in-law, giving me to understand that Lisbeth had spoken of
the matter, and I should have the money. Between Hor-
tense's despair on one hand, and the dinner on the other,
]? could not hesitate. That is all.

"What! could Hortense, at four-and-twenty, lovely,
pure, and virtuous, and all my pride and glory, imagine
that, when I have never left her since we married, I could
now prefer what? a tawny, painted, ruddled creature?"
said he, using the vulgar exaggeration of the studio to
convince his wife by the vehemence that women like.

"Oh! if only your father had ever spoken so !" cried
the Baroness.

Hortense threw her arms round her husband's neck.

"Yes, that is what I should have done," said her mother.
"Wenceslas, my dear fellow, your wife was near dying of
it," she went on very seriously. "You see how well she
loves you. And, alas she is yours!"

She sighed deeply.

"He may make a martyr of her, or a happy woman,"
thought she to herself, as every mother thinks when she
sees her daughter married. "It seems to me," she said
aloud, "that I am miserable enough to hope to see my
children happy."

"Be quite easy, dear mamma," said Wenceslas, only too



802 BALZAC'S WORKS

glad to see this critical moment end happily. "In two
months I shall have repaid that dreadful woman. How
could I help it?" he went on, repeating this essentially
Polish excuse with a Pole's grace; "there are times when
a man would borrow of the Devil. And, after all, the
money belongs to the family. W hen once she had invited
me, should I have got the money at all if I had responded
to her civility with a rude refusal?"

"Oh, mamma, what mischief papa is bringing on us!"
cried Hortense.

The Baroness laid her finger on her daughter's lips,
aggrieved by this complaint, the first blame she had ever
uttered of a father so heroically screened by her mother's
magnanimous silence.

"Now, good -by, my children," said Madame flulot.
"The storm is over. Bat do not quarrel any more."

When Wenceslas and his wife returned to their room
after letting out the Baroness, Hortense said to her husband:

"Tell me all about last evening."

And she watched his face all through the narrative,
interrupting him by the questions that crowd on a wife's
mind in such circumstances. The story made Hortense
reflect; she had a glimpse of the infernal dissipation which
an artist must find in such vicious company.

"Be honest, my Wenceslas; Stidmann was there, Claude
Vignon, Vernisset. Who else? In short, it was good
fun?"

"I, I was thinking f of nothing but our ten thousand
francs, and I was saying to myself, 'My Hortense will be
freed from anxiety.' '

This catechism bored the Livonian excessively; lie
seized a gayer moment to say:



COUSIN BETTY 803

"And you, my dearest, what would you have done if
your artist had proved guilty?"

"I," said she, with an air of prompt decision, "I should
have taken up Stidmann not that I love him, of course!"

"Hortense!" cried Steinbock, starting to his feet with
a sudden and theatrical emphasis. "You would not have
had the chance I would have killed you!"

Hortense threw herself into his arms, clasping him
closely enough to stifle him, and covered him with kisses,
saying:

"Ah, you do love me! I fear nothing! But no more
Marneffe. Never go plunging into such horrible bogs."

"I swear to you, my dear Hortense, that I will go there
no more, excepting to redeem my note of hand."

She pouted at this, but only as a loving woman sulks
to get something for it. Wenceslas, tired out with such
a morning's work, went off to his studio to make a clay
sketch of the Samson and Delilah, for which he had the
drawings in his pocket.

Hortense, penitent for her little temper, and fancying
that her husband was annoyed with her, went to the studio
just as the sculptor had finished handling the clay with the
impetuosity that spurs an artist when the mood is on him.
On seeing his wife, Wenceslas hastily threw the wet wrapper
over the group, and putting both arms round her, he
said :

"We were not really angry, were we, my pretty puss?"

Hortense had caught sight of the group, had seen the
linen thrown over it, and had said nothing; but as she
was leaving, she took off the rag, looked at the model,
and asked:

"What is that?"



804 BALZAC'S WORKS

"A group for which I had just had an idea/'
"And why did you hide it?"

"I did not mean you to see it till it was finished."
"The woman is very pretty," said Hortense.
And a thousand suspicions cropped up in her mind, as,
in India, tall, rank plants spring up in a night-time.

By the end of three weeks, Madame Marneffe was in-
tensely irritated by Hortense. Women of that stamp have
a pride of their own; they insist that men shall kiss the
devil's hoof; they have no forgiveness for the virtue that
does not quail before their dominion, or that even holds
its own against them. Now, in all that time Wenceslas
had not paid one visit in the Hue Vanneau, not even that
which politeness required to a woman who had sat for
Delilah.

Whenever Lisbeth had called on the Steinbocks, there
had been nobody at home. Monsieur and Madame lived
in the studio. Lisbeth, following up the turtle doves to
their nest at le Gros-Caillou, found Wenceslas hard at work,
and was informed by the cook that Madame never left Mon-
sieur's side. Wenceslas was a slave to the autocracy of
love. So now Valerie, on her own account, took part with
Lisbeth in her hatred of Hortense.

Women cling to a lover that another woman is fighting
for, just as much as men do to women round whom many
coxcombs are buzzing. Thus any reflections d propos to
Madame Marneffe are equally applicable to any lady -kill ing
rake; he is, in fact, a sort of male courtesan. Valerie's last
fancy was a madness; above all, she was bent on getting her
group; she was even thinking of going one morning to the
studio to see Wenceslas, when a serious incident arose of



COUSIK BETTY 305

a kind which, to a woman of that class, may be called the
spoil of war.

This is how Vale'rie announced this wholly personal
event.

She was breakfasting with Lisbeth and her husband.

"I say, Marneffe, what would you say to being a second
time a father?"

"You don't mean it a baby? Oh, let me kiss you!"

He rose and went round the table; his wife held up her
head so that he could just kiss her hair.

"If that is so," he went on, "I am head-clerk and officer
of the Legion of Honor at once. But you must understand,
my dear, Stanislas is not to be the sufferer, poor little
man!"

"Poor little man?" Lisbeth put in. "You have not set
your eyes on him these seven months. I am supposed to
be his mother at the school; I am the only person in the
house who takes any trouble about him."

"A brat that costs us a hundred crowns a quarter!" said
Valerie. "And he, at any rate, is your own child, Mar-
neffe. You ought to pay for his schooling out of your
salary. The new-comer, far from reminding us of butch-
ers' bills, will rescue us. from want."

"Vale'rie," replied Marneffe, assuming an attitude like
Crevel, "I hope that Monsieur le Baron Hulot will take
proper charge of his son, and not lay the burden on a poor
clerk. I intend to keep him well up to the mark. So take
the necessary steps, Madame i Get him to write you letters
in which he alludes to his satisfaction, for he is rather back-
ward in coming forward in regard to rny appointment."

And Marneffe went away to the office, where his chief's
precious leniency allowed him to come in at about eleven



306 BALZAC'S WORKS

o'clock. And, indeed, he did little enough, for his inca-
pacity was notorious, and he detested work.

No sooner were they alone than Lisbeth and Valerie
looked at each other for a moment like Augurs, and both
together burst into a loud fit of laughter.

"I say, Valerie is it the fact?" said Lisbeth, "or merely
a farce?"

"It is a physical fact!" replied Valerie. "Now, I am
sick and tired of Hortense; and it occurred to me in the
night that I might fire this infant, like a bomb, into the
Steinbock household. ' '

Valerie went back to her room, followed by Lisbeth, to
whom she showed the following letter:

"WENCESLAS MY DEAR I still believe in your love,
though it is nearly three weeks since I saw you. Is this
scorn ? Delilah can scarcely believe that. Does it not
rather result from the tyranny of a woman whom, as you
told me, you can no longer love ? Wenceslas, you are too
great an artist to submit to such a dominion. Home is the
grave of glory. Consider now, are you the Wenceslas of
the Hue du Doyenne* ? You missed fire with my father's
statue; but in you the lover is greater than the artist, and
you have had better luck with his daughter. You are a
father, my beloved Wenceslas.

"If you do not come to me in the state I am in, your
friends would think very badly of you. But I love you
so madly that I feel I should never have the strength to
curse you. May I sign myself as ever,

"YOUR VALERIE."

"What do you say to my scheme for sending this note
to the studio at a time when our dear Hortense is there by



cousiy BETTY 307

herself?" asked Valerie. "Last evening I heard from Stid-
mann that Wenceslas is to pick him up at eleven this morn-
ing to go on business to Chanor's; so that gawk Hortense
will be there alone."

"But after such a trick as that," replied Lisbeth, "I can-
not continue to be your friend in the eyes of the world; I
shall have to break with you, to be supposed never to visit
you, or even to speak to you."

"Evidently," said Valerie; "but"

"Oh! be quite easy," interrupted Lisbeth; "we shall
often meet when I am Madame la Marechale. They are all
set upon it now. Only the Baron is in ignorance of the
plan, but you can talk him over."

"Well," said Valerie, "but it is quite likely that the
Baron and I may be on distant terms before long."

"Madame Olivier is the only person who can make Hor-
tense demand to see the letter." said Lisbeth. "And you
must send her to the .Rue Saint-Dominique before she goes
on to the studio."

"Our beauty will be at home, no doubt," said Valerie,
ringing for Reine to call up Madame Olivier.

Ten minutes after the despatch of this fateful letter,
Baron Hulot arrived. Madame Marneffe threw her arms
round the old man's neck with kittenish impetuosity.

"Hector, you are a father!" she said in his ear. "That
is what comes of quarrelling and making friends again "

Perceiving a look of surprise, which the Baron did not
at once conceal, Valerie assumed a reserve which brought
the old man to despair. She made him wring the proofs
from her one by one. When conviction, led on by van-
ity, had at last entered his mind, she enlarged on Monsieur
Marneffe's wrath.



BALZAC'S WORKS

"My dear old veteran," said she, "you can hardly avoid
getting your responsible editor, our representative partner
if you like, appointed head-clerk and officer of the Legion
of Honor, for you really have done for the poor man; he
adores his Stanislas, the little monstrosity who is so like
him that to me he is insufferable. Unless you prefer to
settle twelve hundred francs a year on Stanislas the capital
to be his, and the life- interest payable to me, of course "

"But if I am to settle securities, I would rather it should
be on my own son, and not on the monstrosity," said the
Baron.

This rash speech, in which the words "my own son"
came out as full as a river in flood, was, by the end of an
hour, ratified as a formal promise to settle twelve hundred
francs a year on the future boy. And this promise became,
on Valerie's tongue and in her countenance, what a drum
is in the hands of a child; for three weeks she played on it
incessantly.

At the moment when Baron Hulot was leaving the Rue
Vanneau, as happy as a man who after a year of married life
still desires an heir, Madame Olivier had yielded to Hor-
tense, and given up the note she was instructed to give only
into the Count's own hands. The young wife paid twenty
francs for that letter. The wretch who commits suicide
must pay for the opium, the pistol, the charcoal.

Hortense read and re-read the note ; she saw nothing but
this sheet of white paper streaked with black lines; the uni-
verse held for her nothing but that paper; everything was
dark around her. The glare of the conflagration that was
consuming the edifice of her happiness lighted up the page,
for blackest night infolded her. The shouts of her little
Weiiceslas at play fell on her ear, as if he had been in the



COUSIN BETTY 309

depths of a valley and she on a high mountain. Thus in-
sulted at four-and-twenty, in all the splendor of her beauty,
enhanced by pure and devoted love it was not a stab, it
was death. The first shock had been merely on the nerves,
the physical frame had struggled in the grip of jealousy;
but now certainty had seized her soul, her body was un-
conscious.

For about ten minutes Hortense sat under the incubus
of this oppression. Then a vision of her mother appeared
before her, and revulsion ensued; she was calm and cool,
and mistress of her reason.

She rang.

"Get Louise to help you, child," said she to the cook.
"As quickly as you can, pack up everything that belongs
to me and everything wanted for the little boy. I give you
an hour. When all is ready, fetch a hackney coach from
the stand, and call me.

"Make no remarks! I am leaving the house, and shall
take Louise with me. Yoii must stay here with Monsieur;
take good care of him "

She went into her room, and wrote the following letter:

"MONSIEUR LE COMTE The letter I inclose will suffi-
ciently account for the determination I have come to.

"When you read this, I shall have left your house
and have found refuge with my mother, taking our child
with me.

"Do not imagine that I shall retrace my steps. Do not
imagine that I am acting with the rash haste of youth,
without reflection, with the anger of offended afEection;
you will be greatly mistaken.

"I have been thinking very deeply during the last fort-



310 BALZAC'S WORKS

night of life, of love, of our marriage, of our duties to each
other. I have known the perfect devotion of my mother;
she has told me all her sorrows! She has been heroical
every day for twenty-three years. But I have not the
strength to imitate her, not because I love you less than
she loves my father, but for reasons of spirit and nature.
Our home would be a hell; I might lose my head so far
as to disgrace you disgrace myself and our child.

"I refuse to be a Madame Marneffe; once launched on
such a course, a woman of my temper might not, perhaps,
be able to stop. I am, unfortunately for myself, a Hulot,
not a Fischer.

"Alone, and absent from the scene of your dissipations,
I am sure of myself, especially with my child to occupy me,
and by the side of a strong and noble mother, whose life
cannot fail to influence the vehement impetuousness of my
feelings. There, I can be a good mother, bring our boy
up well, and live. Under your roof the wife would
oust the mother; and constant contention would sour my
temper.

"I can accept a deathblow, but I will not endure for
twenty-five years, like my mother. If, at the end of three
years of perfect, unwavering love, you can be unfaithful to
me with your father-in-law's mistress, what rivals may I
expect to have in later years ? Indeed, Monsieur, you have
begun your career of profligacy much earlier than my father
did, the life of dissipation, which is a disgrace to the father
of a family, which undermines the respect of his children,
and which ends in shame and despair.

"I am not unforgiving. Unrelenting feelings do not
beseem erring creatures living under the eye of God. If
you win fame and fortune by sustained work, if you have



COUSIX BETTY 311

nothing to do with courtesans and ignoble, defiling ways,
you will find me still a wife worthy of you.

''I believe you to be too much a gentleman, Monsieur
le Comte, to have recourse to the law. You will respect
my wishes, and leave me under my mother's roof. Above
all, never let me see you there. I have left all the money
loaned to you by that odious woman. Farewell.

"HORTEXSE HULOT."

This letter was written in anguish. Hortense abandoned
herself to the tears, the outcries of murdered love. She laid
down her pen and took it up again, to express as simply
as possible all that passion commonly proclaims in this
sort of testamentary letter. Her heart went forth in ex-
clamations, wailing and weeping: but reason dictated the
words.

Informed by Louise that all was ready, the young wife
slowly went round the little garden, through the bedroom
and drawing-room, looking at everything for the last time.
Then she earnestly enjoined on the cook to take the great-
est care for her master's comfort, promising to reward her
handsomely if she would be honest. At last she got into
the hackney coach to drive to her mother's house, her heart
quite broken, crying so much as to distress the maid, and
covering little Weuceslas with kisses, which betrayed her
still unfailing love for his father.

The Baroness knew already from Lisbeth that the father-
in-law was largely to blame for the son-in-law's fault; nor
was she surprised to see her daughter, whose conduct she
approved, and she consented to give her shelter. Adeline,
perceiving that her own gentleness and patience had never
checked Hector, for whom her respect was indeed fast di-



312 BALZAC'S WORKS

minishing, thought her daughter very right to adopt another
course.

In three weeks the poor mother had suffered two wounds
of which the pain was greater than any ill-fortune she had
hitherto endured. The Baron had placed Yictorin and his
wife in great difficulties; and then, by Lisbeth's account, he
was the cause of his son-in-law's misconduct, and had cor-
rupted Wenceslas. The dignity of the father of the family,
so long upheld by her really foolish self-sacrifice, was now
overthrown. Though they did not regret the money, the
young Hulots were full alike of doubts and uneasiness as
regarded the Baron. This sentiment, which was evident
enough, distressed the Baroness; she foresaw a break-up
of the family tie.

Hortense was accommodated in the dining-room, arranged
as a bedroom with the help of the Marshal's money, and
the anteroom became the dining-room, as it is in many
apartments.

When Wenceslas returned home and had read the two
letters, he felt a kind of gladness mingled with regret. Kept
so constantly under his wife's eye, so to speak, he had in-
wardly rebelled against this fresh thraldom, d la Lisbeth.
Full fed with love for three years past, he too had been
reflecting during the last fortnight; and he found a family
heavy on his hands. He had just been congratulated by
Stidmann on the passion he had inspired in Vale'rie; for
Stidmann, with an under-thought that was not unnatural,
saw that he might flatter the husband's vanity in the hope
of consoling the victim. And Wenceslas was glad to be
able to return to Madame Marneffe.

Still, he remembered the pure and unsullied happiness



COUSIN BETTY 313

he had known, the perfections of his wife, her judgment,
her innocent and guileless affection and he regretted her
acutely. He thought of going at once to his mother-in-law's
to crave forgiveness ; but, in fact, like Hulot and Crevel, he
went to Madame Marneffe, to whom he carried his wife's
letter, to show her what a disaster she had caused, and to
discount his misfortune, so to speak, by claiming in return
the pleasures his mistress could give him.

He found Crevel with Valerie. The mayor, puffed up
with pride, marched up and down the room, agitated by a
storm of feelings. He put himself into position as if he
were about to speak, but he dared not. His countenance
was beaming, and he went now and again to the window,
where he drummed on the pane with his fingers. He kept
looking at Valerie with a glance of tender pathos. Happily
for him, Lisbeth presently came in.

"Cousin Betty," said he in her ear, "have you heard
the news? I am a father! It seems to me I love my poor
Celestine the less. Oh ! what a thing it is to have a child
by the woman one idolizes! It is the fatherhood of the
heart added to that of the flesh ! I say tell Valerie that I
will work for that child it shall be rich. She tells me she
has some reason for believing that it will be a boy! If it
is a boy, I shall insist on his being called Crevel. I will
consult my notary about it."

"I know how much she loves you," said Lisbeth. "But
for her sake in the future, and for your own, control your-
self. Do not rub your hands every five minutes. ' '

While Lisbeth was speaking aside on this wise to Crevel,
Vale'rie had asked Wenceslas to give her back her letter,
and she was saying things that dispelled all his griefs.

"So now you are free, my dear," said she. "Ought any
Vol. 10 (N)



314 BALZAC'S WORKS

great artist to marry ? You live only by fancy and freedom!
There, I shall love you so much, beloved poet, that you
shall never regret your wife. At the same time, if, like so
many people, you want to keep up appearances, I under-
take to bring Hortense back to you in a very short time."

"Oh, if only that were possible!"

"I am certain of it," said Valerie, nettled. "Your poor
father-in-law is a man who is in every way utterly done for;
who wants to appear as though he could be loved, out of
conceit, and to make the world believe that he has a mis-
tress ; and he is so excessively vain on this point that I can
do what I please with him. The Baroness is still so devoted
to her old Hector I always feel as if I were talking of the
'Iliad' that these two old folk will contrive to patch up
matters between you and Hortense. Only, if you want to
avoid storms at home for the future, do not leave me for
three weeks without coming to see your mistress I was
dying of it. My dear boy, some consideration is due from
a gentleman to a woman he has so deeply compromised,
especially when, as in my case, she has to be very careful
of her reputation.

"Stay to dinner, my darling and remember that I must
treat you with all the more apparent coldness because you
are guilty of this too obvious mishap."

Baron Months was presently announced; Valerie rose
and hurried forward to meet him; she spoke a few sen-
tences in his ear, enjoining on him the same reserve as she
had impressed on Wenceslas; the Brazilian assumed a dip-
lomatic reticence suitable to the great news which filled him
with delight, for he, at any rate, was sure of his paternity.

Thanks to these tactics, based on the vanity of man in
the lover stage of his existence, Valerie sat down to table



COUSIN BETTY 315

with four men, all pleased and eager to please, all charmed,
and each believing himself adored ; called by Marneffe, who
included himself, in speaking to Lisbeth, the five Fathers
of the Church.

Baron Hulot alone at first showed an anxious counte-
nance, and this was why. Just as he was leaving the office,
the head of the staff of clerks had come to his private room
a General with whom he had served for thirty years
and Hulot had spoken to him as to appointing Marneffe to
Coquet's place, Coquet having consented to retire.

"My dear fellow," said he, "I would not ask this favor
of the Prince without our having agreed on the matter, and
knowing that you approved."

"My good friend," replied the other, "you must allow
me to observe that, for your own sake, you should not insist
on this nomination. I have already told you my opinion.
There would be a scandal in the office, where there is a
great deal too much talk already about you and Madame
Marneffe. This, of course, is between ourselves. I have
no wish to touch you on a sensitive spot, or disoblige you
in any way, and I will prove it. If you are determined to
get Monsieur Coquet's place, and he will really be a loss
in the War Office, for he has been here since 1809, I will
go into the country for a fortnight, so as to leave the field
open between you and the Marshal, who loves you as a son.
Then I shall take neither part, and shall have nothing on
my conscience as an administrator."

"Thank you very much," said Hulot. "I will reflect
on what you have said."

"In allowing myself to say so much, my dear friend, it
is because your personal interest is far more deeply impli-
cated than any concern or vanity of mine. In the first



316 BALZAC'S WORKS

place, the matter lies entirely with the Marshal. And then,
my good fellow, we are blamed for so many things, that
one more or less ! We are not at the maiden stage in our
experience of fault-finding. Under the Restoration, men