The Baron was too upset to find the answer to his question. Beauty is the greatest of human powers. All autocratic, unbridled power, with nothing to counterbalance it, leads to abuse, to mad excess. Despotism is power gone mad. In women, despotism takes the form of satisfying their whims.
‘You’ve nothing to complain of, my good friend. You have a very beautiful wife and she’s virtuous.’
‘I deserve my lot,’ Hulot said to himself. ‘I’ve not appreciated my wife. I make her suffer and she’s an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! You’re well and truly avenged. She suffers in silence, alone. She should be adored. She deserves my love. I ought… for she’s still lovely, pure, and virginal again … But was there ever a woman more worthless, more vicious, more treacherous than this Valérie?’
‘She’s a good-for-nothing,’ said Crevel, ‘a scoundrel who should be whipped on the Place du Châtelet. But, my dear Canillac,* we may be blue-waistcoated, Maréchal de Richelieu fashion plates, Pompadour, du Barry, rakes, and thoroughly eighteenth century, but we don’t have a Lieutenant of Police any more.’
‘How does one make oneself loved?’ Hulot wondered, not listening to Crevel.
‘It’s silly of men like us to want to be loved, my friend,’ said Crevel. ‘We can only be tolerated, for Madame Marneffe is a hundred times more corrupt than Josépha.’
‘And grasping! She’s cost me ninety-two thousand francs!’ exclaimed Hulot.
‘And how many centimes?’ asked Crevel with the insolence of a businessman who thinks the sum trifling.
‘It’s obvious you don’t love her,’ said the Baron sadly.
‘I’ve had enough,’ replied Crevel, ‘for she’s had more than three hundred thousand francs from me.’
‘Where is it? Where does it all go?’ asked the Baron, holding his head in his hands.
‘If we had made an arrangement between us, like those young fellows who club together to keep a twopenny street-girl, she would have cost us less.’
‘That’s an idea,’ replied the Baron. ‘But she’d still deceive us, for what, my stout friend, do you make of that Brazilian?’
‘Oh, you old fox, you’re right. We’ve been tricked like … like shareholders!’ said Crevel. ‘AH women of her sort are limited liability companies.’
‘So it was she who told you about the light in the window?’ said the Baron.
‘My dear fellow,’ continued Crevel, taking up his stance, ‘we’ve been swindled! Valérie is a … She told me to keep you here…. Now I see the light…. She’s got her Brazilian. Oh, I give her up, for if you were to hold her hands she would find a way of deceiving you with her feet. She’s utterly vicious, she’s a rogue.’
‘She’s worse than a prostitute,’ said the Baron. ‘Josépha and Jenny Cadine were entitled to deceive us; their charms are their profession.
‘But she pretends to be a saint, a prude,’ said Crevel. ‘Look here, Hulot, go back to your wife, for your finances are not in a good state. People are beginning to talk about certain bills of exchange made out to a little money-lender who specializes in lending to street-girls, one Vauvinet. As for me, that’s me cured of respectable women. Besides, at our age, what need have we of these hussies, who, to be honest, cannot fail to deceive us? You have white hair and false teeth, Baron. And I look like Silenus.* I’m going to apply myself to making money. Money can’t cheat. Though the Treasury is available to everyone every six months, at least it gives you interest, and that woman makes you spend. With you, my old crony, Gubetta,* I might accept an irregular … no, a rationally agreed situation. But a Brazilian who may be bringing dubious colonial goods from his country …’
‘Woman,’ said Hulot, ‘is an inexplicable creature.’
‘I can explain her,’ said Crevel. ‘We’re old. The Brazilian is young and handsome.’
‘Yes, that’s true,’ said Hulot. ‘I admit we’re getting old. But, my friend, how are we to give up the sight of these lovely creatures undressing, fingering their curls, looking at us with a knowing smile as they fix their curl-papers, putting on all their little tricks, reeling off their lies, saying they are unloved when they see us harassed by business affairs, and entertaining us in spite of everything?’
‘Yes, upon my word, it’s the only pleasure in life,’ exclaimed Crevel. ‘When a little puss smiles at you and says, “My darling pet, you don’t know how nice you are! I must be differently constituted from other women, who go crazy about youngsters with goatee beards, fellows who smoke and are as ill-bred as lackeys! For because they’re young they think they can be impudent! Anyway they’re here today and gone tomorrow. You think I’m a flirt but I prefer men of 50 to those brats; one can keep older men for a long time. They’re devoted and know that women are not so easy to come by; and they appreciate us. That’s why I love you, you old rascal.” And while they’re making confessions of this kind, they’re petting and caressing you…. But they’re as false as Town Hall promises.’
‘Lies are often better than the truth,’ said Hulot, recalling some charming scenes evoked by Crevel’s imitation of Valérie. ‘They have to embroider their lies, to sew spangles on their stage costumes.’
‘And then, after all, we have them, the liars,’ said Crevel crudely.
‘Valérie’s a fairy,’ cried the Baron. ‘She can change an old man into a young one.’
‘Oh, yes,’ continued Crevel, ‘she’s an eel that slips through your fingers. But such a pretty eel! White and sweet like sugar! As amusing as Arnal,* and full of new tricks!’
‘Oh, yes, she’s very clever,’ exclaimed the Baron, no longer thinking of his wife.
The two comrades went to bed the best of friends, recalling Valérie’s perfections one by one, the intonations of her voice, her wheedling ways, her gestures, her amusing antics, her flashes of wit, her effusions of affection. For this artist in love had some rapturous moments, like a tenor who sings a melody one day better than another. And they both fell asleep lulled by these tempting, diabolical reminiscences lit up by the fires of hell.
At nine o’clock the next morning, Hulot spoke of going to the Ministry; Crevel had business in the country. They went out together and Crevel held out his hand to the Baron, saying;
‘No ill-feeling, is there? For neither of us is going to think any more of Madame Marneffe.’
‘Oh, that’s all over and done with!’ replied Hulot with an expression almost of horror.