When she went into her boudoir, the singer found Madame Hulot in a dead faint. But although she was unconscious, she was still shaking with her nervous tremor, just as the sections of an adder still twitch when it has been cut in pieces.
Strong smelling-salts, cold water, all the usual remedies were lavished upon the Baroness and brought her back to life or, if you will, to the awareness of her sorrows.
‘Oh, Mademoiselle, how low he has fallen!’ she said, as she recognized Josépha and saw that she was alone with her.
‘Take heart, Madame,’ replied Josépha, who had sat down on a cushion at the Baroness’s feet and was kissing her hands. ‘We’ll find him again. And if he’s in the mire, well, he’ll wash it off. Believe me, for well-bred people, it’s a matter of clothes. Let me make up for the wrongs I’ve done you, for since you came here I see how deeply you’re attached to your husband, in spite of his behaviour. Well, there it is! The poor man! He’s fond of women. But, you know, if you’d had a little of our savvy, you’d have stopped him gallivanting; for you’d have been what we know how to be: all kinds of women to a man. The government ought to set up a training school for respectable women. But governments are so prudish! They are led by men who are led by us! I’m sorry for the people they govern. But now we must work for you and not make jokes. So don’t worry, Madame. Go home and set your mind at rest. I’ll bring your Hector back to you as he was thirty years ago.’
‘Oh, Mademoiselle, let’s go and see this Madame Grenouville,’ said the Baroness. ‘She must know something. Perhaps I’ll be able to see Monsieur Hulot today and snatch him away immediately from poverty and shame.’
‘Madame, I express to you here and now the deep gratitude I shall always feel for the honour you do me; I shall not allow the singer Josépha, the Duc d’Hérouville’s mistress, to be seen beside the most beautiful and saintly image of virtue. I respect you too much to appear in public with you. It’s not the feigned humility of an actress; it’s a homage I pay you. You make me regret that I don’t follow your path, Madame, in spite of the thorns that draw blood from your hands and feet. But what can I do? I belong to art as you belong to virtue.’
‘Poor girl!’ said the Baroness, touched in the midst of her sorrows by a strange feeling of compassionate sympathy. ‘I shall pray to God for you, for you are the victim of society, which needs entertainment. When old age comes, say penitential prayers. You will be pardoned if God deigns to hear the prayers of a …’
‘Of a martyr, Madame,’ said Josépha, respectfully kissing the hem of the Baroness’s dress.
But Adeline took the singer’s hand, drew her towards her, and kissed her on the forehead.
Blushing with pleasure, the singer saw Adeline to her carriage with marks of the humblest respect.
‘It must be one of those charitable ladies,’ the footman said to the lady’s maid, ‘for she doesn’t trust anyone else like that, not even her good friend, Madame Jenny Cadine.’
‘Wait a few days, Madame,’ Josépha said, ‘and you’ll see him or I’ll deny the God of my fathers; and for a Jewess, you know, that’s a promise of success.’