very la­dy-​like, and great­ly en­vied, was the ob­ject of that strict ex­am­ina­tion which wom­en so great­ly fear when they ap­pear for the first time in a new cir­cle of so­ci­ety.

Af­ter see­ing his wife in­to a car­riage with his daugh­ter and his son-​in-​law, Hu­lot man­aged to es­cape un­per­ceived, leav­ing his son and Ce­les­tine to do the hon­ors of the house. He got in­to Madame Marn­effe's car­riage to see her home, but he found her silent and pen­sive, al­most melan­choly.

“My hap­pi­ness makes you very sad, Va­lerie,” said he, putting his arm round her and draw­ing her to him.

“Can you won­der, my dear,” said she, "that a hap­less wom­an should be a lit­tle de­pressed at the thought of her first fall from virtue, even when her hus­band's atroc­ities have set her free? Do you sup­pose that I have no soul, no be­liefs, no re­li­gion? Your glee this evening has been re­al­ly too barefaced; you have pa­rad­ed me odi­ous­ly. Re­al­ly, a school­boy would have been less of a cox­comb. And the ladies have dis­sect­ed me with their side-​glances and their satir­ical re­marks. Ev­ery wom­an has some care for her rep­uta­tion, and you have wrecked mine.

“Oh, I am yours and no mis­take! And I have not an ex­cuse left but that of be­ing faith­ful to you.--Mon­ster that you are!” she added, laugh­ing, and al­low­ing him to kiss her, “you knew very well what you were do­ing! Madame Co­quet, our chief clerk's wife, came to sit down by me, and ad­mired my lace. 'En­glish point!' said she. 'Was it very ex­pen­sive, madame?'--'I do not know. This lace was my moth­er's. I am not rich enough to buy the like,' said I.”

Madame Marn­effe, in short, had so be­witched the old beau, that he re­al­ly be­lieved she was sin­ning for the first time for his sake, and that he had in­spired such a pas­sion as had led her to this breach of du­ty. She told him that the wretch Marn­effe had ne­glect­ed her af­ter they had been three days mar­ried, and for the most odi­ous rea­sons. Since then she had lived as in­no­cent­ly as a girl; mar­riage had seemed to her so hor­ri­ble. This was the cause of her present melan­choly.

“If love should prove to be like mar­riage----” said she in tears.

These in­sin­uat­ing lies, with which al­most ev­ery wom­an in Va­lerie's predica­ment is ready, gave the Baron dis­tant vi­sions of the ros­es of the sev­enth heav­en. And so Va­lerie co­quet­ted with her lover, while the artist and Hort­ense were im­pa­tient­ly await­ing the mo­ment when the Baroness should have giv­en the girl her last kiss and bless­ing.

At sev­en in the morn­ing the Baron, per­fect­ly hap­py--for his Va­lerie was at once the most guile­less of girls and the most con­sum­mate of demons--went back to re­lease his son and Ce­les­tine from their du­ties. All the dancers, for the most part strangers, had tak­en pos­ses­sion of the ter­ri­to­ry, as they do at ev­ery wed­ding-​ball, and were keep­ing up the end­less fig­ures of the cotil­lions, while the gam­blers were still crowd­ing round the _bouil­lotte_ ta­bles, and old Crev­el had won six thou­sand francs.

The morn­ing pa­pers, car­ried round the town, con­tained this para­graph in the Paris ar­ti­cle:--

"The mar­riage was cel­ebrat­ed this morn­ing, at the Church of Saint-​Thomas d'Aquin, be­tween Mon­sieur le Comte Stein­bock and Made­moi­selle Hort­ense Hu­lot, daugh­ter of Baron Hu­lot d'Ervy, Coun­cil­lor of State, and a Di­rec­tor at the War Of­fice; niece of the fa­mous Gen­er­al Comte de Forzheim. The cer­emo­ny at­tract­ed a large gath­er­ing. There were present some of the most dis­tin­guished artists of the day: Leon de Lo­ra, Joseph Bridau, Stid­mann, and Bix­iou; the mag­nates of the War Of­fice, of the Coun­cil of State, and many mem­bers of the two Cham­bers; al­so the most dis­tin­guished of the Pol­ish ex­iles liv­ing in Paris: Counts Paz, La­gin­ski, and oth­ers.

“Mon­sieur le Comte Wences­las Stein­bock is grand­nephew to the fa­mous gen­er­al who served un­der Charles XII., King of Swe­den. The young Count, hav­ing tak­en part in the Pol­ish re­bel­lion, found a refuge in France, where his well-​earned fame as a sculp­tor has pro­cured him a patent of nat­ural­iza­tion.”

And so, in spite of the Baron's cru­el lack of mon­ey, noth­ing was lack­ing that pub­lic opin­ion could re­quire, not even the trum­pet­ing of the news­pa­pers over his daugh­ter's mar­riage, which was sol­em­nized in the same way, in ev­ery par­tic­ular, as his son's had been to Made­moi­selle Crev­el. This dis­play mod­er­at­ed the re­ports cur­rent as to the Baron's fi­nan­cial po­si­tion, while the for­tune as­signed to his daugh­ter ex­plained the need for hav­ing bor­rowed mon­ey.

Here ends what is, in a way, the in­tro­duc­tion to this sto­ry. It is to the dra­ma that fol­lows that the premise is to a syl­lo­gism, what the pro­logue is to a clas­si­cal tragedy.

In Paris, when a wom­an de­ter­mines to make a busi­ness, a trade, of her beau­ty, it does not fol­low that she will make a for­tune. Love­ly crea­tures may be found there, and full of wit, who are in wretched cir­cum­stances, end­ing in mis­ery a life be­gun in plea­sure. And this is why. It is not enough mere­ly to ac­cept the shame­ful life of a cour­te­san with a view to earn­ing its prof­its, and at the same time to bear the sim­ple garb of a re­spectable mid­dle-​class wife. Vice does not tri­umph so eas­ily; it re­sem­bles ge­nius in so far that they both need a con­cur­rence of fa­vor­able con­di­tions to de­vel­op the coali­tion of for­tune and gifts. Elim­inate the strange pro­logue of the Rev­olu­tion, and the Em­per­or would nev­er have ex­ist­ed; he would have been no more than a sec­ond edi­tion of Fabert. Ve­nal beau­ty, if it finds no am­ateurs, no celebri­ty, no cross of dis­hon­or earned by squan­der­ing men's for­tunes, is Cor­reg­gio in a hay-​loft, is ge­nius starv­ing in a gar­ret. Lais, in Paris, must first and fore­most find a rich man mad enough to pay her price. She must keep up a very el­egant style, for this is her shop-​sign; she must be suf­fi­cient­ly well bred to flat­ter the van­ity of her lovers; she must have the bril­liant wit of a So­phie Arnould, which di­verts the ap­athy of rich men; fi­nal­ly, she must arouse the pas­sions of lib­ertines by ap­pear­ing to be mis­tress to one man on­ly who is en­vied by the rest.

These con­di­tions, which a wom­an of that class calls be­ing in luck, are dif­fi­cult to com­bine in Paris, al­though it is a city of mil­lion­aires, of idlers, of used-​up and capri­cious men.

Prov­idence has, no doubt, vouch­safed pro­tec­tion to clerks and mid­dle-​class cit­izens, for whom ob­sta­cles of this kind are at least dou­ble in the sphere in which they move. At the same time, there are enough Madame Marn­effes in Paris to al­low of our tak­ing Va­lerie to fig­ure as a type in this pic­ture of man­ners. Some of these wom­en yield to the dou­ble pres­sure of a gen­uine pas­sion and of hard ne­ces­si­ty, like Madame Colleville, who was for long at­tached to one of the fa­mous or­ators of the left, Keller the banker. Oth­ers are spurred by van­ity, like Madame de la Bau­draye, who re­mained al­most re­spectable in spite of her elope­ment with Lousteau. Some, again, are led astray by the love of fine clothes, and some by the im­pos­si­bil­ity of keep­ing a house go­ing on ob­vi­ous­ly too nar­row means. The stingi­ness of the State--or of Par­lia­ment--leads to many dis­as­ters and to much cor­rup­tion.

At the present mo­ment the la­bor­ing class­es are the fash­ion­able ob­ject of com­pas­sion; they are be­ing mur­dered--it is said--by the man­ufac­tur­ing cap­ital­ist; but the Gov­ern­ment is a hun­dred times hard­er than the mean­est trades­man, it car­ries its econ­omy in the ar­ti­cle of salaries to ab­so­lute fol­ly. If you work hard­er, the mer­chant will pay you more in pro­por­tion; but what does the State do for its crowd of ob­scure and de­vot­ed toil­ers?

In a mar­ried wom­an it is an in­ex­cus­able crime when she wan­ders from the path of hon­or; still, there are de­grees even in such a case. Some wom­en, far from be­ing de­praved, con­ceal their fall and re­main to all ap­pear­ances quite re­spectable, like those two just re­ferred to, while oth­ers add to their fault the dis­grace of spec­ula­tion. Thus Madame Marn­effe is, as it were, the type of those am­bi­tious mar­ried cour­te­sans who from the first ac­cept de­prav­ity with all its con­se­quences, and de­ter­mine to make a for­tune while tak­ing their plea­sure, per­fect­ly un­scrupu­lous as to the means. But al­most al­ways a wom­an like Madame Marn­effe has a hus­band who is her con­fed­er­ate and ac­com­plice. These Machi­avel­lis in pet­ti­coats are the most dan­ger­ous of the sis­ter­hood; of ev­ery evil class of Parisian wom­an, they are the worst.

A mere cour­te­san--a Josepha, a Mala­ga, a Madame Schontz, a Jen­ny Ca­dine--car­ries in her frank dis­hon­or a warn­ing sig­nal as con­spic­uous as the red lamp of a house of ill-​fame or the flar­ing lights of a gam­bling hell. A man knows that they light him to his ru­in.

But mealy-​mouthed pro­pri­ety, the sem­blance of virtue, the hyp­ocrit­ical ways of a mar­ried wom­an who nev­er al­lows any­thing to be seen but the vul­gar needs of the house­hold, and af­fects to refuse ev­ery kind of ex­trav­agance, leads to silent ru­in, dumb dis­as­ter, which is all the more startling be­cause, though con­doned, it re­mains un­ac­count­ed for. It is the ig­no­ble bill of dai­ly ex­pens­es and not gay dis­si­pa­tion that de­vours the largest for­tune. The fa­ther of a fam­ily ru­ins him­self in­glo­ri­ous­ly, and the great con­so­la­tion of grat­ified van­ity is want­ing in his mis­ery.

This lit­tle ser­mon will go like a javelin to the heart of many a home. Madame Marn­effes are to be seen in ev­ery sphere of so­cial life, even at Court; for Va­lerie is a melan­choly fact, mod­eled from the life in the small­est de­tails. And, alas! the por­trait will not cure any man of the fol­ly of lov­ing these sweet­ly-​smil­ing an­gels, with pen­sive looks and can­did faces, whose heart is a cash-​box.

About three years af­ter Hort­ense's mar­riage, in 1841, Baron Hu­lot d'Ervy was sup­posed to have sown his wild oats, to have “put up his hors­es,” to quote the ex­pres­sion used by Louis XV.'s head sur­geon, and yet Madame Marn­effe was cost­ing him twice as much as Josepha had ev­er cost him. Still, Va­lerie, though al­ways nice­ly dressed, af­fect­ed the sim­plic­ity of a sub­or­di­nate of­fi­cial's wife; she kept her lux­ury for her dress­ing-​gowns, her home wear. She thus sac­ri­ficed her Parisian van­ity to her dear Hec­tor. At the the­atre, how­ev­er, she al­ways ap­peared in a pret­ty bon­net and a dress of ex­treme el­egance; and the Baron took her in a car­riage to a pri­vate box.

Her rooms, the whole of the sec­ond floor of a mod­ern house in the Rue Van­neau, be­tween a fore-​court and a gar­den, was redo­lent of re­spectabil­ity. All its lux­ury was in good chintz hang­ings and hand­some con­ve­nient fur­ni­ture.

Her bed­room, in­deed, was the ex­cep­tion, and rich with such pro­fu­sion as Jen­ny Ca­dine or Madame Schontz might have dis­played. There were lace cur­tains, cash­mere hang­ings, bro­cade portieres, a set of chim­ney or­na­ments mod­eled by Stid­mann, a glass cab­inet filled with dain­ty nick­nacks. Hu­lot could not bear to see his Va­lerie in a bow­er of in­fe­ri­or mag­nif­icence to the dunghill of gold and pearls owned by a Josepha. The draw­ing-​room was fur­nished with red damask, and the din­ing-​room had carved oak pan­els. But the Baron, car­ried away by his wish to have ev­ery­thing in keep­ing, had at the end of six months, added sol­id lux­ury to mere fash­ion, and had giv­en her hand­some portable prop­er­ty, as, for in­stance, a ser­vice of plate that was to cost more than twen­ty-​four thou­sand francs.

Madame Marn­effe's house had in a cou­ple of years achieved a rep­uta­tion for be­ing a very pleas­ant one. Gam­bling went on there. Va­lerie her­self was soon spo­ken of as an agree­able and wit­ty wom­an. To ac­count for her change of style, a ru­mor was set go­ing of an im­mense lega­cy be­queathed to her by her “nat­ural fa­ther,” Mar­shal Mont­cor­net, and left in trust.

With an eye to the fu­ture, Va­lerie had added re­li­gious to so­cial hypocrisy. Punc­tu­al at the Sun­day ser­vices, she en­joyed all the hon­ors due to the pi­ous. She car­ried the bag for the of­fer­to­ry, she was a mem­ber of a char­ita­ble as­so­ci­ation, pre­sent­ed bread for the sacra­ment, and did some good among the poor, all at Hec­tor's ex­pense. Thus ev­ery­thing about the house was ex­treme­ly seem­ly. And a great many per­sons main­tained that her friend­ship with the Baron was en­tire­ly in­no­cent, sup­port­ing the view by the gen­tle­man's ma­ture age, and as­crib­ing to him a Pla­ton­ic lik­ing for Madame Marn­effe's pleas­ant wit, charm­ing man­ners, and con­ver­sa­tion--such a lik­ing as that of the late lament­ed Louis XVI­II. for a well-​turned note.

The Baron al­ways with­drew with the oth­er com­pa­ny at about mid­night, and came back a quar­ter of an hour lat­er.

The se­cret of this se­cre­cy was as fol­lows. The lodge-​keep­ers of the house were a Mon­sieur and Madame Olivi­er, who, un­der the Baron's pa­tron­age, had been pro­mot­ed from their hum­ble and not very lu­cra­tive post in the Rue du Doyenne to the high­ly-​paid and hand­some one in the Rue Van­neau. Now, Madame Olivi­er, for­mer­ly a needle­wom­an in the house­hold of Charles X., who had fall­en in the world with the le­git­imate branch, had three chil­dren. The el­dest, an un­der-​clerk in a no­tary's of­fice, was ob­ject of his par­ents' ado­ra­tion. This Ben­jamin, for six years in dan­ger of be­ing drawn for the army, was on the point of be­ing in­ter­rupt­ed in his le­gal ca­reer, when Madame Marn­effe con­trived to have him de­clared ex­empt for one of those lit­tle mal­for­ma­tions which the Ex­am­in­ing Board can al­ways dis­cern when re­quest­ed in a whis­per by some pow­er in the min­istry. So Olivi­er, for­mer­ly a hunts­man to the King, and his wife would have cru­ci­fied the Lord again for the Baron or for Madame Marn­effe.

What could the world have to say? It knew noth­ing of the for­mer episode of the Brazil­ian, Mon­sieur Montes de Mon­te­janos--it could say noth­ing. Be­sides, the world is very in­dul­gent to the mis­tress of a house where amuse­ment is to be found.

And then to all her charms Va­lerie added the high­ly-​prized ad­van­tage of be­ing an oc­cult pow­er. Claude Vi­gnon, now sec­re­tary to Mar­shal the Prince de Wis­sem­bourg, and dream­ing of pro­mo­tion to the Coun­cil of State as a Mas­ter of Ap­peals, was con­stant­ly seen in her rooms, to which came al­so some Deputies--good fel­lows and gam­blers. Madame Marn­effe had got her cir­cle to­geth­er with pru­dent de­lib­er­ation; on­ly men whose opin­ions and habits agreed fore­gath­ered there, men whose in­ter­est it was to hold to­geth­er and to pro­claim the many mer­its of the la­dy of the house. Scan­dal is the true Holy Al­liance in Paris. Take that as an ax­iom. In­ter­ests in­vari­ably fall asun­der in the end; vi­cious na­tures can al­ways agree.

With­in three months of set­tling in the Rue Van­neau, Madame Marn­effe had en­ter­tained Mon­sieur Crev­el, who by that time was May­or of his _ar­rondisse­ment_ and Of­fi­cer of the Le­gion of Hon­or. Crev­el had hes­itat­ed; he would have to give up the fa­mous uni­form of the Na­tion­al Guard in which he strut­ted at the Tu­ileries, be­liev­ing him­self quite as much a sol­dier as the Em­per­or him­self; but am­bi­tion, urged by Madame Marn­effe, had proved stronger than van­ity. Then Mon­sieur le Maire had con­sid­ered his con­nec­tion with Made­moi­selle Heloise Brisetout as quite in­com­pat­ible with his po­lit­ical po­si­tion.

In­deed, long be­fore his ac­ces­sion to the civic chair of the May­oral­ty, his gal­lant in­ti­ma­cies had been wrapped in the deep­est mys­tery. But, as the read­er may have guessed, Crev­el had soon pur­chased the right of tak­ing his re­venge, as of­ten as cir­cum­stances al­lowed, for hav­ing been bereft of Josepha, at the cost of a bond bear­ing six thou­sand francs of in­ter­est in the name of Va­lerie Fortin, wife of Sieur Marn­effe, for her sole and sep­arate use. Va­lerie, in­her­it­ing per­haps from her moth­er the spe­cial acu­men of the kept wom­an, read the char­ac­ter of her grotesque ador­er at a glance. The phrase “I nev­er had a la­dy for a mis­tress,” spo­ken by Crev­el to Lis­beth, and re­peat­ed by Lis­beth to her dear Va­lerie, had been hand­some­ly dis­count­ed in the bar­gain by which she got her six thou­sand francs a year in five per cents. And since then she had nev­er al­lowed her pres­tige to grow less in the eyes of Ce­sar Birot­teau's erewhile bag­man.

Crev­el him­self had mar­ried for mon­ey the daugh­ter of a miller of la Brie, an on­ly child in­deed, whose in­her­itance con­sti­tut­ed three-​quar­ters of his for­tune; for when re­tail-​deal­ers grow rich, it is gen­er­al­ly not so much by trade as through some al­liance be­tween the shop and ru­ral thrift. A large pro­por­tion of the farm­ers, corn-​fac­tors, dairy-​keep­ers, and mar­ket-​gar­den­ers in the neigh­bor­hood of Paris, dream of the glo­ries of the desk for their daugh­ters, and look up­on a shop­keep­er, a jew­el­er, or a mon­ey-​chang­er as a son-​in-​law af­ter their own heart, in pref­er­ence to a no­tary or an at­tor­ney, whose su­pe­ri­or so­cial po­si­tion is a ground of sus­pi­cion; they are afraid of be­ing scorned in the fu­ture by these cit­izen big­wigs.

Madame Crev­el, ug­ly, vul­gar, and sil­ly, had giv­en her hus­band no plea­sures but those of pa­ter­ni­ty; she died young. Her lib­er­tine hus­band, fet­tered at the be­gin­ning of his com­mer­cial ca­reer by the ne­ces­si­ty for work­ing, and held in thrall by want of mon­ey, had led the life of Tan­ta­lus. Thrown in--as he phrased it--with the most el­egant wom­en in Paris, he let them out of the shop with servile homage, while ad­mir­ing their grace, their way of wear­ing the fash­ions, and all the name­less charms of what is called breed­ing. To rise to the lev­el of one of these fairies of the draw­ing-​room was a de­sire formed in his youth, but buried in the depths of his heart. Thus to win the fa­vors of Madame Marn­effe was to him not mere­ly the re­al­iza­tion of his chimera, but, as has been shown, a point of pride, of van­ity, of self-​sat­is­fac­tion. His am­bi­tion grew with suc­cess; his brain was turned with ela­tion; and when the mind is cap­ti­vat­ed, the heart feels more keen­ly, ev­ery grat­ifi­ca­tion is dou­bled.

Al­so, it must be said that Madame Marn­effe of­fered to Crev­el a re­fine­ment of plea­sure of which he had no idea; nei­ther Josepha nor Heloise had loved him; and Madame Marn­effe thought it nec­es­sary to de­ceive him thor­ough­ly, for this man, she saw, would prove an in­ex­haustible till. The de­cep­tions of a ve­nal pas­sion are more de­light­ful than the re­al thing. True love is mixed up with bird­like squab­bles, in which the dis­putants wound each oth­er to the quick; but a quar­rel with­out an­imus is, on the con­trary, a piece of flat­tery to the dupe's con­ceit.

The rare in­ter­views grant­ed to Crev­el kept his pas­sion at white heat. He was con­stant­ly blocked by Va­lerie's vir­tu­ous sever­ity; she act­ed re­morse, and won­dered what her fa­ther must be think­ing of her in the par­adise of the brave. Again and again he had to con­tend with a sort of cold­ness, which the cun­ning slut made him be­lieve he had over­come by seem­ing to sur­ren­der to the man's crazy pas­sion; and then, as if ashamed, she en­trenched her­self once more in her pride of re­spectabil­ity and airs of virtue, just like an En­glish­wom­an, nei­ther more nor less; and she al­ways crushed her Crev­el un­der the weight of her dig­ni­ty--for Crev­el had, in the first in­stance, swal­lowed her pre­ten­sions to virtue.

In short, Va­lerie had spe­cial veins of af­fec­tions which made her equal­ly in­dis­pens­able to Crev­el and to the Baron. Be­fore the world she dis­played the at­trac­tive com­bi­na­tion of mod­est and pen­sive in­no­cence, of ir­re­proach­able pro­pri­ety, with a bright hu­mor en­hanced by the sup­ple­ness, the grace and soft­ness of the Cre­ole; but in a _tete-​a-​tete_ she would out­do any cour­te­san; she was au­da­cious, amus­ing, and full of orig­inal in­ven­tive­ness. Such a con­trast is ir­re­sistible to a man of the Crev­el type; he is flat­tered by be­liev­ing him­self sole au­thor of the com­edy, think­ing it is per­formed for his ben­efit alone, and he laughs at the exquisite hypocrisy while ad­mir­ing the hyp­ocrite.

Va­lerie had tak­en en­tire pos­ses­sion of Baron Hu­lot; she had per­suad­ed him to grow old by one of those sub­tle touch­es of flat­tery which re­veal the di­abol­ical wit of wom­en like her. In all ev­er­green con­sti­tu­tions a mo­ment ar­rives when the truth sud­den­ly comes out, as in a be­sieged town which puts a good face on af­fairs as long as pos­si­ble. Va­lerie, fore­see­ing the ap­proach­ing col­lapse of the old beau of the Em­pire, de­ter­mined to fore­stall it.

“Why give your­self so much both­er, my dear old vet­er­an?” said she one day, six months af­ter their dou­bly adul­ter­ous union. “Do you want to be flirt­ing? To be un­faith­ful to me? I as­sure you, I should like you bet­ter with­out your make-​up. Oblige me by giv­ing up all your ar­ti­fi­cial charms. Do you sup­pose that it is for two sous' worth of pol­ish on your boots that I love you? For your in­dia-​rub­ber belt, your strait-​waist­coat, and your false hair? And then, the old­er you look, the less need I fear see­ing my Hu­lot car­ried off by a ri­val.”

And Hu­lot, trust­ing to Madame Marn­effe's heav­en­ly friend­ship as much as to her love, in­tend­ing, too, to end his days with her, had tak­en this con­fi­den­tial hint, and ceased to dye his whiskers and hair. Af­ter this touch­ing dec­la­ra­tion from his Va­lerie, hand­some Hec­tor made his ap­pear­ance one morn­ing per­fect­ly white. Madame Marn­effe could as­sure him that she had a hun­dred times de­tect­ed the white line of the growth of the hair.

“And white hair suits your face to per­fec­tion,” said she; “it soft­ens it. You look a thou­sand times bet­ter, quite charm­ing.”

The Baron, once start­ed on this path of re­form, gave up his leather waist­coat and stays; he threw off all his brac­ing. His stom­ach fell and in­creased in size. The oak be­came a tow­er, and the heav­iness of his move­ments was all the more alarm­ing be­cause the Baron grew im­mense­ly old­er by play­ing the part of Louis XII. His eye­brows were still black, and left a ghost­ly rem­inis­cence of Hand­some Hu­lot, as some­times on the wall of some feu­dal build­ing a faint trace of sculp­ture re­mains to show what the cas­tle was in the days of its glo­ry. This dis­cor­dant de­tail made his eyes, still bright and youth­ful, all the more re­mark­able in his tanned face, be­cause it had so long been rud­dy with the florid hues of a Rubens; and now a cer­tain dis­col­oration and the deep ten­sion of the wrin­kles be­trayed the ef­forts of a pas­sion at odds with nat­ural de­cay. Hu­lot was now one of those stal­wart ru­ins in which vir­ile force as­serts it­self by tufts of hair in the ears and nos­trils and on the fin­gers, as moss grows on the al­most eter­nal mon­uments of the Ro­man Em­pire.

How had Va­lerie con­trived to keep Crev­el and Hu­lot side by side, each tied to an apron-​string, when the vin­dic­tive May­or on­ly longed to tri­umph open­ly over Hu­lot? With­out im­me­di­ate­ly giv­ing an an­swer to this ques­tion, which the course of the sto­ry will sup­ply, it may be said that Lis­beth and Va­lerie had con­trived a pow­er­ful piece of ma­chin­ery which tend­ed to this re­sult. Marn­effe, as he saw his wife im­proved in beau­ty by the set­ting in which she was en­throned, like the sun at the cen­tre of the side­re­al sys­tem, ap­peared, in the eyes of the world, to have fall­en in love with her again him­self; he was quite crazy about her. Now, though his jeal­ousy made him some­what of a marplot, it gave en­hanced val­ue to Va­lerie's fa­vors. Marn­effe mean­while showed a blind con­fi­dence in his chief, which de­gen­er­at­ed in­to ridicu­lous com­plai­sance. The on­ly per­son whom he re­al­ly would not stand was Crev­el.

Marn­effe, wrecked by the de­bauch­ery of great cities, de­scribed by Ro­man au­thors, though mod­ern de­cen­cy has no name for it, was as hideous as an anatom­ical fig­ure in wax. But this dis­ease on feet, clothed in good broad­cloth, en­cased his lath­like legs in el­egant trousers. The hol­low chest was scent­ed with fine linen, and musk dis­guised the odors of rot­ten hu­man­ity. This hideous spec­imen of de­cay­ing vice, trot­ting in red heels--for Va­lerie dressed the man as be­seemed his in­come, his cross, and his ap­point­ment--hor­ri­fied Crev­el, who could not meet the col­or­less eyes of the Gov­ern­ment clerk. Marn­effe was an in­cubus to the May­or. And the mean ras­cal, aware of the strange pow­er con­ferred on him by Lis­beth and his wife, was amused by it; he played on it as on an in­stru­ment; and cards be­ing the last re­source of a mind as com­plete­ly played out as the body, he plucked Crev­el again and again, the May­or think­ing him­self bound to sub­servien­cy to the wor­thy of­fi­cial whom _he was cheat­ing_.

See­ing Crev­el a mere child in the hands of that hideous and atro­cious mum­my, of whose ut­ter vile­ness the May­or knew noth­ing; and see­ing him, yet more, an ob­ject of deep con­tempt to Va­lerie, who made game of Crev­el as of some moun­te­bank, the Baron ap­par­ent­ly thought him so im­pos­si­ble as a ri­val that he con­stant­ly in­vit­ed him to din­ner.

Va­lerie, pro­tect­ed by two lovers on guard, and by a jeal­ous hus­band, at­tract­ed ev­ery eye, and ex­cit­ed ev­ery de­sire in the cir­cle she shone up­on. And thus, while keep­ing up ap­pear­ances, she had, in the course of three years, achieved the most dif­fi­cult con­di­tions of the suc­cess a cour­te­san most cares for and most rarely at­tains, even with the help of au­dac­ity and the glit­ter of an ex­is­tence in the light of the sun. Va­lerie's beau­ty, for­mer­ly buried in the mud of the Rue du Doyenne, now, like a well-​cut di­amond exquisite­ly set by Chanor, was worth more than its re­al val­ue--it could break hearts. Claude Vi­gnon adored Va­lerie in se­cret.

This ret­ro­spec­tive ex­pla­na­tion, quite nec­es­sary af­ter the lapse of three years, shows Va­lerie's bal­ance-​sheet. Now for that of her part­ner, Lis­beth.

Lis­beth Fis­ch­er filled the place in the Marn­effe house­hold of a re­la­tion who com­bines the func­tions of a la­dy com­pan­ion and a house­keep­er; but she suf­fered from none of the hu­mil­ia­tions which, for the most part, weigh up­on the wom­en who are so un­hap­py as to be obliged to fill these am­bigu­ous sit­ua­tions. Lis­beth and Va­lerie of­fered the touch­ing spec­ta­cle of one of those friend­ships be­tween wom­en, so cor­dial and so im­prob­able, that men, al­ways too keen-​tongued in Paris, forth­with slan­der them. The con­trast be­tween Lis­beth's dry mas­cu­line na­ture and Va­lerie's cre­ole pret­ti­ness en­cour­aged calum­ny. And Madame Marn­effe had un­con­scious­ly giv­en weight to the scan­dal by the care she took of her friend, with mat­ri­mo­ni­al views, which were, as will be seen, to com­plete Lis­beth's re­venge.

An im­mense change had tak­en place in Cousin Bet­ty; and Va­lerie, who want­ed to smarten her, had turned it to the best ac­count. The strange wom­an had sub­mit­ted to stays, and laced tight­ly, she used ban­do­line to keep her hair smooth, wore her gowns as the dress­mak­er sent them home, neat lit­tle boots, and gray silk stock­ings, all of which were in­clud­ed in Va­lerie's bills, and paid for by the gen­tle­man in pos­ses­sion. Thus fur­bished up, and wear­ing the yel­low cash­mere shawl, Lis­beth would have been un­rec­og­niz­able by any one who had not seen her for three years.

This oth­er di­amond--a black di­amond, the rarest of all--cut by a skilled hand, and set as best be­came her, was ap­pre­ci­at­ed at her full val­ue by cer­tain am­bi­tious clerks. Any one see­ing her for the first time might have shud­dered in­vol­un­tar­ily at the look of po­et­ic wild­ness which the clever Va­lerie had suc­ceed­ed in bring­ing out by the arts of dress in this Bleed­ing Nun, fram­ing the as­cetic olive face in thick bands of hair as black as the fiery eyes, and mak­ing the most of the rigid, slim fig­ure. Lis­beth, like a Vir­gin by Cranach or Van Ey­ck, or a Byzan­tine Madon­na stepped out of its frame, had all the stiff­ness, the pre­ci­sion of those mys­te­ri­ous fig­ures, the more mod­ern cousins of Isis and her sis­ter god­dess­es sheathed in mar­ble folds by Egyp­tian sculp­tors. It was gran­ite, basalt, por­phyry, with life and move­ment.

Saved from want for the rest of her life, Lis­beth was most ami­able; wher­ev­er she dined she brought mer­ri­ment. And the Baron paid the rent of her lit­tle apart­ment, fur­nished, as we know, with the leav­ings of her friend Va­lerie's for­mer boudoir and bed­room.

“I be­gan,” she would say, “as a hun­gry nan­ny goat, and I am end­ing as a _li­onne_.”

She still worked for Mon­sieur Riv­et at the more elab­orate kinds of gold-​trim­ming, mere­ly, as she said, not to lose her time. At the same time, she was, as we shall see, very full of busi­ness; but it is in­her­ent in the na­ture of coun­try-​folks nev­er to give up bread-​win­ning; in this they are like the Jews.

Ev­ery morn­ing, very ear­ly, Cousin Bet­ty went off to mar­ket with the cook. It was part of Lis­beth's scheme that the house-​book, which was ru­in­ing Baron Hu­lot, was to en­rich her dear Va­lerie--as it did in­deed.

Is there a house­wife who, since 1838, has not suf­fered from the evil ef­fects of So­cial­ist doc­trines dif­fused among the low­er class­es by in­cen­di­ary writ­ers? In ev­ery house­hold the plague of ser­vants is nowa­days the worst of fi­nan­cial af­flic­tions. With very few ex­cep­tions, who ought to be re­ward­ed with the Mon­ty­on prize, the cook, male or fe­male, is a do­mes­tic rob­ber, a thief tak­ing wages, and per­fect­ly barefaced, with the Gov­ern­ment for a fence, de­vel­op­ing the ten­den­cy to dis­hon­esty, which is al­most au­tho­rized in the cook by the time-​hon­ored jest as to the “han­dle of the bas­ket.” The wom­en who for­mer­ly picked up their forty sous to buy a lot­tery tick­et now take fifty francs to put in­to the sav­ings bank. And the smug Pu­ri­tans who amuse them­selves in France with phil­an­thropic ex­per­iments fan­cy that they are mak­ing the com­mon peo­ple moral!

Be­tween the mar­ket and the mas­ter's ta­ble the ser­vants have their se­cret toll, and the mu­nic­ipal­ity of Paris is less sharp in col­lect­ing the city-​dues than the ser­vants are in tak­ing theirs on ev­ery sin­gle thing. To say noth­ing of fifty per cent charged on ev­ery form of food, they de­mand large New Year's pre­mi­ums from the trades­men. The best class of deal­ers trem­ble be­fore this oc­cult pow­er, and sub­si­dize it with­out a word--coach­mak­ers, jew­el­ers, tai­lors, and all. If any at­tempt is made to in­ter­fere with them, the ser­vants re­ply with im­pu­dent re­torts, or re­venge them­selves by the cost­ly blun­ders of as­sumed clum­si­ness; and in these days they in­quire in­to their mas­ter's char­ac­ter as, for­mer­ly, the mas­ter in­quired in­to theirs. This mis­chief is now re­al­ly at its height, and the law-​courts are be­gin­ning to take cog­nizance of it; but in vain, for it can­not be reme­died but by a law which shall com­pel do­mes­tic ser­vants, like la­bor­ers, to have a pass-​book as a guar­an­tee of con­duct. Then the evil will van­ish as if by mag­ic. If ev­ery ser­vant were obliged to show his pass-​book, and if mas­ters were re­quired to state in it the cause of his dis­missal, this would cer­tain­ly prove a pow­er­ful check to the evil.

The men who are giv­ing their at­ten­tions to the pol­itics of the day know not to what lengths the de­prav­ity of the low­er class­es has gone. Statis­tics are silent as to the startling num­ber of work­ing men of twen­ty who mar­ry cooks of be­tween forty and fifty en­riched by rob­bery. We shud­der to think of the re­sult of such unions from the three points of view of in­creas­ing crime, de­gen­er­acy of the race, and mis­er­able house­holds.

As to the mere fi­nan­cial mis­chief that re­sults from do­mes­tic pec­ula­tion, that too is im­mense from a po­lit­ical point of view. Life be­ing made to cost dou­ble, any su­per­fluity be­comes im­pos­si­ble in most house­holds. Now su­per­fluity means half the trade of the world, as it is half the el­egance of life. Books and flow­ers are to many per­sons as nec­es­sary as bread.

Lis­beth, well aware of this dread­ful scourge of Parisian house­holds, de­ter­mined to man­age Va­lerie's, promis­ing her ev­ery as­sis­tance in the ter­ri­ble scene when the two wom­en had sworn to be like sis­ters. So she had brought from the depths of the Vos­ges a hum­ble re­la­tion on her moth­er's side, a very pi­ous and hon­est soul, who had been cook to the Bish­op of Nan­cy. Fear­ing, how­ev­er, her in­ex­pe­ri­ence of Paris ways, and yet more the evil coun­sel which wrecks such frag­ile virtue, at first Lis­beth al­ways went to mar­ket with Math­urine, and tried to teach her what to buy. To know the re­al prices of things and com­mand the sales­man's re­spect; to pur­chase un­nec­es­sary del­ica­cies, such as fish, on­ly when they were cheap; to be well in­formed as to the price cur­rent of gro­ceries and pro­vi­sions, so as to buy when prices are low in an­tic­ipa­tion of a rise,--all this house­keep­ing skill is in Paris es­sen­tial to do­mes­tic econ­omy. As Math­urine got good wages and many presents, she liked the house well enough to be glad to drive good bar­gains. And by this time Lis­beth had made her quite a match for her­self, suf­fi­cient­ly ex­pe­ri­enced and trust­wor­thy to be sent to mar­ket alone, un­less Va­lerie was giv­ing a din­ner--which, in fact, was not un­fre­quent­ly the case. And this was how it came about.

The Baron had at first ob­served the strictest deco­rum; but his pas­sion for Madame Marn­effe had ere long be­come so ve­he­ment, so greedy, that he would nev­er quit her if he could help it. At first he dined there four times a week; then he thought it de­light­ful to dine with her ev­ery day. Six months af­ter his daugh­ter's mar­riage he was pay­ing her two thou­sand francs a month for his board. Madame Marn­effe in­vit­ed any one her dear Baron wished to en­ter­tain. The din­ner was al­ways ar­ranged for six; he could bring in three un­ex­pect­ed guests. Lis­beth's econ­omy en­abled her to solve the ex­traor­di­nary prob­lem of keep­ing up the ta­ble in the best style for a thou­sand francs a month, giv­ing the oth­er thou­sand to Madame Marn­effe. Va­lerie's dress be­ing chiefly paid for by Crev­el and the Baron, the two wom­en saved an­oth­er thou­sand francs a month on this.

And so this pure and in­no­cent be­ing had al­ready ac­cu­mu­lat­ed a hun­dred and fifty thou­sand francs in sav­ings. She had cap­ital­ized her in­come and month­ly bonus, and swelled the amount by enor­mous in­ter­est, due to Crev­el's lib­er­al­ity in al­low­ing his “lit­tle Duchess” to in­vest her mon­ey in part­ner­ship with him in his fi­nan­cial op­er­ations. Crev­el had taught Va­lerie the slang and the pro­ce­dure of the mon­ey mar­ket, and, like ev­ery Parisian wom­an, she had soon out­stripped her mas­ter. Lis­beth, who nev­er spent a sou of her twelve hun­dred francs, whose rent and dress were giv­en to her, and who nev­er put her hand in her pock­et, had like­wise a small cap­ital of five or six thou­sand francs, of which Crev­el took fa­ther­ly care.

At the same time, two such lovers were a heavy bur­then on Va­lerie. On the day when this dra­ma re­opens, Va­lerie, spurred by one of those in­ci­dents which have the ef­fect in life that the ring­ing of a bell has in in­duc­ing a swarm of bees to set­tle, went up to Lis­beth's rooms to give vent to one of those com­fort­ing lamen­ta­tions--a sort of cigarette blown off from the tongue--by which wom­en al­le­vi­ate the mi­nor mis­eries of life.

“Oh, Lis­beth, my love, two hours of Crev­el this morn­ing! It is crush­ing! How I wish I could send you in my place!”

“That, un­luck­ily, is im­pos­si­ble,” said Lis­beth, smil­ing. “I shall die a maid.”

“Two old men lovers! Re­al­ly, I am ashamed some­times! If my poor moth­er could see me.”

“You are mis­tak­ing me for Crev­el!” said Lis­beth.

“Tell me, my lit­tle Bet­ty, do you not de­spise me?”

“Oh! if I had but been pret­ty, what ad­ven­tures I would have had!” cried Lis­beth. “That is your jus­ti­fi­ca­tion.”

“But you would have act­ed on­ly at the dic­tates of your heart,” said Madame Marn­effe, with a sigh.

“Pooh! Marn­effe is a dead man they have for­got­ten to bury,” replied Lis­beth. “The Baron is as good as your hus­band; Crev­el is your ador­er; it seems to me that you are quite in or­der--like ev­ery oth­er mar­ried wom­an.”

“No, it is not that, dear, adorable thing; that is not where the shoe pinch­es; you do not choose to un­der­stand.”

“Yes, I do,” said Lis­beth. “The un­ex­pressed fac­tor is part of my re­venge; what can I do? I am work­ing it out.”

“I love Wences­las so that I am pos­itive­ly grow­ing thin, and I can nev­er see him,” said Va­lerie, throw­ing up her arms. “Hu­lot asks him to din­ner, and my artist de­clines. He does not know that I idol­ize him, the wretch! What is his wife af­ter all? Fine flesh! Yes, she is hand­some, but I--I know my­self--I am worse!”

“Be quite easy, my child, he will come,” said Lis­beth, in the tone of a nurse to an im­pa­tient child. “He shall.”

“But when?”

“This week per­haps.”

“Give me a kiss.”

As may be seen, these two wom­en were but one. Ev­ery­thing Va­lerie did, even her most reck­less ac­tions, her plea­sures, her lit­tle sulks, were de­cid­ed on af­ter se­ri­ous de­lib­er­ation be­tween them.

Lis­beth, strange­ly ex­cit­ed by this har­lot ex­is­tence, ad­vised Va­lerie on ev­ery step, and pur­sued her course of re­venge with piti­less log­ic. She re­al­ly adored Va­lerie; she had tak­en her to be her child, her friend, her love; she found her docile, as Cre­oles are, yield­ing from volup­tuous in­do­lence; she chat­tered with her morn­ing af­ter morn­ing with more plea­sure than with Wences­las; they could laugh to­geth­er over the mis­chief they plot­ted, and over the fol­ly of men, and count up the swelling in­ter­est on their re­spec­tive sav­ings.

In­deed, in this new en­ter­prise and new af­fec­tion, Lis­beth had found food for her ac­tiv­ity that was far more sat­is­fy­ing than her in­sane pas­sion for Wences­las. The joys of grat­ified ha­tred are the fiercest and strongest the heart can know. Love is the gold, ha­tred the iron of the mine of feel­ing that lies buried in us. And then, Va­lerie was, to Lis­beth, Beau­ty in all its glo­ry--the beau­ty she wor­shiped, as we wor­ship what we have not, beau­ty far more plas­tic to her hand than that of Wences­las, who had al­ways been cold to her and dis­tant.

At the end of near­ly three years, Lis­beth was be­gin­ning to per­ceive the progress of the un­der­ground mine on which she was ex­pend­ing her life and con­cen­trat­ing her mind. Lis­beth planned, Madame Marn­effe act­ed. Madame Marn­effe was the axe, Lis­beth was the hand the wield­ed it, and that hand was rapid­ly de­mol­ish­ing the fam­ily which was ev­ery day more odi­ous to her; for we can hate more and more, just as, when we love, we love bet­ter ev­ery day.

Love and ha­tred are feel­ings that feed on them­selves; but of the two, ha­tred has the longer vi­tal­ity. Love is re­strict­ed with­in lim­its of pow­er; it de­rives its en­er­gies from life and from lav­ish­ness. Ha­tred is like death, like avarice; it is, so to speak, an ac­tive ab­strac­tion, above be­ings and things.

Lis­beth, em­barked on the ex­is­tence that was nat­ural to her, ex­pend­ed in it all her fac­ul­ties; gov­ern­ing, like the Je­suits, by oc­cult in­flu­ences. The re­gen­er­ation of her per­son was equal­ly com­plete; her face was ra­di­ant. Lis­beth dreamed of be­com­ing Madame la Marechale Hu­lot.

This lit­tle scene, in which the two friends had blunt­ly ut­tered their ideas with­out any cir­cum­lo­cu­tion in ex­press­ing them, took place im­me­di­ate­ly on Lis­beth's re­turn from mar­ket, whith­er she had been to pro­cure the ma­te­ri­als for an el­egant din­ner. Marn­effe, who hoped to get Co­quet's place, was to en­ter­tain him and the vir­tu­ous Madame Co­quet, and Va­lerie hoped to per­suade Hu­lot, that very evening, to con­sid­er the head-​clerk's res­ig­na­tion.

Lis­beth dressed to go to the Baroness, with whom she was to dine.

“You will come back in time to make tea for us, my Bet­ty?” said Va­lerie.

“I hope so.”

“You hope so--why? Have you come to sleep­ing with Ade­line to drink her tears while she is asleep?”

“If on­ly I could!” said Lis­beth, laugh­ing. “I would not refuse. She is ex­pi­at­ing her hap­pi­ness--and I am glad, for I re­mem­ber our young days. It is my turn now. She will be in the mire, and I shall be Comtesse de Forzheim!”

Lis­beth set out for the Rue Plumet, where she now went as to the the­atre--to in­dulge her emo­tions.

The res­idence Hu­lot had found for his wife con­sist­ed of a large, bare en­trance-​room, a draw­ing-​room, and a bed and dress­ing-​room. The din­ing-​room was next the draw­ing-​room on one side. Two ser­vants' rooms and a kitchen on the third floor com­plet­ed the ac­com­mo­da­tion, which was not un­wor­thy of a Coun­cil­lor of State, high up in the War Of­fice. The house, the court-​yard, and the stairs were ex­treme­ly hand­some.

The Baroness, who had to fur­nish her draw­ing-​room, bed-​room, and din­ing-​room with the relics of her splen­dor, had brought away the best of the re­mains from the house in the Rue de l'Uni­ver­site. In­deed, the poor wom­an was at­tached to these mute wit­ness­es of her hap­pi­er life; to her they had an al­most con­sol­ing elo­quence. In mem­ory she saw her flow­ers, as in the car­pets she could trace pat­terns hard­ly vis­ible now to oth­er eyes.

On go­ing in­to the spa­cious an­te­room, where twelve chairs, a barom­eter, a large stove, and long, white cot­ton cur­tains, bor­dered with red, sug­gest­ed the dread­ful wait­ing-​room of a Gov­ern­ment of­fice, the vis­itor felt op­pressed, con­scious at once of the iso­la­tion in which the mis­tress lived. Grief, like plea­sure, in­fects the at­mo­sphere. A first glance in­to any home is enough to tell you whether love or de­spair reigns there.

Ade­line would be found sit­ting in an im­mense bed­room with beau­ti­ful fur­ni­ture by Ja­cob Des­mal­ters, of ma­hogany fin­ished in the Em­pire style with or­molu, which looks even less invit­ing than the brass-​work of Louis XVI.! It gave one a shiv­er to see this lone­ly wom­an sit­ting on a Ro­man chair, a work-​ta­ble with sphinx­es be­fore her, col­or­less, af­fect­ing false cheer­ful­ness, but pre­serv­ing her im­pe­ri­al air, as she had pre­served the blue vel­vet gown she al­ways wore in the house. Her proud spir­it sus­tained her strength and pre­served her beau­ty.

The Baroness, by the end of her first year of ban­ish­ment to this apart­ment, had gauged ev­ery depth of mis­for­tune.

“Still, even here my Hec­tor has made my life much hand­somer than it should be for a mere peas­ant,” said she to her­self. “He choos­es that it should be so; his will be done! I am Baroness Hu­lot, the sis­ter-​in-​law of a Mar­shal of France. I have done noth­ing wrong; my two chil­dren are set­tled in life; I can wait for death, wrapped in the spot­less veil of an im­mac­ulate wife and the crape of de­part­ed hap­pi­ness.”

A por­trait of Hu­lot, in the uni­form of a Com­mis­sary Gen­er­al of the Im­pe­ri­al Guard, paint­ed in 1810 by Robert Lefeb­vre, hung above the work-​ta­ble, and when vis­itors were an­nounced, Ade­line threw in­to a draw­er an _Im­ita­tion of Je­sus Christ_, her ha­bit­ual study. This blame­less Mag­dalen thus heard the Voice of the Spir­it in her desert.

“Ma­ri­ette, my child,” said Lis­beth to the wom­an who opened the door, “how is my dear Ade­line to-​day?”

“Oh, she looks pret­ty well, made­moi­selle; but be­tween you and me, if she goes on in this way, she will kill her­self,” said Ma­ri­ette in a whis­per. “You re­al­ly ought to per­suade her to live bet­ter. Now, yes­ter­day madame told me to give her two sous' worth of milk and a roll for one sou; to get her a her­ring for din­ner and a bit of cold veal; she had a pound cooked to last her the week--of course, for the days when she dines at home and alone. She will not spend more than ten sous a day for her food. It is un­rea­son­able. If I were to say any­thing about it to Mon­sieur le Marechal, he might quar­rel with Mon­sieur le Baron and leave him noth­ing, where­as you, who are so kind and clever, can man­age things----”

“But why do you not ap­ply to my cousin the Baron?” said Lis­beth.

“Oh, dear made­moi­selle, he has not been here for three weeks or more; in fact, not since we last had the plea­sure of see­ing you! Be­sides, madame has for­bid­den me, un­der threat of dis­missal, ev­er to ask the mas­ter for mon­ey. But as for grief!--oh, poor la­dy, she has been very un­hap­py. It is the first time that mon­sieur has ne­glect­ed her for so long. Ev­ery time the bell rang she rushed to the win­dow--but for the last five days she has sat still in her chair. She reads. When­ev­er she goes out to see Madame la Comtesse, she says, 'Ma­ri­ette, if mon­sieur comes in,' says she, 'tell him I am at home, and send the porter to fetch me; he shall be well paid for his trou­ble.'”

“Poor soul!” said Lis­beth; “it goes to my heart. I speak of her to the Baron ev­ery day. What can I do? 'Yes,' says he, 'Bet­ty, you are right; I am a wretch. My wife is an an­gel, and I am a mon­ster! I will go to-​mor­row----' And he stays with Madame Marn­effe. That wom­an is ru­in­ing him, and he wor­ships her; he lives on­ly in her sight.--I do what I can; if I were not there, and if I had not Math­urine to de­pend up­on, he would spend twice as much as he does; and as he has hard­ly any mon­ey in the world, he would have blown his brains out by this time. And, I tell you, Ma­ri­ette, Ade­line would die of her hus­band's death, I am per­fect­ly cer­tain. At any rate, I pull to make both ends meet, and pre­vent my cousin from throw­ing too much mon­ey in­to the fire.”

“Yes, that is what madame says, poor soul! She knows how much she owes you,” replied Ma­ri­ette. “She said she had judged you un­just­ly for many years----”

“In­deed!” said Lis­beth. “And did she say any­thing else?”

“No, made­moi­selle. If you wish to please her, talk to her about Mon­sieur le Baron; she en­vies you your hap­pi­ness in see­ing him ev­ery day.”

“Is she alone?”

“I beg par­don, no; the Mar­shal is with her. He comes ev­ery day, and she al­ways tells him she saw mon­sieur in the morn­ing, but that he comes in very late at night.”

“And is there a good din­ner to-​day?”

Ma­ri­ette hes­itat­ed; she could not meet Lis­beth's eye. The draw­ing-​room door opened, and Mar­shal Hu­lot rushed out in such haste that he bowed to Lis­beth with­out look­ing at her, and dropped a pa­per. Lis­beth picked it up and ran af­ter him down­stairs, for it was vain to hail a deaf man; but she man­aged not to over­take the Mar­shal, and as she came up again she furtive­ly read the fol­low­ing lines writ­ten in pen­cil:--

“MY DEAR BROTH­ER,--My hus­band has giv­en me the mon­ey for my quar­ter's ex­pens­es; but my daugh­ter Hort­ense was in such need of it, that I lent her the whole sum, which was scarce­ly enough to set her straight. Could you lend me a few hun­dred francs? For I can­not ask Hec­tor for more; if he were to blame me, I could not bear it.”

“My word!” thought Lis­beth, “she must be in ex­trem­ities to bend her pride to such a de­gree!”

Lis­beth went in. She saw tears in Ade­line's eyes, and threw her arms round her neck.

“Ade­line, my dear­est, I know all,” cried Cousin Bet­ty. “Here, the Mar­shal dropped this pa­per--he was in such a state of mind, and run­ning like a grey­hound.--Has that dread­ful Hec­tor giv­en you no mon­ey since----?”

“He gives it me quite reg­ular­ly,” replied the Baroness, “but Hort­ense need­ed it, and--”

“And you had not enough to pay for din­ner to-​night,” said Lis­beth, in­ter­rupt­ing her. “Now I un­der­stand why Ma­ri­ette looked so con­fused when I said some­thing about the soup. You re­al­ly are child­ish, Ade­line; come, take my sav­ings.”

“Thank you, my kind cousin,” said Ade­line, wip­ing away a tear. “This lit­tle dif­fi­cul­ty is on­ly tem­po­rary, and I have pro­vid­ed for the fu­ture. My ex­pens­es hence­forth will be no more than two thou­sand four hun­dred francs a year, rent in­clu­sive, and I shall have the mon­ey. --Above all, Bet­ty, not a word to Hec­tor. Is he well?”

“As strong as the Pont Neuf, and as gay as a lark; he thinks of noth­ing but his charmer Va­lerie.”

Madame Hu­lot looked out at a tall sil­ver-​fir in front of the win­dow, and Lis­beth could not see her cousin's eyes to read their ex­pres­sion.

“Did you men­tion that it was the day when we all dine to­geth­er here?”

“Yes. But, dear me! Madame Marn­effe is giv­ing a grand din­ner; she hopes to get Mon­sieur Co­quet to re­sign, and that is of the first im­por­tance.--Now, Ade­line, lis­ten to me. You know that I am fierce­ly proud as to my in­de­pen­dence. Your hus­band, my dear, will cer­tain­ly bring you to ru­in. I fan­cied I could be of use to you all by liv­ing near this wom­an, but she is a crea­ture of un­fath­omable de­prav­ity, and she will make your hus­band promise things which will bring you all to dis­grace.” Ade­line writhed like a per­son stabbed to the heart. “My dear Ade­line, I am sure of what I say. I feel it is my du­ty to en­light­en you.--Well, let us think of the fu­ture. The Mar­shal is an old man, but he will last a long time yet--he draws good pay; when he dies his wid­ow would have a pen­sion of six thou­sand francs. On such an in­come I would un­der­take to main­tain you all. Use your in­flu­ence over the good man to get him to mar­ry me. It is not for the sake of be­ing Madame la Marechale; I val­ue such non­sense at no more than I val­ue Madame Marn­effe's con­science; but you will all have bread. I see that Hort­ense must be want­ing it, since you give her yours.”

The Mar­shal now came in; he had made such haste, that he was mop­ping his fore­head with his ban­dana.

“I have giv­en Ma­ri­ette two thou­sand francs,” he whis­pered to his sis­ter-​in-​law.

Ade­line col­ored to the roots of her hair. Two tears hung on the fringes of the still long lash­es, and she silent­ly pressed the old man's hand; his beam­ing face ex­pressed the glee of a fa­vored lover.

“I in­tend­ed to spend the mon­ey in a present for you, Ade­line,” said he. “In­stead of re­pay­ing me, you must choose for your­self the thing you would like best.”

He took Lis­beth's hand, which she held out to him, and so be­wil­dered was he by his sat­is­fac­tion, that he kissed it.

“That looks promis­ing,” said Ade­line to Lis­beth, smil­ing so far as she was able to smile.

The younger Hu­lot and his wife now came in.

“Is my broth­er com­ing to din­ner?” asked the Mar­shal sharply.

Ade­line took up a pen­cil and wrote these words on a scrap of pa­per:

“I ex­pect him; he promised this morn­ing that he would be here; but if he should not come, it would be be­cause the Mar­shal kept him. He is over­whelmed with busi­ness.”

And she hand­ed him the pa­per. She had in­vent­ed this way of con­vers­ing with Mar­shal Hu­lot, and kept a lit­tle col­lec­tion of pa­per scraps and a pen­cil at hand on the work-​ta­ble.

“I know,” said the Mar­shal, “he is worked very hard over the busi­ness in Al­giers.”

At this mo­ment, Hort­ense and Wences­las ar­rived, and the Baroness, as she saw all her fam­ily about her, gave the Mar­shal a sig­nif­icant glance un­der­stood by none but Lis­beth.

Hap­pi­ness had great­ly im­proved the artist, who was adored by his wife and flat­tered by the world. His face had be­come al­most round, and his grace­ful fig­ure did jus­tice to the ad­van­tages which blood gives to men of birth. His ear­ly fame, his im­por­tant po­si­tion, the delu­sive eu­lo­gies that the world sheds on artists as light­ly as we say, “How d'ye do?” or dis­cuss the weath­er, gave him that high sense of mer­it which de­gen­er­ates in­to sheer fa­tu­ity when tal­ent wanes. The Cross of the Le­gion of Hon­or was the crown­ing stamp of the great man he be­lieved him­self to be.

Af­ter three years of mar­ried life, Hort­ense was to her hus­band what a dog is to its mas­ter; she watched his ev­ery move­ment with a look that seemed a con­stant in­quiry, her eyes were al­ways on him, like those of a miser on his trea­sure; her ad­mir­ing ab­ne­ga­tion was quite pa­thet­ic. In her might be seen her moth­er's spir­it and teach­ing. Her beau­ty, as great as ev­er, was po­et­ical­ly touched by the gen­tle shad­ow of con­cealed melan­choly.

On see­ing Hort­ense come in, it struck Lis­beth that some long-​sup­pressed com­plaint was about to break through the thin veil of ret­icence. Lis­beth, from the first days of the hon­ey­moon, had been sure that this cou­ple had too small an in­come for so great a pas­sion.

Hort­ense, as she em­braced her moth­er, ex­changed with her a few whis­pered phras­es, heart to heart, of which the mys­tery was be­trayed to Lis­beth by cer­tain shakes of the head.

“Ade­line, like me, must work for her liv­ing,” thought Cousin Bet­ty. “She shall be made to tell me what she will do! Those pret­ty fin­gers will know at last, like mine, what it is to work be­cause they must.”

At six o'clock the fam­ily par­ty went in to din­ner. A place was laid for Hec­tor.

“Leave it so,” said the Baroness to Ma­ri­ette, “mon­sieur some­times comes in late.”

“Oh, my fa­ther will cer­tain­ly come,” said Vic­torin to his moth­er. “He promised me he would when we part­ed at the Cham­ber.”

Lis­beth, like a spi­der in the mid­dle of its net, gloat­ed over all these coun­te­nances. Hav­ing known Vic­torin and Hort­ense from their birth, their faces were to her like panes of glass, through which she could read their young souls. Now, from cer­tain stolen looks di­rect­ed by Vic­torin on his moth­er, she saw that some dis­as­ter was hang­ing over Ade­line which Vic­torin hes­itat­ed to re­veal. The fa­mous young lawyer had some covert anx­iety. His deep rev­er­ence for his moth­er was ev­ident in the re­gret with which he gazed at her.

Hort­ense was ev­ident­ly ab­sorbed in her own woes; for a fort­night past, as Lis­beth knew, she had been suf­fer­ing the first un­easi­ness which want of mon­ey brings to hon­est souls, and to young wives on whom life has hith­er­to smiled, and who con­ceal their alarms. Al­so Lis­beth had im­me­di­ate­ly guessed that her moth­er had giv­en her no mon­ey. Ade­line's del­ica­cy had brought her so low as to use the fal­la­cious ex­cus­es that ne­ces­si­ty sug­gests to bor­row­ers.

Hort­ense's ab­sence of mind, with her broth­er's and the Baroness' deep de­jec­tion, made the din­ner a melan­choly meal, es­pe­cial­ly with the added chill of the Mar­shal's ut­ter deaf­ness. Three per­sons gave a lit­tle life to the scene: Lis­beth, Ce­les­tine, and Wences­las. Hort­ense's af­fec­tion had de­vel­oped the artist's nat­ural live­li­ness as a Pole, the some­what swag­ger­ing vi­vac­ity and noisy high spir­its that char­ac­ter­ize these French­men of the North. His frame of mind and the ex­pres­sion of his face showed plain­ly that he be­lieved in him­self, and that poor Hort­ense, faith­ful to her moth­er's train­ing, kept all do­mes­tic dif­fi­cul­ties to her­self.

“You must be con­tent, at any rate,” said Lis­beth to her young cousin, as they rose from ta­ble, “since your moth­er has helped you with her mon­ey.”

“Mam­ma!” replied Hort­ense in as­ton­ish­ment. “Oh, poor mam­ma! It is for me that she would like to make mon­ey. You do not know, Lis­beth, but I have a hor­ri­ble sus­pi­cion that she works for it in se­cret.”

They were cross­ing the large, dark draw­ing-​room where there were no can­dles, all fol­low­ing Ma­ri­ette, who was car­ry­ing the lamp in­to Ade­line's bed­room. At this in­stant Vic­torin just touched Lis­beth and Hort­ense on the arm. The two wom­en, un­der­stand­ing the hint, left Wences­las, Ce­les­tine, the Mar­shal, and the Baroness to go on to­geth­er, and re­mained stand­ing in a win­dow-​bay.

“What is it, Vic­torin?” said Lis­beth. “Some dis­as­ter caused by your fa­ther, I dare wa­ger.”

“Yes, alas!” replied Vic­torin. “A mon­ey-​lender named Vau­vinet has bills of my fa­ther's to the amount of six­ty thou­sand francs, and wants to pros­ecute. I tried to speak of the mat­ter to my fa­ther at the Cham­ber, but he would not un­der­stand me; he al­most avoid­ed me. Had we bet­ter tell my moth­er?”

“No, no,” said Lis­beth, “she has too many trou­bles; it would be a death-​blow; you must spare her. You have no idea how low she has fall­en. But for your un­cle, you would have found no din­ner here this evening.”

“Dear Heav­en! Vic­torin, what wretch­es we are!” said Hort­ense to her broth­er. “We ought to have guessed what Lis­beth has told us. My din­ner is chok­ing me!”

Hort­ense could say no more; she cov­ered her mouth with her hand­ker­chief to smoth­er a sob, and melt­ed in­to tears.

“I told the fel­low Vau­vinet to call on me to-​mor­row,” replied Vic­torin, “but will he be sat­is­fied by my guar­an­tee on a mort­gage? I doubt it. Those men in­sist on ready mon­ey to sweat oth­ers on usu­ri­ous terms.”

“Let us sell out of the funds!” said Lis­beth to Hort­ense.

“What good would that do?” replied Vic­torin. “It would bring fif­teen or six­teen thou­sand francs, and we want six­ty thou­sand.”

“Dear cousin!” cried Hort­ense, em­brac­ing Lis­beth with the en­thu­si­asm of guile­less­ness.

“No, Lis­beth, keep your lit­tle for­tune,” said Vic­torin, press­ing the old maid's hand. “I shall see to-​mor­row what this man would be up to. With my wife's con­sent, I can at least hin­der or post­pone the pros­ecu­tion--for it would re­al­ly be fright­ful to see my fa­ther's hon­or im­pugned. What would the War Min­is­ter say? My fa­ther's salary, which he pledged for three years, will not be re­leased be­fore the month of De­cem­ber, so we can­not of­fer that as a guar­an­tee. This Vau­vinet has re­newed the bills eleven times; so you may imag­ine what my fa­ther must pay in in­ter­est. We must close this pit.”

“If on­ly Madame Marn­effe would throw him over!” said Hort­ense bit­ter­ly.

“Heav­en for­bid!” ex­claimed Vic­torin. “He would take up some one else; and with her, at any rate, the worst out­lay is over.”

What a change in chil­dren for­mer­ly so re­spect­ful, and kept so long by their moth­er in blind wor­ship of their fa­ther! They knew him now for what he was.

“But for me,” said Lis­beth, “your fa­ther's ru­in would be more com­plete than it is.”

“Come in to mam­ma,” said Hort­ense; “she is very sharp, and will sus­pect some­thing; as our kind Lis­beth says, let us keep ev­ery­thing from her--let us be cheer­ful.”

“Vic­torin,” said Lis­beth, “you have no no­tion of what your fa­ther will be brought to by his pas­sion for wom­en. Try to se­cure some fu­ture re­source by get­ting the Mar­shal to mar­ry me. Say some­thing about it this evening; I will leave ear­ly on pur­pose.”

Vic­torin went in­to the bed­room.

“And you, poor lit­tle thing!” said Lis­beth in an un­der­tone to Hort­ense, “what can you do?”

“Come to din­ner with us to-​mor­row, and we will talk it over,” an­swered Hort­ense. “I do not know which way to turn; you know how hard life is, and you will ad­vise me.”

While the whole fam­ily with one con­sent tried to per­suade the Mar­shal to mar­ry, and while Lis­beth was mak­ing her way home to the Rue Van­neau, one of those in­ci­dents oc­curred which, in such wom­en as Madame Marn­effe, are a stim­ulus to vice by com­pelling them to ex­ert their en­er­gy and ev­ery re­source of de­prav­ity. One fact, at any rate, must how­ev­er be ac­knowl­edged: life in Paris is too full for vi­cious per­sons to do wrong in­stinc­tive­ly and un­pro­voked; vice is on­ly a weapon of de­fence against ag­gres­sors--that is all.

Madame Marn­effe's draw­ing-​room was full of her faith­ful ad­mir­ers, and she had just start­ed the whist-​ta­bles, when the foot­man, a pen­sioned sol­dier re­cruit­ed by the Baron, an­nounced:

“Mon­sieur le Baron Montes de Mon­te­janos.”

Va­lerie's heart jumped, but she hur­ried to the door, ex­claim­ing:

“My cousin!” and as she met the Brazil­ian, she whis­pered:

“You are my re­la­tion--or all is at an end be­tween us!--And so you were not wrecked, Hen­ri?” she went on au­di­bly, as she led him to the fire. “I heard you were lost, and have mourned for you these three years.”

“How are you, my good fel­low?” said Marn­effe, of­fer­ing his hand to the stranger, whose get-​up was in­deed that of a Brazil­ian and a mil­lion­aire.

Mon­sieur le Baron Hen­ri Montes de Mon­te­janos, to whom the cli­mate of the equa­tor had giv­en the col­or and stature we ex­pect to see in Oth­el­lo on the stage, had an alarm­ing look of gloom, but it was a mere­ly pic­to­ri­al il­lu­sion; for, sweet and af­fec­tion­ate by na­ture, he was pre­des­tined to be the vic­tim that a strong man of­ten is to a weak wom­an. The scorn ex­pressed in his coun­te­nance, the mus­cu­lar strength of his stal­wart frame, all his phys­ical pow­ers were shown on­ly to his fel­low-​men; a form of flat­tery which wom­en ap­pre­ci­ate, nay, which so in­tox­icates them, that ev­ery man with his mis­tress on his arm as­sumes a mata­dor swag­ger that pro­vokes a smile. Very well set up, in a close­ly fit­ting blue coat with sol­id gold but­tons, in black trousers, spot­less patent evening boots, and gloves of a fash­ion­able hue, the on­ly Brazil­ian touch in the Baron's cos­tume was a large di­amond, worth about a hun­dred thou­sand francs, which blazed like a star on a hand­some blue silk cra­vat, tucked in­to a white waist­coat in such a way as to show cor­ners of a fab­ulous­ly fine shirt front.

His brow, bossy like that of a satyr, a sign of tenac­ity in his pas­sions, was crowned by thick jet-​black hair like a vir­gin for­est, and un­der it flashed a pair of hazel eyes, so wild look­ing as to sug­gest that be­fore his birth his moth­er must have been scared by a jaguar.

This fine spec­imen of the Por­tuguese race in Brazil took his stand with his back to the fire, in an at­ti­tude that showed fa­mil­iar­ity with Paris man­ners; hold­ing his hat in one hand, his el­bow rest­ing on the vel­vet-​cov­ered shelf, he bent over Madame Marn­effe, talk­ing to her in an un­der­tone, and trou­bling him­self very lit­tle about the dread­ful peo­ple who, in his opin­ion, were so very much in the way.

This fash­ion of tak­ing the stage, with the Brazil­ian's at­ti­tude and ex­pres­sion, gave, alike to Crev­el and to the baron, an iden­ti­cal shock of cu­rios­ity and anx­iety. Both were struck by the same im­pres­sion and the same sur­mise. And the ma­noeu­vre sug­gest­ed in each by their very gen­uine pas­sion was so com­ical in its si­mul­ta­ne­ous re­sults, that it made ev­ery­body smile who was sharp enough to read its mean­ing. Crev­el, a trades­man and shop­keep­er to the back­bone, though a may­or of Paris, un­luck­ily, was a lit­tle slow­er to move than his ri­val part­ner, and this en­abled the Baron to read at a glance Crev­el's in­vol­un­tary self-​be­tray­al. This was a fresh ar­row to ran­kle in the very amorous old man's heart, and he re­solved to have an ex­pla­na­tion from Va­lerie.

“This evening,” said Crev­el to him­self too, as he sort­ed his hand, “I must know where I stand.”

“You have a heart!” cried Marn­effe. “You have just re­voked.”

“I beg your par­don,” said Crev­el, try­ing to with­draw his card.--“This Baron seems to me very much in the way,” he went on, think­ing to him­self. “If Va­lerie car­ries on with my Baron, well and good--it is a means to my re­venge, and I can get rid of him if I choose; but as for this cousin!--He is one Baron too many; I do not mean to be made a fool of. I will know how they are re­lat­ed.”

That evening, by one of those strokes of luck which come to pret­ty wom­en, Va­lerie was charm­ing­ly dressed. Her white bo­som gleamed un­der a lace tuck­er of rusty white, which showed off the satin tex­ture of her beau­ti­ful shoul­ders--for Parisian wom­en, Heav­en knows how, have some way of pre­serv­ing their fine flesh and re­main­ing slen­der. She wore a black vel­vet gown that looked as if it might at any mo­ment slip off her shoul­ders, and her hair was dressed with lace and droop­ing flow­ers. Her arms, not fat but dim­pled, were graced by deep ruf­fles to her sleeves. She was like a lus­cious fruit co­quet­tish­ly served in a hand­some dish, and mak­ing the knife-​blade long to be cut­ting it.

“Va­lerie,” the Brazil­ian was say­ing in her ear, “I have come back faith­ful to you. My un­cle is dead; I am twice as rich as I was when I went away. I mean to live and die in Paris, for you and with you.”

“Low­er, Hen­ri, I im­plore you----”

“Pooh! I mean to speak to you this evening, even if I should have to pitch all these crea­tures out of win­dow, es­pe­cial­ly as I have lost two days in look­ing for you. I shall stay till the last.--I can, I sup­pose?”

Va­lerie smiled at her adopt­ed cousin, and said:

“Re­mem­ber that you are the son of my moth­er's sis­ter, who mar­ried your fa­ther dur­ing Junot's cam­paign in Por­tu­gal.”

“What, I, Montes de Mon­te­janos, great grand­son of a con­quer­er of Brazil! Tell a lie?”

“Hush, low­er, or we shall nev­er meet again.”

“Pray, why?”

“Marn­effe, like all dy­ing wretch­es, who al­ways take up some last whim, has a re­vived pas­sion for me----”

“That cur?” said the Brazil­ian, who knew his Marn­effe; “I will set­tle him!”

“What vi­olence!”

“And where did you get all this splen­dor?” the Brazil­ian went on, just struck by the mag­nif­icence of the apart­ment.

She be­gan to laugh.

“Hen­ri! what bad taste!” said she.

She had felt two burn­ing flash­es of jeal­ousy which had moved her so far as to make her look at the two souls in pur­ga­to­ry. Crev­el, play­ing against Baron Hu­lot and Mon­sieur Co­quet, had Marn­effe for his part­ner. The game was even, be­cause Crev­el and the Baron were equal­ly ab­sent-​mind­ed, and made blun­der af­ter blun­der. Thus, in one in­stant, the old men both con­fessed the pas­sion which Va­lerie had per­suad­ed them to keep se­cret for the past three years; but she too had failed to hide the joy in her eyes at see­ing the man who had first taught her heart to beat, the ob­ject of her first love. The rights of such hap­py mor­tals sur­vive as long as the wom­an lives over whom they have ac­quired them.

With these three pas­sions at her side--one sup­port­ed by the in­so­lence of wealth, the sec­ond by the claims of pos­ses­sion, and the third by youth, strength, for­tune, and pri­or­ity--Madame Marn­effe pre­served her cool­ness and pres­ence of mind, like Gen­er­al Bona­parte when, at the siege of Man­tua, he had to fight two armies, and at the same time main­tain the block­ade.

Jeal­ousy, dis­tort­ing Hu­lot's face, made him look as ter­ri­ble as the late Mar­shal Mont­cor­net lead­ing a cav­al­ry charge against a Rus­sian square. Be­ing such a hand­some man, he had nev­er known any ground for jeal­ousy, any more than Mu­rat knew what it was to be afraid. He had al­ways felt sure that he should tri­umph. His re­buff by Josepha, the first he had ev­er met, he as­cribed to her love of mon­ey; “he was con­quered by mil­lions, and not by a changeling,” he would say when speak­ing of the Duc d'Her­ou­ville. And now, in one in­stant, the poi­son and delir­ium that the mad pas­sion sheds in a flood had rushed to his heart. He kept turn­ing from the whist-​ta­ble to­wards the fire­place with an ac­tion _a la_ Mirabeau; and as he laid down his cards to cast a chal­leng­ing glance at the Brazil­ian and Va­lerie, the rest of the com­pa­ny felt the sort of alarm min­gled with cu­rios­ity that is caused by ev­ident vi­olence ready to break out at any mo­ment. The sham cousin stared at Hu­lot as he might have looked at some big Chi­na man­darin.

This state of things could not last; it was bound to end in some tremen­dous out­break. Marn­effe was as much afraid of Hu­lot as Crev­el was of Marn­effe, for he was anx­ious not to die a mere clerk. Men marked for death be­lieve in life as gal­ley-​slaves be­lieve in lib­er­ty; this man was bent on be­ing a first-​class clerk at any cost. Thor­ough­ly fright­ened by the pan­tomime of the Baron and Crev­el, he rose, said a few words in his wife's ear, and then, to the sur­prise of all, Va­lerie went in­to the ad­join­ing bed­room with the Brazil­ian and her hus­band.

“Did Madame Marn­effe ev­er speak to you of this cousin of hers?” said Crev­el to Hu­lot.

“Nev­er!” replied the Baron, get­ting up. “That is enough for this evening,” said he. “I have lost two louis--there they are.”

He threw the two gold pieces on the ta­ble, and seat­ed him­self on the so­fa with a look which ev­ery­body else took as a hint to go. Mon­sieur and Madame Co­quet, af­ter ex­chang­ing a few words, left the room, and Claude Vi­gnon, in de­spair, fol­lowed their ex­am­ple. These two de­par­tures were a hint to less in­tel­li­gent per­sons, who now found that they were not want­ed. The Baron and Crev­el were left to­geth­er, and spoke nev­er a word. Hu­lot, at last, ig­nor­ing Crev­el, went on tip­toe to lis­ten at the bed­room door; but he bound­ed back with a prodi­gious jump, for Marn­effe opened the door and ap­peared with a calm face, as­ton­ished to find on­ly the two men.

“And the tea?” said he.

“Where is Va­lerie?” replied the Baron in a rage.

“My wife,” said Marn­effe. “She is gone up­stairs to speak to made­moi­selle your cousin. She will come down di­rect­ly.”

“And why has she de­sert­ed us for that stupid crea­ture?”

“Well,” said Marn­effe, “Made­moi­selle Lis­beth came back from din­ing with the Baroness with an at­tack of in­di­ges­tion and Math­urine asked Va­lerie for some tea for her, so my wife went up to see what was the mat­ter.”

“And _her_ cousin?”

“He is gone.”

“Do you re­al­ly be­lieve that?” said the Baron.

“I have seen him to his car­riage,” replied Marn­effe, with a hideous smirk.

The wheels of a de­part­ing car­riage were au­di­ble in the street. The Baron, count­ing Marn­effe for noth­ing, went up­stairs to Lis­beth. An idea flashed through him such as the heart sends to the brain when it is on fire with jeal­ousy. Marn­effe's base­ness was so well known to him, that he could imag­ine the most de­grad­ing con­nivance be­tween hus­band and wife.

“What has be­come of all the ladies and gen­tle­men?” said Marn­effe, find­ing him­self alone with Crev­el.

“When the sun goes to bed, the cocks and hens fol­low suit,” said Crev­el. “Madame Marn­effe dis­ap­peared, and her ador­ers de­part­ed. Will you play a game of pi­quet?” added Crev­el, who meant to re­main.

He too be­lieved that the Brazil­ian was in the house.

Mon­sieur Marn­effe agreed. The May­or was a match for the Baron. Sim­ply by play­ing cards with the hus­band he could stay on in­def­inite­ly; and Marn­effe, since the sup­pres­sion of the pub­lic ta­bles, was quite sat­is­fied with the more lim­it­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties of pri­vate play.

Baron Hu­lot went quick­ly up to Lis­beth's apart­ment, but the door was locked, and the usu­al in­quiries through the door took up time enough to en­able the two light-​hand­ed and cun­ning wom­en to ar­range the scene of an at­tack of in­di­ges­tion with the ac­ces­sories of tea. Lis­beth was in such pain that Va­lerie was very much alarmed, and con­se­quent­ly hard­ly paid any heed to the Baron's fu­ri­ous en­trance. In­dis­po­si­tion is one of the screens most of­ten placed by wom­en to ward off a quar­rel. Hu­lot peeped about, here and there, but could see no spot in Cousin Bet­ty's room where a Brazil­ian might lie hid­den.

“Your in­di­ges­tion does hon­or to my wife's din­ner, Lis­beth,” said he, scru­ti­niz­ing her, for Lis­beth was per­fect­ly well, try­ing to im­itate the hic­cough of spas­mod­ic in­di­ges­tion as she drank her tea.

“How lucky it is that dear Bet­ty should be liv­ing un­der my roof!” said Madame Marn­effe. “But for me, the poor thing would have died.”

“You look as if you on­ly half be­lieved it,” added Lis­beth, turn­ing to the Baron, “and that would be a shame----”

“Why?” asked the Baron. “Do you know the pur­pose of my vis­it?”

And he leered at the door of a dress­ing-​clos­et from which the key had been with­drawn.

“Are you talk­ing Greek?” said Madame Marn­effe, with an ap­peal­ing look of mis­prized ten­der­ness and de­vot­ed­ness.

“But it is all through you, my dear cousin; yes, it is your do­ing that I am in such a state,” said Lis­beth ve­he­ment­ly.

This speech di­vert­ed the Baron's at­ten­tion; he looked at the old maid with the great­est as­ton­ish­ment.

“You know that I am de­vot­ed to you,” said Lis­beth. “I am here, that says ev­ery­thing. I am wear­ing out the last shreds of my strength in watch­ing over your in­ter­ests, since they are one with our dear Va­lerie's. Her house costs one-​tenth of what any oth­er does that is kept on the same scale. But for me, Cousin, in­stead of two thou­sand francs a month, you would be obliged to spend three or four thou­sand.”

“I know all that,” replied the Baron out of pa­tience; “you are our pro­tec­tress in many ways,” he added, turn­ing to Madame Marn­effe and putting his arm round her neck.--“Is not she, my pret­ty sweet?”

“On my hon­or,” ex­claimed Va­lerie, “I be­lieve you are gone mad!”

“Well, you can­not doubt my at­tach­ment,” said Lis­beth. "But I am al­so very fond of my cousin Ade­line, and I found her in tears. She has not seen you for a month. Now that is re­al­ly too bad; you leave my poor Ade­line with­out a sou. Your daugh­ter Hort­ense al­most died of it when she was told that it is thanks to your broth­er that we had any din­ner at all. There was not even bread in your house this day.

“Ade­line is hero­ical­ly re­solved to keep her suf­fer­ings to her­self. She said to me, 'I will do as you have done!' The speech went to my heart; and af­ter din­ner, as I thought of what my cousin had been in 1811, and of what she is in 1841--thir­ty years af­ter--I had a vi­olent in­di­ges­tion.--I fan­cied I should get over it; but when I got home, I thought I was dy­ing--”

“You see, Va­lerie, to what my ado­ra­tion of you has brought me! To crime--do­mes­tic crime!”

“Oh! I was wise nev­er to mar­ry!” cried Lis­beth, with sav­age joy. “You are a kind, good man; Ade­line is a per­fect an­gel;--and this is the re­ward of her blind de­vo­tion.”

“An el­der­ly an­gel!” said Madame Marn­effe soft­ly, as she looked half ten­der­ly, half mock­ing­ly, at her Hec­tor, who was gaz­ing at her as an ex­am­in­ing judge gazes at the ac­cused.

“My poor wife!” said Hu­lot. “For more than nine months I have giv­en her no mon­ey, though I find it for you, Va­lerie; but at what a cost! No one else will ev­er love you so, and what tor­ments you in­flict on me in re­turn!”

“Tor­ments?” she echoed. “Then what do you call hap­pi­ness?”

“I do not yet know on what terms you have been with this so-​called cousin whom you nev­er men­tioned to me,” said the Baron, pay­ing no heed to Va­lerie's in­ter­jec­tion. “But when he came in I felt as if a penknife had been stuck in­to my heart. Blind­ed I may be, but I am not blind. I could read his eyes, and yours. In short, from un­der that ape's eye­lids there flashed sparks that he flung at you--and your eyes!--Oh! you have nev­er looked at me so, nev­er! As to this mys­tery, Va­lerie, it shall all be cleared up. You are the on­ly wom­an who ev­er made me know the mean­ing of jeal­ousy, so you need not be sur­prised by what I say.--But an­oth­er mys­tery which has rent its cloud, and it seems to me in­fa­mous----”

“Go on, go on,” said Va­lerie.

“It is that Crev­el, that square lump of flesh and stu­pid­ity, is in love with you, and that you ac­cept his at­ten­tions with so good a grace that the id­iot flaunts his pas­sion be­fore ev­ery­body.”

“On­ly three! Can you dis­cov­er no more?” asked Madame Marn­effe.

“There may be more!” re­tort­ed the Baron.

“If Mon­sieur Crev­el is in love with me, he is in his rights as a man af­ter all; if I fa­vored his pas­sion, that would in­deed be the act of a co­quette, or of a wom­an who would leave much to be de­sired on your part.--Well, love me as you find me, or let me alone. If you re­store me to free­dom, nei­ther you nor Mon­sieur Crev­el will ev­er en­ter my doors again. But I will take up with my cousin, just to keep my hand in, in those charm­ing habits you sup­pose me to in­dulge.--Good-​bye, Mon­sieur le Baron Hu­lot.”

She rose, but the Baron took her by the arm and made her sit down again. The old man could not do with­out Va­lerie. She had be­come more im­per­ative­ly in­dis­pens­able to him than the nec­es­saries of life; he pre­ferred re­main­ing in un­cer­tain­ty to hav­ing any proof of Va­lerie's in­fi­deli­ty.

“My dear­est Va­lerie,” said he, “do you not see how mis­er­able I am? I on­ly ask you to jus­ti­fy your­self. Give me suf­fi­cient rea­sons--”

“Well, go down­stairs and wait for me; for I sup­pose you do not wish to look on at the var­ious cer­emonies re­quired by your cousin's state.”

Hu­lot slow­ly turned away.

“You old prof­li­gate,” cried Lis­beth, “you have not even asked me how your chil­dren are? What are you go­ing to do for Ade­line? I, at any rate, will take her my sav­ings to-​mor­row.”

“You owe your wife white bread to eat at least,” said Madame Marn­effe, smil­ing.

The Baron, with­out tak­ing of­fence at Lis­beth's tone, as despot­ic as Josepha's, got out of the room, on­ly too glad to es­cape so im­por­tu­nate a ques­tion.

The door bolt­ed once more, the Brazil­ian came out of the dress­ing-​clos­et, where he had been wait­ing, and he ap­peared with his eyes full of tears, in a re­al­ly pitiable con­di­tion. Montes had heard ev­ery­thing.

“Hen­ri, you must have ceased to love me, I know it!” said Madame Marn­effe, hid­ing her face in her hand­ker­chief and burst­ing in­to tears.

It was the out­cry of re­al af­fec­tion. The cry of a wom­an's de­spair is so con­vinc­ing that it wins the for­give­ness that lurks at the bot­tom of ev­ery lover's heart--when she is young and pret­ty, and wears a gown so low that she could slip out at the top and stand in the garb of Eve.

“But why, if you love me, do you not leave ev­ery­thing for my sake?” asked the Brazil­ian.

This South Amer­ican born, be­ing log­ical, as men are who have lived the life of na­ture, at once re­sumed the con­ver­sa­tion at the point where it had been bro­ken off, putting his arm round Va­lerie's waist.

“Why?” she re­peat­ed, gaz­ing up at Hen­ri, whom she sub­ju­gat­ed at once by a look charged with pas­sion, “why, my dear boy, I am mar­ried; we are in Paris, not in the sa­van­nah, the pam­pas, the back­woods of Amer­ica.--My dear Hen­ri, my first and on­ly love, lis­ten to me. That hus­band of mine, a sec­ond clerk in the War Of­fice, is bent on be­ing a head-​clerk and of­fi­cer of the Le­gion of Hon­or; can I help his be­ing am­bi­tious? Now for the very rea­son that made him leave us our lib­er­ty --near­ly four years ago, do you re­mem­ber, you bad boy?--he now aban­dons me to Mon­sieur Hu­lot. I can­not get rid of that dread­ful of­fi­cial, who snorts like a gram­pus, who has fins in his nos­trils, who is six­ty-​three years old, and who had grown ten years old­er by dint of try­ing to be young; who is so odi­ous to me that the very day when Marn­effe is pro­mot­ed, and gets his Cross of the Le­gion of Hon­or----”

“How much more will your hus­band get then?”

“A thou­sand crowns.”

“I will pay him as much in an an­nu­ity,” said Baron Montes. “We will leave Paris and go----”

“Where?” said Va­lerie, with one of the pret­ty sneers by which a wom­an makes fun of a man she is sure of. “Paris is the on­ly place where we can live hap­py. I care too much for your love to risk see­ing it die out in a _tete-​a-​tete_ in the wilder­ness. Lis­ten, Hen­ri, you are the on­ly man I care for in the whole world. Write that down clear­ly in your tiger's brain.”

For wom­en, when they have made a sheep of a man, al­ways tell him that he is a li­on with a will of iron.

“Now, at­tend to me. Mon­sieur Marn­effe has not five years to live; he is rot­ten to the mar­row of his bones. He spends sev­en months of the twelve in swal­low­ing drugs and de­coc­tions; he lives wrapped in flan­nel; in short, as the doc­tor says, he lives un­der the scythe, and may be cut off at any mo­ment. An ill­ness that would not harm an­oth­er man would be fa­tal to him; his blood is cor­rupt, his life un­der­mined at the root. For five years I have nev­er al­lowed him to kiss me--he is poi­sonous! Some day, and the day is not far off, I shall be a wid­ow. Well, then, I--who have al­ready had an of­fer from a man with six­ty thou­sand francs a year, I who am as com­plete­ly mis­tress of that man as I am of this lump of sug­ar--I swear to you that if you were as poor as Hu­lot and as foul as Marn­effe, if you beat me even, still you are the on­ly man I will have for a hus­band, the on­ly man I love, or whose name I will ev­er bear. And I am ready to give any pledge of my love that you may re­quire.”

“Well, then, to-​night----”

“But you, son of the South, my splen­did jaguar, come ex­press­ly for me from the vir­gin for­est of Brazil,” said she, tak­ing his hand and kiss­ing and fondling it, “I have some con­sid­er­ation for the poor crea­ture you mean to make your wife.--Shall I be your wife, Hen­ri?”

“Yes,” said the Brazil­ian, over­pow­ered by this un­bri­dled vol­ubil­ity of pas­sion. And he knelt at her feet.

“Well, then, Hen­ri,” said Va­lerie, tak­ing his two hands and look­ing straight in­to his eyes, “swear to me now, in the pres­ence of Lis­beth, my best and on­ly friend, my sis­ter--that you will make me your wife at the end of my year's wid­ow­hood.”

“I swear it.”

“That is not enough. Swear by your moth­er's ash­es and eter­nal sal­va­tion, swear by the Vir­gin Mary and by all your hopes as a Catholic!”

Va­lerie knew that the Brazil­ian would keep that oath even if she should have fall­en in­to the foulest so­cial slough.

The Baron solemn­ly swore it, his nose al­most touch­ing Va­lerie's white bo­som, and his eyes spell­bound. He was drunk, drunk as a man is when he sees the wom­an he loves once more, af­ter a sea voy­age of a hun­dred and twen­ty days.

“Good. Now be quite easy. And in Madame Marn­effe re­spect the fu­ture Baroness de Mon­te­janos. You are not to spend a sou up­on me; I for­bid it.--Stay here in the out­er room; sleep on the so­fa. I my­self will come and tell you when you may move.--We will break­fast to-​mor­row morn­ing, and you can be leav­ing at about one o'clock as if you had come to call at noon. There is noth­ing to fear; the gate-​keep­ers love me as much as if they were my fa­ther and moth­er.--Now I must go down and make tea.”

She beck­oned to Lis­beth, who fol­lowed her out on to the land­ing. There Va­lerie whis­pered in the old maid's ear:

“My dark­ie has come back too soon. I shall die if I can­not avenge you on Hort­ense!”

“Make your mind easy, my pret­ty lit­tle dev­il!” said Lis­beth, kiss­ing her fore­head. “Love and Re­venge on the same track will nev­er lose the game. Hort­ense ex­pects me to-​mor­row; she is in beg­gary. For a thou­sand francs you may have a thou­sand kiss­es from Wences­las.”

On leav­ing Va­lerie, Hu­lot had gone down to the porter's lodge and made a sud­den in­va­sion there.

“Madame Olivi­er?”

On hear­ing the im­pe­ri­ous tone of this ad­dress, and see­ing the ac­tion by which the Baron em­pha­sized it, Madame Olivi­er came out in­to the court­yard as far as the Baron led her.

“You know that if any one can help your son to a con­nec­tion by and by, it is I; it is ow­ing to me that he is al­ready third clerk in a no­tary's of­fice, and is fin­ish­ing his stud­ies.”

“Yes, Mon­sieur le Baron; and in­deed, sir, you may de­pend on our grat­itude. Not a day pass­es that I do not pray to God for Mon­sieur le Baron's hap­pi­ness.”

“Not so many words, my good wom­an,” said Hu­lot, “but deeds----”

“What can I do, sir?” asked Madame Olivi­er.

“A man came here to-​night in a car­riage. Do you know him?”

Madame Olivi­er had rec­og­nized Montes well enough. How could she have for­got­ten him? In the Rue du Doyenne the Brazil­ian had al­ways slipped a five-​franc piece in­to her hand as he went out in the morn­ing, rather too ear­ly. If the Baron had ap­plied to Mon­sieur Olivi­er, he would per­haps have learned all he want­ed to know. But Olivi­er was in bed. In the low­er or­ders the wom­an is not mere­ly the su­pe­ri­or of the man--she al­most al­ways has the up­per hand. Madame Olivi­er had long since made up her mind as to which side to take in case of a col­li­sion be­tween her two bene­fac­tors; she re­gard­ed Madame Marn­effe as the stronger pow­er.

“Do I know him?” she re­peat­ed. “No, in­deed, no. I nev­er saw him be­fore!”

“What! Did Madame Marn­effe's cousin nev­er go to see her when she was liv­ing in the Rue du Doyenne?”

“Oh! Was it her cousin?” cried Madame Olivi­er. “I dare say he did come, but I did not know him again. Next time, sir, I will look at him----”

“He will be com­ing out,” said Hu­lot, hasti­ly in­ter­rupt­ing Madame Olivi­er.

“He has left,” said Madame Olivi­er, un­der­stand­ing the sit­ua­tion. “The car­riage is gone.”

“Did you see him go?”

“As plain­ly as I see you. He told his ser­vant to drive to the Em­bassy.”

This au­da­cious state­ment wrung a sigh of re­lief from the Baron; he took Madame Olivi­er's hand and squeezed it.

“Thank you, my good Madame Olivi­er. But that is not all.--Mon­sieur Crev­el?”

“Mon­sieur Crev­el? What can you mean, sir? I do not un­der­stand,” said Madame Olivi­er.

“Lis­ten to me. He is Madame Marn­effe's lover----”

“Im­pos­si­ble, Mon­sieur le Baron; im­pos­si­ble,” said she, clasp­ing her hands.

“He is Madame Marn­effe's lover,” the Baron re­peat­ed very pos­itive­ly. “How do they man­age it? I don't know; but I mean to know, and you are to find out. If you can put me on the tracks of this in­trigue, your son is a no­tary.”

“Don't you fret your­self so, Mon­sieur le Baron,” said Madame Olivi­er. "Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for true, and we say, be­tween her and me, that you are the luck­iest man in this world--for you know what madame is.--Just per­fec­tion!

“She gets up at ten ev­ery morn­ing; then she break­fasts. Well and good. Af­ter that she takes an hour or so to dress; that car­ries her on till two; then she goes for a walk in the Tu­ileries in the sight of all men, and she is al­ways in by four to be ready for you. She lives like clock­work. She keeps no se­crets from her maid, and Reine keeps noth­ing from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would--along of my son, for she is very sweet up­on him. So, you see, if madame had any in­ti­ma­cy with Mon­sieur Crev­el, we should be bound to know it.”

The Baron went up­stairs again with a beam­ing coun­te­nance, con­vinced that he was the on­ly man in the world to that shame­less slut, as treach­er­ous, but as love­ly and as en­gag­ing as a siren.

Crev­el and Marn­effe had be­gun a sec­ond rub­ber at pi­quet. Crev­el was los­ing, as a man must who is not giv­ing his thoughts to his game. Marn­effe, who knew the cause of the May­or's ab­sence of mind, took un­scrupu­lous ad­van­tage of it; he looked at the cards in re­verse, and dis­card­ed ac­cord­ing­ly; thus, know­ing his ad­ver­sary's hand, he played to beat him. The stake be­ing a franc a point, he had al­ready robbed the May­or of thir­ty francs when Hu­lot came in.

“Hey day!” said he, amazed to find no com­pa­ny. “Are you alone? Where is ev­ery­body gone?”

“Your pleas­ant tem­per put them all to flight,” said Crev­el.

“No, it was my wife's cousin,” replied Marn­effe. “The ladies and gen­tle­men sup­posed that Va­lerie and Hen­ri might have some­thing to say to each oth­er af­ter three years' sep­ara­tion, and they very dis­creet­ly re­tired.--If I had been in the room, I would have kept them; but then, as it hap­pens, it would have been a mis­take, for Lis­beth, who al­ways comes down to make tea at half-​past ten, was tak­en ill, and that up­set ev­ery­thing--”

“Then is Lis­beth re­al­ly un­well?” asked Crev­el in a fury.

“So I was told,” replied Marn­effe, with the heart­less in­dif­fer­ence of a man to whom wom­en have ceased to ex­ist.

The May­or looked at the clock; and, cal­cu­lat­ing the time, the Baron seemed to have spent forty min­utes in Lis­beth's rooms. Hec­tor's ju­bi­lant ex­pres­sion se­ri­ous­ly in­crim­inat­ed Va­lerie, Lis­beth, and him­self.

“I have just seen her; she is in great pain, poor soul!” said the Baron.

“Then the suf­fer­ings of oth­ers must af­ford you much joy, my friend,” re­tort­ed Crev­el with ac­ri­mo­ny, “for you have come down with a face that is pos­itive­ly beam­ing. Is Lis­beth like­ly to die? For your daugh­ter, they say, is her heiress. You are not like the same man. You left this room look­ing like the Moor of Venice, and you come back with the air of Saint-​Preux!--I wish I could see Madame Marn­effe's face at this minute----”

“And pray, what do you mean by that?” said Marn­effe to Crev­el, pack­ing his cards and lay­ing them down in front of him.

A light kin­dled in the eyes of this man, de­crepit at the age of forty-​sev­en; a faint col­or flushed his flac­cid cold cheeks, his ill-​fur­nished mouth was half open, and on his black­ened lips a sort of foam gath­ered, thick, and as white as chalk. This fury in such a help­less wretch, whose life hung on a thread, and who in a du­el would risk noth­ing while Crev­el had ev­ery­thing to lose, fright­ened the May­or.

“I said,” re­peat­ed Crev­el, “that I should like to see Madame Marn­effe's face. And with all the more rea­son since yours, at this mo­ment, is most un­pleas­ant. On my hon­or, you are hor­ri­bly ug­ly, my dear Marn­effe----”

“Do you know that you are very un­civ­il?”

“A man who has won thir­ty francs of me in forty-​five min­utes can­not look hand­some in my eyes.”

“Ah, if you had but seen me sev­en­teen years ago!” replied the clerk.

“You were so good-​look­ing?” asked Crev­el.

“That was my ru­in; now, if I had been like you--I might be a may­or and a peer.”

“Yes,” said Crev­el, with a smile, “you have been too much in the wars; and of the two forms of met­al that may be earned by wor­ship­ing the god of trade, you have tak­en the worse--the dross!” [This di­alogue is gar­nished with puns for which it is dif­fi­cult to find any En­glish equiv­alent.] And Crev­el roared with laugh­ter. Though Marn­effe could take of­fence if his hon­or were in per­il, he al­ways took these rough pleas­antries in good part; they were the small coin of con­ver­sa­tion be­tween him and Crev­el.

“The daugh­ters of Eve cost me dear, no doubt; but, by the pow­ers! 'Short and sweet' is my mot­to.”

“'Long and hap­py' is more to my mind,” re­turned Crev­el.

Madame Marn­effe now came in; she saw that her hus­band was at cards with Crev­el, and on­ly the Baron in the room be­sides; a mere glance at the mu­nic­ipal dig­ni­tary showed her the frame of mind he was in, and her line of con­duct was at once de­cid­ed on.

“Marn­effe, my dear boy,” said she, lean­ing on her hus­band's shoul­der, and pass­ing her pret­ty fin­gers through his dingy gray hair, but with­out suc­ceed­ing in cov­er­ing his bald head with it, “it is very late for you; you ought to be in bed. To-​mor­row, you know, you must dose your­self by the doc­tor's or­ders. Reine will give you your herb tea at sev­en. If you wish to live, give up your game.”

“We will pay it out up to five points,” said Marn­effe to Crev­el.

“Very good--I have scored two,” replied the May­or.

“How long will it take you?”

“Ten min­utes,” said Marn­effe.

“It is eleven o'clock,” replied Va­lerie. “Re­al­ly, Mon­sieur Crev­el, one might fan­cy you meant to kill my hus­band. Make haste, at any rate.”

This dou­ble-​bar­reled speech made Crev­el and Hu­lot smile, and even Marn­effe him­self. Va­lerie sat down to talk to Hec­tor.

“You must leave, my dear­est,” said she in Hu­lot's ear. “Walk up and down the Rue Van­neau, and come in again when you see Crev­el go out.”

“I would rather leave this room and go in­to your room through the dress­ing-​room door. You could tell Reine to let me in.”

“Reine is up­stairs at­tend­ing to Lis­beth.”

“Well, sup­pose then I go up to Lis­beth's rooms?”

Dan­ger hemmed in Va­lerie on ev­ery side; she fore­saw a dis­cus­sion with Crev­el, and could not al­low Hu­lot to be in her room, where he could hear all that went on.--And the Brazil­ian was up­stairs with Lis­beth.

“Re­al­ly, you men, when you have a no­tion in your head, you would burn a house down to get in­to it!” ex­claimed she. “Lis­beth is not in a fit state to ad­mit you.--Are you afraid of catch­ing cold in the street? Be off there--or good-​night.”

“Good evening, gen­tle­men,” said the Baron to the oth­er two.

Hu­lot, when piqued in his old man's van­ity, was bent on prov­ing that he could play the young man by wait­ing for the hap­py hour in the open air, and he went away.

Marn­effe bid his wife good-​night, tak­ing her hands with a sem­blance of de­vo­tion. Va­lerie pressed her hus­band's hand with a sig­nif­icant glance, con­vey­ing:

“Get rid of Crev­el.”

“Good-​night, Crev­el,” said Marn­effe. “I hope you will not stay long with Va­lerie. Yes! I am jeal­ous--a lit­tle late in the day, but it has me hard and fast. I shall come back to see if you are gone.”

“We have a lit­tle busi­ness to dis­cuss, but I shall not stay long,” said Crev­el.

“Speak low.--What is it?” said Va­lerie, rais­ing her voice, and look­ing at him with a min­gled ex­pres­sion of haugh­ti­ness and scorn.

Crev­el, as he met this ar­ro­gant stare, though he was do­ing Va­lerie im­por­tant ser­vices, and had hoped to plume him­self on the fact, was at once re­duced to sub­mis­sion.

“That Brazil­ian----” he be­gan, but, over­pow­ered by Va­lerie's fixed look of con­tempt, he broke off.

“What of him?” said she.

“That cousin--”

“Is no cousin of mine,” said she. “He is my cousin to the world and to Mon­sieur Marn­effe. And if he were my lover, it would be no con­cern of yours. A trades­man who pays a wom­an to be re­venged on an­oth­er man, is, in my opin­ion, be­neath the man who pays her for love of her. You did not care for me; all you saw in me was Mon­sieur Hu­lot's mis­tress. You bought me as a man buys a pis­tol to kill his ad­ver­sary. I want­ed bread--I ac­cept­ed the bar­gain.”

“But you have not car­ried it out,” said Crev­el, the trades­man once more.

“You want Baron Hu­lot to be told that you have robbed him of his mis­tress, to pay him out for hav­ing robbed you of Josepha? Noth­ing can more clear­ly prove your base­ness. You say you love a wom­an, you treat her like a duchess, and then you want to de­grade her? Well, my good fel­low, and you are right. This wom­an is no match for Josepha. That young per­son has the courage of her dis­grace, while I--I am a hyp­ocrite, and de­serve to be pub­licly whipped.--Alas! Josepha is pro­tect­ed by her clev­er­ness and her wealth. I have noth­ing to shel­ter me but my rep­uta­tion; I am still the wor­thy and blame­less wife of a plain cit­izen; if you cre­ate a scan­dal, what is to be­come of me? If I were rich, then in­deed; but my in­come is fif­teen thou­sand francs a year at most, I sup­pose.”

“Much more than that,” said Crev­el. “I have dou­bled your sav­ings in these last two months by in­vest­ing in _Or­leans_.”

“Well, a po­si­tion in Paris be­gins with fifty thou­sand. And you cer­tain­ly will not make up to me for the po­si­tion I should sur­ren­der. --What was my aim? I want to see Marn­effe a first-​class clerk; he will then draw a salary of six thou­sand francs. He has been twen­ty-​sev­en years in his of­fice; with­in three years I shall have a right to a pen­sion of fif­teen hun­dred francs when he dies. You, to whom I have been en­tire­ly kind, to whom I have giv­en your fill of hap­pi­ness--you can­not wait!--And that is what men call love!” she ex­claimed.

“Though I be­gan with an ul­te­ri­or pur­pose,” said Crev­el, “I have be­come your poo­dle. You tram­ple on my heart, you crush me, you stul­ti­fy me, and I love you as I have nev­er loved in my life. Va­lerie, I love you as much as I love my Ce­les­tine. I am ca­pa­ble of any­thing for your sake.--Lis­ten, in­stead of com­ing twice a week to the Rue du Dauphin, come three times.”

“Is that all! You are quite young again, my dear boy!”

“On­ly let me pack off Hu­lot, hu­mil­iate him, rid you of him,” said Crev­el, not heed­ing her im­per­ti­nence! “Have noth­ing to say to the Brazil­ian, be mine alone; you shall not re­pent of it. To be­gin with, I will give you eight thou­sand francs a year, se­cured by bond, but on­ly as an an­nu­ity; I will not give you the cap­ital till the end of five years' con­stan­cy--”

"Al­ways a bar­gain! A trades­man can nev­er learn to give. You want to stop for re­fresh­ments on the road of love--in the form of Gov­ern­ment bonds! Bah! Shop­man, po­ma­tum sell­er! you put a price on ev­ery­thing! --Hec­tor told me that the Duc d'Her­ou­ville gave Josepha a bond for thir­ty thou­sand francs a year in a pack­et of sug­ar al­monds! And I am worth six of Josepha.

“Oh! to be loved!” she went on, twist­ing her ringlets round her fin­gers, and look­ing at her­self in the glass. “Hen­ri loves me. He would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hu­lot loves me; he leaves his wife in beg­gary! As for you, go my good man, be the wor­thy fa­ther of a fam­ily. You have three hun­dred thou­sand francs over and above your for­tune, on­ly to amuse your­self, a hoard, in fact, and you think of noth­ing but in­creas­ing it--”

“For you, Va­lerie, since I of­fer you half,” said he, falling on his knees.

“What, still here!” cried Marn­effe, hideous in his dress­ing-​gown. “What are you about?”

“He is beg­ging my par­don, my dear, for an in­sult­ing pro­pos­al he has dared to make me. Un­able to ob­tain my con­sent, my gen­tle­man pro­posed to pay me----”

Crev­el on­ly longed to van­ish in­to the cel­lar, through a trap, as is done on the stage.

“Get up, Crev­el,” said Marn­effe, laugh­ing, “you are ridicu­lous. I can see by Va­lerie's man­ner that my hon­or is in no dan­ger.”

“Go to bed and sleep in peace,” said Madame Marn­effe.

“Isn't she clever?” thought Crev­el. “She has saved me. She is adorable!”

As Marn­effe dis­ap­peared, the May­or took Va­lerie's hands and kissed them, leav­ing on them the traces of tears.

“It shall all stand in your name,” he said.

“That is true love,” she whis­pered in his ear. “Well, love for love. Hu­lot is be­low, in the street. The poor old thing is wait­ing to re­turn when I place a can­dle in one of the win­dows of my bed­room. I give you leave to tell him that you are the man I love; he will refuse to be­lieve you; take him to the Rue du Dauphin, give him ev­ery proof, crush him; I al­low it--I or­der it! I am tired of that old seal; he bores me to death. Keep your man all night in the Rue du Dauphin, grill him over a slow fire, be re­venged for the loss of Josepha. Hu­lot may die of it per­haps, but we shall save his wife and chil­dren from ut­ter ru­in. Madame Hu­lot is work­ing for her bread--”

“Oh! poor wom­an! On my word, it is quite shock­ing!” ex­claimed Crev­el, his nat­ural feel­ing com­ing to the top.

“If you love me, Ce­lestin,” said she in Crev­el's ear, which she touched with her lips, “keep him there, or I am done for. Marn­effe is sus­pi­cious. Hec­tor has a key of the out­er gate, and will cer­tain­ly come back.”

Crev­el clasped Madame Marn­effe to his heart, and went away in the sev­enth heav­en of de­light. Va­lerie fond­ly es­cort­ed him to the land­ing, and then fol­lowed him, like a wom­an mag­ne­tized, down the stairs to the very bot­tom.

“My Va­lerie, go back, do not com­pro­mise your­self be­fore the porters. --Go back; my life, my trea­sure, all is yours.--Go in, my duchess!”

“Madame Olivi­er,” Va­lerie called gen­tly when the gate was closed.

“Why, madame! You here?” said the wom­an in be­wil­der­ment.

“Bolt the gates at top and bot­tom, and let no one in.”

“Very good, madame.”

Hav­ing barred the gate, Madame Olivi­er told of the bribe that the War Of­fice chief had tried to of­fer her.

“You be­haved like an an­gel, my dear Olivi­er; we shall talk of that to-​mor­row.”

Va­lerie flew like an ar­row to the third floor, tapped three times at Lis­beth's door, and then went down to her room, where she gave in­struc­tions to Made­moi­selle Reine, for a wom­an must make the most of the op­por­tu­ni­ty when a Montes ar­rives from Brazil.

“By Heav­en! on­ly a wom­an of the world is ca­pa­ble of such love,” said Crev­el to him­self. “How she came down those stairs, light­ing them up with her eyes, fol­low­ing me! Nev­er did Josepha--Josepha! she is cag-​mag!” cried the ex-​bag­man. “What have I said? _Cag-​mag_--why, I might have let the word slip out at the Tu­ileries! I can nev­er do any good un­less Va­lerie ed­ucates me--and I was so bent on be­ing a gen­tle­man.--What a wom­an she is! She up­sets me like a fit of the col­ic when she looks at me cold­ly. What grace! What wit! Nev­er did Josepha move me so. And what per­fec­tion when you come to know her! --Ha, there is my man!”

He per­ceived in the gloom of the Rue de Baby­lone the tall, some­what stoop­ing fig­ure of Hu­lot, steal­ing along close to a board­ing, and he went straight up to him.

“Good-​morn­ing, Baron, for it is past mid­night, my dear fel­low. What the dev­il are your do­ing here? You are air­ing your­self un­der a pleas­ant driz­zle. That is not whole­some at our time of life. Will you let me give you a lit­tle piece of ad­vice? Let each of us go home; for, be­tween you and me, you will not see the can­dle in the win­dow.”

The last words made the Baron sud­den­ly aware that he was six­ty-​three, and that his cloak was wet.

“Who on earth told you--?” he be­gan.

“Va­lerie, of course, _our_ Va­lerie, who means hence­forth to be _my_ Va­lerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you please. You have noth­ing to com­plain of; you know, I al­ways stip­ulat­ed for the right of tak­ing my re­venge; it took you three months to rob me of Josepha; I took Va­lerie from you in--We will say no more about that. Now I mean to have her all to my­self. But we can be very good friends, all the same.”

“Crev­el, no jest­ing,” said Hu­lot, in a voice choked by rage. “It is a mat­ter of life and death.”

“Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not re­mem­ber what you said to me the day of Hort­ense's mar­riage: 'Can two old gaffers like us quar­rel over a pet­ti­coat? It is too low, too com­mon. We are _Re­gence_, we agreed, Pom­padour, eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry, quite the Marechal Riche­lieu, Louis XV., nay, and I may say, _Li­aisons dan­gereuses_!”

Crev­el might have gone on with his string of lit­er­ary al­lu­sions; the Baron heard him as a deaf man lis­tens when he is but half deaf. But, see­ing in the gaslight the ghast­ly pal­lor of his face, the tri­umphant May­or stopped short. This was, in­deed, a thun­der­bolt af­ter Madame Olivi­er's as­ser­va­tions and Va­lerie's part­ing glance.

“Good God! And there are so many oth­er wom­en in Paris!” he said at last.

“That is what I said to you when you took Josepha,” said Crev­el.

“Look here, Crev­el, it is im­pos­si­ble. Give me some proof.--Have you a key, as I have, to let your­self in?”

And hav­ing reached the house, the Baron put the key in­to the lock; but the gate was im­mov­able; he tried in vain to open it.

“Do not make a noise in the streets at night,” said Crev­el cool­ly. “I tell you, Baron, I have far bet­ter proof than you can show.”

“Proofs! give me proof!” cried the Baron, al­most crazy with ex­as­per­ation.

“Come, and you shall have them,” said Crev­el.

And in obe­di­ence to Va­lerie's in­struc­tions, he led the Baron away to­wards the quay, down the Rue Hil­lerin-​Bertin. The un­hap­py Baron walked on, as a mer­chant walks on the day be­fore he stops pay­ment; he was lost in con­jec­tures as to the rea­sons of the de­prav­ity buried in the depths of Va­lerie's heart, and still be­lieved him­self the vic­tim of some prac­ti­cal joke. As they crossed the Pont Roy­al, life seemed to him so blank, so ut­ter­ly a void, and so out of joint from his fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties, that he was with­in an ace of yield­ing to the evil prompt­ing that bid him fling Crev­el in­to the riv­er and throw him­self in af­ter.

On reach­ing the Rue du Dauphin, which had not yet been widened, Crev­el stopped be­fore a door in a wall. It opened in­to a long cor­ri­dor paved with black-​and-​white mar­ble, and serv­ing as an en­trance-​hall, at the end of which there was a flight of stairs and a door­keep­er's lodge, light­ed from an in­ner court­yard, as is of­ten the case in Paris. This court­yard, which was shared with an­oth­er house, was odd­ly di­vid­ed in­to two un­equal por­tions. Crev­el's lit­tle house, for he owned it, had ad­di­tion­al rooms with a glass sky­light, built out on to the ad­join­ing plot, un­der con­di­tions that it should have no sto­ry added above the ground floor, so that the struc­ture was en­tire­ly hid­den by the lodge and the pro­ject­ing mass of the stair­case.

This back build­ing had long served as a store-​room, back­shop, and kitchen to one of the shops fac­ing the street. Crev­el had cut off these three rooms from the rest of the ground floor, and Grindot had trans­formed them in­to an in­ex­pen­sive pri­vate res­idence. There were two ways in--from the front, through the shop of a fur­ni­ture-​deal­er, to whom Crev­el let it at a low price, and on­ly from month to month, so as to be able to get rid of him in case of his telling tales, and al­so through a door in the wall of the pas­sage, so in­ge­nious­ly hid­den as to be al­most in­vis­ible. The lit­tle apart­ment, com­pris­ing a din­ing-​room, draw­ing-​room, and bed­room, all light­ed from above, and stand­ing part­ly on Crev­el's ground and part­ly on his neigh­bor's, was very dif­fi­cult to find. With the ex­cep­tion of the sec­ond-​hand fur­ni­ture-​deal­er, the ten­ants knew noth­ing of the ex­is­tence of this lit­tle par­adise.

The door­keep­er, paid to keep Crev­el's se­crets, was a cap­ital cook. So Mon­sieur le Maire could go in and out of his in­ex­pen­sive re­treat at any hour of the night with­out any fear of be­ing spied up­on. By day, a la­dy, dressed as Paris wom­en dress to go shop­ping, and hav­ing a key, ran no risk in com­ing to Crev­el's lodg­ings; she would stop to look at the cheap­ened goods, ask the price, go in­to the shop, and come out again, with­out ex­cit­ing the small­est sus­pi­cion if any one should hap­pen to meet her.

As soon as Crev­el had light­ed the can­dles in the sit­ting-​room, the Baron was sur­prised at the el­egance and re­fine­ment it dis­played. The per­fumer had giv­en the ar­chi­tect a free hand, and Grindot had done him­self cred­it by fit­tings in the Pom­padour style, which had in fact cost six­ty thou­sand francs.

“What I want,” said Crev­el to Grindot, “is that a duchess, if I brought one there, should be sur­prised at it.”

He want­ed to have a per­fect Parisian Eden for his Eve, his “re­al la­dy,” his Va­lerie, his duchess.

“There are two beds,” said Crev­el to Hu­lot, show­ing him a so­fa that could be made wide enough by pulling out a draw­er. “This is one, the oth­er is in the bed­room. We can both spend the night here.”

“Proof!” was all the Baron could say.

Crev­el took a flat can­dle­stick and led Hu­lot in­to the ad­join­ing room, where he saw, on a so­fa, a su­perb dress­ing-​gown be­long­ing to Va­lerie, which he had seen her wear in the Rue Van­neau, to dis­play it be­fore wear­ing it in Crev­el's lit­tle apart­ment. The May­or pressed the spring of a lit­tle writ­ing-​ta­ble of in­laid work, known as a _bon­heur-​du-​jour_, and took out of it a let­ter that he hand­ed to the Baron.

“Read that,” said he.

The Coun­cil­lor read these words writ­ten in pen­cil:

“I have wait­ed in vain, you old wretch! A wom­an of my qual­ity does not ex­pect to be kept wait­ing by a re­tired per­fumer. There was no din­ner or­dered--no cigarettes. I will make you pay for this!”

“Well, is that her writ­ing?”

“Good God!” gasped Hu­lot, sit­ting down in dis­may. “I see all the things she us­es--her caps, her slip­pers. Why, how long since--?”

Crev­el nod­ded that he un­der­stood, and took a pack­et of bills out of the lit­tle in­laid cab­inet.

“You can see, old man. I paid the dec­ora­tors in De­cem­ber, 1838. In Oc­to­ber, two months be­fore, this charm­ing lit­tle place was first used.”

Hu­lot bent his head.

“How the dev­il do you man­age it? I know how she spends ev­ery hour of her day.”

“How about her walk in the Tu­ileries?” said Crev­el, rub­bing his hands in tri­umph.

“What then?” said Hu­lot, mys­ti­fied.

“Your la­dy love comes to the Tu­ileries, she is sup­posed to be air­ing her­self from one till four. But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here. You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is noth­ing imag­inary in your ti­tle.”

Hu­lot, left with­out a shred of doubt, sat sunk in omi­nous si­lence. Catas­tro­phes lead in­tel­li­gent and strong-​mind­ed men to be philo­soph­ical. The Baron, moral­ly, was at this mo­ment like a man try­ing to find his way by night through a for­est. This gloomy tac­itur­ni­ty and the change in that de­ject­ed coun­te­nance made Crev­el very un­easy, for he did not wish the death of his col­league.

“As I said, old fel­low, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!”

“Why,” said Hu­lot, talk­ing to him­self--“why is it that out of ten pret­ty wom­en at least sev­en are false?”

But the Baron was too much up­set to an­swer his own ques­tion. Beau­ty is the great­est of hu­man gifts for pow­er. Ev­ery pow­er that has no coun­ter­poise, no au­to­crat­ic con­trol, leads to abus­es and fol­ly. Despo­tism is the mad­ness of pow­er; in wom­en the despot is caprice.

“You have noth­ing to com­plain of, my good friend; you have a beau­ti­ful wife, and she is vir­tu­ous.”

“I de­serve my fate,” said Hu­lot. “I have un­der­val­ued my wife and made her mis­er­able, and she is an an­gel! Oh, my poor Ade­line! you are avenged! She suf­fers in soli­tude and si­lence, and she is wor­thy of my love; I ought--for she is still charm­ing, fair and girl­ish even--But was there ev­er a wom­an known more base, more ig­no­ble, more vil­lain­ous than this Va­lerie?”

“She is a good-​for-​noth­ing slut,” said Crev­el, “a hussy that de­serves whip­ping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canil­lac, though we are such blades, so Marechal de Riche­lieu, Louis XV., Pom­padour, Madame du Bar­ry, gay dogs, and ev­ery­thing that is most eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry, there is no longer a lieu­tenant of po­lice.”

“How can we make them love us?” Hu­lot won­dered to him­self with­out heed­ing Crev­el.

“It is sheer fol­ly in us to ex­pect to be loved, my dear fel­low,” said Crev­el. “We can on­ly be en­dured; for Madame Marn­effe is a hun­dred times more prof­li­gate than Josepha.”

“And avari­cious! she costs me a hun­dred and nine­ty-​two thou­sand francs a year!” cried Hu­lot.

“And how many cen­times!” sneered Crev­el, with the in­so­lence of a fi­nancier who scorns so small a sum.

“You do not love her, that is very ev­ident,” said the Baron dole­ful­ly.

“I have had enough of her,” replied Crev­el, “for she has had more than three hun­dred thou­sand francs of mine!”

“Where is it? Where does it all go?” said the Baron, clasp­ing his head in his hands.

“If we had come to an agree­ment, like the sim­ple young men who com­bine to main­tain a twopen­ny bag­gage, she would have cost us less.”

“That is an idea”! replied the Baron. “But she would still be cheat­ing us; for, my burly friend, what do you say to this Brazil­ian?”

“Ay, old sly fox, you are right, we are swin­dled like--like share­hold­ers!” said Crev­el. “All such wom­en are an un­lim­it­ed li­abil­ity, and we the sleep­ing part­ners.”

“Then it was she who told you about the can­dle in the win­dow?”

“My good man,” replied Crev­el, strik­ing an at­ti­tude, “she has fooled us both. Va­lerie is a--She told me to keep you here.--Now I see it all. She has got her Brazil­ian!--Oh, I have done with her, for if you hold her hands, she would find a way to cheat you with her feet! There! she is a minx, a jade!”

“She is low­er than a pros­ti­tute,” said the Baron. “Josepha and Jen­ny Ca­dine were in their rights when they were false to us; they make a trade of their charms.”

“But she, who af­fects the saint--the prude!” said Crev­el. “I tell you what, Hu­lot, do you go back to your wife; your mon­ey mat­ters are not look­ing well; I have heard talk of cer­tain notes of hand giv­en to a low usurer whose spe­cial line of busi­ness is lend­ing to these sluts, a man named Vau­vinet. For my part, I am cured of your 're­al ladies.' And, af­ter all, at our time of life what do we want of these swin­dling hussies, who, to be hon­est, can­not help play­ing us false? You have white hair and false teeth; I am of the shape of Silenus. I shall go in for sav­ing. Mon­ey nev­er de­ceives one. Though the Trea­sury is in­deed open to all the world twice a year, it pays you in­ter­est, and this wom­an swal­lows it. With you, my wor­thy friend, as Gu­bet­ta, as my part­ner in the con­cern, I might have re­signed my­self to a shady bar­gain--no, a philo­soph­ical calm. But with a Brazil­ian who has pos­si­bly smug­gled in some doubt­ful colo­nial pro­duce----”

“Wom­an is an in­ex­pli­ca­ble crea­ture!” said Hu­lot.

“I can ex­plain her,” said Crev­el. “We are old; the Brazil­ian is young and hand­some.”

“Yes; that, I own, is true,” said Hu­lot; “we are old­er than we were. But, my dear fel­low, how is one to do with­out these pret­ty crea­tures --see­ing them un­dress, twist up their hair, smile cun­ning­ly through their fin­gers as they screw up their curl-​pa­pers, put on all their airs and graces, tell all their lies, de­clare that we don't love them when we are wor­ried with busi­ness; and they cheer us in spite of ev­ery­thing.”

“Yes, by the Pow­er! It is the on­ly plea­sure in life!” cried Crev­el. “When a saucy lit­tle mug smiles at you and says, 'My old dear, you don't know how nice you are! I am not like oth­er wom­en, I sup­pose, who go crazy over mere boys with goats' beards, smelling of smoke, and as coarse as serv­ing-​men! For in their youth they are so in­so­lent!--They come in and they bid you good-​morn­ing, and out they go.--I, whom you think such a flirt, I pre­fer a man of fifty to these brats. A man who will stick by me, who is de­vot­ed, who knows a wom­an is not to be picked up ev­ery day, and ap­pre­ci­ates us.--That is what I love you for, you old mon­ster!'--and they fill up these avowals with lit­tle pet­tings and pret­ti­ness­es and--Faugh! they are as false as the bills on the Ho­tel de Ville.”

“A lie is some­times bet­ter than the truth,” said Hu­lot, re­mem­ber­ing sundry be­witch­ing scenes called up by Crev­el, who mim­icked Va­lerie. “They are obliged to act up­on their lies, to sew span­gles on their stage frocks--”

“And they are ours, af­ter all, the ly­ing jades!” said Crev­el coarse­ly.

“Va­lerie is a witch,” said the Baron. “She can turn an old man in­to a young one.”

“Oh, yes!” said Crev­el, “she is an eel that wrig­gles through your hands; but the pret­ti­est eel, as white and sweet as sug­ar, as amus­ing as Ar­nal--and in­ge­nious!”

“Yes, she is full of fun,” said Hu­lot, who had now quite for­got­ten his wife.

The col­leagues went to bed the best friends in the world, re­mind­ing each oth­er of Va­lerie's per­fec­tions, the tones of her voice, her kit­ten­ish way, her move­ments, her fun, her sal­lies of wit, and of af­fec­tions; for she was an artist in love, and had charm­ing im­puls­es, as tenors may sing a sce­na bet­ter one day than an­oth­er. And they fell asleep, cra­dled in tempt­ing and di­abol­ical vi­sions light­ed by the fires of hell.

At nine o'clock next morn­ing Hu­lot went off to the War Of­fice, Crev­el had busi­ness out of town; they left the house to­geth­er, and Crev­el held out his hand to the Baron, say­ing:

“To show that there is no ill-​feel­ing. For we, nei­ther of us, will have any­thing more to say to Madame Marn­effe?”

“Oh, this is the end of ev­ery­thing,” replied Hu­lot with a sort of hor­ror.

By half-​past ten Crev­el was mount­ing the stairs, four at a time, up to Madame Marn­effe's apart­ment. He found the in­fa­mous wretch, the adorable en­chantress, in the most be­com­ing morn­ing wrap­per, en­joy­ing an el­egant lit­tle break­fast in the so­ci­ety of the Baron Montes de Mon­te­janos and Lis­beth. Though the sight of the Brazil­ian gave him a shock, Crev­el begged Madame Marn­effe to grant him two min­utes' speech with her. Va­lerie led Crev­el in­to the draw­ing-​room.

“Va­lerie, my an­gel,” said the amorous May­or, “Mon­sieur Marn­effe can­not have long to live. If you will be faith­ful to me, when he dies we will be mar­ried. Think it over. I have rid you of Hu­lot.--So just con­sid­er whether this Brazil­ian is to com­pare with a May­or of Paris, a man who, for your sake, will make his way to the high­est dig­ni­ties, and who can al­ready of­fer you eighty-​odd thou­sand francs a year.”

“I will think it over,” said she. “You will see me in the Rue du Dauphin at two o'clock, and we can dis­cuss the mat­ter. But be a good boy--and do not for­get the bond you promised to trans­fer to me.”

She re­turned to the din­ing-​room, fol­lowed by Crev­el, who flat­tered him­self that he had hit on a plan for keep­ing Va­lerie to him­self; but there he found Baron Hu­lot, who, dur­ing this short col­lo­quy, had al­so ar­rived with the same end in view. He, like Crev­el, begged for a brief in­ter­view. Madame Marn­effe again rose to go to the draw­ing-​room, with a smile at the Brazil­ian that seemed to say, “What fools they are! Can­not they see you?”

“Va­lerie,” said the of­fi­cial, “my child, that cousin of yours is an Amer­ican cousin--”

“Oh, that is enough!” she cried, in­ter­rupt­ing the Baron. “Marn­effe nev­er has been, and nev­er will be, nev­er can be my hus­band! The first, the on­ly man I ev­er loved, has come back quite un­ex­pect­ed­ly. It is no fault of mine! But look at Hen­ri and look at your­self. Then ask your­self whether a wom­an, and a wom­an in love, can hes­itate for a mo­ment. My dear fel­low, I am not a kept mis­tress. From this day forth I refuse to play the part of Su­san­nah be­tween the two El­ders. If you re­al­ly care for me, you and Crev­el, you will be our friends; but all else is at an end, for I am six-​and-​twen­ty, and hence­forth I mean to be a saint, an ad­mirable and wor­thy wife--as yours is.”

“Is that what you have to say?” an­swered Hu­lot. “Is this the way you re­ceive me when I come like a Pope with my hands full of In­dul­gences? --Well, your hus­band will nev­er be a first-​class clerk, nor be pro­mot­ed in the Le­gion of Hon­or.”

“That re­mains to be seen,” said Madame Marn­effe, with a mean­ing look at Hu­lot.

“Well, well, no tem­per,” said Hu­lot in de­spair. “I will call this evening, and we will come to an un­der­stand­ing.”

“In Lis­beth's rooms then.”

“Very good--at Lis­beth's,” said the old dotard.

Hu­lot and Crev­el went down­stairs to­geth­er with­out speak­ing a word till they were in the street; but out­side on the side­walk they looked at each oth­er with a drea­ry laugh.

“We are a cou­ple of old fools,” said Crev­el.

“I have got rid of them,” said Madame Marn­effe to Lis­beth, as she sat down once more. “I nev­er loved and I nev­er shall love any man but my Jaguar,” she added, smil­ing at Hen­ri Montes. “Lis­beth, my dear, you don't know. Hen­ri has for­giv­en me the in­famy to which I was re­duced by pover­ty.”

“It was my own fault,” said the Brazil­ian. “I ought to have sent you a hun­dred thou­sand francs.”

“Poor boy!” said Va­lerie; “I might have worked for my liv­ing, but my fin­gers were not made for that--ask Lis­beth.”

The Brazil­ian went away the hap­pi­est man in Paris.

At noon Va­lerie and Lis­beth were chat­ting in the splen­did bed­room where this dan­ger­ous wom­an was giv­ing to her dress those fin­ish­ing touch­es which a la­dy alone can give. The doors were bolt­ed, the cur­tains drawn over them, and Va­lerie re­lat­ed in ev­ery de­tail all the events of the evening, the night, the morn­ing.

“What do you think of it all, my dar­ling?” she said to Lis­beth in con­clu­sion. “Which shall I be when the time comes--Madame Crev­el, or Madame Montes?”

“Crev­el will not last more than ten years, such a prof­li­gate as he is,” replied Lis­beth. “Montes is young. Crev­el will leave you about thir­ty thou­sand francs a year. Let Montes wait; he will be hap­py enough as Ben­jamin. And so, by the time you are three-​and-​thir­ty, if you take care of your looks, you may mar­ry your Brazil­ian and make a fine show with six­ty thou­sand francs a year of your own--es­pe­cial­ly un­der the wing of a Marechale.”

“Yes, but Montes is a Brazil­ian; he will nev­er make his mark,” ob­served Va­lerie.

“We live in the day of rail­ways,” said Lis­beth, “when for­eign­ers rise to high po­si­tions in France.”

“We shall see,” replied Va­lerie, “when Marn­effe is dead. He has not much longer to suf­fer.”

“These at­tacks that re­turn so of­ten are a sort of phys­ical re­morse,” said Lis­beth. “Well, I am off to see Hort­ense.”

“Yes--go, my an­gel!” replied Va­lerie. “And bring me my artist.--Three years, and I have not gained an inch of ground! It is a dis­grace to both of us!--Wences­las and Hen­ri--these are my two pas­sions--one for love, the oth­er for fan­cy.”

“You are love­ly this morn­ing,” said Lis­beth, putting her arm round Va­lerie's waist and kiss­ing her fore­head. “I en­joy all your plea­sures, your good for­tune, your dress­es--I nev­er re­al­ly lived till the day when we be­came sis­ters.”

“Wait a mo­ment, my tiger-​cat!” cried Va­lerie, laugh­ing; “your shawl is crooked. You can­not put a shawl on yet in spite of my lessons for three years--and you want to be Madame la Marechale Hu­lot!”

Shod in prunel­la boots, over gray silk stock­ings, in a gown of hand­some cord­ed silk, her hair in smooth bands un­der a very pret­ty black vel­vet bon­net, lined with yel­low satin, Lis­beth made her way to the Rue Saint-​Do­minique by the Boule­vard des In­valides, won­der­ing whether sheer de­jec­tion would at last break down Hort­ense's brave spir­it, and whether Sar­ma­tian in­sta­bil­ity, tak­en at a mo­ment when, with such a char­ac­ter, ev­ery­thing is pos­si­ble, would be too much for Stein­bock's con­stan­cy.

Hort­ense and Wences­las had the ground floor of a house sit­uat­ed at the cor­ner of the Rue Saint-​Do­minique and the Es­planade des In­valides. These rooms, once in har­mo­ny with the hon­ey­moon, now had that half-​new, half-​fad­ed look that may be called the au­tum­nal as­pect of fur­ni­ture. New­ly mar­ried folks are as lav­ish and waste­ful, with­out know­ing it or in­tend­ing it, of ev­ery­thing about them as they are of their af­fec­tion. Think­ing on­ly of them­selves, they reck lit­tle of the fu­ture, which, at a lat­er time, weighs on the moth­er of a fam­ily.

Lis­beth found Hort­ense just as she had fin­ished dress­ing a ba­by Wences­las, who had been car­ried in­to the gar­den.

“Good-​morn­ing, Bet­ty,” said Hort­ense, open­ing the door her­self to her cousin. The cook was gone out, and the house-​ser­vant, who was al­so the nurse, was do­ing some wash­ing.

“Good-​morn­ing, dear child,” replied Lis­beth, kiss­ing her. “Is Wences­las in the stu­dio?” she added in a whis­per.

“No; he is in the draw­ing-​room talk­ing to Stid­mann and Chanor.”

“Can we be alone?” asked Lis­beth.

“Come in­to my room.”

In this room, the hang­ings of pink-​flow­ered chintz with green leaves on a white ground, con­stant­ly ex­posed to the sun, were much fad­ed, as was the car­pet. The muslin cur­tains had not been washed for many a day. The smell of to­bac­co hung about the room; for Wences­las, now an artist of re­pute, and born a fine gen­tle­man, left his cigar-​ash on the arms of the chairs and the pret­ti­est pieces of fur­ni­ture, as a man does to whom love al­lows ev­ery­thing--a man rich enough to scorn vul­gar care­ful­ness.

“Now, then, let us talk over your af­fairs,” said Lis­beth, see­ing her pret­ty cousin silent in the arm­chair in­to which she had dropped. “But what ails you? You look rather pale, my dear.”

“Two ar­ti­cles have just come out in which my poor Wences­las is pulled to pieces; I have read them, but I have hid­den them from him, for they would com­plete­ly de­press him. The mar­ble stat­ue of Mar­shal Mont­cor­net is pro­nounced ut­ter­ly bad. The bas-​re­liefs are al­lowed to pass muster, sim­ply to al­low of the most per­fid­ious praise of his tal­ent as a dec­ora­tive artist, and to give the greater em­pha­sis to the state­ment that se­ri­ous art is quite out of his reach! Stid­mann, whom I be­sought to tell me the truth, broke my heart by con­fess­ing that his own opin­ion agreed with that of ev­ery oth­er artist, of the crit­ics, and the pub­lic. He said to me in the gar­den be­fore break­fast, 'If Wences­las can­not ex­hib­it a mas­ter­piece next sea­son, he must give up hero­ic sculp­ture and be con­tent to ex­ecute idyl­lic sub­jects, small fig­ures, pieces of jew­el­ry, and high-​class gold­smiths' work!' This ver­dict is dread­ful to me, for Wences­las, I know, will nev­er ac­cept it; he feels he has so many fine ideas.”

“Ideas will not pay the trades­man's bills,” re­marked Lis­beth. “I was al­ways telling him so--noth­ing but mon­ey. Mon­ey is on­ly to be had for work done--things that or­di­nary folks like well enough to buy them. When an artist has to live and keep a fam­ily, he had far bet­ter have a de­sign for a can­dle­stick on his counter, or for a fend­er or a ta­ble, than for groups or stat­ues. Ev­ery­body must have such things, while he may wait months for the ad­mir­er of the group--and for his mon­ey---”

“You are right, my good Lis­beth. Tell him all that; I have not the courage.--Be­sides, as he was say­ing to Stid­mann, if he goes back to or­na­men­tal work and small sculp­ture, he must give up all hope of the In­sti­tute and grand works of art, and we should not get the three hun­dred thou­sand francs' worth of work promised at Ver­sailles and by the City of Paris and the Min­is­ters. That is what we are robbed of by those dread­ful ar­ti­cles, writ­ten by ri­vals who want to step in­to our shoes.”

“And that is not what you dreamed of, poor lit­tle puss!” said Lis­beth, kiss­ing Hort­ense on the brow. “You ex­pect­ed to find a gen­tle­man, a lead­er of Art, the chief of all liv­ing sculp­tors.--But that is po­et­ry, you see, a dream re­quir­ing fifty thou­sand francs a year, and you have on­ly two thou­sand four hun­dred--so long as I live. Af­ter my death three thou­sand.”

A few tears rose to Hort­ense's eyes, and Lis­beth drank them with her eyes as a cat laps milk.

This is the sto­ry of their hon­ey­moon--the tale will per­haps not be lost on some artists.

In­tel­lec­tu­al work, la­bor in the up­per re­gions of men­tal ef­fort, is one of the grand­est achieve­ments of man. That which de­serves re­al glo­ry in Art--for by Art we must un­der­stand ev­ery cre­ation of the mind--is courage above all things--a sort of courage of which the vul­gar have no con­cep­tion, and which has nev­er per­haps been de­scribed till now.

Driv­en by the dread­ful stress of pover­ty, goad­ed by Lis­beth, and kept by her in blin­ders, as a horse is, to hin­der it from see­ing to the right and left of its road, lashed on by that hard wom­an, the per­son­ifi­ca­tion of Ne­ces­si­ty, a sort of deputy Fate, Wences­las, a born po­et and dream­er, had gone on from con­cep­tion to ex­ecu­tion, and over­leaped, with­out sound­ing it, the gulf that di­vides these two hemi­spheres of Art. To muse, to dream, to con­ceive of fine works, is a de­light­ful oc­cu­pa­tion. It is like smok­ing a mag­ic cigar or lead­ing the life of a cour­te­san who fol­lows her own fan­cy. The work then floats in all the grace of in­fan­cy, in the mad joy of con­cep­tion, with the fra­grant beau­ty of a flow­er, and the aro­mat­ic juices of a fruit en­joyed in an­tic­ipa­tion.

The man who can sketch his pur­pose be­fore­hand in words is re­gard­ed as a won­der, and ev­ery artist and writ­er pos­sess­es that fac­ul­ty. But ges­ta­tion, fruition, the la­bo­ri­ous rear­ing of the off­spring, putting it to bed ev­ery night full fed with milk, em­brac­ing it anew ev­ery morn­ing with the in­ex­haustible af­fec­tion of a moth­er's heart, lick­ing it clean, dress­ing it a hun­dred times in the rich­est garb on­ly to be in­stant­ly de­stroyed; then nev­er to be cast down at the con­vul­sions of this head­long life till the liv­ing mas­ter­piece is per­fect­ed which in sculp­ture speaks to ev­ery eye, in lit­er­ature to ev­ery in­tel­lect, in paint­ing to ev­ery mem­ory, in mu­sic to ev­ery heart!--This is the task of ex­ecu­tion. The hand must be ready at ev­ery in­stant to come for­ward and obey the brain. But the brain has no more a cre­ative pow­er at com­mand than love has a peren­ni­al spring.

The habit of cre­ative­ness, the in­de­fati­ga­ble love of moth­er­hood which makes a moth­er--that mir­acle of na­ture which Raphael so per­fect­ly un­der­stood--the ma­ter­ni­ty of the brain, in short, which is so dif­fi­cult to de­vel­op, is lost with prodi­gious ease. In­spi­ra­tion is the op­por­tu­ni­ty of ge­nius. She does not in­deed dance on the ra­zor's edge, she is in the air and flies away with the sus­pi­cious swift­ness of a crow; she wears no scarf by which the po­et can clutch her; her hair is a flame; she van­ish­es like the love­ly rose and white flamin­go, the sports­man's de­spair. And work, again, is a wear­iful strug­gle, alike dread­ed and de­light­ed in by these lofty and pow­er­ful na­tures who are of­ten bro­ken by it. A great po­et of our day has said in speak­ing of this over­whelm­ing la­bor, “I sit down to it in de­spair, but I leave it with re­gret.” Be it known to all who are ig­no­rant! If the artist does not throw him­self in­to his work as Cur­tius sprang in­to the gulf, as a sol­dier leads a for­lorn hope with­out a mo­ment's thought, and if when he is in the crater he does not dig on as a min­er does when the earth has fall­en in on him; if he con­tem­plates the dif­fi­cul­ties be­fore him in­stead of con­quer­ing them one by one, like the lovers in fairy tales, who to win their princess­es over­come ev­er new en­chant­ments, the work re­mains in­com­plete; it per­ish­es in the stu­dio where cre­ative­ness be­comes im­pos­si­ble, and the artist looks on at the sui­cide of his own tal­ent.

Rossi­ni, a broth­er ge­nius to Raphael, is a strik­ing in­stance in his pover­ty-​strick­en youth, com­pared with his lat­ter years of op­ulence. This is the rea­son why the same prize, the same tri­umph, the same bays are award­ed to great po­ets and to great gen­er­als.

Wences­las, by na­ture a dream­er, had ex­pend­ed so much en­er­gy in pro­duc­tion, in study, and in work un­der Lis­beth's despot­ic rule, that love and hap­pi­ness re­sult­ed in re­ac­tion. His re­al char­ac­ter reap­peared, the weak­ness, reck­less­ness, and in­do­lence of the Sar­ma­tian re­turned to nes­tle in the com­fort­able cor­ners of his soul, whence the school­mas­ter's rod had rout­ed them.

For the first few months the artist adored his wife. Hort­ense and Wences­las aban­doned them­selves to the hap­py child­ish­ness of a le­git­imate and un­bound­ed pas­sion. Hort­ense was the first to re­lease her hus­band from his labors, proud to tri­umph over her ri­val, his Art. And, in­deed, a wom­an's ca­ress­es scare away the Muse, and break down the stur­dy, bru­tal res­olu­tion of the work­er.

Six or sev­en months slipped by, and the artist's fin­gers had for­got­ten the use of the mod­el­ing tool. When the need for work be­gan to be felt, when the Prince de Wis­sem­bourg, pres­ident of the com­mit­tee of sub­scribers, asked to see the stat­ue, Wences­las spoke the in­evitable by­word of the idler, “I am just go­ing to work on it,” and he lulled his dear Hort­ense with fal­la­cious promis­es and the mag­nif­icent schemes of the artist as he smokes. Hort­ense loved her po­et more than ev­er; she dreamed of a sub­lime stat­ue of Mar­shal Mont­cor­net. Mont­cor­net would be the em­bod­ied ide­al of brav­ery, the type of the cav­al­ry of­fi­cer, of courage _a la Mu­rat_. Yes, yes; at the mere sight of that stat­ue all the Em­per­or's vic­to­ries were to seem a fore­gone con­clu­sion. And then such work­man­ship! The pen­cil was ac­com­mo­dat­ing and an­swered to the word.

By way of a stat­ue the re­sult was a de­light­ful lit­tle Wences­las.

When the progress of af­fairs re­quired that he should go to the stu­dio at le Gros-​Cail­lou to mould the clay and set up the life-​size mod­el, Stein­bock found one day that the Prince's clock re­quired his pres­ence in the work­shop of Flo­rent and Chanor, where the fig­ures were be­ing fin­ished; or, again, the light was gray and dull; to-​day he had busi­ness to do, to-​mor­row they had a fam­ily din­ner, to say noth­ing of in­dis­po­si­tions of mind and body, and the days when he stayed at home to toy with his adored wife.

Mar­shal the Prince de Wis­sem­bourg was obliged to be an­gry to get the clay mod­el fin­ished; he de­clared that he must put the work in­to oth­er hands. It was on­ly by dint of end­less com­plaints and much strong lan­guage that the com­mit­tee of sub­scribers suc­ceed­ed in see­ing the plas­ter-​cast. Day af­ter day Stein­bock came home, ev­ident­ly tired, com­plain­ing of this “hod­man's work” and his own phys­ical weak­ness. Dur­ing that first year the house­hold felt no pinch; the Count­ess Stein­bock, des­per­ate­ly in love with her hus­band cursed the War Min­is­ter. She went to see him; she told him that great works of art were not to be man­ufac­tured like can­non; and that the State--like Louis XIV., Fran­cis I., and Leo X.--ought to be at the beck and call of ge­nius. Poor Hort­ense, be­liev­ing she held a Phidias in her em­brace, had the sort of moth­er­ly cow­ardice for her Wences­las that is in ev­ery wife who car­ries her love to the pitch of idol­atry.

“Do not be hur­ried,” said she to her hus­band, “our whole fu­ture life is bound up with that stat­ue. Take your time and pro­duce a mas­ter­piece.”

She would go to the stu­dio, and then the en­rap­tured Stein­bock wast­ed five hours out of sev­en in de­scrib­ing the stat­ue in­stead of work­ing at it. He thus spent eigh­teen months in fin­ish­ing the de­sign, which to him was all-​im­por­tant.

When the plas­ter was cast and the mod­el com­plete, poor Hort­ense, who had looked on at her hus­band's toil, see­ing his health re­al­ly suf­fer from the ex­er­tions which ex­haust a sculp­tor's frame and arms and hands --Hort­ense thought the re­sult ad­mirable. Her fa­ther, who knew noth­ing of sculp­ture, and her moth­er, no less ig­no­rant, laud­ed it as a tri­umph; the War Min­is­ter came with them to see it, and, over­ruled by them, ex­pressed ap­proval of the fig­ure, stand­ing as it did alone, in a fa­vor­able light, thrown up against a green baize back­ground.

Alas! at the ex­hi­bi­tion of 1841, the dis­ap­pro­ba­tion of the pub­lic soon took the form of abuse and mock­ery in the mouths of those who were in­dig­nant with the idol too hasti­ly set up for wor­ship. Stid­mann tried to ad­vise his friend, but was ac­cused of jeal­ousy. Ev­ery ar­ti­cle in a news­pa­per was to Hort­ense an out­cry of en­vy. Stid­mann, the best of good fel­lows, got ar­ti­cles writ­ten, in which ad­verse crit­icism was con­tra­vened, and it was point­ed out that sculp­tors al­tered their works in trans­lat­ing the plas­ter in­to mar­ble, and that the mar­ble would be the test.

“In re­pro­duc­ing the plas­ter sketch in mar­ble,” wrote Claude Vi­gnon, “a mas­ter­piece may be ru­ined, or a bad de­sign made beau­ti­ful. The plas­ter is the manuscript, the mar­ble is the book.”

So in two years and a half Wences­las had pro­duced a stat­ue and a son. The child was a pic­ture of beau­ty; the stat­ue was ex­ecrable.

The clock for the Prince and the price of the stat­ue paid off the young cou­ple's debts. Stein­bock had ac­quired fash­ion­able habits; he went to the play, to the opera; he talked ad­mirably about art; and in the eyes of the world he main­tained his rep­uta­tion as a great artist by his pow­ers of con­ver­sa­tion and crit­icism. There are many clever men in Paris who spend their lives in talk­ing them­selves out, and are con­tent with a sort of draw­ing-​room celebri­ty. Stein­bock, em­ulat­ing these emas­cu­lat­ed but charm­ing men, grew ev­ery day more averse to hard work. As soon as he be­gan a thing, he was con­scious of all its dif­fi­cul­ties, and the dis­cour­age­ment that came over him en­er­vat­ed his will. In­spi­ra­tion, the fren­zy of in­tel­lec­tu­al pro­cre­ation, flew swift­ly away at the sight of this ef­fete lover.

Sculp­ture--like dra­mat­ic art--is at once the most dif­fi­cult and the eas­iest of all arts. You have but to copy a mod­el, and the task is done; but to give it a soul, to make it typ­ical by cre­at­ing a man or a wom­an--this is the sin of Prometheus. Such tri­umphs in the an­nals of sculp­ture may be count­ed, as we may count the few po­ets among men. Michael An­ge­lo, Michel Columb, Jean Gou­jon, Phidias, Prax­ite­les, Poly­cletes, Puget, Cano­va, Al­bert Dur­er, are the broth­ers of Mil­ton, Vir­gil, Dante, Shake­speare, Tas­so, Homer, and Moliere. And such an achieve­ment is so stu­pen­dous that a sin­gle stat­ue is enough to make a man im­mor­tal, as Fi­garo, Lovelace, and Manon Lescaut have im­mor­tal­ized Beau­mar­chais, Richard­son, and the Abbe Pre­vost.

Su­per­fi­cial thinkers--and there are many in the artist world--have as­sert­ed that sculp­ture lives on­ly by the nude, that it died with the Greeks, and that mod­ern ves­ture makes it im­pos­si­ble. But, in the first place, the An­cients have left sub­lime stat­ues en­tire­ly clothed--the _Poly­hym­nia_, the _Ju­lia_, and oth­ers, and we have not found one-​tenth of all their works; and then, let any lover of art go to Flo­rence and see Michael An­ge­lo's _Penseroso_, or to the Cathe­dral of Mainz, and be­hold the _Vir­gin_ by Al­bert Dur­er, who has cre­at­ed a liv­ing wom­an out of ebony, un­der her three­fold drap­ery, with the most flow­ing, the soft­est hair that ev­er a wait­ing-​maid combed through; let all the ig­no­rant flock thith­er, and they will ac­knowl­edge that ge­nius can give mind to drap­ery, to ar­mor, to a robe, and fill it with a body, just as a man leaves the stamp of his in­di­vid­ual­ity and habits of life on the clothes he wears.

Sculp­ture is the per­pet­ual re­al­iza­tion of the fact which once, and nev­er again, was, in paint­ing called Raphael!

The so­lu­tion of this hard prob­lem is to be found on­ly in con­stant per­se­ver­ing toil; for, mere­ly to over­come the ma­te­ri­al dif­fi­cul­ties to such an ex­tent, the hand must be so prac­tised, so dex­ter­ous and obe­di­ent, that the sculp­tor may be free to strug­gle soul to soul with the elu­sive moral el­ement that he has to trans­fig­ure as he em­bod­ies it. If Pa­gani­ni, who ut­tered his soul through the strings of his vi­olin, spent three days with­out prac­tis­ing, he lost what he called the _stops_ of his in­stru­ment, mean­ing the sym­pa­thy be­tween the wood­en frame, the strings, the bow, and him­self; if he had lost this al­liance, he would have been no more than an or­di­nary play­er.

Per­pet­ual work is the law of art, as it is the law of life, for art is ide­al­ized cre­ation. Hence great artists and per­fect po­ets wait nei­ther for com­mis­sion nor for pur­chasers. They are con­stant­ly cre­at­ing --to-​day, to-​mor­row, al­ways. The re­sult is the habit of work, the un­fail­ing ap­pre­hen­sion of the dif­fi­cul­ties which keep them in close in­ter­course with the Muse and her pro­duc­tive forces. Cano­va lived in his stu­dio, as Voltaire lived in his study; and so must Homer and Phidias have lived.

While Lis­beth kept Wences­las Stein­bock in thral­dom in his gar­ret, he was on the thorny road trod­den by all these great men, which leads to the Alpine heights of glo­ry. Then hap­pi­ness, in the per­son of Hort­ense, had re­duced the po­et to idle­ness--the nor­mal con­di­tion of all artists, since to them idle­ness is ful­ly oc­cu­pied. Their joy is such as that of the pasha of a seraglio; they rev­el with ideas, they get drunk at the founts of in­tel­lect. Great artists, such as Stein­bock, wrapped in rever­ie, are right­ly spo­ken of as dream­ers. They, like opi­um-​eaters, all sink in­to pover­ty, where­as if they had been kept up to the mark by the stern de­mands of life, they might have been great men.

At the same time, these half-​artists are de­light­ful; men like them and cram them with praise; they even seem su­pe­ri­or to the true artists, who are taxed with con­ceit, unso­cia­ble­ness, con­tempt of the laws of so­ci­ety. This is why: Great men are the slaves of their work. Their in­dif­fer­ence to out­er things, their de­vo­tion to their work, make sim­ple­tons re­gard them as ego­tists, and they are ex­pect­ed to wear the same garb as the dandy who ful­fils the triv­ial evo­lu­tions called so­cial du­ties. These men want the li­ons of the At­las to be combed and scent­ed like a la­dy's poo­dle.

These artists, who are too rarely matched to meet their fel­lows, fall in­to habits of soli­tary ex­clu­sive­ness; they are in­ex­pli­ca­ble to the ma­jor­ity, which, as we know, con­sists most­ly of fools--of the en­vi­ous, the ig­no­rant, and the su­per­fi­cial.

Now you may imag­ine what part a wife should play in the life of these glo­ri­ous and ex­cep­tion­al be­ings. She ought to be what, for five years, Lis­beth had been, but with the added of­fer­ing of love, hum­ble and pa­tient love, al­ways ready and al­ways smil­ing.

Hort­ense, en­light­ened by her anx­ieties as a moth­er, and driv­en by dire ne­ces­si­ty, had dis­cov­ered too late the mis­takes she had been in­vol­un­tar­ily led in­to by her ex­ces­sive love. Still, the wor­thy daugh­ter of her moth­er, her heart ached at the thought of wor­ry­ing Wences­las; she loved her dear po­et too much to be­come his tor­tur­er; and she could fore­see the hour when beg­gary await­ed her, her child, and her hus­band.

“Come, come, my child,” said Lis­beth, see­ing the tears in her cousin's love­ly eyes, “you must not de­spair. A glass­ful of tears will not buy a plate of soup. How much do you want?”

“Well, five or six thou­sand francs.”

“I have but three thou­sand at the most,” said Lis­beth. “And what is Wences­las do­ing now?”

“He has had an of­fer to work in part­ner­ship with Stid­mann at a ta­ble ser­vice for the Duc d'Her­ou­ville for six thou­sand francs. Then Mon­sieur Chanor will ad­vance four thou­sand to re­pay Mon­sieur de Lo­ra and Bridau--a debt of hon­or.”

“What, you have had the mon­ey for the stat­ue and the bas-​re­liefs for Mar­shal Mont­cor­net's mon­ument, and you have not paid them yet?”

“For the last three years,” said Hort­ense, “we have spent twelve thou­sand francs a year, and I have but a hun­dred louis a year of my own. The Mar­shal's mon­ument, when all the ex­pens­es were paid, brought us no more than six­teen thou­sand francs. Re­al­ly and tru­ly, if Wences­las gets no work, I do not know what is to be­come of us. Oh, if on­ly I could learn to make stat­ues, I would han­dle the clay!” she cried, hold­ing up her fine arms.

The wom­an, it was plain, ful­filled the promise of the girl; there was a flash in her eye; im­petu­ous blood, strong with iron, flowed in her veins; she felt that she was wast­ing her en­er­gy in car­ry­ing her in­fant.

“Ah, my poor lit­tle thing! a sen­si­ble girl should no