When the party was in full swing, Crevel took the Baron by the arm and whispered to him in the most natural possible way.
‘’Pon my soul, what a pretty little woman that is in pink who is peppering you with her glances.’
‘Who?’
‘The wife of the assistant-manager whose career you’re promoting, goodness knows how, Madame Marneffe.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Look here, Hulot, I’ll try to forgive the wrongs you’ve done me if you’ll take me to her place, and I’ll receive you at Héloïse’s. Everyone is asking who that charming creature is. Are you sure that no one from your office will explain how her husband’s appointment came to be signed? Oh, you lucky rascal, she’s worth more than a department…. Oh, I’d gladly work in her office…. Come now, let us be friends, Cinna!’*
‘More than ever, and I promise you to be really obliging. In a month’s time I’ll have you asked to dinner with that little angel…. For we are dealing with angels, my old friend. I advise you to follow my example and leave the devils.’
Cousin Bette, now settled in the Rue Vaneau, in a pretty little third-floor flat, left the ball at ten o’clock and came home to look at her bonds representing an income of twelve hundred francs in two certificates, the one in Countess Steinbock’s name, the other in the younger Madame Hulot’s.
So the reader will now understand how Monsieur Crevel could speak of Madame Marneffe to his friend Hulot and know a secret of which the rest of the world was ignorant. For with Monsieur Marneffe away, Cousin Bette, the Baron, and Valérie were the only ones to know of this private arrangement.
The Baron had been unwise in giving Madame Marneffe a dress far too splendid for the wife of an assistant-manager. The other wives were jealous of Valérie’s dress and beauty. There were whisperings behind the fans, for the Marneffes’ financial difficulties has been talked about in the department. The clerk had been seeking help just when the Baron had become enamoured of his wife. Moreover, Hector was not able to conceal his delight at seeing Valérie’s success; modest and dignified, she was envied and subjected to that careful scrutiny which women dread so much when they enter a new social milieu for the first time.
After seeing his wife, daughter, and son-in-law to their carriage, the Baron managed to slip away without being noticed, leaving his son and daughter-in-law with the task of playing host and hostess. He got into Madame Marneffe’s carriage and saw her home. But he found her silent and thoughtful, almost melancholy.
‘My happiness makes you very sad, Valérie,’ he said, drawing her towards him in the back of the cab.
‘How do you expect a poor woman not to be thoughtful, my dear friend, when she has her first lapse from virtue, even though her husband’s infamous conduct leaves her free? Do you think that I have no feelings, no faith, no religion? Your joy this evening was extremely indiscreet, and you drew attention to me in a thoroughly unpleasant way. Really, a schoolboy would have been less stupid than you. So all those ladies have torn me to pieces with their sideways glances and cutting remarks. What woman does not value her reputation? You have ruined me. Oh, I’m certainly yours now. And the only way I can excuse my fault is by being faithful to you. You monster,’ she said, laughing and letting him kiss her. ‘You knew very well what you were doing. Madame Coquet, the wife of our office manager, came and sat down beside me to admire my lace. “It comes from England,” she said. “Is it very expensive, Madame?” “I’ve no idea,” I replied. “This lace was my mother’s. I’m not rich enough to buy lace like that!”’
Clearly, Madame Marneffe had finally so fascinated the old Empire beau that he thought he was the first to persuade her to be unfaithful and had aroused in her a passion strong enough to make her forget all her duties. She said she had been deserted by the odious Marneffe after three days of marriage and from the most frightful motives. Since then, she had lived like the most virtuous of maidens and had been glad to do so, for marriage seemed to her something horrible. This explained her present sadness.
‘What if love should be like marriage?’ she said, weeping.
These coquettish lies, which are reeled off by nearly all women in Valérie’s situation, gave the Baron a glimpse of the roses of the seventh heaven. So Valérie stood on ceremony, while the lovesick artist and Hortense waited, perhaps impatiently, for the Baroness to give her final blessing and last kiss to her daughter.
At seven in the morning, the Baron, blissfully happy—for in Valérie he had found all the innocence of a young girl combined with the most consummate devilry—returned to relieve young Monsieur and Madame Hulot of their thankless task. The dancers, men and women almost strangers to the house, who end up at all weddings by taking over the party, were still performing those final interminable country dances called cotillons; the bouillote players were glued to their tables; Père Crevel was winning six thousand francs.
The newspapers distributed by the newsvendors contained the following little item in their Paris gossip columns.
‘The marriage of Monsieur le Comte de Steinbock and Mademoiselle Hortense Hulot, daughter of Baron Hulot d’Evry, Councillor of State and a Director at the War Ministry, niece of the celebrated Comte de Forzheim, took place this morning at the church of Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin.
‘The ceremony drew a large gathering. Among the guests could be seen some of our artistic celebrities: Léon de Lora, Joseph Bridau, Stidmann, Bixiou; eminent officials from the War Ministry and the Council of State, and several members of both Houses; also the most distinguished of the Polish exiles, Counts Paz, Laginski, etc.
‘Monsieur le Comte Wenceslas de Steinbock is the great-nephew of the famous general of Charles XII, King of Sweden. The Young Count, having taken part in the Polish rebellion, sought refuge in France, where his well-deserved reputation as a sculptor made it possible for him to obtain limited naturalization papers.’
So, in spite of Baron Hulot’s appalling financial difficulties, his daughter’s wedding lacked nothing that public opinion demands, not even newspaper publicity, and it was, in every respect, like young Hulot’s to Mademoiselle Crevel. This festivity toned down the comments that were being made about the director’s financial situation, and the dowry given to his daughter also explained his need to have recourse to borrowing money.
Here ends what is, in a way, the introduction to this story. The narrative so far is to the drama which completes it, as the premises to a syllogism, as the exposition to every classical tragedy.