Cousin Bette

by Honoré de Balzac

  It was Bixiou, Léon de Lora, Lousteau, Florine, Mademoiselle Héloïse Brisetout, and Nathan, having supper one evening with the celebrated Carabine, with lots of lions and lionesses in the company, who had invented an exceedingly diverting explanation of his behaviour. Massol, as a learned Councillor of State, and Claude Vignon, in his capacity as an ex-professor of Greek, had related to the ignorant girls the famous anecdote, narrated in Rollin’s Ancient History, concerning Combabus, the voluntary Abelard appointed to guard the wife of a King of Assyria, Persia, Bactria, Mesopotamia, and other geographical regions particularly the province of old Professor du Bocage, d’Anville’s successor in the work of bringing the East of antiquity to life. The nickname, which set Carabine’s guests and boon companions laughing for a quarter of an hour, was the subject of a number of very unseemly jests in a symposium, to which the Académie might very probably not award a Montyon Prize, in which the name became, and remained, a crown set on the luxuriant mane of the handsome Baron, whom Josépha called a ‘magnificent Brazilian’, as one might speak of a ‘magnificent catoxantha’.

  Carabine, the most renowned of courtesans, with her refined beauty and ready wit had snatched the sceptre of the demimonde from the hands of Mademoiselle Turquet, better known as Malaga. Mademoiselle Séraphine Sinet, for that was her real name, stood in the same relation to the banker, du Tillet, as Josépha Mirah did to the Duc d’Hérouville.

  Now, at about seven o’clock on the morning of that day on which the beldame Saint-Estève had prophesied success to Victorin, Carabine had said to du Tillet:

  ‘If you were a nice man you would give a dinner for me at the Rocher de Cancale, and bring Combabus. We want to find out whether he has a mistress.… I have a bet on it, that he has, and I want to win.…’

  ‘He’s still staying at the Hôtel des Princes. I’ll call there,’ du Tillet answered. ‘We’ll have some fun. Invite the whole crowd – that lad Bixiou, Lora, all our set, in fact!’

  At half past seven, in the best private room of the restaurant which has seen the whole of Europe dine within its walls, the table glittered with a magnificent service of silver plate, designed and ordered for occasions when the bill was to be paid with Vanity’s banknotes. A blaze of light brought scintillating reflections from its chased surfaces. Waiters, whom a provincial visitor would have mistaken for diplomats but for their youth, stood about with the grave deportment of men who know themselves to be grossly overpaid.

  Five persons had arrived, and nine more were expected. First came Bixiou, the salt of every intellectual dish, still holding his place in 1843, with an arsenal of shafts of wit that were always original, a phenomenon as rare in Paris as virtue. Then Léon de Lora arrived, the greatest living painter of sea and landscape, who, unlike some of his rivals, has never let the standard of his later work fall below that of his earliest paintings. To the girls, these two kings of wit were indispensable. A supper, or dinner, or party without them was unthinkable.

  Séraphine Sinet, known as Carabine, in her capacity as acknowledged mistress of the Amphitryon of the party, was among the first to arrive, and stood radiant under the floods of light, her face roguish above her dazzling shoulders, the loveliest in Paris, her neck looking as if it had been turned on a lathe, it was so smooth! She was wearing a gown of satin brocade in two shades of blue, trimmed with enough English lace to keep a village supplied with food for a month. Pretty Jenny Cadine, who was not playing this evening, and who is too well known to need description, arrived in a fabulous gown. For these ladies a party is always a Longchamps of fashion at which each endeavours to carry off the prize for her millionaire, saying in this way to her rivals:

  ‘The most discriminating judges award a Gold Cup to me!’

  A third woman, evidently just beginning her career, was observing the splendid array of her two rich, established, companions, and looking rather abashed. She was simply dressed in white cashmere with blue lace, and had had her hair piled up and adorned with flowers by a back-street hairdresser, whose prentice hand had, without meaning to, lent a charming silliness to the masses of her lovely fair hair. Still feeling awkward in her evening dress, she had, in the well-worn phrase, ‘the shyness inseparable from a first appearance’. She had come from Valognes to find a market in Paris for a freshness to make any rival despair, an ingenuous candour that might stir desire in a dying man, and a beauty equal to that of any of the lovely girls from Normandy who fill the various theatres of the capital. The lines of her unblemished face had the ideal purity of angels’ faces. Her milky skin reflected the light like a mirror. The subtle colour seemed to have been laid upon her cheeks by an artist’s brush. She was called Cydalise; and, as will appear, was a necessary pawn in the game of ‘Ma’am Nourrisson’ against Madame Marneffe.

  ‘Your arms don’t go with your name, child,’ Jenny Cadine had said when Carabine, who had brought her, introduced this sixteen-year-old masterpiece. And it was true that the finetextured skin of Cydalise’s arms, now displayed to public admiration, was reddened by the vigorous surge of country blood.

  ‘How much is she worth?’ Jenny Cadine asked Carabine, under her breath.

  ‘A fortune.’

  ‘What do you mean to make of her?’

  ‘Why, Madame Combabus!’

  ‘And what are you going to get out of it?’

  ‘Guess!’

  ‘A silver service?’

  ‘I have three already!’

  ‘Diamonds?’

  ‘I have diamonds galore.…’

  ‘A green monkey?’

  ‘No, a picture by Raphael!’

  ‘What crazy fancy have you got in your head?’

  ‘Josépha bores me to the marrow with her pictures,’ answered Carabine. ‘And I want to have far finer ones than she has.…’

  Du Tillet came in with the guest of honour, the Brazilian. The Duc d’Hérouville followed with Josépha. The singer wore a simple velvet dress; but a necklace worth a hundred and twenty thousand francs gleamed on her neck, its pearls almost indistinguishable from her camellia-petal skin. She had placed one red camellia (a beauty patch!) among her dark tresses, with dazzling effect, and had amused herself by setting eleven rows of pearls, one above the other, on each arm. She came up to shake hands with Jenny Cadine, and Jenny said:

  ‘Oh, do lend me your mittens!’

  Josépha unfastened her bracelets and presented them to her friend on a plate.

  ‘What style!’ said Carabine. ‘Just like a duchess! Did you ever see so many pearls? Did you plunder the whole sea to deck this girl, Monsieur le Duc?’ she added, turning to the little Duc d’Hérouville.

  The actress took just two bracelets, clasped the twenty others on the singer’s lovely arms, and set a kiss above them.

  Lousteau, the literary sponge, La Palférine and Malaga, Massol and Vauvinet, and Théodore Gaillard, a proprietor of one of the leading political newspapers, completed the party. The Duc d’Hérouville, whose polished aristocratic courtesy was shown to everyone alike, gave the Comte de La Palférine that special nod which, without implying any particular esteem or intimacy, proclaims to the world: ‘We belong to the same class, the same breed. We are equals!’ That greeting, the aristocratic shibboleth, was created to be the despair of intellectuals and upper-middle-class climbers.

  Carabine placed Combabus on her left, and the Duc d’Hérouville on her right. Cydalise sat on the Brazilian’s left, with Bixiou on her other side. Malaga took her place beside the Duke.

  At seven o’clock they attacked the oysters. At eight, between two courses, they were sipping iced punch. Everyone knows the menu of these parties. At nine there was the babble of talk to be expected after the consumption of forty-two bottles of different wines shared among fourteen people. Dessert, the wretched dessert of the month of April, was on the table. The heady atmosphere had affected only the girl from Normandy, who was humming a carol. With the exception of that poor child, no one had lost full use of his faculties, for the men ther
e, and the women, were the élite of Paris diners-out. Wit struck sparks, eyes were brilliant but remained full of intelligence, and tongues turned to satire, anecdote, and indiscreet sallies. The conversation – that had followed the usual round: racecourses and horses, the stock exchange, the comparative merits of social stars, and current scandal – threatened to grow intimate, to break the company up into little groups of two kindred souls.

  It was then, following meaning glances from Carabine at Léon de Lora, Bixiou, La Palférine, and du Tillet, that the subject of love was introduced.

  ‘Correct doctors never talk medicine, aristocrats never discuss their blue blood, talented people never talk about their works,’ said Josépha; ‘so why should we talk shop?… I’ve had the Opera performance cancelled to be here, and I’m certainly not going to work now. So let’s not have any stage attitudinizing, dear friends.’

  ‘They’re talking about real love, my sweet!’ said Malaga. ‘The kind of love that swallows up a man, makes him send his father and mother, wife and children, to the bottom, and himself to finish up in Clichy.…’

  ‘Well, you may tell us all about it, then!’ returned the singer. ‘I don’t know no such creature!’

  I don’t know no such creature!… A phrase picked up from the Paris guttersnipes, on a courtesan’s lips, with her eyes and expression to give it beauty, can be a whole poem.

  ‘So I don’t love you, Josépha?’ said the Duke, in a low voice.

  ‘Perhaps you do truly love me,’ the singer answered in a whisper, smiling; ‘but I haven’t the kind of emotion they are talking about, love that makes the entire universe dark without the beloved one. I am very fond of you, and you are so useful to me.… But you are not indispensable; and if you deserted me tomorrow, I should exchange one duke for three.…’

  ‘Does love exist in Paris?’ said Léon de Lora. ‘There’s no time even to make a living here, so how can anyone give himself up to real love, which takes hold of a man as water takes hold of sugar? You have to be enormously rich to fall in love, for love annihilates a man, as, for instance, it seems to have done to our Brazilian friend. It’s just as I have always said, extremes meet! A true lover is like a eunuch; there are no longer any women on earth for him! He is a mystery; he’s like a true Christian, solitary in his desert hermitage! Rather like this gallant Brazilian!…’

  The whole table turned to look at Henri Montès de Montejanos, who was embarrassed to find himself the centre of attention.

  ‘He’s been sitting there for the past hour like an ox in a field, as unaware as any ox would be that he has sitting beside him… in this company I can’t say the most beautiful woman, but the freshest woman in Paris.’

  ‘Everything is fresh here, even the fish. That’s what this place is noted for,’ said Carabine.

  Baron Montes de Montejanos looked at the landscape painter amicably, and said:

  ‘Very good! Your good health!’

  And he bowed to Léon de Lora, raised his glass of port, and drank with ceremonial gravity.

  ‘So you are really in love?’ Carabine said to her neighbour, interpreting the toast in her own fashion.

  The Brazilian Baron refilled his glass, bowed to Carabine, and repeated the toast.

  ‘To Madame’s health!’ the courtesan repeated, with such a droll intonation that du Tillet, Bixiou, and the landscape painter burst out laughing.

  The Baron remained as inscrutable as a bronze statue. His self-possession vexed Carabine. She knew perfectly well that Montès was in love with Madame Marneffe; but she had not expected this uncompromising fidelity, this determined silence, the attitude of a man with no doubts in his mind. A woman gains esteem by her lover’s regard for her, just as a lover does by his mistress’s bearing. Proud of loving Valérie, and being loved by her, the Baron seemed to smile a little ironically at these experienced connoisseurs. He looked superbly handsome; wine had not altered his colour, and his eyes, with their peculiar golden-brown brilliancy, guarded his soul’s secrets. And in her own mind Carabine said:

  ‘What a woman! How closely she has sealed that heart of yours!’

  ‘He’s a rock!’ said Bixiou, under his breath. He thought the whole thing was a joke, and had no suspicion of the importance attached by Carabine to the demolition of the fortress.

  While this conversation, apparently so frivolous, was going on on Carabine’s right, on her left the discussion about love continued between the Duc d’Hérouville, Lousteau, Josépha, Jenny Cadine, and Massol. They were considering whether this rare phenomenon were the product of passion, obstinacy, or infatuation. Josépha, completely bored by all this theory-spinning, was anxious to change the subject.

  ‘You’re talking of something you know absolutely nothing about! Is there a single person here who has ever loved a woman, and a woman quite unworthy of him, enough to run through all his money and his children’s money for her, to pawn his future and tarnish his past, risk prison hulks for robbing the state, to kill an uncle and a brother, and let the wool be pulled over his eyes so completely that it never even occurs to him that he is being blindfolded to prevent him from seeing the abyss into which he is being pushed as a crowning jest? Du Tillet has a cash-box under his left breast; Léon de Lora keeps wit there; Bixiou would think himself a fool to care for anyone but himself; Massol has a Minister’s portfolio for a heart; Lousteau has nothing there but a stomach, or he could never have let Madame de la Baudraye leave him; Monsieur le Duc is too rich to be able to prove his love by ruining himself; Vauvinet does not count, because I can’t think a moneylender really a member of the human race. So none of you has ever loved, and neither have I, nor has Jenny, nor Carabine.… For my part, I have seen the phenomenon I’ve been describing only once. It was our poor Baron Hulot,’ she said, turning to Jenny Cadine; ‘and I’m advertising for him as if he were a lost dog, for I want to find him.’

  ‘Well, well!’ said Carabine to herself, looking at Josépha out of the corners of her eyes. ‘Can Madame Nourrisson have two Raphael pictures, or what’s making Josépha play my game?’

  ‘Poor fellow!’ said Vauvinet. ‘He was a fine man, very impressive. He carried himself with such dignity, such style! He looked like François I. What a volcano he was! And so ingenious, with a real talent for getting hold of money! Wherever he is, he must be looking for money now; and he’s quite capable of finding it too, extracting it from those walls of bones you see on the outskirts of Paris, near the city gates, where he is probably hiding.…’

  ‘And all that,’ said Bixiou, ‘for that little Madame Marneffe! There’s a sly baggage, if ever there was one!’

  ‘She’s going to marry my friend Crevell’ observed du Tillet.

  ‘And she’s crazy about my friend Steinbock!’ added Léon de Lora.

  These three remarks were three pistol-shots that struck Montès full in the chest. He turned pale, so shocked that he stumbled to his feet with some difficulty.

  ‘You utter swine!’ he said. ‘How can you dare even speak an honourable lady’s name in the same breath with all your fallen women, much less make her a target for your slanders?’

  Shouts of ‘Bravo!’ and applause from all sides cut Montès short. Bixiou, Léon de Lora, Vauvinet, du Tillet, and Massol gave the signal, and a chorus followed.

  ‘Long live the Emperor!’ said Bixiou.

  ‘Give him a crown!’ exclaimed Vauvinet.

  ‘Groans for Médor, hurrah for Brazil!’ cried Lousteau.

  ‘Ah! my copper Baron, so you love our Valérie?’ said Léon de Lora. ‘Does it not make you sick?’

  ‘What he said was not exactly parliamentary, but it was magnificent!’ observed Massol.

  ‘But my dear honoured client, you’re under my wing as your banker. Your innocence is going to damage my reputation!’

  ‘Ah, tell me – you are a reasonable man…’ the Brazilian implored du Tillet.

  ‘Thank you, on behalf of the company,’ said Bixiou, bowing.

  ‘Tell me, is th
ere any truth in this at all?…’ Montés went on, taking no notice of Bixiou’s interruption.,

  ‘Well,’ replied du Tillet, ‘I have the honour to inform you that I am invited to Crevel’s wedding.’

  ‘Ah! Combabus takes on the defence of Madame Marneffe!’ said Josépha, rising solemnly.

  She moved with an air of mock tragedy towards Montès, gave him a friendly little pat on the head, regarded him for a moment with a comical expression of admiration, and shook her head.

  ‘Hulot is my first example of love through hell and high water; behold the second!’ she said. ‘But we really shouldn’t count him, because he comes from the tropics!’

  As Josépha gently tapped his forehead, the Brazilian sank back into his chair again and looked in appeal towards du Tillet.

  ‘If I am the victim of one of your Paris jokes,’ he said; ‘if you have done this to induce me to give away my secret…’ – and his stare ringed the table with flame, transfixing the circle of guests with eyes behind which the fires of a Brazilian sun were blazing –‘… for God’s sake, tell me so,’ he concluded, in almost childish supplication, ‘but do not blacken the name of the woman I love.…’

  ‘Well, then!’ Carabine said in a low voice, in reply. ‘Supposing it’s true that you have been shamefully betrayed, tricked, and deceived by Valérie, and I give you proofs of it, within an hour, at my house, what will you do?’

  ‘I can’t tell you here, before all these lagos…’ said the Brazilian baron.

  Carabine thought he said magots – apes.

  ‘Ah, hush!’ she answered, smiling. ‘Don’t give darts they can turn against you to the wittiest men in Paris. Come home with me, and we can talk.’

  Montès was shattered.

  ‘Proofs!’ he stammered. ‘Consider…’

  ‘You shall have only too many, answered Carabine; ‘and if the mere suspicion affects you like this, I fear for your reason.…’

  ‘He isn’t half obstinate, this fellow; he’s worse than the late King of Holland. See here, Lousteau, Bixiou, Massol – listen all of you. Aren’t you all invited to lunch by Madame Mar-neffe the day after tomorrow?’ demanded Léon de Lora.