of the Department of the Seine."
"Your pardon, Consul!" said Stidmann, with a military
salute.
"I am delighted," the Assessor went on, "to hear what
you say. The man may make money then?"
' ' Certainly, ' ' said Chanor ; ' ' but he must work. He would
have a tidy sum by now if he had stayed with us. What
is to be done? Artists have a horror of not being free."
"They have a proper sense of their value and dignity,"
replied Stidmann. "I do not blame Wenceslas for walking
alone, trying to make a name, and to become a great man;
he had a right to do so! But he was a great loss to me
when he left."
"That, you see," exclaimed Rivet, "is what all young
students aim at as soon as they are hatched out of the
school-egg. Begin by saving money, I say, and seek glory
afterward. ' '
"It spoils your touch to be picking up coin," said Stid-
mann. "It is Glory's business to bring us wealth."
"And after all," said Chanor to Rivet, "you cannot
tether them."
94 BALZAC'S WORKS
"They would eat the halter," replied Stidmann.
"All these gentlemen have as much caprice as talent,"
said Chanor, looking at Stidmann. "They spend no end
of money; they keep their girls, they throw coin out of
window, and then they have no time to work. They neg-
lect their orders ; we have to employ workmen who are very
inferior, but who grow rich; and then they complain of the
hard times, while, if they were but steady, they might have
piles of gold."
"You old Lumignon," said Stidmann, "you remind me
of the publisher before the Ee volution who said: 'If only
I could keep Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Kousseau very
poor in my back-shed, and lock up their breeches in a
cupboard, what a lot of nice little books they would write
to make my fortune. ' If works of art could be hammered
out like nails, workmen would make them. Give me a
thousand francs, and don't talk nonsense."
Worthy Monsieur Rivet went home, delighted for poor
Mademoiselle Fischer, who dined with him every Monday,
and whom he found waiting for him.
"If you can only make him work," said he, "you will
have more luck than wisdom ; you will be repaid, interest,
capital, and costs. This Pole has talent, he can make a
living; but lock up his trousers and his shoes, do not let
him go to the Chaumiere or the parish of Notre-Dame de
Lorette, keep him in leading-strings. If you do not take
such precautions, your artist will take to loafing, and if you
only knew what these artists mean by loafing! Shocking!
Why, I have just heard that .they will spend a thousand-
franc note in a day!"
This episode had a fatal influence on the home life of
Wenceslas and Lisbeth. The benefactress flavored the ex-
COUSIN BETTY 95
lie's bread with the wormwood of reproof, now that she
saw her money in danger, and often believed it to be lost.
From a kind mother she became a stepmother; she took
the poor boy to task, she nagged him, scolded him for
working too slowly, and blamed him for having chosen
so difficult a profession. She could not believe that those
models in red wax little figures and sketches for orna-
mental work could be of any value. Before long, vexed
with herself for her severity, she would try to efface the
tears by her care and attention.
Then the poor young man, after groaning to think that
he was dependent on this shrew and under the thumb of a
peasant of the Vosges, was bewitched by her coaxing ways
and by a maternal affection that attached itself solely to the
physical and material side of life. He was like a woman
who forgives a week of ill-usage for the sake of a kiss and
a brief reconciliation.
Thus Mademoiselle Fischer obtained complete power
over his mind. The love of dominion that lay as a germ
in the old maid's heart developed rapidly. She could now
satisfy her pride and her craving for action; had she not
a creature belonging to her, to be schooled, scolded, flat-
tered, and made happy, without any fear of a rival ? Thus
the good and bad sides of her nature alike found play. If
she sometimes victimized the poor artist, she had, on the
other hand, delicate impulses like the grace of wild flowers;
it was a joy to her to provide for all his wants; she would
have given her life for him, and Wenceslas knew it. Like
every noble soul, the poor fellow forgot the bad points, the
defects of the woman who had told him the story of her life
as an excuse for her rough ways, and he remembered only
the benefits she had done him.
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One day, exasperated with Wenceslas for having gone
out walking instead of sitting at work, she made a great
scene.
"You belong to me," said she. "If you were an honest
man, you would try to repay me the money you owe as
soon as possible."
The gentleman, in whose veins the blood of the Stein-
bocks was fired, turned pale.
"Bless me," she went on, "we soon shall have nothing
to live on but the thirty sous I earn a poor workwoman!"
The two penniless creatures, worked up by their own
war of words, grew vehement; and for the first time the
unhappy artist reproached his benefactress for having res-
cued him from death only to make him lead the life of a
galley slave, worse than the bottomless void, where at least,
said he, he would have found rest. And he talked of flight.
"Flight!" cried Lisbeth. "Ah, Monsieur Kivet was
right."
And she clearly explained to the Pole that within
twenty-four hours he might be clapped into prison for the
rest of his days. It was a crushing blow. Steinbock sank
into deep melancholy and total silence.
In the course of the following night, Lisbeth, hearing
overhead some preparations for suicide, went up to her
pen3ioner's room, and gave him the schedule and a formal
release.
"Here, dear child, forgive me," she said with tears in
her eyes. "Be happy; leave me! I am too cruel to you;
only tell me that you will sometimes remember the poor
girl who lias enabled you to make a living. What can I
say ? you are the cause of my ill-humor. I might die ;
where would you be without me? That is the reason of
COUSIN BETTY 97
my being impatient to see you do some salable work. I
do not want my money back for myself, I assure you ! I am
only frightened at your idleness which you call meditation ;
at your ideas which take up so many hours when you sit
gazing at the sky; I want you to get into habits of in-
dustry. ' '
All this was said with an emphasis, a look, and tears
that moved the high-minded artist; he clasped his bene-
factress to his heart and kissed her forehead.
"Keep these .pieces," said he with a sort of cheerfulness.
u Why should you send me to Clichy? Am I not a pris-
oner here out of gratitude?"
This episode of their secret domestic life had occurred
six months previously, and had led to Steinbock's produc-
ing three finished works: the seal in Hortense's possession,
the group he had placed with the curiosity dealer, and a
beautiful clock to which he was putting the last touches,
screwing in the last rivets.
This clock represented the twelve Hours, charmingly
personified by twelve female figures whirling round in so
mad and swift a dance that three little Loves perched on
a pile of fruit and flowers could not stop one of them ; only
the torn skirts of Midnight remained in the hand of the
most daring cherub. The group stood on an admirably
treated base, ornamented with grotesque beasts. The hours
were told by a monstrous mouth that opened to yawn, and
each Hour bore some ingeniously appropriate symbol char-
acteristic of the various occupations of the day.
It is now easy to understand the extraordinary attach-
ment of Mademoiselle Fischer for her Livonian; she wanted
him to be happy, and she saw him pining, fading away in
his attic. The causes of this wretched state of affairs may
Vol. 10 (E)
98 BALZAC'S WORKS
be easily imagined. The peasant woman watched this son
of the North with the affection of a mother, with the jeal-
ousy of a wife, and the spirit of a dragon ; hence she man-
aged to put every kind of folly or dissipation out of his
power by leaving him destitute of money. She longed to
keep her victim and companion for herself alone, well con-
ducted perforce, and she had no conception of the cruelty
of this senseless wish, since she, for her own part, was
accustomed to every privation. She loved Steinbock well
enough not to marry him, and too much to give him up
to any other woman; she could not resign herself to be
no more than a mother to him, though she saw that she
was mad to think of playing the other part.
These contradictions, this ferocious jealousy, and the
joy of having a man to herself, all agitated her old maid's
heart beyond measure. Really in love, as she had been
for four years, she cherished the foolish hope of prolonging
this impossible and aimless way of life in which her per-
sistence would only be the ruin of the man she thought of
as her child. This contest between her instincts and her
reason made her unjust and tyrannical. She wreaked on
the young man her vengeance for her own lot in being
neither young, rich, nor handsome; then, after each fit of
rage, recognizing herself wrong, she stooped to unlimited
humility, infinite tenderness. She never could sacrifice
to her idol till she had asserted her power by blows of the
axe. In fact, it was the converse of Shakespeare's "Tem-
pest" Caliban ruling Ariel and Prospero.
As to the poor youth himself, high-minded, meditative,
and inclined to be lazy, the desert that his protectress made
in his soul might be seen in his eyes, as in those of a caged
lion. The penal servitude forced on him by Lisbeth did
COUSIN BETTY 99
not fulfil the cravings of his heart. His weariness became
a physical malady, and he was dying without daring to ask,
or knowing where to procure, the price of some little neces-
sary dissipation. On some days of special energy, when
a feeling of utter ill-luck added to his exasperation, he
would look at Lisbeth as a tHirsty traveller on a sandy
shore must look at the bitter sea-water.
These harsh fruits of indigence, and this isolation in the
midst of Paris, Lisbeth relished with delight. And besides,
she foresaw that the first passion would rob her of her
slave. Sometimes she even blamed herself because her
own tyranny and reproaches had compelled the poetic youth
to become so great an artist of delicate work, and she had
thus given him the means of casting her off.
On the day after, these three lives, so differently but
so utterly wretched that of a mother in despair, that of
the Marneffe household, and that of the unhappy exile-
were all to be influenced by Hortense's guileless passion,
and by -the strange outcome of the Baron's luckless passion
for Jose'pha.
Just as Hulot was going into the opera-house, he was
stopped by the darkened appearance of the building and
of the Kue le Peletier, where there were no gendarmes, no
lights, no theatre-servants, no barrier to regulate the crowd.
He looked up at the announcement-board, and beheld a
strip of white paper, on which was printed the solemn
notice:
"CLOSED ON ACCOUNT OP ILLNESS."
He rushed off to Josdpha's lodgings in the Rue Chanchat;
for, like all the singers, she lived close at hand.
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""Whom do you want, sir?" asked the porter, to the
Baron's great astonishment.
"Have you forgotten me?" said Hulot, much puzzled.
"On the contrary, sir, it is because I have the honor to
remember you that I ask you, Where are you going?"
A mortal chill fell upon the Baron.
"What has happened?" he asked.
"If you go up to Mademoiselle Mirah's rooms, Monsieur
le Baron, you will find Mademoiselle Helo'ise Brisetout
there and Monsieur Bixiou, Monsieur Le'on de Lora,
Monsieur Lousteau, Monsieur de Vernisset, Monsieur Stid-
mann; and ladies smelling of patchouli holding a house-
warming. ' '
"Then, where where is ?"
"Mademoiselle Mirah? I don't know that I ought to
tell you."
The Baron slipped two five-franc pieces into the porter's
hand.
"Well, she is now in the Rue de la Ville 1'Ev^que, in a
fine house, given to her, they say, by the Due d'Herouville,"
replied the man in a whisper.
Having ascertained the number of the house, Monsieur
Hulot called a milord and drove to one of those pretty
modern houses with double doors, where everything, from
the gaslight at the entrance, proclaims luxury.
The Baron, in his blue cloth coat, white neckcloth,
nankeen trousers, patent-leather boots, and stiffly starched
shirt-frill, was supposed to be a guest, though a late arri-
val, by the janitor of this new Eden. His alacrity of
manner and quick step justified the opinion.
The porter rang a bell, and a footman appeared in the
hall. This man, as new as the house, admitted the visi-
COUSIN BETTY 101
tor, who said to him in an imperious tone, and with a
lordly gesture:
"Take in this card to Mademoiselle Jose'pha."
The victim mechanically looked round the room in
which he found himself an anteroom full of choice flow-
ers and of furniture that must have cost twenty thousand
francs. The servant, on his return, begged Monsieur to
wait in the drawing-room till the company came to their
coffee.
Though the Baron had been familiar with Imperial lux-
ury, which was undoubtedly prodigious, while its produc-
tions, though not durable in kind, had nevertheless cost
enormous sums, he stood dazzled, dumfounded, in this
drawing-room with three windows looking out on a garden
like fairyland, one of those gardens that are created in a
month with a made soil and transplanted shrubs, while the
grass seems as if it must be made to grow by some chem-
ical process. He admired not only the decoration, the
gilding, the carving, in the most expensive Pompadour
style, as it is called, and the magnificent brocades, all of
which any enriched tradesman could have procured for
money; but he also noted such treasures as only princes
can select and find, can pay for and give away: two pict-
ures by Greuze, two by Watteau, two heads by Vandyck,
two landscapes by Euysdael, and two by le Guaspre, a
Eembrandt, a Holbein, a Murillo, and a Titian, two paint-
ings by Teniers, and a pair by Metzu, a Van Huysum, and
an Abraham Mignon in short, two hundred thousand
francs' worth of pictures superbly framed. The gilding
was worth almost as much as the paintings.
"Ah, hal Now you understand, my good man?" said
Jose'pha.
102 BALZAC'S WORKS
She had stolen in on tiptoe through a noiseless door,
over Persian carpets, and came upon her adorer, standing
lost in amazement in the stupid amazement when a man's
ears tingle so soundly that he hears nothing but that fatal
knell.
The words "my good man," spoken to an official of
such high importance, so perfectly exemplified the audac-
ity with which these creatures pour contempt on trie lofti-
est, that the Baron was nailed to the spot. Jose"pha, in
white and yellow, was so beautifully dressed for the ban-
quet that amid all this lavish magnificence she still shone
like a rarer jewel.
"Isn't this really fine?" said she. "The Duke has
spent all the money on it that he got out of floating a
company, of which the shares all sold at a premium. He
is no fool, is my little Duke. There is nothing like a
man who has been a grandee in his time for turning coals
into gold. Just before dinner the notary brought me the
title-deeds to sign and the bills receipted! They are all a
first-class set in there d'Esgrignon, Kastignac, Maxime,
Lenoncourt, Verneuil, Laginski, Kochefide, la Palfe*rine,
and from among the bankers Nucingen and du Tillet, with
Antoria, Malaga, Carabine, and la Schontz; and they all
feel for you deeply. Yes, old boy, and they hope you
will join them, but on condition that you forthwith drink
up to two bottles full of Hungarian wine, Champagne, or
Cape, just to bring you up to their mark. My dear fellow,
we are all so much on here, that it was necessary to close
the Opera. The manager is as drunk as a cornet-a-pistons;
he is hiccuping already. ' '
"Oh, Josepha! " cried the Baron.
"Now, can anything be more absurd than explana-
COUSIN BETTY 103
tions?" she broke in with a smile. "Look here; can
you stand six hundred thousand francs which this house
and furniture have cost? Can you give me a bond to the
tune of thirty thousand francs a year, which is what the
Duke has just given me in a packet of common sugared
almonds from the grocer's? a pretty notion that "
"What an atrocity!" cried Hulot, who in his fury would
have given his wife's diamonds to stand in the Due d'Herou-
ville's shoes for twenty -four hours.
"Atrocity is my trade," said she. "So that is how you
take it? Well, why didn't you float a company? Good-
ness me! my poor dyed Tom, you ought to be grateful to
me; I have thrown you over just when you would have
spent on me your widow's fortune, your daughter's por-
tion. What, tears! The Empire is a thing of the past
I hail the coming Empire!"
She struck a tragic attitude, and declaimed :
"They call you Hulot! Nay, I know you not "
And she went into the other room.
Through the door, left ajar, there came, like a lightning-
flash, a streak of light with an accompaniment of the cres-
cendo of the orgy and the fragrance of a banquet of the
choicest description.
The singer peeped through the partly-open door, and
seeing Hulot transfixed as if he had been a bronze image,
she came one step forward into the room.
"Monsieur," said she, "I have handed over the rubbish
in the Eue Chauchat to Bixiou's little Helo'ise Brisetout.
If you wish to claim your cotton nightcap, your bootjack,
your belt, and your wax dye, I have stipulated for their
return."
104 BALZAC'S WORKS
This insolent banter made the Baron leave the room as
precipitately as Lot departed from Gomorrah, but he did
not look back like Mrs. Lot.
Hulot went home, striding along in a fury, and talking
to himself; he found his family still playing the game of
whist at two sous a point, at which he had left them. On
seeing her husband return, poor Adeline imagined some-
thing dreadful, some dishonor; she gave her cards to Hor-
tense, and led Hector away into the very room where, only
five hours since, Crevel had foretold her the utmost disgrace
of poverty.
"What is the matter?" she said, terrified.
"Oh, forgive rne but let me tell you all these horrors."
And for ten minutes he poured out his wrath.
"But, my dear," said the uohappy woman, with heroic
courage, "these creatures do not know what love means
such pure arid devoted love as you deserve. How could
you, so clear-sighted as you are, dream of competing with
millions?"
"Dearest Adeline!" cried the Baron, clasping her to
his heart.
The Baroness's words had shed balm on the bleeding
wounds to his vanity.
"To be sure, take away the Due d'He'rouville's fortune,
and she could not hesitate between us!" said the Baron.
"My dear," said Adeline with a final effort, "if you
positively must have mistresses, why do you not seek
them, like Crevel, among women who are less extrava-
gant, and of a class that can for a time be content with
little? We should all gain by that arrangement. I under-
stand your need but I do not understand that vanity ' '
"Oh, what a kind and perfect wife you are!" cried he.
COUSIX BETTY 105
"I am an old lunatic, I do not deserve to have such
a wife!"
"I am simply the Josephine of my Napoleon," she
replied, with a touch of melancholy.
"Josephine was not to compare with you!" caid he.
"Come; I will play a game of whist with my brother and
the children. I must try my hand at the business of a
family man ; I must get Hortense a husband, and bury the
Hbertine. "
His frankness so greatly touched poor Adeline, that
she said:
"The creature has no taste to prefer any man in the
world to my Hector. Oh, I would not give you up for all
the gold on earth. How can any woman throw you over
who is so happy as to be loved by you?"
The look with which the Baron rewarded hia wife's
fanaticism confirmed her in her opinion that gentleness
and docility were a woman's strongest weapons.
But in this she was mistaken. The noblest sentiments,
carried to an excess, can produce mischief as great as do
the worst vices. Bonaparte was made Emperor for having
fired on the people, at a stone's throw from the spot where
Louis XVI. lost his throne and his head because he would
not allow a certain Monsieur Sauce to be hurt.
On the following morning, Hortense, who had slept
with the seal under her pillow, so as to have it close to
her all night, dressed very early, and sent to beg her
father to join her in the garden as soon as he should be
down.
By about half-past nine, the father, acceding to his
daughter's petition, gave her his arm for a walk, and
100 BALZAC'S WORKS
they went along the quays by the Pont Royal to the
Place du Carrousel.
"Let us look into the shop windows, papa," said
Hortense, as they went through the little gate to cross
the wide square.
"What here?" said her father, laughing at her.
"We are supposed to have come to see the pictures,
and over there" and she pointed to the stalls in front of
the houses at a right angle to the Hue du Doyenne* "lookl
there are dealers in curiosities and pictures "
"Your cousin lives there."
"I know it; but she must not see us."
"And what do you want to do?" said the Baron, who,
finding himself within thirty yards of Madame Marneffe's
windows, suddenly remembered her.
Hortense had dragged her father in front of one of the
shops forming the angle of a block of houses built along
the front of the Old Louvre, and facing the H6tel de
Nantes. She went into this shop; her father stood outside,
absorbed in gazing at the windows of the pretty little lady,
who, the evening before, had left her image stamped on the
old beau's heart, as if to alleviate the wound he was so soon
to receive; and he could not help putting his wife's sage
advice into practice.
"I will fall back on a simple little citizen's wife," said
he to himself, recalling Madame Marneffe's adorable graces.
"Such a woman as that will soon make me forget that
grasping Jose'pha. "
Now, this was what was happening at the same moment
outside and inside the curiosity shop.
As -he fixed his eyes on the windows of his new belle,
the Baron saw the husband, who, while brushing his coat
COUSIN BETTY 107
with his own hands, was apparently on the lookout, expect-
ing to see some one on the square. Fearing lest he should
be seen, and subsequently recognized, the amorous Baron
turned his back on the Eue du Doyenne", or rather stood
at three-quarters face, as it were, so as to be able to glance
round from time to time. This manoeuvre brought him
face to face with Madame Marneffe, who, coming up from
the quay, was doubling the promontory of houses to go
home.
Valerie was evidently startled as she met the Baron's
astonished eye, and she responded with a prudish dropping
of her eyelids.
"A pretty woman," exclaimed he, "for whom a man
would do many foolish things."
"Indeed, Monsieur?" said she, turning suddenly, like
a woman who has just come to some vehement decision,
"you are Monsieur le Baron Hulot, I believe?"
The Baron, more and more bewildered, bowed assent.
"Then, as chance has twice made our eyes meet, and
1 am so fortunate as to have interested or puzzled you, I
may tell you that, instead of doing anything foolish, you
ought to do justice. My husband's fate rests with you."
"And how may that be?" asked the gallant Baron.
"He is employed in your department in the War Office,
under Monsieur Le'brun, in Monsieur Coquet's room," said
she, with a smile.
"I am quite disposed, Madame Madame ?"
"Madame Marneffe."
"Dear little Madame Marneffe, to do injustice for your
sake. I have a cousin living in your house; I will go to
see her one day soon as soon as possible; bring your
petition to me in her rooms."
108 BALZAC'S WORKS
"Pardon my boldness, Monsieur le Baron; you must
understand that if I dare to address you thus, it is because
I have no friend to protect me "
"Ah, ha!"
"Monsieur, you misunderstand me," said she, lowering
her eyelids.
Hulot felt as if the sun had disappeared.
"I am at my wits' end, but I am an honest woman!"
she went on. "About six months ago my only protector
died, Marshal Montcornet "
"Ah! You are his daughter?"
"Yes, Monsieur; but he never acknowledged me."
"That was that he might leave you part of his fortune."
"He left me nothing; he made no will."
"Indeed! Poor little woman! The Marshal died sud-
denly of apoplexy. But, come, Madame, hope for the
best. The State must do something for the daughter of