Cousin Bette

by Honoré de Balzac

  ‘If I began with a selfish motive,’ said Crevel, ‘I have become your own bow-wow since. You trample all over my feelings, crush me and humiliate me, and I love you as I have never loved anyone before. Valérie, I love you as much as I love Célestine! I would do anything for you.… Listen! Instead of coming twice a week to the rue Dauphin, come three times.’

  ‘Is that all? You are growing young again, my dear.…’

  ‘Let me send Hulot packing, take him down a peg, get rid of him for you,’ said Crevel, disregarding her insolence. ‘Don’t see that Brazilian again; be all mine and you will not regret it. To begin with, I’ll set apart shares for you worth eight thousand francs a year, but just for the interest at first; I’ll give you the capital only when you have been faithful to me for five years.’

  ‘There’s no end to these bargains! Shopkeepers will never learn to give! Do you want to set up relays of love for yourself throughout life with your transfers of shares?… Ah! shopkeeper, hair-oil seller that you are, you put a price-ticket on everything! Hector told me that the Duc d’Hérouville brought, Josépha bonds worth thirty thousand francs a year in a cornet of sugared almonds! And I’m worth six Joséphas! Ah! to be loved!’ she sighed, twisting her ringlets round her fingers and going to look at herself in the glass. ‘Henri loves me. He would kill you like a fly at a flicker of my eyelids! Hulot loves me – he leaves his wife destitute! Go away and be a good family man, my dear. Why, you have three hundred thousand francs just to play about with, over and above your fortune – a stack of money, in fact, and all you think of is how to make more.…’

  ‘For you, Valérie, for I offer you half of it!’ he said, falling on his knees.

  ‘Well, so you’re still here!’ cried the hideous Marneffe, appearing in his dressing-gown. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘He’s begging my pardon, my love, for an insulting proposal that he’s just made to me. As he couldn’t get anything from me, it occurred to Monsieur that he might buy me.…’

  Crevel would have liked to sink through the floor to the cellar, vanish through a trapdoor, as the trick is worked on the stage.

  ‘Get up, my dear Crevel,’ said Marneffe, grinning. ‘You look quite ridiculous. I can see from Valérie’s expression that I’m in no danger.’

  ‘Go to bed, and sleep well,’ said Madame Marneffe.

  ‘How quick-witted she is!’ thought Crevel. ‘She is adorable! She has saved my life!’

  When Marneffe had gone back to his room, the Mayor took Valérie’s hands in his and kissed them, leaving traces of tears there as he raised his head.

  ‘Everything in your own name!’ he said.

  ‘That is the way to love,’ she murmured in his ear. ‘Well, love for love. Hulot is below, in the street. The poor old fellow is waiting, hoping to come up when I place a candle at one of my bedroom windows. I give you permission to tell him that you are the only man I love. He will never dream of believing you, so take him to the rue du Dauphin, give him proofs, sink him without trace. I allow you – no, I command you to do it. That great walrus bores me, bores me to extinction. Keep your man close in the rue du Dauphin for the whole night, roast him over a slow fire, take your revenge for Josépha’s carrying off. It will perhaps be the death of Hulot, but we shall be saving his wife and children from utter ruin. You know that Madame Hulot is working for her living?…’

  ‘Oh, poor lady! Upon my word, that’s dreadful!’ exclaimed Crevel, his native good nature reviving.

  ‘If you love me, Célestin,’ she said in a whisper, lightly touching Crevel’s ear with her lips as she spoke, ‘keep him away, or I am lost. Marneffe is suspicious, and Hector has the key of the carriage entrance door and means to come back!’

  Crevel clasped Madame Marneffe in his arms, and left, walking on air. Valérie accompanied him fondly as far as the landing, and then like a woman magnetically attracted, unable to break free, followed him to the first floor, and on to the foot of the staircase.

  ‘My own Valérie, go upstairs again! Don’t compromise yourself in the porters’ eyes.… Go back, my life and my wealth, everything is for you.… Go back, my duchess!’

  ‘Madame Olivier!’ called Valérie softly when the door had closed behind him.

  ‘Why, Madame! You here?’ said Madame Olivier, in surprise.

  ‘Bolt the big door top and bottom, and don’t open it again.’

  ‘Very well, Madame.’

  When the door was bolted, Madame Olivier told the story of how the high official had stooped to trying to bribe her.

  ‘You have behaved angelically, dear Olivier; but we’ll talk about that tomorrow.’

  Valérie sped like an arrow to the third floor, tapped three times lightly on Lisbeth’s door, and returned to her own apartment, where she gave her instructions to Mademoiselle Reine; for a woman must do her best to seize her opportunities when a Montès comes back from Brazil.

  *

  ‘No, upon my soul, only a society lady could love like that!’ Crevel said to himself. ‘How she came down the stairs, a light beaming from her eyes, following me! I was drawing her after me! Why, Josépha never… Josépha! She’s only a common piece.…’ exclaimed the retired commercial traveller. ‘What did I say? a common piece…. Good God! I might come out with that one day at the Tuileries.… No, if Valérie doesn’t see to my education I can never amount to much – and I want so much to be a real gentleman.… Ah! what a woman! She upsets me just like a colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What spirit! I never had such emotions about Josépha. And then such hidden perfections! Ah, here’s my man.’

  He saw in the shadows of the rue de Babylon Hulot’s tall figure, a little stooped, skulking by the scaffolding of a half-built house, and he went straight up to him.

  ‘Good-morning, Baron, for it’s past midnight, old man! What the devil are you doing here?… You’re taking your walk on a nice fine drizzly evening. At our age that’s not a wise thing to do. Would you like me to give you a piece of good advice? Let’s both go home; for between ourselves, you will see no light in the window tonight.’

  On hearing Crevel’s last remark, the Baron was suddenly aware that he was sixty-three years old, and that his coat was damp.

  ‘Who can have told you?’ he said.

  ‘Valérie, of course! Our Valérie, who wants to be only my Valérie. We are game and game, Baron; we’ll play the final match whenever you like. You needn’t be angry, you know quite well that I always said that I was entitled to have my revenge. It took you three months to rob me of Josépha. I carried off Valérie in… well, never mind that. Now I want to have her all to myself. But we can remain good friends all the same.’

  ‘Crevel, don’t make jokes,’ the Baron said, in a voice choking with rage. ‘This is a matter of life and death.’

  ‘Goodness, how seriously you take it!… Baron, don’t you remember what you said to me on Hortense’s wedding day? “Why should two old beaux like us quarrel over a petticoat? It’s common, it’s ill-bred…” And we, we are agreed, are Regency, blue jerkins, Pompadour, eighteenth-century, everything that is most Maréchal de Richelieu, rococo, and I may go so far as to say, Liaisons dangereuses!…’

  Crevel might have gone on adding to his literary allusions for much longer; the Baron was listening to him as deaf men listen when deafness first comes upon them. But seeing, by the street gas-lamp, his enemy’s face grown pale, the victor stopped. It was a thunder-clap for the Baron, after Madame Olivier’s assurances, after Valérie’s parting look.

  ‘God! There were so many other women in Paris!…’ he exclaimed at last.

  ‘That’s what I said to you when you took Josépha from me,’ rejoined Crevel.

  ‘Look here, Crevel, it’s not possible.… Give me proof! Have you got a key, like me, to let yourself in?’

  And the Baron, now reaching the house, pushed a key into the lock; but he found the door immovable, and tried in vain to shake it.

  ‘Don’t make such a row here at nigh
t,’ said Crevel calmly. ‘Believe it or not, Baron, I have far better keys than yours.’

  ‘Prove it! Prove it’ the Baron reiterated, almost frantic with misery.

  ‘Come with me; I’m going to give you proof,’ replied Crevel.

  And in obedience to Valérie’s instructions, he led the Baron away towards the quay, along the rue Hillerin-Bertin. The unfortunate Councillor of State walked along like a businessman who next day must file his petition to the Bankruptcy Court. He lost himself in conjectures about the causes of the depravity hidden in Valérie’s heart, and dreamed that he must be the victim of some hoax. Crossing the pont Royal, he saw his existence as so empty, so completely ended, so entangled in financial snarls, that he all but yielded to a strong impulse to push Crevel into the river and throw himself in after.

  When they reached the rue du Dauphin, which at that time had not yet been widened, Crevel stopped before a door in the wall. This door opened on a long passage paved with black and white tiles, forming an entrance hall, at the end of which were a flight of steps and a porter’s lodge lighted by an inner courtyard, a lay-out common enough in Paris. This court, shared with the neighbouring house, was unusual in its unequal division. Crevel’s little house – for he was the owner – had an annexe with a glass roof, built on the adjoining land. The structure, which was restricted by order to its present height, was completely hidden from view by the lodge and the corbelling of the steps.

  This place had for a long time served as store-room, back premises, and kitchen for one of the two shops facing the street. Crevel had separated these three ground-floor rooms from the space let to the shop, and Grindot had transformed them into a snug little house. There were two entrances: through a furniture-dealer’s shop, let cheaply and by the month so that Crevel could easily get rid of the shopkeeper if he talked indiscreetly, and by a door set so inconspicuously in the passage wall as to be almost invisible. This little dwelling, consisting of a dining-room, a drawing-room, and a bedroom, lighted from above, standing partly on Crevel’s ground and partly on his neighbour’s, was therefore almost impossible to find. With the exception of the furniture-dealer, none of the tenants knew of the existence of this little paradise. The porter’s wife, who was paid to keep her mouth shut, was an excellent cook. Monsieur le Maire, then, could enter his neat little house and leave it at any hour of the night without fear of being spied upon. By day, a woman dressed as a Parisian dresses to do her shopping, and provided with a key, risked nothing by visiting Crevel. She could stop to consider a piece of second-hand furniture, haggle a little over prices, enter the shop or leave it, without arousing the slightest suspicion if anyone chanced to meet her.

  When Crevel had lit the candles in the boudoir, the Baron was quite astonished at the charming effect produced by an intelligent use of money. The retired perfumer had given Grindot a free hand, and the old architect had distinguished himself by the creation of an interior in Pompadour style, which, as a matter of fact, had cost sixty thousand francs.

  ‘I want,’ Crevel had said to Grindot, ‘a duchess coming in here to be impressed.…’

  He had wanted a most lovely Parisian Eden in which to enjoy his Eve, his society lady, his Valérie, his duchess.

  ‘There are two beds,’ Crevel told Hulot, pointing to a divan from which a bed could be drawn out, like a drawer from a chest of drawers. ‘There’s one; the other is in the bedroom. So we can both stay the night here.’

  ‘Proof!’ said the Baron.

  Crevel took a candlestick and led his friend into the bedroom, and there, on a sofa, Hulot saw a luxurious dressing-gown of Valérie’s, which she had worn at home in the rue Vanneau to show it off before bringing it to Crevel’s little house. The Mayor pulled out the secret drawer of a pretty little inlaid writing table, of the kind called bonheur-du-jour, rummaged in it, and found a letter which he handed to the Baron.

  ‘Here; read this.’

  The Councillor of State read the little pencilled note:

  I have waited for you in vain, wretched man! Women like me never wait for retired perfumers. No dinner had been ordered, and there were no cigarettes. I’ll make you pay for this!

  ‘Do you recognize her writing?’

  ‘God! said Hulot, sitting down, helplessly. ‘All these things are hers. I know her caps, her slippers. But, heavens above, tell me when… since when?’

  Crevel nodded understandingly and picked up a bundle of bills from the little inlaid desk.

  ‘Look, old chap! I paid the contractors in December 1838. This lovely little house was used for the first time in October, two months before.’

  The Councillor of State bowed his head.

  ‘How the devil do you manage it? I know how her time is spent, every hour of it.’

  ‘What about her walk in the Tuileries?’ said Crevel, rubbing his hands exultantly.

  ‘What about it?’ Hulot said, in bewilderment.

  ‘Your so-called mistress goes to the Tuileries; she’s supposed to be walking there from one o’clock to four. But hey presto! she’s here in a flash. You know your Molière? Well, Baron, there’s nothing imaginary about the title that applies to you.’*

  Hulot, not able to doubt any longer that it was all true, remained ominously silent. Catastrophes incline all strong and intelligent minds to philosophy; but the Baron was, in spirit, like a man trying to find his way through a forest at night. His dull silence, the change that had come over his drawn features, disturbed Crevel, for he did not want to cause his old fellow-sinner’s death.

  ‘As I was saying, old man, we are game-all now; let’s play off the deciding game. You want to finish the rubber, don’t you? May the wiliest man win!’

  ‘Why is it,’ said Hulot, as if to himself, ‘that out of ten beautiful women, at least seven are utterly bad?’

  The Baron was too upset to find an answer to the question. The power of beauty is the most compelling of all human powers; and power – with nothing to balance it, unchecked by any absolute control – leads to abuse, to mad excess. Despotism is power run mad; and for women gratifying their whims may involve a kind of despotism.

  ‘You have no need to be sorry for youself, my dear fellow. You have a very beautiful wife, and she is virtuous.’

  ‘I deserve my fate,’ Hulot said, in a low voice. ‘I have not appreciated my wife as I ought; I have made her suffer, and she’s an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline, truly you have been avenged! She is suffering in silence, alone; she deserves to be adored, she deserves my love. I should… for indeed she is still beautiful, so pale and innocent, so almost virginal again… But has ever a woman been seen more unspeakable, more shameless, more utterly wicked than that Valérie?’

  ‘She’s a bad lot,’ said Crevel, ‘a hussy who deserves to be whipped on the place du Châtelet. But, my dear Canillac,* though we may be blue jerkins, Maréchal de Richelieu, glasses of fashion, Pompadour, du Barry, rakes, profligates, and as eighteenth century as it is possible to be, we have no Lieutenant of Police any more.’

  ‘What does one do to make a woman love one?’ Hulot asked himself, paying no heed to Crevel.

  ‘It’s just a piece of silliness for us, for men like you and me, to want to be loved, old man,’ said Crevel. ‘We can’t be more than tolerated. And Madame Marneffe is a hundred times more of a wanton than Josépha.…’

  ‘And so grasping! She has cost me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs!’ exclaimed Hulot.

  ‘And how many centimes?’ asked Crevel, with the insolence of a man of capital, thinking the sum trifling.

  ‘It’s easy to see that you don’t love her,’ said the Baron, in a melancholy tone.

  ‘I’ve had enough,’ replied Crevel. ‘She’s had more than three hundred thousand francs from me.…’

  ‘Where is that money? Where does it all go?’ said the Baron, holding his head in his hands.

  ‘If we had made an arrangement between ourselves, like those hard-up young fellows who club together to keep a penny-farthi
ng prostitute, she would have cost us less.’

  ‘That’s an idea!’ replied the Baron. ‘But she would still have deceived us; for what, my stout friend, do you make of that Brazilian?’

  ‘Ah, indeed, old boy, you’re right! We’ve been spoofed like… like shareholders!’ said Crevel. ‘All women of her sort are limited liability companies!’

  ‘It was really she, was it,’ said the Baron, ‘who told you about the light in the window?’

  ‘My dear fellow,’ exclaimed Crevel, striking his pose, ‘we’ve been diddled! Valérie is a… She told me to keep you here… I see the whole thing now… She has her Brazilian there. Ah! I give her up, for if you held her hands, she would find some way of cheating you with her feet! She’s unspeakable! A real strumpet!’

  ‘She’s worse than the prostitutes,’ said the Baron. ‘Josépha, Jenny Cadine, had the right to deceive us. Their charms are their profession, after all!’

  ‘And she pretends to be a saint, a prude!’ said Crevel. ‘Look here, Hulot, go back to your wife. Your affairs are in none too good a state: people are beginning to talk about certain IOUS, held by a little money-lender called Vauvinet who specializes in lending to women of easy virtue. As for me, I’m cured of real ladies. Besides, at our age, what do we want of these hussies, who, to be quite candid, can hardly fail to deceive us? Your hair is white, Baron, and your teeth are false; and I look like Silenus. I’m going to devote my energies to making money. There’s no deception about money. The Treasury may be open to everyone every six months, but at least it gives you interest on what you lend, and doesn’t spend it, like that woman.… With you, dear friend Gubetta, my old partner in sin, I might have accepted a situation chocnoso… unseemly?… no, I mean arranged philosophically; but a Baron who, it may be, brings dubious colonial goods from his country.…’