Part 12

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_ Hector's decisiveness silenced his dejected wife. Adeline, lofty in the midst of all this ruin, had derived her courage from her perfect union with her husband; for she had dreamed of having him for her own, of the beautiful task of comforting him, of leading him back to family life, and reconciling him to himself.

"But, Hector, would you leave me to die of despair, anxiety, and alarms!" said she, seeing herself bereft of the mainspring of her strength.

"I will come back to you, dear angel--sent from Heaven expressly for me, I believe. I will come back, if not rich, at least with enough to live in ease.--Listen, my sweet Adeline, I cannot stay here for many reasons. In the first place, my pension of six thousand francs is pledged for four years, so I have nothing. That is not all. I shall be committed to prison within a few days in consequence of the bills held by Vauvinet. So I must keep out of the way until my son, to whom I will give full instructions, shall have bought in the bills. My disappearance will facilitate that. As soon as my pension is my own, and Vauvinet is paid off, I will return to you.--You would be sure to let out the secret of my hiding-place. Be calm; do not cry, Adeline --it is only for a month--"

"Where will you go? What will you do? What will become of you? Who will take care of you now that you are no longer young? Let me go with you--we will go abroad--" said she.

"Well, well, we will see," he replied.

The Baron rang and ordered Mariette to collect all his things and pack them quickly and secretly. Then, after embracing his wife with a warmth of affection to which she was unaccustomed, he begged her to leave him alone for a few minutes while he wrote his instructions for Victorin, promising that he would not leave the house till dark, or without her.

As soon as the Baroness was in the drawing-room, the cunning old man stole out through the dressing-closet to the anteroom, and went away, giving Mariette a slip of paper, on which was written, "Address my trunks to go by railway to Corbeil--to Monsieur Hector, cloak-room, Corbeil."

The Baron jumped into a hackney coach, and was rushing across Paris by the time Mariette came to give the Baroness this note, and say that her master had gone out. Adeline flew back into her room, trembling more violently than ever; her children followed on hearing her give a piercing cry. They found her in a dead faint; and they put her to bed, for she was seized by a nervous fever which held her for a month between life and death.

"Where is he?" was the only thing she would say.

Victorin sought for him in vain.

And this is why. The Baron had driven to the Place du Palais Royal. There this man, who had recovered all his wits to work out a scheme which he had premeditated during the days he had spent crushed with pain and grief, crossed the Palais Royal on foot, and took a handsome carriage from a livery-stable in the Rue Joquelet. In obedience to his orders, the coachman went to the Rue de la Ville l'Eveque, and into the courtyard of Josepha's mansion, the gates opening at once at the call of the driver of such a splendid vehicle. Josepha came out, prompted by curiosity, for her man-servant had told her that a helpless old gentleman, unable to get out of his carriage, begged her to come to him for a moment.

"Josepha!--it is I----"

The singer recognized her Hulot only by his voice.

"What? you, poor old man?--On my honor, you look like a twenty-franc piece that the Jews have sweated and the money-changers refuse."

"Alas, yes," replied Hulot; "I am snatched from the jaws of death! But you are as lovely as ever. Will you be kind?"

"That depends," said she; "everything is relative."

"Listen," said Hulot; "can you put me up for a few days in a servant's room under the roof? I have nothing--not a farthing, not a hope; no food, no pension, no wife, no children, no roof over my head; without honor, without courage, without a friend; and worse than all that, liable to imprisonment for not meeting a bill."

"Poor old fellow! you are without most things.--Are you also _sans culotte_?"

"You laugh at me! I am done for," cried the Baron. "And I counted on you as Gourville did on Ninon."

"And it was a 'real lady,' I am told who brought you to this," said Josepha. "Those precious sluts know how to pluck a goose even better than we do!--Why, you are like a corpse that the crows have done with --I can see daylight through!"

"Time is short, Josepha!"

"Come in, old boy, I am alone, as it happens, and my people don't know you. Send away your trap. Is it paid for?"

"Yes," said the Baron, getting out with the help of Josepha's arm.

"You may call yourself my father if you like," said the singer, moved to pity.

She made Hulot sit down in the splendid drawing-room where he had last seen her.

"And is it the fact, old man," she went on, "that you have killed your brother and your uncle, ruined your family, mortgaged your children's house over and over again, and robbed the Government till in Africa, all for your princess?"

Hulot sadly bent his head.

"Well, I admire that!" cried Josepha, starting up in her enthusiasm. "It is a general flare-up! It is Sardanapalus! Splendid, thoroughly complete! I may be a hussy, but I have a soul! I tell you, I like a spendthrift, like you, crazy over a woman, a thousand times better than those torpid, heartless bankers, who are supposed to be so good, and who ruin no end of families with their rails--gold for them, and iron for their gulls! You have only ruined those who belong to you, you have sold no one but yourself; and then you have excuses, physical and moral."

She struck a tragic attitude, and spouted:

"'Tis Venus whose grasp never parts from her prey.

And there you are!" and she pirouetted on her toe.

Vice, Hulot found, could forgive him; vice smiled on him from the midst of unbridled luxury. Here, as before a jury, the magnitude of a crime was an extenuating circumstance. "And is your lady pretty at any rate?" asked Josepha, trying as a preliminary act of charity, to divert Hulot's thoughts, for his depression grieved her.

"On my word, almost as pretty as you are," said the Baron artfully.

"And monstrously droll? So I have been told. What does she do, I say? Is she better fun than I am?"

"I don't want to talk about her," said Hulot.

"And I hear she has come round my Crevel, and little Steinbock, and a gorgeous Brazilian?"

"Very likely."

"And that she has got a house as good as this, that Crevel has given her. The baggage! She is my provost-marshal, and finishes off those I have spoiled. I tell you why I am so curious to know what she is like, old boy; I just caught sight of her in the Bois, in an open carriage --but a long way off. She is a most accomplished harpy, Carabine says. She is trying to eat up Crevel, but he only lets her nibble. Crevel is a knowing hand, good-natured but hard-headed, who will always say Yes, and then go his own way. He is vain and passionate; but his cash is cold. You can never get anything out of such fellows beyond a thousand to three thousand francs a month; they jib at any serious outlay, as a donkey does at a running stream.

"Not like you, old boy. You are a man of passions; you would sell your country for a woman. And, look here, I am ready to do anything for you! You are my father; you started me in life; it is a sacred duty. What do you want? Do you want a hundred thousand francs? I will wear myself to a rag to gain them. As to giving you bed and board--that is nothing. A place will be laid for you here every day; you can have a good room on the second floor, and a hundred crowns a month for pocket-money."

The Baron, deeply touched by such a welcome, had a last qualm of honor.

"No, my dear child, no; I did not come here for you to keep me," said he.

"At your age it is something to be proud of," said she.

"This is what I wish, my child. Your Duc d'Herouville has immense estates in Normandy, and I want to be his steward, under the name of Thoul. I have the capacity, and I am honest. A man may borrow of the Government, and yet not steal from a cash-box----"

"H'm, h'm," said Josepha. "Once drunk, drinks again."

"In short, I only want to live out of sight for three years--"

"Well, it is soon done," said Josepha. "This evening, after dinner, I have only to speak. The Duke would marry me if I wished it, but I have his fortune, and I want something better--his esteem. He is a Duke of the first water. He is high-minded, as noble and great as Louis XIV. and Napoleon rolled into one, though he is a dwarf. Besides, I have done for him what la Schontz did for Rochefide; by taking my advice he has made two millions.

"Now, listen to me, old popgun. I know you; you are always after the women, and you would be dancing attendance on the Normandy girls, who are splendid creatures, and getting your ribs cracked by their lovers and fathers, and the Duke would have to get you out of the scrape. Why, can't I see by the way you look at me that the _young_ man is not dead in you--as Fenelon put it.--No, this stewardship is not the thing for you. A man cannot be off with his Paris and with us, old boy, for the saying! You would die of weariness at Herouville."

"What is to become of me?" said the Baron, "for I will only stay here till I see my way."

"Well, shall I find a pigeon-hole for you? Listen, you old pirate. Women are what you want. They are consolation in all circumstances. Attend now.--At the end of the Alley, Rue Saint-Maur-du-Temple, there is a poor family I know of where there is a jewel of a little girl, prettier than I was at sixteen.--Ah! there is a twinkle in your eye already!--The child works sixteen hours a day at embroidering costly pieces for the silk merchants, and earns sixteen sous a day--one sou an hour!--and feeds like the Irish, on potatoes fried in rats' dripping, with bread five times a week--and drinks canal water out of the town pipes, because the Seine water costs too much; and she cannot set up on her own account for lack of six or seven thousand francs. Your wife and children bore you to death, don't they?--Besides, one cannot submit to be nobody where one has been a little Almighty. A father who has neither money nor honor can only be stuffed and kept in a glass case."

The Baron could not help smiling at these abominable jests.

"Well, now, Bijou is to come to-morrow morning to bring me an embroidered wrapper, a gem! It has taken six months to make; no one else will have any stuff like it! Bijou is very fond of me; I give her tidbits and my old gowns. And I send orders for bread and meat and wood to the family, who would break the shin-bones of the first comer if I bid them.--I try to do a little good. Ah! I know what I endured from hunger myself!--Bijou has confided to me all her little sorrows. There is the making of a super at the Ambigu-Comique in that child. Her dream is to wear fine dresses like mine; above all, to ride in a carriage. I shall say to her, 'Look here, little one, would you like to have a friend of--' How old are you?" she asked, interrupting herself. "Seventy-two?"

"I have given up counting."

"'Would you like an old gentleman of seventy-two?' I shall say. 'Very clean and neat, and who does not take snuff, who is as sound as a bell, and as good as a young man? He will marry you (in the Thirteenth Arrondissement) and be very kind to you; he will place seven thousand francs in your account, and furnish you a room all in mahogany, and if you are good, he will sometimes take you to the play. He will give you a hundred francs a month for pocket-money, and fifty francs for housekeeping.'--I know Bijou; she is myself at fourteen. I jumped for joy when that horrible Crevel made me his atrocious offers. Well, and you, old man, will be disposed of for three years. She is a good child, well behaved; for three or four years she will have her illusions--not for longer."

Hulot did not hesitate; he had made up his mind to refuse; but to seem grateful to the kind-hearted singer, who was benevolent after her lights, he affected to hesitate between vice and virtue.

"Why, you are as cold as a paving-stone in winter!" she exclaimed in amazement. "Come, now. You will make a whole family happy--a grandfather who runs all the errands, a mother who is being worn out with work, and two sisters--one of them very plain--who make thirty-two sous a day while putting their eyes out. It will make up for the misery you have caused at home, and you will expiate your sin while you are having as much fun as a minx at Mabille."

Hulot, to put an end to this temptation, moved his fingers as if he were counting out money.

"Oh! be quite easy as to ways and means," replied Josepha. "My Duke will lend you ten thousand francs; seven thousand to start an embroidery shop in Bijou's name, and three thousand for furnishing; and every three months you will find a cheque here for six hundred and fifty francs. When you get your pension paid you, you can repay the seventeen thousand francs. Meanwhile you will be as happy as a cow in clover, and hidden in a hole where the police will never find you. You must wear a loose serge coat, and you will look like a comfortable householder. Call yourself Thoul, if that is your fancy. I will tell Bijou that you are an uncle of mine come from Germany, having failed in business, and you will be cosseted like a divinity.--There now, Daddy!--And who knows! you may have no regrets. In case you should be bored, keep one Sunday rig-out, and you can come and ask me for a dinner and spend the evening here."

"I!--and I meant to settle down and behave myself!--Look here, borrow twenty thousand francs for me, and I will set out to make my fortune in America, like my friend d'Aiglemont when Nucingen cleaned him out."

"You!" cried Josepha. "Nay, leave morals to work-a-day folks, to raw 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.

The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot, to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron Verneuil. This important personage, while asserting that he had positively seen his old patron, and that his behaviour to the woman indicated an illicit establishment, told Madame Hulot that to avoid meeting him the Baron had left long before the end of the play.

"He looked like a man at home with the damsel, but his dress betrayed some lack of means," said he in conclusion.

"Well?" said the three women as the Baroness came towards them.

"Well, Monsieur Hulot is in Paris; and to me," said Adeline, "it is a gleam of happiness only to know that he is within reach of us."

"But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He has taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money from? I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle Jenny Cadine or Josepha."

The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered; she wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully up to heaven.

"I cannot think that a Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor will have fallen so low," said she.

"For his pleasure what would he not do?" said Lisbeth. "He robbed the State, he will rob private persons, commit murder--who knows?"

"Oh, Lisbeth!" cried the Baroness, "keep such thoughts to yourself."

At this moment Louise came up to the family group, now increased by the arrival of the two Hulot children and little Wenceslas to see if their grandmother's pockets did not contain some sweetmeats.

"What is it, Louise?" asked one and another.

"A man who wants to see Mademoiselle Fischer."

"Who is the man?" asked Lisbeth.

"He is in rags, mademoiselle, and covered with flue like a mattress-picker; his nose is red, and he smells of brandy.--He is one of those men who work half of the week at most."

This uninviting picture had the effect of making Lisbeth hurry into the courtyard of the house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, where she found a man smoking a pipe colored in a style that showed him an artist in tobacco.

"Why have you come here, Pere Chardin?" she asked. "It is understood that you go, on the first Saturday in every month, to the gate of the Hotel Marneffe, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I have just come back after waiting there for five hours, and you did not come."

"I did go there, good and charitable lady!" replied the mattress-picker. "But there was a game at pool going on at the Cafe des Savants, Rue du Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine is billiards. If it wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver plate. For, I tell you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.--It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.--If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the saying goes. He has His favorites--well, He has the right. Now, here is the writing of your estimable relative and my very good friend--his political opinion."

Chardin attempted to trace some zigzag lines in the air with the forefinger of his right hand.

Lisbeth, not listening to him, read these few words:

"DEAR COUSIN,--Be my Providence; give me three hundred francs this day.

"HECTOR."

"What does he want so much money for?"

"The lan'lord!" said Chardin, still trying to sketch arabesques. "And then my son, you see, has come back from Algiers through Spain and Bayonee, and, and--he has _found_ nothing--against his rule, for a sharp cove is my son, saving your presence. How can he help it, he is in want of food; but he will repay all we lend him, for he is going to get up a company. He has ideas, he has, that will carry him--"

"To the police court," Lisbeth put in. "He murdered my uncle; I shall not forget that."

"He--why, he could not bleed a chicken, honorable lady."

"Here are the three hundred francs," said Lisbeth, taking fifteen gold pieces out of her purse. "Now, go, and never come here again."

She saw the father of the Oran storekeeper off the premises, and pointed out the drunken old creature to the porter.

"At any time when that man comes here, if by chance he should come again, do not let him in. If he should ask whether Monsieur Hulot junior or Madame la Baronne Hulot lives here, tell him you know of no such persons."

"Very good, mademoiselle."

"Your place depends on it if you make any mistake, even without intending it," said Lisbeth, in the woman's ear.--"Cousin," she went on to Victorin, who just now came in, "a great misfortune is hanging over your head."

"What is that?" said Victorin.

"Within a few days Madame Marneffe will be your wife's stepmother."

"That remains to be seen," replied Victorin.

For six months past Lisbeth had very regularly paid a little allowance to Baron Hulot, her former protector, whom she now protected; she knew the secret of his dwelling-place, and relished Adeline's tears, saying to her, as we have seen, when she saw her cheerful and hopeful, "You may expect to find my poor cousin's name in the papers some day under the heading 'Police Report.'"

But in this, as on a former occasion, she let her vengeance carry her too far. She had aroused the prudent suspicions of Victorin. He had resolved to be rid of this Damocles' sword so constantly flourished over them by Lisbeth, and of the female demon to whom his mother and the family owed so many woes. The Prince de Wissembourg, knowing all about Madame Marneffe's conduct, approved of the young lawyer's secret project; he had promised him, as a President of the Council can promise, the secret assistance of the police, to enlighten Crevel and rescue a fine fortune from the clutches of the diabolical courtesan, whom he could not forgive either for causing the death of Marshal Hulot or for the Baron's utter ruin.

The words spoken by Lisbeth, "He begs of his former mistresses," haunted the Baroness all night. Like sick men given over by the physicians, who have recourse to quacks, like men who have fallen into the lowest Dantesque circle of despair, or drowning creatures who mistake a floating stick for a hawser, she ended by believing in the baseness of which the mere idea had horrified her; and it occurred to her that she might apply for help to one of those terrible women.

Next morning, without consulting her children or saying a word to anybody, she went to see Mademoiselle Josepha Mirah, prima donna of the Royal Academy of Music, to find or to lose the hope that had gleamed before her like a will-o'-the-wisp. At midday, the great singer's waiting-maid brought her in the card of the Baronne Hulot, saying that this person was waiting at the door, having asked whether Mademoiselle could receive her.

"Are the rooms done?"

"Yes, mademoiselle."

"And the flowers fresh?"

"Yes, mademoiselle."

"Just tell Jean to look round and see that everything is as it should be before showing the lady in, and treat her with the greatest respect. Go, and come back to dress me--I must look my very best."

She went to study herself in the long glass.

"Now, to put our best foot foremost!" said she to herself. "Vice under arms to meet virtue!--Poor woman, what can she want of me? I cannot bear to see.

"The noble victim of outrageous fortune!"

And she sang through the famous aria as the maid came in again.

"Madame," said the girl, "the lady has a nervous trembling--"

"Offer her some orange-water, some rum, some broth--"

"I did, mademoiselle; but she declines everything, and says it is an infirmity, a nervous complaint--"

"Where is she?"

"In the big drawing-room."

"Well, make haste, child. Give me my smartest slippers, the dressing-gown embroidered by Bijou, and no end of lace frills. Do my hair in a way to astonish a woman.--This woman plays a part against mine; and tell the lady--for she is a real, great lady, my girl, nay, more, she is what you will never be, a woman whose prayers can rescue souls from your purgatory--tell her I was in bed, as I was playing last night, and that I am just getting up."

The Baroness, shown into Josepha's handsome drawing-room, did not note how long she was kept waiting there, though it was a long half hour. This room, entirely redecorated even since Josepha had had the house, was hung with silk in purple and gold color. The luxury which fine gentlemen were wont to lavish on their _petites maisons_, the scenes of their profligacy, of which the remains still bear witness to the follies from which they were so aptly named, was displayed to perfection, thanks to modern inventiveness, in the four rooms opening into each other, where the warm temperature was maintained by a system of hot-air pipes with invisible openings.

The Baroness, quite bewildered, examined each work of art with the greatest amazement. Here she found fortunes accounted for that melt in the crucible under which pleasure and vanity feed the devouring flames. This woman, who for twenty-six years had lived among the dead relics of imperial magnificence, whose eyes were accustomed to carpets patterned with faded flowers, rubbed gilding, silks as forlorn as her heart, half understood the powerful fascinations of vice as she studied its results. It was impossible not to wish to possess these beautiful things, these admirable works of art, the creation of the unknown talent which abounds in Paris in our day and produces treasures for all Europe. Each thing had the novel charm of unique perfection. The models being destroyed, every vase, every figure, every piece of sculpture was the original. This is the crowning grace of modern luxury. To own the thing which is not vulgarized by the two thousand wealthy citizens whose notion of luxury is the lavish display of the splendors that shops can supply, is the stamp of true luxury --the luxury of the fine gentlemen of the day, the shooting stars of the Paris firmament.

As she examined the flower-stands, filled with the choicest exotic plants, mounted in chased brass and inlaid in the style of Boulle, the Baroness was scared by the idea of the wealth in this apartment. And this impression naturally shed a glamour over the person round whom all this profusion was heaped. Adeline imagined that Josepha Mirah --whose portrait by Joseph Bridau was the glory of the adjoining boudoir--must be a singer of genius, a Malibran, and she expected to see a real star. She was sorry she had come. But she had been prompted by a strong and so natural a feeling, by such purely disinterested devotion, that she collected all her courage for the interview. Besides, she was about to satisfy her urgent curiosity, to see for herself what was the charm of this kind of women, that they could extract so much gold from the miserly ore of Paris mud.

The Baroness looked at herself to see if she were not a blot on all this splendor; but she was well dressed in her velvet gown, with a little cape trimmed with beautiful lace, and her velvet bonnet of the same shade was becoming. Seeing herself still as imposing as any queen, always a queen even in her fall, she reflected that the dignity of sorrow was a match for the dignity of talent.

At last, after much opening and shutting of doors, she saw Josepha. The singer bore a strong resemblance to Allori's _Judith_, which dwells in the memory of all who have ever seen it in the Pitti palace, near the door of one of the great rooms. She had the same haughty mien, the same fine features, black hair simply knotted, and a yellow wrapper with little embroidered flowers, exactly like the brocade worn by the immortal homicide conceived of by Bronzino's nephew.

"Madame la Baronne, I am quite overwhelmed by the honor you do me in coming here," said the singer, resolved to play her part as a great lady with a grace.

She pushed forward an easy-chair for the Baroness and seated herself on a stool. She discerned the faded beauty of the woman before her, and was filled with pity as she saw her shaken by the nervous palsy that, on the least excitement, became convulsive. She could read at a glance the saintly life described to her of old by Hulot and Crevel; and she not only ceased to think of a contest with her, she humiliated herself before a superiority she appreciated. The great artist could admire what the courtesan laughed to scorn.

"Mademoiselle, despair brought me here. It reduces us to any means--"

A look in Josepha's face made the Baroness feel that she had wounded the woman from whom she hoped for so much, and she looked at her. Her beseeching eyes extinguished the flash in Josepha's; the singer smiled. It was a wordless dialogue of pathetic eloquence.

"It is now two years and a half since Monsieur Hulot left his family, and I do not know where to find him, though I know that he lives in Paris," said the Baroness with emotion. "A dream suggested to me the idea--an absurd one perhaps--that you may have interested yourself in Monsieur Hulot. If you could enable me to see him--oh! mademoiselle, I would pray Heaven for you every day as long as I live in this world--"

Two large tears in the singer's eyes told what her reply would be.

"Madame," said she, "I have done you an injury without knowing you; but, now that I have the happiness of seeing in you the most perfect virtue on earth, believe me I am sensible of the extent of my fault; I repent sincerely, and believe me, I will do all in my power to remedy it!"

She took Madame Hulot's hand and before the lady could do anything to hinder her, she kissed it respectfully, even humbling herself to bend one knee. Then she rose, as proud as when she stood on the stage in the part of _Mathilde_, and rang the bell.

"Go on horseback," said she to the man-servant, "and kill the horse if you must, to find little Bijou, Rue Saint-Maur-du-Temple, and bring her here. Put her into a coach and pay the coachman to come at a gallop. Do not lose a moment--or you lose your place.

"Madame," she went on, coming back to the Baroness, and speaking to her in respectful tones, "you must forgive me. As soon as the Duc d'Herouville became my protector, I dismissed the Baron, having heard that he was ruining his family for me. What more could I do? In an actress' career a protector is indispensable from the first day of her appearance on the boards. Our salaries do not pay half our expenses; we must have a temporary husband. I did not value Monsieur Hulot, who took me away from a rich man, a conceited idiot. Old Crevel would undoubtedly have married me--"

"So he told me," said the Baroness, interrupting her.

"Well, then, you see, madame, I might at this day have been an honest woman, with only one legitimate husband!"

"You have many excuses, mademoiselle," said Adeline, "and God will take them into account. But, for my part, far from reproaching you, I came, on the contrary, to make myself your debtor in gratitude--"

"Madame, for nearly three years I have provided for Monsieur le Baron's necessities--"

"You?" interrupted the Baroness, with tears in her eyes. "Oh, what can I do for you? I can only pray--"

"I and Monsieur le Duc d'Herouville," the singer said, "a noble soul, a true gentleman--" and Josepha related the settling and _marriage_ of Monsieur Thoul.

"And so, thanks to you, mademoiselle, the Baron has wanted nothing?"

"We have done our best to that end, madame."

"And where is he now?"

"About six months ago, Monsieur le Duc told me that the Baron, known to the notary by the name of Thoul, had drawn all the eight thousand francs that were to have been paid to him in fixed sums once a quarter," replied Josepha. "We have heard no more of the Baron, neither I nor Monsieur d'Herouville. Our lives are so full, we artists are so busy, that I really have not time to run after old Thoul. As it happens, for the last six months, Bijou, who works for me--his--what shall I say--?"

"His mistress," said Madame Hulot.

"His mistress," repeated Josepha, "has not been here. Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou is perhaps divorced. Divorce is common in the thirteenth arrondissement."

Josepha rose, and foraging among the rare plants in her stands, made a charming bouquet for Madame Hulot, whose expectations, it may be said, were by no means fulfilled. Like those worthy fold, who take men of genius to be a sort of monsters, eating, drinking, walking, and speaking unlike other people, the Baroness had hoped to see Josepha the opera singer, the witch, the amorous and amusing courtesan; she saw a calm and well-mannered woman, with the dignity of talent, the simplicity of an actress who knows herself to be at night a queen, and also, better than all, a woman of the town whose eyes, attitude, and demeanor paid full and ungrudging homage to the virtuous wife, the _Mater dolorosa_ of the sacred hymn, and who was crowning her sorrows with flowers, as the Madonna is crowned in Italy.

"Madame," said the man-servant, reappearing at the end of half an hour, "Madame Bijou is on her way, but you are not to expect little Olympe. Your needle-woman, madame, is settled in life; she is married--"

"More or less?" said Josepha.

"No, madame, really married. She is at the head of a very fine business; she has married the owner of a large and fashionable shop, on which they have spent millions of francs, on the Boulevard des Italiens; and she has left the embroidery business to her sister and mother. She is Madame Grenouville. The fat tradesman--"

"A Crevel?"

"Yes, madame," said the man. "Well, he has settled thirty thousand francs a year on Mademoiselle Bijou by the marriage articles. And her elder sister, they say, is going to be married to a rich butcher."

"Your business looks rather hopeless, I am afraid," said Josepha to the Baroness. "Monsieur le Baron is no longer where I lodged him."

Ten minutes later Madame Bijou was announced. Josepha very prudently placed the Baroness in the boudoir, and drew the curtain over the door.

"You would scare her," said she to Madame Hulot. "She would let nothing out if she suspected that you were interested in the information. Leave me to catechise her. Hide there, and you will hear everything. It is a scene that is played quite as often in real life as on the stage--"

"Well, Mother Bijou," she said to an old woman dressed in tartan stuff, and who looked like a porter's wife in her Sunday best, "so you are all very happy? Your daughter is in luck."

"Oh, happy? As for that!--My daughter gives us a hundred francs a month, while she rides in a carriage and eats off silver plate--she is a millionary, is my daughter! Olympe might have lifted me above labor. To have to work at my age? Is that being good to me?"

"She ought not to be ungrateful, for she owes her beauty to you," replied Josepha; "but why did she not come to see me? It was I who placed her in ease by settling her with my uncle."

"Yes, madame, with old Monsieur Thoul, but he is very old and broken--"

"But what have you done with him? Is he with you? She was very foolish to leave him; he is worth millions now."

"Heaven above us!" cried the mother. "What did I tell her when she behaved so badly to him, and he as mild as milk, poor old fellow? Oh! didn't she just give it him hot?--Olympe was perverted, madame?"

"But how?"

"She got to know a _claqueur_, madame, saving your presence, a man paid to clap, you know, the grand nephew of an old mattress-picker of the Faubourg Saint-Marceau. This good-for-naught, as all your good-looking fellows are, paid to make a piece go, is the cock of the walk out on the Boulevard du Temple, where he works up the new plays, and takes care that the actresses get a reception, as he calls it. First, he has a good breakfast in the morning; then, before the play, he dines, to be 'up to the mark,' as he says; in short, he is a born lover of billiards and drams. 'But that is not following a trade,' as I said to Olympe."

"It is a trade men follow, unfortunately," said Josepha.

"Well, the rascal turned Olympe's head, and he, madame, did not keep good company--when I tell you he was very near being nabbed by the police in a tavern where thieves meet. 'Wever, Monsieur Braulard, the leader of the claque, got him out of that. He wears gold earrings, and he lives by doing nothing, hanging on to women, who are fools about these good-looking scamps. He spent all the money Monsieur Thoul used to give the child.

"Then the business was going to grief; what embroidery brought in went out across the billiard table. 'Wever, the young fellow had a pretty sister, madame, who, like her brother, lived by hook and by crook, and no better than she should be neither, over in the students' quarter."

"One of the sluts at the Chaumiere," said Josepha.

"So, madame," said the old woman. "So Idamore, his name is Idamore, leastways that is what he calls himself, for his real name is Chardin --Idamore fancied that your uncle had a deal more money than he owned to, and he managed to send his sister Elodie--and that was a stage name he gave her--to send her to be a workwoman at our place, without my daughter's knowing who she was; and, gracious goodness! but that girl turned the whole place topsy-turvy; she got all those poor girls into mischief--impossible to whitewash them, saving your presence----

"And she was so sharp, she won over poor old Thoul, and took him away, and we don't know where, and left us in a pretty fix, with a lot of bills coming in. To this day as ever is we have not been able to settle up; but my daughter, who knows all about such things, keeps an eye on them as they fall due.--Then, when Idamore saw he had got hold of the old man, through his sister, you understand, he threw over my daughter, and now he has got hold of a little actress at the _Funambules_.--And that was how my daughter came to get married, as you will see--"

"But you must know where the mattress-picker lives?" said Josepha.

"What! old Chardin? As if he lived anywhere at all!--He is drunk by six in the morning; he makes a mattress once a month; he hangs about the wineshops all day; he plays at pools--"

"He plays at pools?" said Josepha.

"You do not understand, madame, pools of billiards, I mean, and he wins three or four a day, and then he drinks."

"Water out of the pools, I suppose?" said Josepha. "But if Idamore haunts the Boulevard, by inquiring through my friend Vraulard, we could find him."

"I don't know, madame; all this was six months ago. Idamore was one of the sort who are bound to find their way into the police courts, and from that to Melun--and the--who knows--?"

"To the prison yard!" said Josepha.

"Well, madame, you know everything," said the old woman, smiling. "Well, if my girl had never known that scamp, she would now be--Still, she was in luck, all the same, you will say, for Monsieur Grenouville fell so much in love with her that he married her--"

"And what brought that about?"

"Olympe was desperate, madame. When she found herself left in the lurch for that little actress--and she took a rod out of pickle for her, I can tell you; my word, but she gave her a dressing!--and when she had lost poor old Thoul, who worshiped her, she would have nothing more to say to the men. 'Wever, Monsieur Grenouville, who had been dealing largely with us--to the tune of two hundred embroidered China-crape shawls every quarter--he wanted to console her; but whether or no, she would not listen to anything without the mayor and the priest. 'I mean to be respectable,' said she, 'or perish!' and she stuck to it. Monsieur Grenouville consented to marry her, on condition of her giving us all up, and we agreed--"

"For a handsome consideration?" said Josepha, with her usual perspicacity.

"Yes, madame, ten thousand francs, and an allowance to my father, who is past work."

"I begged your daughter to make old Thoul happy, and she has thrown me over. That is not fair. I will take no interest in any one for the future! That is what comes of trying to do good! Benevolence certainly does not answer as a speculation!--Olympe ought, at least, to have given me notice of this jobbing. Now, if you find the old man Thoul within a fortnight, I will give you a thousand francs."

"It will be a hard task, my good lady; still, there are a good many five-franc pieces in a thousand francs, and I will try to earn your money."

"Good-morning, then, Madame Bijou." _

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