recruits, to the _worrrthy_ citizens who have nothing to boast of but
their virtue. You! You were born to be something better than a
nincompoop; you are as a man what I am as a woman--a spendthrift of
genius."
"We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning."
"You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as
civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can
decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty,
we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep
it on as long as we can."
This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's
keenest pangs.
At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of
one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities
in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of
luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire
and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of
Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome.
Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face
which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary
with overwork--black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched
with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a
complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly
opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the
whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set
off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather
shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves. The girl, all
unconscious of her charms, had put on her best frock to wait on the
fine lady.
The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his
life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this
delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game; if
an emperor were present, he must take aim!
"And warranted sound," said Josepha in his ear. "An honest child, and
wanting bread. This is Paris--I have been there!"
"It is a bargain," replied the old man, getting up and rubbing his
hands.
When Olympe Bijou was gone, Josepha looked mischievously at the Baron.
"If you want things to keep straight, Daddy," said she, "be as firm as
the Public Prosecutor on the bench. Keep a tight hand on her, be a
Bartholo! Ware Auguste, Hippolyte, Nestor, Victor--_or_, that is gold,
in every form. When once the child is fed and dressed, if she gets the
upper hand, she will drive you like a serf.--I will see to settling
you comfortably. The Duke does the handsome; he will lend--that is,
give--you ten thousand francs; and he deposits eight thousand with his
notary, who will pay you six hundred francs every quarter, for I
cannot trust you.--Now, am I nice?"
"Adorable."
Ten days after deserting his family, when they were gathered round
Adeline, who seemed to be dying, as she said again and again, in a
weak voice, "Where is he?" Hector, under the name of Thoul, was
established in the Rue Saint-Maur, at the head of a business as
embroiderer, under the name of Thoul and Bijou.
Victorin Hulot, under the overwhelming disasters of his family, had
received the finishing touch which makes or mars the man. He was
perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a
ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its
heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his
too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his
political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman.
He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine--who certainly
did not realize his dreams--and was wise enough to estimate life at
its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second
best. He vowed to fulfil his duties, so much had he been shocked by
his father's example.
These feelings were confirmed as he stood by his mother's bed on the
day when she was out of danger. Nor did this happiness come single.
Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to
inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy
to go with him to see the Minister.
"His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs
with you."
The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a
friendliness that promised well.
"My dear fellow," said the old soldier, "I promised your uncle, in
this room, that I would take care of your mother. That saintly woman,
I am told, is getting well again; now is the time to pour oil into
your wounds. I have for you here two hundred thousand francs; I will
give them to you----"
The lawyer's gesture was worthy of his uncle the Marshal.
"Be quite easy," said the Prince, smiling; "it is money in trust. My
days are numbered; I shall not always be here; so take this sum, and
fill my place towards your family. You may use this money to pay off
the mortgage on your house. These two hundred thousand francs are the
property of your mother and your sister. If I gave the money to Madame
Hulot, I fear that, in her devotion to her husband, she would be
tempted to waste it. And the intention of those who restore it to you
is, that it should produce bread for Madame Hulot and her daughter,
the Countess Steinbock. You are a steady man, the worthy son of your
noble mother, the true nephew of my friend the Marshal; you are
appreciated here, you see--and elsewhere. So be the guardian angel of
your family, and take this as a legacy from your uncle and me."
"Monseigneur," said Hulot, taking the Minister's hand and pressing it,
"such men as you know that thanks in words mean nothing; gratitude
must be proven."
"Prove yours--" said the old man.
"In what way?"
"By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We
propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just
now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for
fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police;
and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments
will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and
will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in
obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom
on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no
national opposition!
"Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he
breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he
loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins,
d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie
have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their
charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent
work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character
who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence,
ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help
given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the
poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an
angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and
these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the
cost of her hackney coaches.
"You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still
assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's
is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized
scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know;
continue in it."
"Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend,"
said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes."
"Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way," added the
Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has
disappeared?"
"Alas! yes."
"So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which,
indeed, he is not lacking."
"There are bills of his to be met."
"Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in
advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out
of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps
may succeed in releasing your father's pension, pledged to him,
without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed
the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession.--I
know not what----"
So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan
of lodging his mother and sister under his roof.
The young lawyer, already famous, had, for his sole fortune, one of
the handsomest houses in Paris, purchased in 1834 in preparation for
his marriage, situated on the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and
the Rue Louis-le-Grand. A speculator had built two houses between the
boulevard and the street; and between these, with the gardens and
courtyards to the front and back, there remained still standing a
splendid wing, the remains of the magnificent mansion of the
Verneuils. The younger Hulot had purchased this fine property, on the
strength of Mademoiselle Crevel's marriage-portion, for one million
francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand
down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out
of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in
house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire,
depending on unforeseen circumstances.
As the Parisian lounger may have observed, the boulevard between the
Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand prospered but slowly; it
took so long to furbish and beautify itself, that trade did not set up
its display there till 1840--the gold of the money-changers, the
fairy-work of fashion, and the luxurious splendor of shop-fronts.
In spite of two hundred thousand francs given by Crevel to his
daughter at the time when his vanity was flattered by this marriage,
before the Baron had robbed him of Josepha; in spite of the two
hundred thousand francs paid off by Victorin in the course of seven
years, the property was still burdened with a debt of five hundred
thousand francs, in consequence of Victorin's devotion to his father.
Happily, a rise in rents and the advantages of the situation had at
this time improved the value of the houses. The speculation was
justifying itself after eight years' patience, during which the lawyer
had strained every nerve to pay the interest and some trifling amounts
of the capital borrowed.
The tradespeople were ready to offer good rents for the shops, on
condition of being granted leases for eighteen years. The dwelling
apartments rose in value by the shifting of the centre in Paris life
--henceforth transferred to the region between the Bourse and the
Madeleine, now the seat of the political power and financial authority
in Paris. The money paid to him by the Minister, added to a year's
rent in advance and the premiums paid by his tenants, would finally
reduce the outstanding debt to two hundred thousand francs. The two
houses, if entirely let, would bring in a hundred thousand francs a
year. Within two years more, during which the Hulots could live on his
salaries, added to by the Marshal's investments, Victorin would be in
a splendid position.
This was manna from heaven. Victorin could give up the first floor of
his own house to his mother, and the second to Hortense, excepting two
rooms reserved for Lisbeth. With Cousin Betty as the housekeeper, this
compound household could bear all these charges, and yet keep up a
good appearance, as beseemed a pleader of note. The great stars of the
law-courts were rapidly disappearing; and Victorin Hulot, gifted with
a shrewd tongue and strict honesty, was listened to by the Bench and
Councillors; he studied his cases thoroughly, and advanced nothing
that he could not prove. He would not hold every brief that offered;
in fact, he was a credit to the bar.
The Baroness' home in the Rue Plumet had become so odious to her, that
she allowed herself to be taken to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. Thus, by
her son's care, Adeline occupied a fine apartment; she was spared all
the daily worries of life; for Lisbeth consented to begin again,
working wonders of domestic economy, such as she had achieved for
Madame Marneffe, seeing here a way of exerting her silent vengeance on
those three noble lives, the object, each, of her hatred, which was
kept growing by the overthrow of all her hopes.
Once a month she went to see Valerie, sent, indeed, by Hortense, who
wanted news of Wenceslas, and by Celestine, who was seriously uneasy
at the acknowledged and well-known connection between her father and a
woman to whom her mother-in-law and sister-in-law owed their ruin and
their sorrows. As may be supposed, Lisbeth took advantage of this to
see Valerie as often as possible.
Thus, about twenty months passed by, during which the Baroness
recovered her health, though her palsied trembling never left her. She
made herself familiar with her duties, which afforded her a noble
distraction from her sorrow and constant food for the divine goodness
of her heart. She also regarded it as an opportunity for finding her
husband in the course of one of those expeditions which took her into
every part of Paris.
During this time, Vauvinet had been paid, and the pension of six
thousand francs was almost redeemed. Victorin could maintain his
mother as well as Hortense out of the ten thousand francs interest on
the money left by Marshal Hulot in trust for them. Adeline's salary
amounted to six thousand francs a year; and this, added to the Baron's
pension when it was freed, would presently secure an income of twelve
thousand francs a year to the mother and daughter.
Thus, the poor woman would have been almost happy but for her
perpetual anxieties as to the Baron's fate; for she longed to have him
with her to share the improved fortunes that smiled on the family; and
but for the constant sight of her forsaken daughter; and but for the
terrible thrusts constantly and _unconsciously_ dealt her by Lisbeth,
whose diabolical character had free course.
A scene which took place at the beginning of the month of March 1843
will show the results of Lisbeth's latent and persistent hatred, still
seconded, as she always was, by Madame Marneffe.
Two great events had occurred in the Marneffe household. In the first
place, Valerie had given birth to a still-born child, whose little
coffin had cost her two thousand francs a year. And then, as to
Marneffe himself, eleven months since, this is the report given by
Lisbeth to the Hulot family one day on her return from a visit of
discovery at the hotel Marneffe.
"This morning," said she, "that dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor
Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband
yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at
the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that
await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your
father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his good
news.
"When he came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a
dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will
be Madame Crevel!'--And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's
bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me,
'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy
an estate I have my eye on--Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to
sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of
Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I
have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your
daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too
much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has
never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs
as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have
squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's
fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act
as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their
conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice
to their stepmother, I will receive them. I am a man, after all!'--In
short, all this rhodomontade! And an attitude like Napoleon on the
column."
The ten months' widowhood insisted on by the law had now elapsed some
few days since. The estate of Presles was purchased. Victorin and
Celestine had that very morning sent Lisbeth to make inquiries as to
the marriage of the fascinating widow to the Mayor of Paris, now a
member of the Common Council of the Department of Seine-et-Oise.
Celestine and Hortense, in whom the ties of affection had been drawn
closer since they had lived under the same roof, were almost
inseparable. The Baroness, carried away by a sense of honesty which
led her to exaggerate the duties of her place, devoted herself to the
work of charity of which she was the agent; she was out almost every
day from eleven till five. The sisters-in-law, united in their cares
for the children whom they kept together, sat at home and worked. They
had arrived at the intimacy which thinks aloud, and were a touching
picture of two sisters, one cheerful and the other sad. The less happy
of the two, handsome, lively, high-spirited, and clever, seemed by her
manner to defy her painful situation; while the melancholy Celestine,
sweet and calm, and as equable as reason itself, might have been
supposed to have some secret grief. It was this contradiction,
perhaps, that added to their warm friendship. Each supplied the other
with what she lacked.
Seated in a little summer-house in the garden, which the speculator's
trowel had spared by some fancy of the builder's, who believed that he
was preserving these hundred feet square of earth for his own
pleasure, they were admiring the first green shoots of the
lilac-trees, a spring festival which can only be fully appreciated in
Paris when the inhabitants have lived for six months oblivious of what
vegetation means, among the cliffs of stone where the ocean of
humanity tosses to and fro.
"Celestine," said Hortense to her sister-in-law, who had complained
that in such fine weather her husband should be kept at the Chamber,
"I think you do not fully appreciate your happiness. Victorin is a
perfect angel, and you sometimes torment him."
"My dear, men like to be tormented! Certain ways of teasing are a
proof of affection. If your poor mother had only been--I will not say
exacting, but always prepared to be exacting, you would not have had
so much to grieve over."
"Lisbeth is not come back. I shall have to sing the song of
_Malbrouck_," said Hortense. "I do long for some news of Wenceslas!
--What does he live on? He has not done a thing these two years."
"Victorin saw him, he told me, with that horrible woman not long ago;
and he fancied that she maintains him in idleness.--If you only would,
dear soul, you might bring your husband back to you yet."
Hortense shook her head.
"Believe me," Celestine went on, "the position will ere long be
intolerable. In the first instance, rage, despair, indignation, gave
you strength. The awful disasters that have come upon us since--two
deaths, ruin, and the disappearance of Baron Hulot--have occupied your
mind and heart; but now you live in peace and silence, you will find
it hard to bear the void in your life; and as you cannot, and will
never leave the path of virtue, you will have to be reconciled to
Wenceslas. Victorin, who loves you so much, is of that opinion. There
is something stronger than one's feelings even, and that is Nature!"
"But such a mean creature!" cried the proud Hortense. "He cares for
that woman because she feeds him.--And has she paid his debts, do you
suppose?--Good Heaven! I think of that man's position day and night!
He is the father of my child, and he is degrading himself."
"But look at your mother, my dear," said Celestine.
Celestine was one of those women who, when you have given them reasons
enough to convince a Breton peasant, still go back for the hundredth
time to their original argument. The character of her face, somewhat
flat, dull, and common, her light-brown hair in stiff, neat bands, her
very complexion spoke of a sensible woman, devoid of charm, but also
devoid of weakness.
"The Baroness would willingly go to join her husband in his disgrace,
to comfort him and hide him in her heart from every eye," Celestine
went on. "Why, she has a room made ready upstairs for Monsieur Hulot,
as if she expected to find him and bring him home from one day to the
next."
"Oh yes, my mother is sublime!" replied Hortense. "She has been so
every minute of every day for six-and-twenty years; but I am not like
her, it is not my nature.--How can I help it? I am angry with myself
sometimes; but you do not know, Celestine, what it would be to make
terms with infamy."
"There is my father!" said Celestine placidly. "He has certainly
started on the road that ruined yours. He is ten years younger than
the Baron, to be sure, and was only a tradesman; but how can it end?
This Madame Marneffe has made a slave of my father; he is her dog; she
is mistress of his fortune and his opinions, and nothing can open his
eyes. I tremble when I remember that their banns of marriage are
already published!--My husband means to make a last attempt; he thinks
it a duty to try to avenge society and the family, and bring that
woman to account for all her crimes. Alas! my dear Hortense, such
lofty souls as Victorin and hearts like ours come too late to a
comprehension of the world and its ways!--This is a secret, dear, and
I have told you because you are interested in it, but never by a word
or a look betray it to Lisbeth, or your mother, or anybody, for--"
"Here is Lisbeth!" said Hortense. "Well, cousin, and how is the
Inferno of the Rue Barbet going on?"
"Badly for you, my children.--Your husband, my dear Hortense, is more
crazy about that woman than ever, and she, I must own, is madly in
love with him.--Your father, dear Celestine, is gloriously blind.
That, to be sure, is nothing; I have had occasion to see it once a
fortnight; really, I am lucky never to have had anything to do with
men, they are besotted creatures.--Five days hence you, dear child,
and Victorin will have lost your father's fortune."
"Then the banns are cried?" said Celestine.
"Yes," said Lisbeth, "and I have just been arguing your case. I
pointed out to that monster, who is going the way of the other, that
if he would only get you out of the difficulties you are in by paying
off the mortgage on the house, you would show your gratitude and
receive your stepmother--"
Hortense started in horror.
"Victorin will see about that," said Celestine coldly.
"But do you know what Monsieur le Maire's answer was?" said Lisbeth.
"'I mean to leave them where they are. Horses can only be broken in
by lack of food, sleep, and sugar.'--Why, Baron Hulot was not so bad
as Monsieur Crevel.
"So, my poor dears, you may say good-bye to the money. And such a fine
fortune! Your father paid three million francs for the Presles estate,
and he has thirty thousand francs a year in stocks! Oh!--he has no
secrets from me. He talks of buying the Hotel de Navarreins, in the
Rue du Bac. Madame Marneffe herself has forty thousand francs a year.
--Ah!--here is our guardian angel, here comes your mother!" she
exclaimed, hearing the rumble of wheels.
And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the
party. At fifty-five, though crushed by so many troubles, and
constantly trembling as if shivering with ague, Adeline, whose face
was indeed pale and wrinkled, still had a fine figure, a noble
outline, and natural dignity. Those who saw her said, "She must have
been beautiful!" Worn with the grief of not knowing her husband's
fate, of being unable to share with him this oasis in the heart of
Paris, this peace and seclusion and the better fortune that was
dawning on the family, her beauty was the beauty of a ruin. As each
gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank
into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair.