Cousin Bette (50 page)

‘We must decide what we are going to do,' he said in a colourless voice, sitting down and looking at the family group, from which only Crevel and Steinbock were absent.

‘We can't stay here any longer,' Hortense was saying as her father came in; ‘the rent is too high.'

‘As to rooms,' said Victorin, breaking the painful silence, ‘I can offer my
mother
…'

When he heard these words, which seemed meant to exclude him, the Baron raised his eyes which had been bent unseeingly on the floor, gazing at the pattern on the carpet, and looked miserably at the lawyer. A father's rights are still so sacred, even when he is disgraced and stripped of all honour, that Victorin stopped.

‘Your mother…' repeated the Baron. ‘You are quite right, my son!'

‘The rooms above ours, in our house,' Célestine finished her husband's sentence.

‘Do I stand in your way, children?' said the Baron, with the gentleness of a man self-condemned. ‘Oh, you need not worry about the future. You will have no more cause to complain of your father, and you shall not see him again until you need no longer blush for him.'

He took Hortense by the hand and kissed her brow. He opened his arms to his son, who despairingly threw himself into them, guessing what his father intended to do. The Baron beckoned Lisbeth, who came to him, and he kissed her forehead.
Then he returned to his room, where Adeline, acutely anxious, followed him.

‘My brother was right, Adeline,' he said to her, taking her hand. ‘I am not worthy to live with my family. I did not dare to bless my children, except in my heart. They have behaved wonderfully. Tell them that I could only embrace them; for from a disgraced man, a father who becomes his family's murderer and scourge, instead of being its protector and its pride, a blessing would be inappropriate. But I will bless them, all the same, every day, when I am separated from them. As for you, only almighty God can reward you as you deserve!… I beg your forgiveness,' he said, kneeling before his wife, taking her hands, and shedding tears.

‘Hector! Hector! You have sinned greatly, but Divine mercy is infinite, and it is possible to atone for everything, if you stay with me.… Don't kneel; rise with Christian faith and hope in your mind, my dear. I am your wife, not your judge. I am yours, to do as you will, to go where you go. I am, I know, strong enough to console you. My love, respect, and care will make life endurable for you! Our children are established in life; they no longer need me. Let me try to distract your mind from your troubles and seek new interests with you. Allow me to share the hardships of your exile and your poverty, to soften their edge. I shall always be of some use to you, even if only to spare you the expense of a servant.…'

‘Do you forgive me, my dear beloved Adeline?'

‘I do; but get up, dear!'

‘Well, with your forgiveness I can live!' he said, rising. ‘I came back to our room so that our children should not witness their father's humiliation. Ah! to have a father as guilty as I before their eyes every day – I cannot let them suffer such a shocking reversal of the proper order of things. The debasement of paternal authority means the disintegration of the family. So I cannot remain here; I must go, to spare you the odious spectacle of a father deprived of his dignity. Do not try to prevent my going, Adeline. You would be loading with your own hands the pistol I would use to blow my brains out. And do not follow me into hiding; you would make
me lose the only strength remaining in me, the strength brought by remorse.'

Hector's emphasis silenced his wife, who saw her life failing. It was from her close union with her husband that this wife, so great, with so much lying in ruins about her, derived her courage. She had dreamed of his being all hers, seen opening before her the sublime mission of comforting him, of bringing him back to family life and reconciling him with himself.

‘Hector, do you mean to leave me to die of despair, fretting and anxious about you?' she said, as she saw the mainspring of her existence about to be taken from her.

‘I will come back to you, my angel, come from heaven, expressly, I think, for my sake. I will come back, if not rich, at least with money enough. Listen, my dear Adeline. I cannot stay here, for a host of reasons. To begin with, my pension, which will be about six thousand francs, is held for four years for repayment, so that I have nothing. And that's not all! I shall be in danger of arrest for debt in a few days, because of the notes of hand held by Vauvinet. So I must keep out of sight until my son – I'll leave precise instructions with him – has redeemed them. My disappearance will make that much easier. When my pension is free of claims, when Vauvinet is paid, I'll come back to you.… With you I could not hope to keep the secret of my hiding-place. Don't worry, Adeline, don't cry. It's only a matter of a month.…'

‘Where will you go? What will you do? What will become of you? Who will look after you, now that you're no longer young? Let me disappear with you – we will go abroad,' she said.

‘Well, we'll see,' he replied.

The Baron rang, and ordered Mariette to collect his things and pack them at once in secret. Then, after embracing his wife with a demonstrative tenderness to which she was little accustomed, he begged her to leave him alone for a few moments to write out the instructions that Victorin needed, promising her not to leave the house before nightfall, nor without her. As soon as the Baroness had returned to the drawing-room, the experienced old campaigner walked
through the dressing-room to the hall and went, leaving a piece of paper with Mariette, on which he had written: ‘Send on my baggage, by rail, addressed to Monsieur Hector, at Corbeil, to be left till called for.' The Baron was already in a cab on his way across Paris when Mariette went to show this note to the Baroness, saying that Monsieur had just gone out. Adeline, increasingly shaken by her tremulous agitation, rushed to the bedroom, where her children followed her in alarm, on hearing a piercing cry. They found the Baroness unconscious. She had to be put to bed, and lay there for a month in a nervous fever, between life and death.

‘Where is he?' That was all anyone could induce her to say.

Victorin's search for him, and inquiries, produced no result, because the Baron had confused the trail. He had driven to the place du Palais-Royal. Then, summoning up all his old ability to get out of a tight corner, he proceeded to put into effect a scheme that he had thought out during the days when he lay, crushed by grief and chagrin, in bed. He crossed the Palais-Royal, and hired a splendid carriage in the rue Joquelet. The coachman, as he was ordered, drove to the rue de! a Ville-l'Éveque and into the courtyard of Josépha's house, whose gates opened for this showy vehicle at the coachman's shout. Curiosity brought Josépha to investigate, when her footman carried the message that an invalid old gentleman, unable to leave his carriage, asked her to come down for a moment.

'Josépha! Don't you know me?'

The famous singer recognized Hulot only by his voice.

‘What! It's you, poor old soul! Word of honour, you look like one of those twenty-franc pieces clipped by the German Jews that the money-changers won't take.'

‘Yes, unfortunately,' said Hulot. ‘I've been at death's door. But you are as beautiful as ever. Are you as kind, I wonder?'

‘That's according. Everything is relative!' she said.

‘See here,' Hulot went on; ‘can you put me up in a servant's room in the attics for a few days? I haven't a farthing. I have no hope, no way of earning a living, no pension, no wife, no children, no place of refuge, no honour, no courage, no
friend, and, worst of all, I'm threatened with arrest for debt.…'

‘Poor old chap! That's a lot of things to have none of! Have you lost your breeches too –
sans culotte?
'

‘If you mock, I'm done for!' exclaimed the Baron. ‘And I counted on you, like Gourville counting on Ninon de Lenclos.'

‘They tell me that it was a society lady that left you in this pickle?' said Josépha inquiringly. ‘Those jokers know how to pluck the turkey better than we do! Oh! you're just like a carcass the crows have done with. One can see daylight through you!'

‘The matter's urgent, Josépha!'

‘Come in, old dear! I'm alone, and my servants don't know you. Send away your carriage. Is it paid for?'

‘Yes,' said the Baron, getting down with the help of Josépha's arm.

‘You can say you're my father, if you like,' said the singer, with a sudden access of pity.

She took Hulot to sit in the magnificent drawing-room where he had seen her last.

‘Is it true,' she began again, ‘that you have killed your brother and your uncle, ruined your family, mortgaged your children's house, and run off with the money-bags of the Government in Africa, you and the princess between you?'

The Baron sadly bowed his head.

‘Well, I really like that!' cried Josépha, jumping up, full of enthusiasm. ‘That's a real bust-up! You're just like Sardana-palus over again! It's grand! It's going the whole hog! You may be a blackguard, but you have a heart. If you ask me, I'd rather have a proper spendthrift, mad about women, like you, than one of those cold soul-less bankers who are supposed to be so virtuous, and ruin thousands of families with their golden railways – golden for them, and iron for their unlucky suckers, their
gogos
! You have only ruined your own family; the only property you've sold is you! And then, you have excuses, physical and moral'

She struck a tragic pose and declaimed:

‘“Venus, with teeth and claws fast fixed in her prey.”… That's how it is!' she concluded, with a pirouette.

So Hulot found that he was absolved by vice; vice smiled at him from its surroundings of sumptuous luxury. The immensity of the crimes was there, as it is for members of a jury, an extenuating circumstance.

‘Is your society lady pretty, at least?' the singer asked, seeking as a first kindness to distract Hulot, for his despondent sadness was distressing.

‘Indeed, nearly as pretty as you,' replied the Baron tactfully.

‘And… good fun, so they say? What did she do? Is she more of a comic turn than me?'

‘Don't let's talk about her,' said Hulot.

‘They say that she has caught my Crevel, and little Stein-bock, and a marvellous Brazilian?'

‘Very likely…'

‘And she's living in a house as fine as this one, that Crevel gave her. That hussy is my first assistant chief scullery-maid and disher-up, she finishes off the men that I've made the first cut in! That's why I'm so anxious to know what she's like, old dear. I've seen her driving in the Bois de Boulogne, in an open carriage, but only in the distance.… She's an accomplished gold-digger, so Carabine says. She's trying to make a meal of Crevel! But she won't be able to do more than nibble at him. Crevel is a tough old piece of cheese! A jolly good sort who always says
yes
, and does just what he wants to do and no more. He's as vain as you like, and hot-blooded, but his cash is frozen cold. You can get nothing more out of that kind than about a thousand to three thousand francs a month, and they stick their feet in and baulk before anything big, like donkeys before a river. They're not like you, old boy; you're a man of passions – anyone could set you on to sell your country! And so, you see, I'm willing to do anything for you! You are my father; you started me out in the world! It's a pious duty! How much do you need? What about a hundred thousand francs? I would work like a cart-horse, till I dropped, to get it for you. As for a crust of bread and a spot to tuck yourself up in, that's nothing. You shall have your
place laid for you here every day, you can take a nice room on the second floor, and there'll be a hundred crowns a month to put in your pocket.'

The Baron, touched by this reception, had a last honourable scruple.

‘No, my dear child, no. I didn't come here to sponge on you,' he said.

‘At your age it's a rare triumph to be able to!' she said.

‘This is what I want, child. Your Duc d'Hérouville has large estates in Normandy, and I would like to be his steward, under the name of Thoul. I have the ability for the job, and the trustworthiness, for though a man may diddle the Government, one doesn't pilfer money from a cash-box.…'

‘Aha!' mocked Josépha. ‘He who once drinks of that well will drink again!'

‘In fact, all I want is to live out of sight and mind for three years.…'

‘Oh, that's soon arranged,' said Josépha. ‘This evening, after dinner, I only have to ask him. The Duke would marry me, if I wanted him to; but I have his money, and I want something more… his esteem! He's a duke from the top of the tree. He's noble. He's distinguished. He's as big a man as Napoleon and Louis XIV put together, although he's a dwarf. And then I have played the part Schontz played with Rochefide: what I told him has just earned him two millions. But listen to me, my old son of a gun… I know you, you've a weakness for women, and away there in Normandy you would always be chasing after the little Norman girls – they're wonderful-looking. You would have your bones broken by sweethearts or fathers, and the Duke would be forced to throw you out. Can't I just see by the way you look at me that the young man inside you is not dead, as Fénelon said! That job isn't what you want. You can't break away from Paris and us girls just for the wanting to, you know, old boy! You would die of boredom at Hérouville!'

‘But what am I to do?' said the Baron. ‘I want to stay with you only until I can find the next step to take.'

‘See here, would you like me to fix you up according to my notion? Listen, my old fireman! You need women. They're a
consolation for everything. Listen to me now. Down in La Courtille, in the rue Saint-Maur-du-Temple, I know a poor family who possess a treasure: a little girl, prettier than I was at sixteen! Ah! there's a glint in your eye already! The creature works sixteen hours a day embroidering fine materials for the silk merchants, and earns sixteen sous a day, a sou an hour, a pittance! And all she has to eat, like the Irish, is potatoes; and potatoes fried in rat grease, with bread five times a week, perhaps. She drinks water from the Ourcq out of the town taps, because Seine water is too dear, and she can't have her own workshop for want of six or seven thousand francs. There's nothing she wouldn't do to get hold of seven or eight thousand francs. Your family and your wife are a nuisance, aren't they?… Besides, one can't see oneself a nobody where one has been set up as a god. A father with no money, who has lost everyone's respect, is only good for stuffing with straw and putting in a glass case…'