Cousin Bette (13 page)

‘Oh, Josépha!' cried the Baron.

‘Explanations are so stupid!' she interrupted him, smiling. ‘Can't you see? Have you got anything like the six hundred thousand francs that this house and the furniture cost? Can you give me the papers for a thirty-thousand-franc annuity in a white paper bag full of sugared almonds, like the Duke did? Such a nice idea!'

‘It's iniquitous!' said the Councillor of State, who in that moment of fury would have bartered his wife's diamonds for the chance to borrow the Duc d'Hérouville's shoes for twenty-four hours.

‘Iniquity is my business!' she retorted. ‘Ah, just look how seriously you take the thing! Why couldn't you have thought
up some nice speculation like that? Goodness knows, my poor dyed tom-cat, you ought to be thankful to me. I'm leaving you just when if I stayed I might easily be helping you to squander your wife's future, and your daughter's dowry, and… oh, you're crying! The Empire is passing! I salute the Empire!'

She struck a tragic pose, and declaimed:

‘“Hulot, they call you, sir! I know you now no morel”'

And she returned to the dining-room.

The door, as she opened it, let out, in a sudden explosion, a burst of light, a roar from the revel reaching its climax, and the odours of a first-class banquet.

The singer turned to look back through the half-open door, and finding Hulot standing like a bronze statue where she had left him, she took a step forward and reappeared.

‘Monsieur,' she said, ‘I handed the cast-offs from the rue Chauchat on to Bixiou's little Héloïse Brisetout; but if you want to collect your cotton night-cap and your bootjack from her, and your stays and your whisker-wax, I told her that you were to have them.'

The effect of this horrible jeer was to make the Baron flee as Lot must have fled Gomorrah, but without, like Lot's wife, looking back.

Hulot walked home, striding like a madman and talking to himself, and found his family placidly playing whist for two-sou stakes, just as he had left them. When she saw her husband, poor Adeline thought that some terrible disaster had happened, some disgrace. She gave her cards to Hortense, and drew Hector into the same little room in which, five hours before, Crevel had prophesied that she was destined to suffer the most humiliating miseries of poverty.

‘What is the matter?' she asked, in alarm.

‘Oh, forgive me, but I must tell you about these outrages!' And for ten minutes he poured out his fury.

‘But my dear,' his poor wife answered heroically, ‘creatures like that don't know what love is, the pure devoted love that is what you deserve. How could you, a man of such intelligence, dream of attempting to be a millionaire's rival?'

‘Dearest Adeline!' exclaimed the Baron, putting his arms
round his wife and pressing her to his heart. The Baroness had poured balm on his vanity's bleeding wounds.

‘It's true enough that if the Duc d'Hérouville's fortune were taken away, between the two of us
she
would not hesitate!' he said.

‘My dear,' Adeline went on, making a supreme effort, ‘if you absolutely must have mistresses, why do you not follow Crevel's example, and take women who do not expect much, from a class content for a long time with the expenditure of a little money? We should all gain by it. I can believe in your need, but I don't understand what empty pride –'

‘Oh! what a dear and wonderful wife you are!' he interrupted. ‘I am an old fool; I don't deserve to have an angel like you as my partner.'

‘I am just a Josephine to my Napoleon,' she answered, with a touch of sadness.

‘Josephine could not compare with you,' he said. ‘Come, I'll play a game of whist with my brother and the children. I'll have to apply myself to my duties as a family man, find a husband for Hortense, and bury the libertine.…'

His resignation and kindness touched poor Adeline so deeply that she was impelled to say:

‘That creature has very poor taste to prefer anyone in the world to my Hector. Ah! I would not give you up for all the money in the world. How can a woman leave you, who has the happiness to be loved by you!'

The look with which the Baron rewarded his wife's fanatical devotion confirmed her in her belief that gentleness and submissiveness were a woman's most powerful weapons. She was mistaken in this. Noble sentiments pushed to extremes produce results very like those of the worst vices. Bonaparte became Emperor by turning cannon on the crowd, only two paces away from the spot where Louis XVI lost his kingdom and his head because he would not allow the blood of a certain Monsieur Sauce to be shed.…

Next day, Hortense, who had put Wenceslas's seal under her pillow, not to be separated from it while she slept, was up early and sent a message to her father asking him to come to the garden when he was dressed.

At about half past nine her father, willing to indulge his daughter in her wish, gave her his arm, and they walked together along the quays, by the pont Royal, and reached the place du Carrousel.

‘Look as if we are idly sauntering, Papa,' said Hortense, as they came through the entrance to cross that great square.

‘Idly sauntering, here?' her father teased her.

‘We are supposed to be going to the museum, and over there,' she said, pointing to the stalls backing on the walls of the houses that stand at right angles to the rue du Doyenné. ‘Look, there are antique shops, pictures…'

‘Your cousin lives down there.'

‘I know she does, but she mustn't see us.…'

‘And what do you want to do?' asked the Baron, finding himself only thirty yards or so from the window at which he had seen Madame Marneffe, of whom he was suddenly reminded.

Hortense had led her father to one of the shops on the corner of the block of houses that run the length of the galleries of the old Louvre, facing the Hôtel de Nantes. She went into the shop. Her father remained outside, staring at the windows of the lovely little lady who, the day before, had left her image in the old beau's heart as if to console him for the wound that he was shortly to receive, and he could not resist the thought of putting his wife's advice into effect.

‘Let's fall back upon the bourgeoisie,' he said to himself, as he recalled Madame Marneffe's adorable perfections. ‘That little woman will soon make me forget Josépha and her greed.'

This is what now happened simultaneously, inside the shop and outside it.

As he scrutinized his new flame's windows, the Baron caught sight of the husband, who, as he brushed his greatcoat with his own hands, was evidently on the watch for someone coming into view on the square. Afraid that he might be noticed and later recognized, the amorous Baron turned his back on the rue du Doyenné, but not squarely, leaving himself in a position to glance down it from time to time. As he turned, he was brought almost face to face with Madame
Marneffe who, coming from the embankment, was turning the corner on her way home. Valérie experienced a slight shock on encountering the Baron's astonished gaze, and met it with a primly rebuking glance.

‘Pretty creature!' cried the Baron. ‘A man could easily lose his head over you!'

‘Ah, Monsieur!' she answered, turning as if in spite of herself, against her better judgement. ‘You are Monsieur le Baron Hulot, are you not?'

The Baron, more and more taken aback, made a gesture of assent.

‘Well, since chance has twice brought us face to face, and I have been fortunate enough to arouse your curiosity or interest, I will tell you that instead of losing your head you ought to see that justice is done. My husband's fate depends on you.'

‘In what way?' the Baron asked gallantly.

‘He's employed in your department at the War Office, Monsieur Lebrun's section, Monsieur Coquet's office,' she answered, smiling.

‘I feel myself in a state of mind, Madame… Madame…?'

‘Madame Marneffe.'

‘My little Madame Marneffe, to do injustice for your fair sake.… In your house lives a cousin of mine. I will go to see her one of these days, as soon as possible. Come and make your request to me there.'

‘Forgive my boldness, Monsieur le Baron. You will understand how I could venture to speak to you like this when I tell you that I have no one to look after my interests.'

‘Aha!'

‘Oh, Monsieur! You misunderstand me,' she said, lowering her eyes. To the Baron it seemed as if the sun had suddenly gone in.

‘I am in desperate straits, but I am a respectable woman,' she continued. ‘Six months ago I lost my only guardian, Marshal Montcornet.'

‘Ah! You are his daughter?'

‘Yes, Monsieur, but he never acknowledged me.'

‘So that he could leave you some share in his fortune?'

‘He left me nothing, Monsieur, for no will was ever found.'

‘Oh, poor little woman! The Marshal was struck down suddenly, by apoplexy. Well, you must look to the future, Madame: something is due to the daughter of a man who was a Chevalier Bayard of the Empire.'

Madame Marneffe bowed graciously in farewell, as proud of her success as the Baron was of his.

‘Where the devil can she be coming from so early in the morning?' he speculated, contemplating the graceful movement of her dress, to which she lent a perhaps exaggerated swing. ‘She looks too tired to be returning from the bath, and her husband is waiting for her. It's very strange, and makes one wonder.'

Once Madame Marneffe had gone into the house, it occurred to the Baron to investigate what his daughter was doing in the shop. As he went in, with his eyes still fixed on Madame Marneffe's windows, he nearly collided with a pale young man with sparkling grey eyes, dressed in a light coat of black merino, coarse drill trousers, high-cut boots of yellow leather, who shot from the shop like a madman; and he watched him run towards Madame Marneffe's house and enter it.

As she slipped into the shop, Hortense had immediately noticed the famous group well displayed on a table in the centre, in full view as one entered. Quite apart from the circumstances in which she had learned of it, the work would certainly have struck the girl's attention by that quality, which one can only call
brio
, possessed by great works of art. In Italy, the girl herself might indeed have posed as a model for a personification of Brio.

Not all the works of men of genius possess to the same degree that brilliant quality, that splendour which every eye can see, even the eyes of the ignorant. There are certain paintings by Raphael – for instance the famous
Transfiguration
, the
Madonna of Foligno, the frescoes of the
Stations
in the Vatican – that do not instantly command admiration like the
Violin Player
in the Sciarra Gallery, the portraits of the
Doni
, and the
Vision of Ezekiel
in the Pitti Gallery, the
Christ Carrying
the Cross
at the Borghese, and the
Marriage of the Virgin
in the Brera, in Milan. The
St John the Baptist
of the Tribune,
St Luke Painting the Virgin
in the Academy at Rome, have not the charm of the portrait of
Leo X
, and the Dresden
Virgin
. The paintings, nevertheless, are of equal excellence. One may indeed go further: the
Stations
, the
Transfiguration
, the monochromes, and the three easel pictures in the Vatican are in the highest degree sublime and perfect. But these masterpieces demand from even the most expert critic a certain effort of concentrated attention and close study, if they are to be fully grasped; while the
Violinist
, the
Marriage of the Virgin
, the
Vision of Ezekiel
, enter our hearts spontaneously through our eyes' double gateway and make their own place there. We are enchanted to receive them so, without effort – it is not art's highest achievement that they have revealed to us, it is art's sweet pleasure. The distinction proves that in the creation of works of art the same chance is at work as in the creation of children. Some children are born with a silver spoon in their mouths; are talented, beautiful, and born without pain to their mothers; the world smiles on them, and success crowns all they do. There are, we may say, the flowers of genius that are like the flowers sprung from love.

This
brio
, an untranslatable Italian word which we are beginning to use, is characteristic of an artist's youthful works. It is the product of the vitality, mettle, and ardour of young talent; and although its spirit may return again in certain happy hours,
brio
, later, no longer bursts from the artist's heart. Instead of actively projecting it into his works like a volcano hurling forth its fires, he is acted upon, he is affected by influences from outside, he owes his
brio
to circumstances: to love, to rivalry, often to hatred, more often still to the need to live up to his reputation.

Wenceslas's group was to his future works what Raphael's
Marriage of the Virgin
was to his completed life's work, the first steps of talent, taken with inimitable grace, with the zest of childhood, and revealing childhood's charming plenitude, its vigour belied by the pink and white plumpness whose dimples seem to be echoes of a mother's laughter. Prince Eugène, they say, paid four hundred thousand francs for
Raphael's painting, worth a million in a country poor in Raphaels; and one would not give the same sum for the finest of his frescoes, even though, judged by the standards of supreme art, their value is much greater.

Hortense restrained her admiration as she reflected on the amount of her saved pocket-money, and assumed a casually indifferent air to ask the dealer: ‘How much is that?'

‘Fifteen hundred francs,' he replied, glancing towards a young man sitting on a stool in a corner.

The young man stared, bemused, as he looked on the living masterpiece that Baron Hulot had created. Hortense, enlightened by the dealer's look, then recognized him as the artist by the colour that flowed into a face pale with suffering. She saw a sparkle in a pair of grey eyes, lit there by her question; she looked at the thin fine-drawn face, like the face of a monk worn by ascetic discipline; she dwelt with delight upon a red well-chiselled mouth, a delicate chin, and chestnut hair of the fine silky texture characteristic of the Slav.