mistress, to pay him out for having robbed you of Josepha? Nothing can
more clearly prove your baseness. You say you love a woman, you treat
her like a duchess, and then you want to degrade her? Well, my good
fellow, and you are right. This woman is no match for Josepha. That
young person has the courage of her disgrace, while I--I am a
hypocrite, and deserve to be publicly whipped.--Alas! Josepha is
protected by her cleverness and her wealth. I have nothing to shelter
me but my reputation; I am still the worthy and blameless wife of a
plain citizen; if you create a scandal, what is to become of me? If I
were rich, then indeed; but my income is fifteen thousand francs a
year at most, I suppose."
"Much more than that," said Crevel. "I have doubled your savings in
these last two months by investing in _Orleans_."
"Well, a position in Paris begins with fifty thousand. And you
certainly will not make up to me for the position I should surrender.
--What was my aim? I want to see Marneffe a first-class clerk; he will
then draw a salary of six thousand francs. He has been twenty-seven
years in his office; within three years I shall have a right to a
pension of fifteen hundred francs when he dies. You, to whom I have
been entirely kind, to whom I have given your fill of happiness--you
cannot wait!--And that is what men call love!" she exclaimed.
"Though I began with an ulterior purpose," said Crevel, "I have become
your poodle. You trample on my heart, you crush me, you stultify me,
and I love you as I have never loved in my life. Valerie, I love you
as much as I love my Celestine. I am capable of anything for your
sake.--Listen, instead of coming twice a week to the Rue du Dauphin,
come three times."
"Is that all! You are quite young again, my dear boy!"
"Only let me pack off Hulot, humiliate him, rid you of him," said
Crevel, not heeding her impertinence! "Have nothing to say to the
Brazilian, be mine alone; you shall not repent of it. To begin with, I
will give you eight thousand francs a year, secured by bond, but only
as an annuity; I will not give you the capital till the end of five
years' constancy--"
"Always a bargain! A tradesman can never learn to give. You want to
stop for refreshments on the road of love--in the form of Government
bonds! Bah! Shopman, pomatum seller! you put a price on everything!
--Hector told me that the Duc d'Herouville gave Josepha a bond for
thirty thousand francs a year in a packet of sugar almonds! And I am
worth six of Josepha.
"Oh! to be loved!" she went on, twisting her ringlets round her
fingers, and looking at herself in the glass. "Henri loves me. He
would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hulot loves me; he
leaves his wife in beggary! As for you, go my good man, be the worthy
father of a family. You have three hundred thousand francs over and
above your fortune, only to amuse yourself, a hoard, in fact, and you
think of nothing but increasing it--"
"For you, Valerie, since I offer you half," said he, falling on his
knees.
"What, still here!" cried Marneffe, hideous in his dressing-gown.
"What are you about?"
"He is begging my pardon, my dear, for an insulting proposal he has
dared to make me. Unable to obtain my consent, my gentleman proposed
to pay me----"
Crevel only longed to vanish into the cellar, through a trap, as is
done on the stage.
"Get up, Crevel," said Marneffe, laughing, "you are ridiculous. I can
see by Valerie's manner that my honor is in no danger."
"Go to bed and sleep in peace," said Madame Marneffe.
"Isn't she clever?" thought Crevel. "She has saved me. She is
adorable!"
As Marneffe disappeared, the Mayor took Valerie's hands and kissed
them, leaving on them the traces of tears.
"It shall all stand in your name," he said.
"That is true love," she whispered in his ear. "Well, love for love.
Hulot is below, in the street. The poor old thing is waiting to return
when I place a candle in one of the windows of my bedroom. I give you
leave to tell him that you are the man I love; he will refuse to
believe you; take him to the Rue du Dauphin, give him every proof,
crush him; I allow it--I order it! I am tired of that old seal; he
bores me to death. Keep your man all night in the Rue du Dauphin,
grill him over a slow fire, be revenged for the loss of Josepha. Hulot
may die of it perhaps, but we shall save his wife and children from
utter ruin. Madame Hulot is working for her bread--"
"Oh! poor woman! On my word, it is quite shocking!" exclaimed Crevel,
his natural feeling coming to the top.
"If you love me, Celestin," said she in Crevel's ear, which she
touched with her lips, "keep him there, or I am done for. Marneffe is
suspicious. Hector has a key of the outer gate, and will certainly
come back."
Crevel clasped Madame Marneffe to his heart, and went away in the
seventh heaven of delight. Valerie fondly escorted him to the landing,
and then followed him, like a woman magnetized, down the stairs to the
very bottom.
"My Valerie, go back, do not compromise yourself before the porters.
--Go back; my life, my treasure, all is yours.--Go in, my duchess!"
"Madame Olivier," Valerie called gently when the gate was closed.
"Why, madame! You here?" said the woman in bewilderment.
"Bolt the gates at top and bottom, and let no one in."
"Very good, madame."
Having barred the gate, Madame Olivier told of the bribe that the War
Office chief had tried to offer her.
"You behaved like an angel, my dear Olivier; we shall talk of that
to-morrow."
Valerie flew like an arrow to the third floor, tapped three times at
Lisbeth's door, and then went down to her room, where she gave
instructions to Mademoiselle Reine, for a woman must make the most of
the opportunity when a Montes arrives from Brazil.
"By Heaven! only a woman of the world is capable of such love," said
Crevel to himself. "How she came down those stairs, lighting them up
with her eyes, following me! Never did Josepha--Josepha! she is
cag-mag!" cried the ex-bagman. "What have I said? _Cag-mag_--why, I
might have let the word slip out at the Tuileries! I can never do any
good unless Valerie educates me--and I was so bent on being a
gentleman.--What a woman she is! She upsets me like a fit of the
colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What wit! Never did
Josepha move me so. And what perfection when you come to know her!
--Ha, there is my man!"
He perceived in the gloom of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat
stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he
went straight up to him.
"Good-morning, Baron, for it is past midnight, my dear fellow. What
the devil are your doing here? You are airing yourself under a
pleasant drizzle. That is not wholesome at our time of life. Will you
let me give you a little piece of advice? Let each of us go home; for,
between you and me, you will not see the candle in the window."
The last words made the Baron suddenly aware that he was sixty-three,
and that his cloak was wet.
"Who on earth told you--?" he began.
"Valerie, of course, _our_ Valerie, who means henceforth to be _my_
Valerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you
please. You have nothing to complain of; you know, I always stipulated
for the right of taking my revenge; it took you three months to rob me
of Josepha; I took Valerie from you in--We will say no more about
that. Now I mean to have her all to myself. But we can be very good
friends, all the same."
"Crevel, no jesting," said Hulot, in a voice choked by rage. "It is a
matter of life and death."
"Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not remember what
you said to me the day of Hortense's marriage: 'Can two old gaffers
like us quarrel over a petticoat? It is too low, too common. We are
_Regence_, we agreed, Pompadour, eighteenth century, quite the
Marechal Richelieu, Louis XV., nay, and I may say, _Liaisons
dangereuses_!"
Crevel might have gone on with his string of literary allusions; the
Baron heard him as a deaf man listens when he is but half deaf. But,
seeing in the gaslight the ghastly pallor of his face, the triumphant
Mayor stopped short. This was, indeed, a thunderbolt after Madame
Olivier's asservations and Valerie's parting glance.
"Good God! And there are so many other women in Paris!" he said at
last.
"That is what I said to you when you took Josepha," said Crevel.
"Look here, Crevel, it is impossible. Give me some proof.--Have you a
key, as I have, to let yourself in?"
And having reached the house, the Baron put the key into the lock; but
the gate was immovable; he tried in vain to open it.
"Do not make a noise in the streets at night," said Crevel coolly. "I
tell you, Baron, I have far better proof than you can show."
"Proofs! give me proof!" cried the Baron, almost crazy with
exasperation.
"Come, and you shall have them," said Crevel.
And in obedience to Valerie's instructions, he led the Baron away
towards the quay, down the Rue Hillerin-Bertin. The unhappy Baron
walked on, as a merchant walks on the day before he stops payment; he
was lost in conjectures as to the reasons of the depravity buried in
the depths of Valerie's heart, and still believed himself the victim
of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to
him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his
financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the
evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river and throw
himself in after.
On reaching the Rue du Dauphin, which had not yet been widened, Crevel
stopped before a door in a wall. It opened into a long corridor paved
with black-and-white marble, and serving as an entrance-hall, at the
end of which there was a flight of stairs and a doorkeeper's lodge,
lighted from an inner courtyard, as is often the case in Paris. This
courtyard, which was shared with another house, was oddly divided into
two unequal portions. Crevel's little house, for he owned it, had
additional rooms with a glass skylight, built out on to the adjoining
plot, under conditions that it should have no story added above the
ground floor, so that the structure was entirely hidden by the lodge
and the projecting mass of the staircase.
This back building had long served as a store-room, backshop, and
kitchen to one of the shops facing the street. Crevel had cut off
these three rooms from the rest of the ground floor, and Grindot had
transformed them into an inexpensive private residence. There were two
ways in--from the front, through the shop of a furniture-dealer, to
whom Crevel let it at a low price, and only from month to month, so as
to be able to get rid of him in case of his telling tales, and also
through a door in the wall of the passage, so ingeniously hidden as to
be almost invisible. The little apartment, comprising a dining-room,
drawing-room, and bedroom, all lighted from above, and standing partly
on Crevel's ground and partly on his neighbor's, was very difficult to
find. With the exception of the second-hand furniture-dealer, the
tenants knew nothing of the existence of this little paradise.
The doorkeeper, paid to keep Crevel's secrets, was a capital cook. So
Monsieur le Maire could go in and out of his inexpensive retreat at
any hour of the night without any fear of being spied upon. By day, a
lady, dressed as Paris women dress to go shopping, and having a key,
ran no risk in coming to Crevel's lodgings; she would stop to look at
the cheapened goods, ask the price, go into the shop, and come out
again, without exciting the smallest suspicion if any one should
happen to meet her.
As soon as Crevel had lighted the candles in the sitting-room, the
Baron was surprised at the elegance and refinement it displayed. The
perfumer had given the architect a free hand, and Grindot had done
himself credit by fittings in the Pompadour style, which had in fact
cost sixty thousand francs.
"What I want," said Crevel to Grindot, "is that a duchess, if I
brought one there, should be surprised at it."
He wanted to have a perfect Parisian Eden for his Eve, his "real
lady," his Valerie, his duchess.
"There are two beds," said Crevel to Hulot, showing him a sofa that
could be made wide enough by pulling out a drawer. "This is one, the
other is in the bedroom. We can both spend the night here."
"Proof!" was all the Baron could say.
Crevel took a flat candlestick and led Hulot into the adjoining room,
where he saw, on a sofa, a superb dressing-gown belonging to Valerie,
which he had seen her wear in the Rue Vanneau, to display it before
wearing it in Crevel's little apartment. The Mayor pressed the spring
of a little writing-table of inlaid work, known as a
_bonheur-du-jour_, and took out of it a letter that he handed to the
Baron.
"Read that," said he.
The Councillor read these words written in pencil:
"I have waited in vain, you old wretch! A woman of my quality does
not expect to be kept waiting by a retired perfumer. There was no
dinner ordered--no cigarettes. I will make you pay for this!"
"Well, is that her writing?"
"Good God!" gasped Hulot, sitting down in dismay. "I see all the
things she uses--her caps, her slippers. Why, how long since--?"
Crevel nodded that he understood, and took a packet of bills out of
the little inlaid cabinet.
"You can see, old man. I paid the decorators in December, 1838. In
October, two months before, this charming little place was first
used."
Hulot bent his head.
"How the devil do you manage it? I know how she spends every hour of
her day."
"How about her walk in the Tuileries?" said Crevel, rubbing his hands
in triumph.
"What then?" said Hulot, mystified.
"Your lady love comes to the Tuileries, she is supposed to be airing
herself from one till four. But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here.
You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is nothing imaginary in your
title."
Hulot, left without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence.
Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be
philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man
trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy
taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel
very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague.
"As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will
you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!"
"Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten
pretty women at least seven are false?"
But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is
the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no
counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly.
Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice.
"You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful
wife, and she is virtuous."
"I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made
her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are
avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my
love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But
was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous
than this Valerie?"
"She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves
whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we
are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour,
Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth
century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police."
"How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without
heeding Crevel.
"It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said
Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred
times more profligate than Josepha."
"And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs
a year!" cried Hulot.
"And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, with the insolence of a
financier who scorns so small a sum.
"You do not love her, that is very evident," said the Baron dolefully.
"I have had enough of her," replied Crevel, "for she has had more than
three hundred thousand francs of mine!"
"Where is it? Where does it all go?" said the Baron, clasping his head
in his hands.
"If we had come to an agreement, like the simple young men who combine
to maintain a twopenny baggage, she would have cost us less."
"That is an idea"! replied the Baron. "But she would still be cheating
us; for, my burly friend, what do you say to this Brazilian?"
"Ay, old sly fox, you are right, we are swindled like--like
shareholders!" said Crevel. "All such women are an unlimited
liability, and we the sleeping partners."
"Then it was she who told you about the candle in the window?"
"My good man," replied Crevel, striking an attitude, "she has fooled
us both. Valerie is a--She told me to keep you here.--Now I see it
all. She has got her Brazilian!--Oh, I have done with her, for if you
hold her hands, she would find a way to cheat you with her feet!
There! she is a minx, a jade!"
"She is lower than a prostitute," said the Baron. "Josepha and Jenny
Cadine were in their rights when they were false to us; they make a
trade of their charms."
"But she, who affects the saint--the prude!" said Crevel. "I tell you
what, Hulot, do you go back to your wife; your money matters are not
looking well; I have heard talk of certain notes of hand given to a
low usurer whose special line of business is lending to these sluts, a
man named Vauvinet. For my part, I am cured of your 'real ladies.'
And, after all, at our time of life what do we want of these swindling
hussies, who, to be honest, cannot help playing us false? You have
white hair and false teeth; I am of the shape of Silenus. I shall go
in for saving. Money never deceives one. Though the Treasury is indeed
open to all the world twice a year, it pays you interest, and this
woman swallows it. With you, my worthy friend, as Gubetta, as my
partner in the concern, I might have resigned myself to a shady
bargain--no, a philosophical calm. But with a Brazilian who has
possibly smuggled in some doubtful colonial produce----"
"Woman is an inexplicable creature!" said Hulot.
"I can explain her," said Crevel. "We are old; the Brazilian is young
and handsome."
"Yes; that, I own, is true," said Hulot; "we are older than we were.
But, my dear fellow, how is one to do without these pretty creatures
--seeing them undress, twist up their hair, smile cunningly through
their fingers as they screw up their curl-papers, put on all their
airs and graces, tell all their lies, declare that we don't love them
when we are worried with business; and they cheer us in spite of
everything."
"Yes, by the Power! It is the only pleasure in life!" cried Crevel.
"When a saucy little mug smiles at you and says, 'My old dear, you
don't know how nice you are! I am not like other women, I suppose, who
go crazy over mere boys with goats' beards, smelling of smoke, and as
coarse as serving-men! For in their youth they are so insolent!--They
come in and they bid you good-morning, and out they go.--I, whom you
think such a flirt, I prefer a man of fifty to these brats. A man who
will stick by me, who is devoted, who knows a woman is not to be
picked up every day, and appreciates us.--That is what I love you for,
you old monster!'--and they fill up these avowals with little pettings
and prettinesses and--Faugh! they are as false as the bills on the
Hotel de Ville."
"A lie is sometimes better than the truth," said Hulot, remembering
sundry bewitching scenes called up by Crevel, who mimicked Valerie.
"They are obliged to act upon their lies, to sew spangles on their
stage frocks--"
"And they are ours, after all, the lying jades!" said Crevel coarsely.
"Valerie is a witch," said the Baron. "She can turn an old man into a
young one."
"Oh, yes!" said Crevel, "she is an eel that wriggles through your
hands; but the prettiest eel, as white and sweet as sugar, as amusing
as Arnal--and ingenious!"
"Yes, she is full of fun," said Hulot, who had now quite forgotten his
wife.
The colleagues went to bed the best friends in the world, reminding
each other of Valerie's perfections, the tones of her voice, her
kittenish way, her movements, her fun, her sallies of wit, and of
affections; for she was an artist in love, and had charming impulses,
as tenors may sing a scena better one day than another. And they fell
asleep, cradled in tempting and diabolical visions lighted by the
fires of hell.
At nine o'clock next morning Hulot went off to the War Office, Crevel
had business out of town; they left the house together, and Crevel
held out his hand to the Baron, saying:
"To show that there is no ill-feeling. For we, neither of us, will
have anything more to say to Madame Marneffe?"
"Oh, this is the end of everything," replied Hulot with a sort of
horror.
By half-past ten Crevel was mounting the stairs, four at a time, up to
Madame Marneffe's apartment. He found the infamous wretch, the
adorable enchantress, in the most becoming morning wrapper, enjoying
an elegant little breakfast in the society of the Baron Montes de
Montejanos and Lisbeth. Though the sight of the Brazilian gave him a
shock, Crevel begged Madame Marneffe to grant him two minutes' speech
with her. Valerie led Crevel into the drawing-room.
"Valerie, my angel," said the amorous Mayor, "Monsieur Marneffe cannot
have long to live. If you will be faithful to me, when he dies we will
be married. Think it over. I have rid you of Hulot.--So just consider
whether this Brazilian is to compare with a Mayor of Paris, a man who,
for your sake, will make his way to the highest dignities, and who can
already offer you eighty-odd thousand francs a year."
"I will think it over," said she. "You will see me in the Rue du
Dauphin at two o'clock, and we can discuss the matter. But be a good
boy--and do not forget the bond you promised to transfer to me."
She returned to the dining-room, followed by Crevel, who flattered
himself that he had hit on a plan for keeping Valerie to himself; but
there he found Baron Hulot, who, during this short colloquy, had also
arrived with the same end in view. He, like Crevel, begged for a brief
interview. Madame Marneffe again rose to go to the drawing-room, with
a smile at the Brazilian that seemed to say, "What fools they are!
Cannot they see you?"
"Valerie," said the official, "my child, that cousin of yours is an
American cousin--"
"Oh, that is enough!" she cried, interrupting the Baron. "Marneffe
never has been, and never will be, never can be my husband! The first,
the only man I ever loved, has come back quite unexpectedly. It is no
fault of mine! But look at Henri and look at yourself. Then ask
yourself whether a woman, and a woman in love, can hesitate for a
moment. My dear fellow, I am not a kept mistress. From this day forth
I refuse to play the part of Susannah between the two Elders. If you
really care for me, you and Crevel, you will be our friends; but all
else is at an end, for I am six-and-twenty, and henceforth I mean to
be a saint, an admirable and worthy wife--as yours is."
"Is that what you have to say?" answered Hulot. "Is this the way you
receive me when I come like a Pope with my hands full of Indulgences?
--Well, your husband will never be a first-class clerk, nor be
promoted in the Legion of Honor."
"That remains to be seen," said Madame Marneffe, with a meaning look
at Hulot.
"Well, well, no temper," said Hulot in despair. "I will call this
evening, and we will come to an understanding."
"In Lisbeth's rooms then."
"Very good--at Lisbeth's," said the old dotard.
Hulot and Crevel went downstairs together without speaking a word till
they were in the street; but outside on the sidewalk they looked at
each other with a dreary laugh.
"We are a couple of old fools," said Crevel.
"I have got rid of them," said Madame Marneffe to Lisbeth, as she sat
down once more. "I never loved and I never shall love any man but my
Jaguar," she added, smiling at Henri Montes. "Lisbeth, my dear, you
don't know. Henri has forgiven me the infamy to which I was reduced by
poverty."
"It was my own fault," said the Brazilian. "I ought to have sent you a
hundred thousand francs."
"Poor boy!" said Valerie; "I might have worked for my living, but my
fingers were not made for that--ask Lisbeth."
The Brazilian went away the happiest man in Paris.