Lisbeth, who to all appearances had broken with Madame Marneffe, had been installed in Marshal Hulot’s house.
Ten days after these events, the first banns of the old maid’s marriage to the distinguished old man were published. To obtain his consent Adeline told him of her Hector’s financial catastrophe, while begging him never to mention it to the Baron, who, she said, was in very low spirits, dejected and quite crushed.
‘Alas, he’s feeling his age,’ she added.
So Lisbeth triumphed! She was about to attain the goal of her ambition, she was going to see her plan accomplished, her hatred satisfied. She was looking forward to the joy of reigning over the family which had despised her for so long. She promised herself to patronize her patrons, to be the rescuing angel who would support the ruined family. She called herself Madame la Comtesse or Madame la Maréchale as she curtsied to herself in the mirror. Adeline and Hortense would end their days in poverty, struggling against want, while Cousin Bette, received at the Tuileries, would play the fine lady in society.
A terrible event toppled the old maid from the social eminence where she had so proudly established herself.
The very day these first banns were published, the Baron received another message from Africa. A second Alsatian came to the door and handed in a letter, having first made sure that he was giving it to Baron Hulot. After giving him the address of his lodgings, he left the high official overwhelmed by the first few lines he read of the following letter.
‘My nephew, according to my calculations, you will receive this letter on 7 August. Assuming you take three days to send us the help we’re asking for and that it will take a fortnight to reach us, that brings us to 1 September.
If you can carry out the following plan within that time, you will have saved the honour and life of Johann Fischer.
This is what the clerk you gave me as a colleague is asking for. For it seems that I am liable to be brought before an assize court or a court martial. You appreciate that Johann Fischer will never be brought before any tribunal; he will go, by his own act, before God’s.
Your clerk seems to me to be a nasty fellow, quite capable of compromising you. But he’s as clever as a scoundrel. He claims that you ought to protest more loudly than the others and send us an inspector, a special commissioner instructed to detect the culprits, to discover the abuses, in short to act vigorously. But he will, in the first place, stand between us and the law by raising the question of the conflict of jurisdiction.
If your commissioner arrives here on 1 September with your orders and if you send us two hundred thousand francs to replace in the stores the quantities that we said were in remote districts, we shall be looked on as honourable and irreproachable agents.
You can entrust a money-order, payable to me at an Algerian bank, to the soldier who delivers this letter. He’s a reliable man, a relative, incapable of trying to find out what he’s carrying. I’ve taken steps to ensure the lad’s safe return. If you can’t do anything, I’ll die gladly for the man to whom we owe our Adeline’s happiness.’
The agonies and the delights of passion, the catastrophe which had just put an end to his career as a ladies’ man, had prevented Baron Hulot from thinking of poor Johann Fischer. Yet his first letter gave clear warning of the danger that had now become so pressing.
The Baron left the dining-room in such an agitated state that he collapsed on to the drawing-room sofa. He was stunned, dazed by his violent fall. He stared at a rose pattern on the carpet without noticing that he was holding Johann’s fatal letter in his hand.
From her room Adeline heard her husband fall into the chair like a dead weight. The sound was so unusual that she thought he must have had a stroke.
Overcome by a breathtaking, paralysing fear, she looked in her mirror at the reflection through the door into the drawing-room and saw her Hector lying like a man prostrated.
The Baroness approached on tiptoe. Hector heard nothing; she was able to come nearer; she saw the letter, took it, read it, and trembled in every limb. She experienced one of those violent nervous upsets that leave their mark forever on the body. Some days later she became affected by a constant nervous tremor, but after the first moment the need for action gave her the strength that can only be drawn from the very springs of the life-force.
‘Hector, come into my room,’ she said in a voice that was no more than a whisper. ‘Don’t let your daughter see you like this. Come, my dear, come.’
‘Where can I find two hundred thousand francs? I can have Claude Vignon sent as a special commissioner. He’s a bright, intelligent fellow. That could be settled in two days. But two hundred thousand francs! My son hasn’t got that amount. His house is mortgaged for three hundred thousand francs. My brother has savings of thirty thousand francs at most. Nucingen would laugh at me. As for Vauvinet, he grudgingly allowed me ten thousand francs to make up the amount for that vile Marneffe’s son. No, it’s all up with me. I’ll have to throw myself at the Marshal’s feet, confess to him what the situation is, hear myself called a rotter, and accept his broadside so that I can go under decently.’
‘But, Hector, it’s not only ruin, it’s dishonour,’ said Adeline. ‘My poor uncle will kill himself. Kill only us, you have the right, but you mustn’t be a murderer! Take heart; there must be some way out.’
‘None,’ said the Baron. ‘No one in the Government can lay his hands on two hundred thousand francs, not even to save a ministry. Oh, Napoleon, where are you now?’
‘My uncle! Poor man! Hector, we can’t let him kill himself, dishonoured.’
‘There might be one way out,’ he said, ‘but it’s very chancy. Yes, Crevel is at daggers drawn with his daughter…. Oh, he’s got plenty of money; he’s the only one who might…’
‘Listen, Hector. Better to let your wife be destroyed than to allow the destruction of our uncle, of your brother, and of the family honour,’ said the Baroness, as an idea suddenly flashed through her mind. ‘Yes, I can save you all. Oh, my God! What a disgraceful thought! How could it have entered my head?’
Adeline put her hands together, fell on her knees, and said a prayer. When she got up, she saw such a crazy look of joy on her husband’s face, that the diabolical thought returned, and she then fell into a kind of melancholy stupor.
‘Go, my dear, hurry to the Ministry,’ she cried, arousing herself from her torpor. ‘Try to send out a commissioner. You must wheedle the Marshall And when you come back at five o’clock, perhaps you’ll find … yes, you’ll find two hundred thousand francs. Your family, your honour as a man, as a Councillor of State, as a Government official, your integrity, your son, all will be saved. But your Adeline will be lost and you’ll never see her again. Hector, my dear,’ she said, kneeling before him, clasping his hand and kissing it, ‘give me your blessing and bid me goodbye.’
It was so heart-rending that, as he raised his wife, embracing her and kissing her, Hulot said, ‘I don’t understand you.’
‘If you understood,’ she replied, ‘I’d die of shame or I’d not have enough strength to make this final sacrifice.’
‘Lunch is ready,’ said Mariette, coming in.
Hortense came in and said good morning to her father and mother. They had to go to lunch and assume facial expressions that belied their feelings.
‘Go and start lunch without me; I’ll join you,’ said the Baroness.
She sat down at her table and wrote the following letter:
‘My dear Monsieur Crevel,—I have a favour to ask of you. I shall expect you this morning and I count on your gallant courtesy, which is familiar to me, not to keep me waiting too long.
Your devoted servant,
ADELINE HULOT.’
‘Louise,’ she said to her daughter’s maid, who was serving lunch, ‘take this letter down to the porter. Tell him to take it immediately to its address and to ask for an answer.’
The Baron, who was reading the newspapers, handed a Republican paper to his wife, pointed out an article, and said:
‘Will there be time?’
Here is the article, one of those terrible snippets with which newspapers spice their political screeds.
‘One of our correspondents writes us from Algiers that such serious abuses have come to light in the commissariat of the province of Oran, that judicial inquiries are being made. The malversations are obvious and the guilty have been identified. If severe measures are not taken, we shall continue to lose more men through the misappropriation of funds that affects their rations, than by the swords of the Arabs or the heat of the climate. We await more information before writing further on this distressing subject.
We are no longer surprised at the fear aroused by the establishment of the Press in Algeria, as envisaged by the Charter of 1830.’*
I’ll get dressed and go to the Ministry,’ said the Baron, leaving the table. ‘Time is too precious; there’s a man’s life in every minute,’
‘Oh, Mama, I’ve no hope left,’ said Hortense.
And unable to restrain her tears, she handed her mother a copy of the Revue des Beaux-Arts. Madame Hulot saw an engraving of the Delilah group by the Comte de Steinbock, beneath which was printed: Belonging to Madame Marneffe. From the very first lines, the article, signed V, revealed the talent and partiality of Claude Vignon.
‘Poor child,’ said the Baroness.
Alarmed by her mother’s almost indifferent tone, Hortense looked at her and recognized in her expression a grief beside which her own paled; she came over to her mother and kissed her, saying:
‘What’s the matter, Mama? What’s happened? Can we be more unhappy than we are already?’
‘It seems to me, my child, that in comparison with what I’m suffering today, my terrible sufferings of the past are as nothing. When will my suffering be at an end?’
‘In Heaven, Mother dear,’ said Hortense gravely.
‘Come, my love, you’ll help me dress…. But no … I don’t want you to be concerned with what I wear for this. Send Louise to me.’