efflorescence of hoarfrost 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 Count 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
COUSIN BETTY 65
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 Lis-
beth ; "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 Pre'sidente ? 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 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 Baron-
ess 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."
66 BALZAC'S WORKS
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.
T&..
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 authori-
tative demeanor acquired from a habit of command in cir-
cumstances 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 ligtt 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
COUSIN BETTY 67
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 1 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 Jose'pha!" 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 burned at once, in
which I was told, my dear, that the reason Hortense's mar-
riage was broken off was the poverty of our circumstances.
BALZAC'S WORKS
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 de-
spair, 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. ' '
COUSIN BETTY 69
"My poor dear!" said the Baroness, taking her Hector's
hands and kissing them.
This was all the scolding tie 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 lov-
able than virtuous men; having crimes to atone for, they
crave indulgence by anticipation, by being lenient to the
shortcomings of those who judge them, arid they are thought
most kind. Though there are no doubt some charming peo-
ple 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 them-
selves unappreciated.
Hence the Baron, who accused himself of ruining his
family, displayed all his charm of wit and his most seduc-
tive 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 de-
lightful to his daughter-in-law, loading her with compli-
ments a treat to which Celestine's vanity was little accus-
tomed, for no moneyed bride more commonplace or more
70 BALZAC'S WORKS
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 compli-
ments 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 gar-
den, 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 ad-
miration 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 molded 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 senten-
tiousness do the duty of witty rejoinders the gems of the
French language with a high sense of importance, and mis-
taking arrogance for dignity.
Such men are walking coffins, each containing a French-
man 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.
COUSIN BETTY 71
"Ah, here is my brother 1 " said Baron Hulot, going to
meet the Count at the drawing-room door.
Having greeted the probable successor of the late Mar-
shal 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 be-
tween 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 liule family gather-
ing. "And yet Hortense is not married," he added, notic-
ing 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 high-
est 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
72 BALZAC'S WORKS
was the smallest disagreement, for the brothers and sisters
were all equally attached, Celestine having been at once ac-
cepted 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 gallan-
tries 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 rob-
bing 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 Eue 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
COUSIN BETTY 73
sense which Frenchmen love, that Europe may reassure it-
self 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 Bue 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 own-
ers 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 for-
saken block, inhabited perhaps by ghosts, for there never
is anybody to be seen. The pavement is much below the
footway of the Rue du Muse^e, on a level with that of the
Eue 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 Hue du Doyenne", a
Tol. 10 (D)
74. BALZAC'S WORKS
shudder freezes the soul, and we wonder who can live
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 ques-
tion, frightful in itself, becomes appalling when we note
that these dwelling-houses are shut in on the side toward
the Rue de Richelieu by marshy ground, by a sea of tum-
bled 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 toward the old Louvre. Henri III.
and his favorites in search of their trunk-hose, and Mar-
guerite's lovers in search of their heads, must dance sara-
bands 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 win-
dow, "Rid me of these warts upon my face!" This cut-
throat 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, notwithstand-
ing the necessity imposed upon her by the state of the
COUSIN BETTY 75
neighborhood to get home before nightfall. This neces-
sity, however, was in accordance with the country habits
she retained, of rising and going to bed with the sun, an
arrangement which saves countryfolk considerable sums
in lights and fuel. She lived in one of the houses which,
since the demolition of the famous Hotel Cambace'res, com-
mand 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 ele-
gant-looking woman, young, small, slender, pretty, beauti-
fully dressed, and redolent of some delicate perfume, passed
between the wall and the carriage to go in. This lady, with-
out 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 some-
thing else than those 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 virtu-
76 BALZAC'S WORKS
ous, 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 bald head 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?"
COUSIN BETTY 77
"Mademoiselle Fischer living with a young man?" re-
peated 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 Vale'rie 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 Mar-
neffe, 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 har-
76 BALZAC'S WORKS
nessed 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 quantity of cotton used in the manu-
facture, 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 the 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 pat-
tern 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 slovenli-