the police constable. "What a loss to the world if she should go mad!"
"She is not mad," said the constable sententiously. The police is
always the incarnation of scepticism.--"Monsieur le Baron Hulot has
been caught by a trick," he added, loud enough for Valerie to hear
him.
Valerie shot a flash from her eye which would have killed him on the
spot if looks could effect the vengeance they express. The
police-officer smiled; he had laid a snare, and the woman had fallen
into it. Marneffe desired his wife to go into the other room and clothe
herself decently, for he and the Baron had come to an agreement on all
points, and Hulot fetched his dressing-gown and came out again.
"Gentlemen," said he to the two officials, "I need not impress on you
to be secret."
The functionaries bowed.
The police-officer rapped twice on the door; his clerk came in, sat
down at the "bonheur-du-jour," and wrote what the constable dictated
to him in an undertone. Valerie still wept vehemently. When she was
dressed, Hulot went into the other room and put on his clothes.
Meanwhile the report was written.
Marneffe then wanted to take his wife home; but Hulot, believing that
he saw her for the last time, begged the favor of being allowed to
speak with her.
"Monsieur, your wife has cost me dear enough for me to be allowed to
say good-bye to her--in the presence of you all, of course."
Valerie went up to Hulot, and he whispered in her ear:
"There is nothing left for us but to fly, but how can we correspond?
We have been betrayed--"
"Through Reine," she answered. "But my dear friend, after this scandal
we can never meet again. I am disgraced. Besides, you will hear
dreadful things about me--you will believe them--"
The Baron made a gesture of denial.
"You will believe them, and I can thank God for that, for then perhaps
you will not regret me."
"He will _not_ die a second-class clerk!" said Marneffe to Hulot, as
he led his wife away, saying roughly, "Come, madame; if I am foolish
to you, I do not choose to be a fool to others."
Valerie left the house, Crevel's Eden, with a last glance at the
Baron, so cunning that he thought she adored him. The Justice of the
Peace gave Madame Marneffe his arm to the hackney coach with a
flourish of gallantry. The Baron, who was required to witness the
report, remained quite bewildered, alone with the police-officer. When
the Baron had signed, the officer looked at him keenly, over his
glasses.
"You are very sweet on the little lady, Monsieur le Baron?"
"To my sorrow, as you see."
"Suppose that she does not care for you?" the man went on, "that she
is deceiving you?"
"I have long known that, monsieur--here, in this very spot, Monsieur
Crevel and I told each other----"
"Oh! Then you knew that you were in Monsieur le Maire's private
snuggery?"
"Perfectly."
The constable lightly touched his hat with a respectful gesture.
"You are very much in love," said he. "I say no more. I respect an
inveterate passion, as a doctor respects an inveterate complaint.--I
saw Monsieur de Nucingen, the banker, attacked in the same way--"
"He is a friend of mine," said the Baron. "Many a time have I supped
with his handsome Esther. She was worth the two million francs she
cost him."
"And more," said the officer. "That caprice of the old Baron's cost
four persons their lives. Oh! such passions as these are like the
cholera!"
"What had you to say to me?" asked the Baron, who took this indirect
warning very ill.
"Oh! why should I deprive you of your illusions?" replied the officer.
"Men rarely have any left at your age!"
"Rid me of them!" cried the Councillor.
"You will curse the physician later," replied the officer, smiling.
"I beg of you, monsieur."
"Well, then, that woman was in collusion with her husband."
"Oh!----"
"Yes, sir, and so it is in two cases out of every ten. Oh! we know it
well."
"What proof have you of such a conspiracy?"
"In the first place, the husband!" said the other, with the calm
acumen of a surgeon practised in unbinding wounds. "Mean speculation
is stamped in every line of that villainous face. But you, no doubt,
set great store by a certain letter written by that woman with regard
to the child?"
"So much so, that I always have it about me," replied Hulot, feeling
in his breast-pocket for the little pocketbook which he always kept
there.
"Leave your pocketbook where it is," said the man, as crushing as a
thunder-clap. "Here is the letter.--I now know all I want to know.
Madame Marneffe, of course, was aware of what that pocketbook
contained?"
"She alone in the world."
"So I supposed.--Now for the proof you asked for of her collusion with
her husband."
"Let us hear!" said the Baron, still incredulous.
"When we came in here, Monsieur le Baron, that wretched creature
Marneffe led the way, and he took up this letter, which his wife, no
doubt, had placed on this writing-table," and he pointed to the
_bonheur-du-jour_. "That evidently was the spot agreed upon by the
couple, in case she should succeed in stealing the letter while you
were asleep; for this letter, as written to you by the lady, is,
combined with those you wrote to her, decisive evidence in a
police-court."
He showed Hulot the note that Reine had delivered to him in his
private room at the office.
"It is one of the documents in the case," said the police-agent;
"return it to me, monsieur."
"Well, monsieur," replied Hulot with bitter expression, "that woman is
profligacy itself in fixed ratios. I am certain at this moment that
she has three lovers."
"That is perfectly evident," said the officer. "Oh, they are not all
on the streets! When a woman follows that trade in a carriage and a
drawing-room, and her own house, it is not a case for francs and
centimes, Monsieur le Baron. Mademoiselle Esther, of whom you spoke,
and who poisoned herself, made away with millions.--If you will take
my advice, you will get out of it, monsieur. This last little game
will have cost you dear. That scoundrel of a husband has the law on
his side. And indeed, but for me, that little woman would have caught
you again!"
"Thank you, monsieur," said the Baron, trying to maintain his dignity.
"Now we will lock up; the farce is played out, and you can send your
key to Monsieur the Mayor."
Hulot went home in a state of dejection bordering on helplessness, and
sunk in the gloomiest thoughts. He woke his noble and saintly wife,
and poured into her heart the history of the past three years, sobbing
like a child deprived of a toy. This confession from an old man young
in feeling, this frightful and heart-rending narrative, while it
filled Adeline with pity, also gave her the greatest joy; she thanked
Heaven for this last catastrophe, for in fancy she saw the husband
settled at last in the bosom of his family.
"Lisbeth was right," said Madame Hulot gently and without any useless
recrimination, "she told us how it would be."
"Yes. If only I had listened to her, instead of flying into a rage,
that day when I wanted poor Hortense to go home rather than compromise
the reputation of that--Oh! my dear Adeline, we must save Wenceslas.
He is up to his chin in that mire!"
"My poor old man, the respectable middle-classes have turned out no
better than the actresses," said Adeline, with a smile.
The Baroness was alarmed at the change in her Hector; when she saw him
so unhappy, ailing, crushed under his weight of woes, she was all
heart, all pity, all love; she would have shed her blood to make Hulot
happy.
"Stay with us, my dear Hector. Tell me what is it that such women do
to attract you so powerfully. I too will try. Why have you not taught
me to be what you want? Am I deficient in intelligence? Men still
think me handsome enough to court my favor."
Many a married woman, attached to her duty and to her husband, may
here pause to ask herself why strong and affectionate men, so
tender-hearted to the Madame Marneffes, do not take their wives for
the object of their fancies and passions, especially wives like the
Baronne Adeline Hulot.
This is, indeed, one of the most recondite mysteries of human nature.
Love, which is debauch of reason, the strong and austere joy of a
lofty soul, and pleasure, the vulgar counterfeit sold in the
market-place, are two aspects of the same thing. The woman who can
satisfy both these devouring appetites is as rare in her sex as a great
general, a great writer, a great artist, a great inventor in a nation.
A man of superior intellect or an idiot--a Hulot or a Crevel--equally
crave for the ideal and for enjoyment; all alike go in search of the
mysterious compound, so rare that at last it is usually found to be a
work in two volumes. This craving is a depraved impulse due to
society.
Marriage, no doubt, must be accepted as a tie; it is life, with its
duties and its stern sacrifices on both parts equally. Libertines, who
seek for hidden treasure, are as guilty as other evil-doers who are
more hardly dealt with than they. These reflections are not a mere
veneer of moralizing; they show the reason of many unexplained
misfortunes. But, indeed, this drama points its own moral--or morals,
for they are of many kinds.
The Baron presently went to call on the Marshal Prince de Wissembourg,
whose powerful patronage was now his only chance. Having dwelt under
his protection for five-and-thirty years, he was a visitor at all
hours, and would be admitted to his rooms as soon as he was up.
"Ah! How are you, my dear Hector?" said the great and worthy leader.
"What is the matter? You look anxious. And yet the session is ended.
One more over! I speak of that now as I used to speak of a campaign.
And indeed I believe the newspapers nowadays speak of the sessions as
parliamentary campaigns."
"We have been in difficulties, I must confess, Marshal; but the times
are hard!" said Hulot. "It cannot be helped; the world was made so.
Every phase has its own drawbacks. The worst misfortunes in the year
1841 is that neither the King nor the ministers are free to act as
Napoleon was."
The Marshal gave Hulot one of those eagle flashes which in its pride,
clearness, and perspicacity showed that, in spite of years, that lofty
soul was still upright and vigorous.
"You want me to so something for you?" said he, in a hearty tone.
"I find myself under the necessity of applying to you for the
promotion of one of my second clerks to the head of a room--as a
personal favor to myself--and his advancement to be officer of the
Legion of Honor."
"What is his name?" said the Marshal, with a look like a lightning
flash.
"Marneffe."
"He has a pretty wife; I saw her on the occasion of your daughter's
marriage.--If Roger--but Roger is away!--Hector, my boy, this is
concerned with your pleasures. What, you still indulge--? Well, you
are a credit to the old Guard. That is what comes of having been in
the Commissariat; you have reserves!--But have nothing to do with this
little job, my dear boy; it is too strong of the petticoat to be good
business."
"No, Marshal; it is bad business, for the police courts have a finger
in it. Would you like to see me go there?"
"The devil!" said the Prince uneasily. "Go on!"
"Well, I am in the predicament of a trapped fox. You have always been
so kind to me, that you will, I am sure, condescend to help me out of
the shameful position in which I am placed."
Hulot related his misadventures, as wittily and as lightly as he
could.
"And you, Prince, will you allow my brother to die of grief, a man you
love so well; or leave one of your staff in the War Office, a
Councillor of State, to live in disgrace. This Marneffe is a wretched
creature; he can be shelved in two or three years."
"How you talk of two or three years, my dear fellow!" said the
Marshal.
"But, Prince, the Imperial Guard is immortal."
"I am the last of the first batch of Marshals," said the Prince.
"Listen, Hector. You do not know the extent of my attachment to you;
you shall see. On the day when I retire from office, we will go
together. But you are not a Deputy, my friend. Many men want your
place; but for me, you would be out of it by this time. Yes, I have
fought many a pitched battle to keep you in it.--Well, I grant you
your two requests; it would be too bad to see you riding the bar at
your age and in the position you hold. But you stretch your credit a
little too far. If this appointment gives rise to discussion, we shall
not be held blameless. I can laugh at such things; but you will find
it a thorn under your feet. And the next session will see your
dismissal. Your place is held out as a bait to five or six influential
men, and you have been enabled to keep it solely by the force of my
arguments. I tell you, on the day when you retire, there will be five
malcontents to one happy man; whereas, by keeping you hanging on by a
thread for two or three years, we shall secure all six votes. There
was a great laugh at the Council meeting; the Veteran of the Old
Guard, as they say, was becoming desperately wide awake in
parliamentary tactics! I am frank with you.--And you are growing gray;
you are a happy man to be able to get into such difficulties as these!
How long is it since I--Lieutenant Cottin--had a mistress?"
He rang the bell.
"That police report must be destroyed," he added.
"Monseigneur, you are as a father to me! I dared not mention my
anxiety on that point."
"I still wish I had Roger here," cried the Prince, as Mitouflet, his
groom of the chambers, came in. "I was just going to send for him!
--You may go, Mitouflet.--Go you, my dear old fellow, go and have the
nomination made out; I will sign it. At the same time, that low
schemer will not long enjoy the fruit of his crimes. He will be
sharply watched, and drummed out of the regiment for the smallest
fault.--You are saved this time, my dear Hector; take care for the
future. Do not exhaust your friends' patience. You shall have the
nomination this morning, and your man shall get his promotion in the
Legion of Honor.--How old are you now?"
"Within three months of seventy."
"What a scapegrace!" said the Prince, laughing. "It is you who deserve
a promotion, but, by thunder! we are not under Louis XV.!"
Such is the sense of comradeship that binds the glorious survivors of
the Napoleonic phalanx, that they always feel as if they were in camp
together, and bound to stand together through thick and thin.
"One more favor such as this," Hulot reflected as he crossed the
courtyard, "and I am done for!"
The luckless official went to Baron de Nucingen, to whom he now owed a
mere trifle, and succeeded in borrowing forty thousand francs, on his
salary pledged for two years more; the banker stipulated that in the
event of Hulot's retirement on his pension, the whole of it should be
devoted to the repayment of the sum borrowed till the capital and
interest were all cleared off.
This new bargain, like the first, was made in the name of Vauvinet, to
whom the Baron signed notes of hand to the amount of twelve thousand
francs.
On the following day, the fateful police report, the husband's charge,
the letters--all the papers--were destroyed. The scandalous promotion
of Monsieur Marneffe, hardly heeded in the midst of the July fetes,
was not commented on in any newspaper.
Lisbeth, to all appearance at war with Madame Marneffe, had taken up
her abode with Marshal Hulot. Ten days after these events, the banns
of marriage were published between the old maid and the distinguished
old officer, to whom, to win his consent, Adeline had related the
financial disaster that had befallen her Hector, begging him never to
mention it to the Baron, who was, as she said, much saddened, quite
depressed and crushed.
"Alas! he is as old as his years," she added.
So Lisbeth had triumphed. She was achieving the object of her
ambition, she would see the success of her scheme, and her hatred
gratified. She delighted in the anticipated joy of reigning supreme
over the family who had so long looked down upon her. Yes, she would
patronize her patrons, she would be the rescuing angel who would dole
out a livelihood to the ruined family; she addressed herself as
"Madame la Comtesse" and "Madame la Marechale," courtesying in front
of a glass. Adeline and Hortense should end their days in struggling
with poverty, while she, a visitor at the Tuileries, would lord it in
the fashionable world.
A terrible disaster overthrew the old maid from the social heights
where she so proudly enthroned herself.
On the very day when the banns were first published, the Baron
received a second message from Africa. Another Alsatian arrived,
handed him a letter, after assuring himself that he spoke to Baron
Hulot, and after giving the Baron the address of his lodgings, bowed
himself out, leaving the great man stricken by the opening lines of
this letter:--
"DEAR NEPHEW,--You will receive this letter, by my calculations,
on the 7th of August. Supposing it takes you three days to send us
the help we need, and that it is a fortnight on the way here, that
brings us to the 1st of September.
"If you can act decisively within that time, you will have saved
the honor and the life of yours sincerely, Johann Fischer.
"This is what I am required to demand by the clerk you have made
my accomplice; for I am amenable, it would seem, to the law, at
the Assizes, or before a council of war. Of course, you understand
that Johann Fischer will never be brought to the bar of any
tribunal; he will go of his own act to appear at that of God.
"Your clerk seems to me a bad lot, quite capable of getting you
into hot water; but he is as clever as any rogue. He says the line
for you to take is to call out louder than any one, and to send
out an inspector, a special commissioner, to discover who is
really guilty, rake up abuses, and make a fuss, in short; but if
we stir up the struggle, who will stand between us and the law?
"If your commissioner arrives here by the 1st of September, and
you have given him your orders, sending by him two hundred
thousand francs to place in our storehouses the supplies we
profess to have secured in remote country places, we shall be
absolutely solvent and regarded as blameless. You can trust the
soldier who is the bearer of this letter with a draft in my name
on a house in Algiers. He is a trustworthy fellow, a relation of
mine, incapable of trying to find out what he is the bearer of. I
have taken measures to guarantee the fellow's safe return. If you
can do nothing, I am ready and willing to die for the man to whom
we owe our Adeline's happiness!"
The anguish and raptures of passion and the catastrophe which had
checked his career of profligacy had prevented Baron Hulot's ever
thinking of poor Johann Fischer, though his first letter had given
warning of the danger now become so pressing. The Baron went out of
the dining-room in such agitation that he literally dropped on to a
sofa in the drawing-room. He was stunned, sunk in the dull numbness of
a heavy fall. He stared at a flower on the carpet, quite unconscious
that he still held in his hand Johann's fatal letter.
Adeline, in her room, heard her husband throw himself on the sofa,
like a lifeless mass; the noise was so peculiar that she fancied he
had an apoplectic attack. She looked through the door at the mirror,
in such dread as stops the breath and hinders motion, and she saw her
Hector in the attitude of a man crushed. The Baroness stole in on
tiptoe; Hector heard nothing; she went close up to him, saw the
letter, took it, read it, trembling in every limb. She went through
one of those violent nervous shocks that leave their traces for ever
on the sufferer. Within a few days she became subject to a constant
trembling, for after the first instant the need for action gave her
such strength as can only be drawn from the very wellspring of the
vital powers.
"Hector, come into my room," said she, in a voice that was no more
than a breath. "Do not let your daughter see you in this state! Come,
my dear, come!"
"Two hundred thousand francs? Where can I find them? I can get Claude
Vignon sent out there as commissioner. He is a clever, intelligent
fellow.--That is a matter of a couple of days.--But two hundred
thousand francs! My son has not so much; his house is loaded with
mortgages for three hundred thousand. My brother has saved thirty
thousand francs at most. Nucingen would simply laugh at me!--Vauvinet?
--he was not very ready to lend me the ten thousand francs I wanted to
make up the sum for that villain Marneffe's boy. No, it is all up with
me; I must throw myself at the Prince's feet, confess how matters
stand, hear myself told that I am a low scoundrel, and take his
broadside so as to go decently to the bottom."
"But, Hector, this is not merely ruin, it is disgrace," said Adeline.
"My poor uncle will kill himself. Only kill us--yourself and me; you
have a right to do that, but do not be a murderer! Come, take courage;
there must be some way out of it."
"Not one," said Hulot. "No one in the Government could find two
hundred thousand francs, not if it were to save an Administration!
--Oh, Napoleon! where art thou?"
"My uncle! poor man! Hector, he must not be allowed to kill himself in
disgrace."
"There is one more chance," said he, "but a very remote one.--Yes,
Crevel is at daggers drawn with his daughter.--He has plenty of money,
he alone could--"
"Listen, Hector it will be better for your wife to perish than to
leave our uncle to perish--and your brother--the honor of the family!"
cried the Baroness, struck by a flash of light. "Yes, I can save you
all.--Good God! what a degrading thought! How could it have occurred
to me?"
She clasped her hands, dropped on her knees, and put up a prayer. On
rising, she saw such a crazy expression of joy on her husband's face,
that the diabolical suggestion returned, and then Adeline sank into a
sort of idiotic melancholy.
"Go, my dear, at once to the War Office," said she, rousing herself
from this torpor; "try to send out a commission; it must be done. Get
round the Marshal. And on your return, at five o'clock, you will find
--perhaps--yes! you shall find two hundred thousand francs. Your
family, your honor as a man, as a State official, a Councillor of
State, your honesty--your son--all shall be saved;--but your Adeline
will be lost, and you will see her no more. Hector, my dear," said
she, kneeling before him, clasping and kissing his hand, "give me your
blessing! Say farewell."
It was so heart-rending that Hulot put his arms round his wife, raised
her and kissed her, saying:
"I do not understand."
"If you did," said she, "I should die of shame, or I should not have
the strength to carry out this last sacrifice."
"Breakfast is served," said Mariette.
Hortense came in to wish her parents good-morning. They had to go to
breakfast and assume a false face.
"Begin without me; I will join you," said the Baroness.
She sat down to her desk and wrote as follows:
"MY DEAR MONSIEUR CREVEL,--I have to ask a service of you; I shall
expect you this morning, and I count on your gallantry, which is
well known to me, to save me from having too long to wait for you.
--Your faithful servant,
"ADELINE HULOT."
"Louise," said she to her daughter's maid, who waited on her, "take
this note down to the porter and desire him to carry it at once to
this address and wait for an answer."
The Baron, who was reading the news, held out a Republican paper to
his wife, pointing to an article, and saying:
"Is there time?"
This was the paragraph, one of the terrible "notes" with which the
papers spice their political bread and butter:--
"A correspondent in Algiers writes that such abuses have been
discovered in the commissariate transactions of the province of
Oran, that the Law is making inquiries. The peculation is
self-evident, and the guilty persons are known. If severe measures
are not taken, we shall continue to lose more men through the
extortion that limits their rations than by Arab steel or the
fierce heat of the climate. We await further information before
enlarging on this deplorable business. We need no longer wonder at
the terror caused by the establishment of the Press in Africa, as
was contemplated by the Charter of 1830."
"I will dress and go to the Minister," said the Baron, as they rose
from table. "Time is precious; a man's life hangs on every minute."
"Oh, mamma, there is no hope for me!" cried Hortense. And unable to
check her tears, she handed to her mother a number of the _Revue des
Beaux Arts_.