Cousin Bette

  ‘Why should I deprive you of your illusions?’ replied the officer. ‘It is such a rare thing to have any left at your age.’

  ‘Illusions? Open my eyes then I’ commanded the Councillor of State.

  ‘The doctor gets cursed later,’ the superintendent answered with a grin.

  ‘I ask you, Monsieur le Commissaire…’

  ‘Well, that woman was in collusion with her husband.’

  ‘Oh…’

  ‘It happens, Monsieur, in two cases out of ten. Oh, we meet plenty like them.’

  ‘What proof have you of collusion?’

  ‘Oh, the husband, to begin with!’ said the shrewd superintendent, with the calm unconcern of a surgeon, to whom probing wounds is all in the day’s work. ‘It’s written in his mean ugly face that he’s a scamp. But there’s also a certain letter, written by that woman, in which the child is mentioned, that must have some value for you?’

  ‘That letter means so much to me that I always carry it on me,’ Baron Hulot replied, fumbling in his breast pocket for the little note-case that he was never parted from.

  ‘Leave the note-case where it is,’ said the officer, as if he were pronouncing an indictment; ‘here is the letter. I now know all I wanted to know. Madame Marneffe must have known what this note-case contained.’

  ‘She is the only person in the world who did.…’

  ‘That’s what I thought. Now, here’s the proof you were asking for of that little lady’s complicity.’

  ‘It’s not possible!’ said the Baron, still incredulous.

  ‘When we came here, Monsieur le Baron,’ the superintendent went on, ‘that cur, Marneffe, went in first, and he took the letter, here, from the writing-table, where his wife must have placed it. Obviously, putting it here was prearranged between the pair, if she could manage to take it from you while you were asleep; because the letter the lady wrote to you, taken with those you sent to her, is conclusive evidence for the court.’

  The police officer showed Hulot the letter that Reine had brought to the Baron’s office at the War Office.

  ‘It’s a document in the case,’ he said. ‘Give it back to me, Monsieur.’

  ‘If this is true,’ said Hulot, changing countenance, ‘the woman is battening on calculated debauchery. I am certain, now, that she has three lovers.’

  ‘It’s as clear as day,’ said the officer. ‘Ah! they’re not all walking the streets, women of that sort. When they ply that trade with their carriages, their drawing-rooms, and their fine houses, Monsieur le Baron, it’s not a matter of pence and ha’pence. That Mademoiselle Esther whom you mentioned, who poisoned herself, swallowed up millions. If you’ll take my advice, you’ll settle down, Monsieur le Baron. This little party will cost you dear. That rascally husband has the law behind him. And if I hadn’t told you, the little lady would have caught you again!’

  ‘Thank you, Monsieur,’ said the Councillor-of State, trying to preserve his dignity.

  ‘We are going to close the apartment now, Monsieur; the farce is played out, and you will return the key to Monsieur le Maire.’

  Hulot went home in a state of depression verging on collapse, plunged in unutterably sombre thoughts. He woke his noble, pure, and saintly wife, and cast the story of the past three years upon her heart, sobbing like a child deprived of a toy. This confession, from an old man still young in heart, an appalling and heart-rending tale, moved Adeline to pity, but at the same time she experienced a sensation of the keenest joy. She thanked heaven for this final blow, for she saw her husband as now made fast for ever in the bosom of his family.

  ‘Lisbeth was right!’ Madame Hulot said gently, avoiding useless reproaches. ‘she warned us of this some time ago.’

  ‘Yes. Ah, if only I had listened to her instead of getting angry that day when I wanted poor Hortense to return to her husband, in order not to compromise the reputation of that – Oh, dear Adeline, we must save Wenceslas! He is in this morass up to the chin!’

  ‘My poor dear, you have been no luckier with the middle-class wife than you were with the actresses,’ said Adeline, trying to smile.

  The Baroness was alarmed at the change in her Hector. When she saw him, unhappy, suffering, bowed under the weight of trouble, she was all tenderness, all compassion, all love. She would have given her life to make Hulot happy.

  ‘Stay with us, dear Hector. Tell me how those women contrive to make themselves so attractive. I will try.… Why have you not taught me to be what you want? Is it because I am not clever? There are still men who think me beautiful enough to pay court to.’

  Many married women, faithful to family duty and their husbands, will at this point probably ask themselves why such strong men, so really good and kind, who are so vulnerable to women like Madame Marneffe, do not find the realization of their dreams and the fulfilment of their passions in their wives, especially when their wives are like Adeline Hulot.

  The reason is linked with one of the most fundamental mysteries of human nature. Love, which awakens the mind to joy and delight, the virile, austere pleasure of the most noble faculties of the soul, and sex, the vulgar commodity sold in the market, are two aspects of the same thing. Women capable of satisfying the hunger for both are geniuses in their own kind, and no more numerous than the great writers, artists, and inventors of a nation. Men of all kinds, the distinguished man and the fool, the Hulots as much as the Crevels, desire both an ideal love and pleasure. They are all in quest of that mysterious hermaphrodite, that rare work, which most often turns out to be a work in two volumes. Morally and socially, their search is reprehensible. Obviously, marriage must be accepted as a duty: it is life, with its toil and its bitter sacrifices exacted from both partners. Libertines, those treasure-seekers, are as culpable as other malefactors more severely punished.

  Such reflections are no mere sop to conventional morality; they offer an explanation of the causes of many misunderstood social evils. This drama, moreover, has its own moral lessons, of different kinds.

  The Baron went without delay to Marshal Prince de Wissembourg, whose high protection was his last resource. As the old warrior’s protégé for thirty-five years, he had access to him at all times, and might call on him very early.

  ‘Ah, good morning, my dear Hector!’ said that great leader and fine man. ‘What’s the matter? You look worried. And yet the parliamentary session is over. That’s another one finished with! Nowadays I talk about the sittings as I once used to do about our campaigns. Well, I believe the newspapers do refer to parliamentary campaigns.’

  ‘We have had our troubles, indeed, Marshal; but we live in difficult times!’ said Hulot. ‘We have to put up with the world as we find it. Every age has its own difficulties. Our great trouble in the year 1841 is that neither the King nor his Ministers have the freedom of action that the Emperor had.’

  The Marshal cast one of his eagle’s looks at Hulot, proud, piercing, acute. It was evident that, in spite of his years, that noble mind was still strong and vigorous.

  ‘You want me to do something for you?’ he asked genially.

  ‘I find myself obliged to ask you, as a personal favour, for the promotion of one of my deputy clerks to the grade of head clerk of a department, and his nomination as Officer of the Legion of Honour.’

  ‘What is his name?’ the Marshal asked, turning an eye like a lightning flash on the Baron.

  ‘Marneffe.’

  ‘He has a pretty wife. I saw her at your daughter’s wedding.… If Roger… but Roger isn’t here. Hector, my boy, this is a matter of amorous intrigue. What! you are still at it? Ah! you’re a credit to the Imperial Guard. That’s the result of having been in the Commissariat, you have reserves! Let this affair go, my dear boy. It is too much a matter of gallantry to become an administrative concern.’

  ‘No, Marshal, it’s a bad business, for the police are interested in it. You would not like to see me in a police court?’

  ‘Ah! the devil!’ exclaimed the Marshal, looking
concerned. ‘Continue.’

  ‘Well, as things stand, I’m caught like a fox in a trap. You have always been so good to me that I take courage to hope you may come to my rescue in this shocking tight corner.’

  And Hulot recounted his misadventure as wittily and as lightly as he could.

  ‘My dear Prince,’ he said in conclusion, ‘I am sure you could not allow my brother, your dear friend, to die of grief, or one of your Directors, a Councillor of State, to be disgraced. This man Marneffe is a miserable wretch; we can pension him off in two or three years.’

  ‘How you talk, with your two or three years, my dear fellow!’ said the Marshal.

  ‘But the Imperial Guard is immortal, Prince.’

  ‘I am now the only Marshal left of the first list,’ said the Marshal. ‘Listen, Hector. I have more affection for you than you know. You shall see. On the day I leave the Ministry, we shall both go. Ah! you’re not a Deputy, my friend. There are many men who covet your place, and if it were not for me, you would not still hold it. Yes, I have broken many a lance in your defence in order to keep you.… Well, I’ll grant your two requests, for it would be much too painful to see you on the stool of repentance, at your age and in your position. But you make too many inroads in your credit. If this promotion gives an opportunity to start trouble, we shall not be in favour. For myself, I don’t care, but it will be another thorn under your foot. At the next session you will be pushed out. Your Directorship is a bait held out to five or six different people with influence, and it is only my wily argument that has preserved you so far. I said that on the day when you retired on pension and your place was handed on, we should have made five persons discontented and only pleased one, while by leaving you tottering on your perch for two or three years we should have our six men voting for us. They began to laugh, in the Council Meeting, and it was agreed that the old boy of the Old Guard, as they call me, was getting very clever at parliamentary tactics.… I tell you all this frankly. You’re getting on, besides – you’re growing grey.… You’re a fortunate fellow to be able to get into such fixes still! Where are the days when Sub-Lieutenant Cottin had mistresses?’

  The Marshal rang.

  ‘We must have that police report torn up!’ he added.

  ‘You are treating me like a father, Monseigneur! I did not dare tell you how anxious I was about it.’

  ‘I always need Roger here,’ exclaimed the Marshal, seeing Mitouflet, his doorkeeper, come in, ‘and I was just going to have him sent for. You go off, Mitouflet. And you go too, my old comrade, go and get this nomination prepared and I will sign it. But that rascally intriguer shall not enjoy the fruit of his crimes for long. We’ll have him watched and drummed out at the first slip. Now that you are saved, my dear Hector, take care. Don’t wear your friends out. Notice of the appointment will be sent to you this morning, and your man shall be Officer of the Legion of Honourl… How old are you now?’

  ‘Seventy, in three months’ time.’

  ‘What a fellow you are!’ said the Marshal, with a smile.

  ‘You’re the man who ought to be promoted; but, cannon-balls and bullets! we’re not living under Louis XV now!’

  Such is the comradeship uniting the glorious survivors of the Napoleonic phalanx that they think of themselves as still fighting their campaigns together, and still bound to defend one another against all comers.

  ‘One more favour like that,’ Hulot said to himself as he crossed the court, ‘and I am finished.’

  The unfortunate civil servant went to Baron de Nucingen, to whom he now owed only an unimportant sum. He succeeded in borrowing forty thousand francs from him, against his salary for two more years; but the Baron stipulated that in the case of Baron Hulot’s retirement, the disposable part of his pension should be attached for repayment of the debt and the interest on it. This new transaction, like the first, was made through Vauvinet, to whom the Baron signed bills for twelve thousand francs. On the following day the fatal police evidence, the husband’s charge, and the letters were all destroyed. The scandalous promotion of the Sieur Marneffe passed almost unnoticed amid the stir of the July celebrations, and occasioned no newspaper comment.

  Lisbeth, now to all appearances estranged from Madame Marneffe, had installed herself in Marshal Hulot’s household. Ten days after these events the first banns of marriage were published between the spinster and the illustrious old soldier. Adeline, in order to obtain his consent, had told the story of her Hector’s financial catastrophe, begging him never to speak of it to the Baron, who, she said, was despondent, in very low spirits, really quite crushed.

  ‘We can see now that he’s no longer a young man, I’m afraid,’ she added.

  And so Lisbeth triumphed I She was about to attain the goal of her ambition, she was about to see her plan accomplished, her hatred satisfied. She revelled in anticipation in the joy of ruling the family that had despised her for so long. She promised herself that she would patronize her patrons, be the guardian angel supporting the ruined family. She hailed herself as ‘Madame la Comtesse’ and ‘Madame la Maréchale,’ bowing to her reflection in the looking-glass. Adeline and Hortense should end their days in penury, miserably struggling to keep their heads above water, while their Cousin Bette, received at the Tuileries, was playing the fine lady.

  A dreadful event occurred that threw the old maid down from the social height where she was so proudly preparing to take her place.

  On the same day that these first banns were published, the Baron received another message from Africa. Another Alsatian presented himself, handed over a letter when he had made sure that it was to Baron Hulot that he was giving it, and, having told the Baron the address of his lodgings, departed, leaving that high official staggered by the first few lines he read:

  Dear Nephew,

  You will receive this letter, as I calculate, on August 7th. Supposing that it takes you three days to obtain the help we urgently require, and a fortnight more for it to reach us, we should have it before September 1st.

  If you can act within that time, you will have saved the honour and the life of your devoted Johann Fischer.

  This is what the clerk you gave me as confederate tells me to ask; for I am liable, so it seems, to be brought before a court – either an assize court or a court martial. You know that Johann Fischer will never be brought before any earthly tribunal; he will go by his own act before God’s.

  Your clerk appears to me to be a young scamp, quite capable of compromising you; but he is a clever rascal. His scheme is that you should make a louder outcry than anyone else about irregularities, and send us an inspector, a special envoy instructed to expose the malefactors, uncover abuses, and in short make a lot of noise, but ready to place himself, first and foremost, between us and the law, and screen us by muddying the waters.

  If your representative arrives here by September 1st, and he has been warned about the part he has to play, and if you send us two hundred thousand francs to make good the quantities of stores that we say are deposited in remote districts, our book-keeping will be considered accurate and unimpeachable.

  You can trust the soldier who will bring you this letter with a money order made out to me, payable through an Algerian bank. He is a reliable man, a relative of mine, incapable of trying to find out what he is carrying. I have taken measures to ensure the safe return of this boy. If you cannot do anything, I will die gladly for the man to whom we owe our Adeline’s happiness.

  The pangs and pleasures of desire, the catastrophe that had just brought his career as a gallant to an end, had prevented Baron Hulot from thinking of poor Johann Fischer, although his first letter had warned clearly enough of the danger that had now become so pressing.

  The Baron left the dining-room with his mind in a turmoil, only to collapse heavily on the sofa in the drawing-room, where he lay stunned and dizzied by the violence of his fall. He stared at the pattern on the carpet, disregarding Johann’s fateful letter, that he held clutched in his hand.


  From her bedroom Adeline heard her husband throw himself like a dead weight on the sofa. The sound was so singular that she thought he must have had a stroke. She looked in her glass at the scene reflected through the door, with a breath-stopping apprehension that made her incapable of movement, and saw her Hector lying like a stricken man.

  The Baroness entered on tiptoe. Hector heard nothing. She was able to approach, noticed the letter, read it, and was shaken in every limb. She experienced a nervous shock of such severity that her body permanently retained the mark of it. Within a few days she had become affected by a constant tremor; for, after the first moment, the necessity for action gave her the kind of strength that is borrowed only from the very springs of vital power.

  ‘Hector, come into my room!’ she said, in a voice that was like a breath of wind. ‘Don’t let your daughter see you like this! Come, dear, come.’

  ‘Where can I find two hundred thousand francs? I can have Claude Vignon sent out on a special mission. He’s an astute fellow, and clever. That can be arranged in two days.… But two hundred thousand francs I My son has not got so much money; his house is mortgaged for three hundred thousand. My brother’s savings are not more than thirty thousand. Nucingen would laugh at me! Vauvinet?… he was unwilling enough to lend me ten thousand francs for that scoundrel Marneffe’s son. No, this is the end. I’ll have to go and throw myself at the Marshal’s feet, confess how things are, hear him call me a blackguard, take his broadside and go decently to the bottom.’

  ‘But, Hector, it’s not simply ruin now, it’s disgrace!’ said Adeline. ‘My poor uncle will kill himself. Kill us, you have the right, but you cannot be a murderer! Have courage; there must be some way out.’

  ‘None at all!’ said the Baron. ‘No one in the Government could find two hundred thousand francs, even to save a Ministry! Oh, Napoleon, where are you now?’

  ‘My uncle! Poor man! Hector, we cannot let him kill himself and die in dishonour!’

  ’There is one chance that might be tried,’ he said, ‘but… it is very doubtful.… Yes, Crevel is at daggers drawn with his daughter.… Ah! he has plenty of money, he’s the only one who could…’