Hulot went home, striding along like a madman, talking to himself; he found his family calmly playing the game of whist for two sous stakes that he had seen them begin.
When she saw her husband, poor Adeline thought there must have been some terrible disaster, some disgrace. She gave her cards to Hortense and led Hector into the same little room where, five hours earlier, Crevel had prophesied that she would experience the most shameful miseries of poverty.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked in alarm.
‘Oh, forgive me, but let me tell you about the infamous way I have been treated.’
For ten minutes he poured out his fury.
‘But, my dear,’ replied his poor wife heroically, ‘creatures like that don’t know what love is, the pure and devoted love that you deserve. How could you, you who are so shrewd, hope to compete with a millionaire?’
‘Dear Adeline,’ exclaimed the Baron, taking his wife in his arms and pressing her to his heart.
The Baroness had poured balm on his vanity’s bleeding wounds.
‘To be sure, if you were to take away the Due d’Hérouville’s fortune, she wouldn’t hesitate between us,’ said the Baron.
‘My dear,’ Adeline went on, making a final effort, ‘if you must have mistresses, why don’t you do as Crevel does and take inexpensive women who are in a class that is satisfied with a little for a long time? We’d all benefit. I can appreciate your need, but I can’t at all understand your vanity.’
‘Oh, what a good and wonderful wife you are!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’m an old fool. I don’t deserve to have an angel like you for my partner in life.’
‘I’m quite simply my Napoleon’s Josephine,’ she replied with a touch of sadness.
‘Josephine couldn’t hold a candle to you,’ he said. ‘Come, I’m going to play whist with my brother and children. I must apply myself to my job as a family man, arrange a marriage for Hortense, and bury the libertine.’
These kindly words touched poor Adeline so deeply that she said:
‘That creature has very poor taste to prefer anyone at all to my Hector. Oh, I wouldn’t give you up for all the gold in the world. How can a woman leave you, when she has the good fortune to be loved by you?’
The look with which the Baron rewarded his wife’s fanatical devotion confirmed her opinion that gentleness and submission were a woman’s most powerful weapons. In this she was mistaken. Noble feelings carried to extremes produce results similar to those of the greatest vices. Bonaparte became Emperor by firing on the crowd two steps away from the spot where Louis XVI lost his crown and his head because he was not willing to shed the blood of a Monsieur Sauce.*
The next day, Hortense, who had put Wenceslas’s seal under her pillow so as not to be separated from it while she slept, was dressed early and sent a servant to ask her father to come to the garden as soon as he got up.
About half past nine, the father, in response to his daughter’s request, gave her his arm and they walked together along the quays by the Pont Royal to the Place du Carrousel.
Took as if we’re just taking a stroll, Papa,’ Hortense said, as they passed through the gate to cross the immense square.
‘Strolling here?’ queried her father teasingly.
‘We are supposed to be going to the museum, and over there,’ she said, pointing to the stalls backing on to the walls of the houses at right angles to the Rue du Doyenné, ‘there are antique dealers, pictures …’
‘Your cousin lives there.’
‘I know, but she mustn’t see us.’
‘But what do you want to do?’ asked the Baron, finding himself about thirty steps from the windows of Madame Marneffe, who suddenly came into his mind.
Hortense had led her father to the window of one of the shops at the corner of the block of houses which go along by the galleries of the old Louvre and face the Hôtel de Nantes. She went into the shops and left her father outside gazing at the windows of the pretty little lady who, the previous day, had left her image imprinted on the old beau’s heart as if to soothe the wound that he was about to receive, and he could not resist the idea of putting his wife’s advice into practice.
‘Let’s fall back on nice little middle-class women,’ he said to himself, recalling Madame Marneffe’s adorable charms. ‘That little woman will soon make me forget greedy Josépha.’
This is what happened simultaneously inside and outside the shop.
As he studied the windows of his new beloved, the Baron caught sight of her husband, who, brushing his frock-coat with his own hand, was obviously on the look out and seemed to be expecting to see someone in the square.
Afraid of being noticed and then recognized afterwards, the Baron turned his back on the Rue du Doyenné but only three-quarters round, so that he could glance down it from time to time. This movement brought him almost face to face with Madame Marneffe, who, coming from the quays, was turning the corner of the block of houses on her way home.
Valérie seemed rather startled at receiving the Baron’s astonished look and she answered it with a prudish glance.
‘Pretty woman!’ exclaimed the Baron. ‘One for whom a man would commit many follies.’
‘Oh, Monsieur,’ she answered, turning round like a woman who is making a desperate decision. ‘You’re Monsieur le Baron Hulot, aren’t you?’
The Baron, more and more amazed, nodded his assent.
‘Well, since chance has twice allowed our eyes to meet and I have the good fortune to arouse your curiosity or to interest you, may I tell you that, instead of committing follies, you ought to do justice. My husband’s fate depends on you.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ asked the Baron gallantly.
‘He’s employed in your department, in the War Ministry, Monsieur Lebrun’s section, Monsieur Coquet’s office,’ she replied, smiling.
‘I feel prepared, Madame … Madame?’
‘Madame Marneffe.’
‘My dear Madame Marneffe, to do injustice for your lovely sake. … A cousin of mine lives in your house and I’ll go and see her one of these days, as soon as possible. Come and make your request to me there.’
‘Forgive me for being so bold, Monsieur le Baron, but you will understand how I dared speak to you in this way when I tell you that I have no one to turn to.’
‘Aha!’
‘Oh, Monsieur, you misunderstand me,’ she said, lowering her eyes.
The Baron felt as if the sun had just gone in.
‘I am in despair, but I am a virtuous woman,’ she continued. ‘Six months ago I lost my only protector, Marshal Montcornet.’
‘Oh, you are his daughter?’
‘Yes, Monsieur, but he never acknowledged me,’
‘So that he could leave you a share of his fortune?’
‘He left me nothing, Monsieur, for his will has not been found.’
‘Oh, poor little woman! The Marshal died suddenly of apoplexy. But don’t lose hope, Madame. We owe something to the daughter of one of the Empire’s Chevaliers Bayard.’*
Madame Marneffe dropped a graceful curtsey and was as proud of her success as the Baron was of his.
‘Where the devil was she coming from so early?’ he wondered as he studied the swaying movement of her dress, to which she gave perhaps an exaggerated gracefulness. ‘She looks too tired to be coming back from the baths and her husband is waiting for her. It’s inexplicable and provides much food for thought.’