’Listen Monsieur Crevel,’ continued the Baroness, whose mood was too serious to permit of laughter. ‘You are 50 years old. That’s ten years less than Monsieur Hulot, I know. But, at my age, a woman’s folly has to be justified by good looks, or youth, or fame, or ability, or some of the brilliance that dazzles us to such an extent that we forget everything, even our age. You may have an income of fifty thousand livres, but your age outweighs your fortune. So, of everything that a woman requires, you possess nothing at all.’
‘And love?’ said the National Guardsman, rising and going towards her. ‘A love which …’
‘No, Monsieur, obstinacy!’ said the Baroness, interrupting him so as to put an end to this absurd situation.
‘Yes, obstinacy and love,’ he went on, ‘but also something better, rights …’
‘Rights?’ exclaimed Madame Hulot, who was sublime in her scorn, defiance, and indignation. ‘But’, she continued in the same tone, ‘this is a futile discussion and I didn’t ask you to come here to talk about a subject which has made me forbid you the house in spite of the connection between our two families.’
‘I thought you had …’
‘Again!’ she went on. ‘Don’t you see, Monsieur, from the free and unconcerned way I speak of lovers and love, of everything that is most improper for a woman, that I am absolutley sure of remaining virtuous? I am not afraid of anything, not even of arousing suspicion by being closeted alone with you. Is that the way a weak woman would behave? You know quite well why I asked you to come.’
‘No, Madame,’ replied Crevel, assuming a cold manner.
He pursed his lips and took up his pose again.
‘Well, I’ll be brief, so as to cut short our mutual ordeal,’ said the Baroness, looking at Crevel.
Crevel made an ironic bow, in which a fellow tradesman would have recognized the airs and graces of a former commercial traveller.
‘Our son has married your daughter … ‘
‘And if that were to be done again! …’ said Crevel.
‘The marriage would not take place,’ replied the Baroness quickly. ‘I don’t doubt it. Yet you’ve nothing to complain of. My son is not only one of the leading lawyers in Paris, but he’s also been a deputy for a year now and his début at the Chamber* has been outstanding enough to lead one to suppose that before long he will be a minister. Victorin has twice been appointed government spokesman for important bills, and if he wanted to he could become a public prosecutor in the Court of Appeal today. So if you are implying that you have a son-in-law with no money …’
‘A son-in-law whom I have to support,’ continued Crevel, ‘and that seems worse to me, Madame. Of the five hundred thousand francs which were my daughter’s dowry, two hundred have gone, goodness knows where! … to pay the debts of Monsieur, your son, to furnish his house in outlandish style, a house costing five hundred thousand francs but bringing in barely fifteen hundred since he occupies the greater part of it, and on which he owes two hundred and sixty thousand francs…. The rent he gets barely covers the interest on the debt. This year I am giving my daughter about twenty thousand francs so that she can make ends meet. And my son-in-law, who they said was earning thirty thousand francs at the law-courts, is going to desert the law courts for the Chamber of Deputies …’
‘This, Monsieur Crevel, is still not the main purpose of our meeting and takes us off the point. But to finish with that matter, if my son becomes a government minister and has you appointed an Officer of the Legion of Honour and a councillor of the Paris prefecture,* for a former perfumer you have no cause for complaint! …’
‘Ah, there we are, Madame. I am a grocer, a shopkeeper, a former dealer in almond paste, Portuguese water, and cephalic oil. I ought to think myself very honoured to have married my only daughter to the son of Monsieur le Baron Hulot d’Ervy. My daughter will be a baroness. It’s like the days of the Regency,* of Louis XV, of the eighteenth century. That’s all very fine. … I love Célestine as one loves an only daughter. I have accepted all the difficulties of being a widower in Paris (and in the prime of life, Madame!). But let me tell you that in spite of my excessive love for my daughter, I won’t cut into my fortune for your son, whose expenses are not clear to me, to me, a former tradesman …’
‘Monsieur, at this very moment, Monsieur Popinot, a former chemist of the Rue des Lombards, is Minister of Trade.’
‘A friend of mine, Madame! …’ said the retired perfumer. ‘For I, Célestin Crevel, formerly old César Birotteau’s* head salesman, I bought the business of said Birotteau, Popinot’s father-in-law, Popinot being then a junior salesman in the establishment. And it is he who reminds me of that, for he’s not proud (to do him justice) with people in a good position who have an income of sixty thousand francs.’
‘Well, Monsieur, so the ideas that you call Regency are no longer appropriate in an age when men are accepted for their personal qualities. And that’s what you’ve done in marrying your daughter to my son …’
‘You don’t know how this marriage was arranged,’ exclaimed Crevel. ‘Oh, this accursed bachelor life! But for my dissipations, my Célestine would today be Viscountess Popinot!’
‘But let us not recriminate about what has been done,’ continued the Baroness firmly. ‘Let us talk of the cause for complaint which your strange behaviour has given me. My daughter, Hortense, could have married. The marriage depended entirely on you. I thought you had generous feelings. I thought you would have been fair to a woman who kept in her heart no image but her husband’s, that you would have realized that she could not receive a man who might compromise her, and that you would have done your best, out of respect for the family to which you allied yourself, to promote Hortense’s marriage to Councillor Lebas…. And you, Monsieur, you caused this marriage to fall through …’
‘Madame,’ replied the former perfumer, ‘I behaved as an honest man. I was asked if Mademoiselle Hortense’s dowry of two hundred thousand livres would be paid. These were the words of my reply: “I wouldn’t vouch for it. My son-in-law, to whom the Hulot family agreed to give that amount as a dowry, had debts, and I think that if Monsieur Hulot d’Ervy were to die tomorrow, his widow would be penniless.” That’s what I said, dear lady.’
‘Would you have spoken like that, Monsieur, if for your sake I had failed in my duty?’ asked Madame Hulot, looking steadily at Crevel.
‘I would not have had the right to, dear Adeline,’ exclaimed the strange lover, interrupting the Baroness, ‘for you would have found the dowry in my wallet.’
And backing up his words with action, the portly Crevel went down on one knee and kissed Madame Hulot’s hand, mistaking her speechless horror at these words for hesitation.
‘To buy my daughter’s happiness at the price of … Oh, get up, Monsieur, or I shall ring.’
The former perfumer got up with great difficulty. This infuriated him so much that he took up his pose again. Nearly all men assume a posture which they think will show off the advantages with which nature has endowed them. With Crevel, this attitude consisted of crossing his arms like Napoleon, turning his head three-quarters round, and looking towards the horizon as the painter made Napoleon do in his portrait.
‘To remain faithful to a libert …’ he said with well-simulated rage.
‘To a husband, Monsieur, who is worthy of it,’ replied Madame Hulot, interrupting Crevel so as not to let him utter a word that she did not want to hear.
‘Look, Madame, you wrote asking me to come. You want to know the reasons for my behaviour. You exasperate me with your imperial airs, with your scorn, and your … contempt! Anyone would think I was a nigger. I repeat, believe me, I have the right to … to court you … for … But, no, I love you enough to keep silent…
‘Speak, Monsieur. In a few days I shall be 48. I’m not a silly prude. I can listen to anything.’
‘Well, will you give me your word as a virtuous woman (for, unfortunately for me, you are a virtuous woman) never to mention my name, never to reveal that I told you the secret?’
‘If that is the condition of the revelation, I swear not to tell anyone, not even my husband, where I learned of the enormities that you are going to confide in me.’
‘That I can well believe, for it concerns only you and him.’
Madame Hulot turned pale.
‘Oh, if you still love Hulot, you are going to suffer! Would you like me to say nothing?’
‘Speak, Monsieur, for, according to you, it’s a question of justifying in my eyes the strange declarations you have made to me and your persistence in tormenting a woman of my age, who would like to see her daughter married and then … die in peace!’
‘You see, you are unhappy.’
‘I, Monsieur?’
‘Yes, beautiful and noble creature!’ exclaimed Crevel. ‘You have suffered only too much.’
‘Monsieur, say no more and go! Or speak to me as you should.’
‘Do you know, Madame, how Master Hulot and I became acquainted? … Through our mistresses, Madame.’
‘Oh, Monsieur …,’
‘Through our mistresses, Madame,’ repeated Crevel melodramatically, uncrossing his arms to make a gesture with his right hand.
‘Well, what of it, Monsieur?’ said the Baroness calmly, to Crevel’s great amazement.
Petty-minded seducers never understand noble hearts.