Cousin Betty, Honoré de Balzac [best short books to read txt] 📗

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