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Poor Relations
"We cannot stay here, the rent is too high," Hortense was saying just as her father came in.
"As to a home," said Victorin, breaking the painful silence, "I can offer my mother – "
As he heard these words, which excluded him, the Baron raised his head, which was sunk on his breast as though he were studying the pattern of the carpet, though he did not even see it, and he gave the young lawyer an appealing look. The rights of a father are so indefeasibly sacred, even when he is a villain and devoid of honor, that Victorin paused.
"To your mother," the Baron repeated. "You are right, my son."
"The rooms over ours in our wing," said Celestine, finishing her husband's sentence.
"I am in your way, my dears?" said the Baron, with the mildness of a man who has judged himself. "But do not be uneasy as to the future; you will have no further cause for complaint of your father; you will not see him till the time when you need no longer blush for him."
He went up to Hortense and kissed her brow. He opened his arms to his son, who rushed into his embrace, guessing his father's purpose. The Baron signed to Lisbeth, who came to him, and he kissed her forehead. Then he went to his room, whither Adeline followed him in an agony of dread.
"My brother was quite right, Adeline," he said, holding her hand. "I am unworthy of my home life. I dared not bless my children, who have behaved so nobly, but in my heart; tell them that I could only venture to kiss them; for the blessing of a bad man, a father who has been an assassin and the scourge of his family instead of its protector and its glory, might bring evil on them; but assure them that I shall bless them every day. – As to you, God alone, for He is Almighty, can ever reward you according to your merits! – I can only ask your forgiveness!" and he knelt at her feet, taking her hands and wetting them with his tears.
"Hector, Hector! Your sins have been great, but Divine Mercy is infinite, and you may repair all by staying with me. – Rise up in Christian charity, my dear – I am your wife, and not your judge. I am your possession; do what you will with me; take me wherever you go, I feel strong enough comfort you, to make life endurable to you, by the strength of my love, my care, and respect. – Our children are settled in life; they need me no more. Let me try to be an amusement to you, an occupation. Let me share the pain of your banishment and of your poverty, and help to mitigate it. I could always be of some use, if it were only to save the expense of a servant."
"Can you forgive, my dearly-beloved Adeline?"
"Yes, only get up, my dear!"
"Well, with that forgiveness I can live," said he, rising to his feet. "I came back into this room that my children should not see their father's humiliation. Oh! the sight constantly before their eyes of a father so guilty as I am is a terrible thing; it must undermine parental influence and break every family tie. So I cannot remain among you, and I must go to spare you the odious spectacle of a father bereft of dignity. Do not oppose my departure Adeline. It would only be to load with your own hand the pistol to blow my brains out. Above all, do not seek me in my hiding-place; you would deprive me of the only strong motive remaining in me, that of remorse."
Hector's decisiveness silenced his dejected wife. Adeline, lofty in the midst of all this ruin, had derived her courage from her perfect union with her husband; for she had dreamed of having him for her own, of the beautiful task of comforting him, of leading him back to family life, and reconciling him to himself.
"But, Hector, would you leave me to die of despair, anxiety, and alarms!" said she, seeing herself bereft of the mainspring of her strength.
"I will come back to you, dear angel – sent from Heaven expressly for me, I believe. I will come back, if not rich, at least with enough to live in ease. – Listen, my sweet Adeline, I cannot stay here for many reasons. In the first place, my pension of six thousand francs is pledged for four years, so I have nothing. That is not all. I shall be committed to prison within a few days in consequence of the bills held by Vauvinet. So I must keep out of the way until my son, to whom I will give full instructions, shall have bought in the bills. My disappearance will facilitate that. As soon as my pension is my own, and Vauvinet is paid off, I will return to you. – You would be sure to let out the secret of my hiding-place. Be calm; do not cry, Adeline – it is only for a month – "
"Where will you go? What will you do? What will become of you? Who will take care of you now that you are no longer young? Let me go with you – we will go abroad – " said she.
"Well, well, we will see," he replied.
The Baron rang and ordered Mariette to collect all his things and pack them quickly and secretly. Then, after embracing his wife with a warmth of affection to which she was unaccustomed, he begged her to leave him alone for a few minutes while he wrote his instructions for Victorin, promising that he would not leave the house till dark, or without her.
As soon as the Baroness was in the drawing-room, the cunning old man stole out through the dressing-closet to the anteroom, and went away, giving Mariette a slip of paper, on which was written, "Address my trunks to go by railway to Corbeil – to Monsieur Hector, cloak-room, Corbeil."
The Baron jumped into a hackney coach, and was rushing across Paris by the time Mariette came to give the Baroness this note, and say that her master had gone out. Adeline flew back into her room, trembling more violently than ever; her children followed on hearing her give a piercing cry. They found her in a dead faint; and they put her to bed, for she was seized by a nervous fever which held her for a month between life and death.
"Where is he?" was the only thing she would say.
Victorin sought for him in vain.
And this is why. The Baron had driven to the Place du Palais Royal. There this man, who had recovered all his wits to work out a scheme which he had premeditated during the days he had spent crushed with pain and grief, crossed the Palais Royal on foot, and took a handsome carriage from a livery-stable in the Rue Joquelet. In obedience to his orders, the coachman went to the Rue de la Ville l'Eveque, and into the courtyard of Josepha's mansion, the gates opening at once at the call of the driver of such a splendid vehicle. Josepha came out, prompted by curiosity, for her man-servant had told her that a helpless old gentleman, unable to get out of his carriage, begged her to come to him for a moment.
"Josepha! – it is I – "
The singer recognized her Hulot only by his voice.
"What? you, poor old man? – On my honor, you look like a twenty-franc piece that the Jews have sweated and the money-changers refuse."
"Alas, yes," replied Hulot; "I am snatched from the jaws of death! But you are as lovely as ever. Will you be kind?"
"That depends," said she; "everything is relative."
"Listen," said Hulot; "can you put me up for a few days in a servant's room under the roof? I have nothing – not a farthing, not a hope; no food, no pension, no wife, no children, no roof over my head; without honor, without courage, without a friend; and worse than all that, liable to imprisonment for not meeting a bill."
"Poor old fellow! you are without most things. – Are you also sans culotte?"
"You laugh at me! I am done for," cried the Baron. "And I counted on you as Gourville did on Ninon."
"And it was a 'real lady,' I am told who brought you to this," said Josepha. "Those precious sluts know how to pluck a goose even better than we do! – Why, you are like a corpse that the crows have done with – I can see daylight through!"
"Time is short, Josepha!"
"Come in, old boy, I am alone, as it happens, and my people don't know you. Send away your trap. Is it paid for?"
"Yes," said the Baron, getting out with the help of Josepha's arm.
"You may call yourself my father if you like," said the singer, moved to pity.
She made Hulot sit down in the splendid drawing-room where he had last seen her.
"And is it the fact, old man," she went on, "that you have killed your brother and your uncle, ruined your family, mortgaged your children's house over and over again, and robbed the Government till in Africa, all for your princess?"
Hulot sadly bent his head.
"Well, I admire that!" cried Josepha, starting up in her enthusiasm. "It is a general flare-up! It is Sardanapalus! Splendid, thoroughly complete! I may be a hussy, but I have a soul! I tell you, I like a spendthrift, like you, crazy over a woman, a thousand times better than those torpid, heartless bankers, who are supposed to be so good, and who ruin no end of families with their rails – gold for them, and iron for their gulls! You have only ruined those who belong to you, you have sold no one but yourself; and then you have excuses, physical and moral."
She struck a tragic attitude, and spouted:
"'Tis Venus whose grasp never parts from her prey
And there you are!" and she pirouetted on her toe.
Vice, Hulot found, could forgive him; vice smiled on him from the midst of unbridled luxury. Here, as before a jury, the magnitude of a crime was an extenuating circumstance. "And is your lady pretty at any rate?" asked Josepha, trying as a preliminary act of charity, to divert Hulot's thoughts, for his depression grieved her.
"On my word, almost as pretty as you are," said the Baron artfully.
"And monstrously droll? So I have been told. What does she do, I say? Is she better fun than I am?"
"I don't want to talk about her," said Hulot.
"And I hear she has come round my Crevel, and little Steinbock, and a gorgeous Brazilian?"
"Very likely."
"And that she has got a house as good as this, that Crevel has given her. The baggage! She is my provost-marshal, and finishes off those I have spoiled. I tell you why I am so curious to know what she is like, old boy; I just caught sight of her in the Bois, in an open carriage – but a long way off. She is a most accomplished harpy, Carabine says. She is trying to eat up Crevel, but he only lets her nibble. Crevel is a knowing hand, good-natured but hard-headed, who will always say Yes, and then go his own way. He is vain and passionate; but his cash is cold. You can never get anything out of such fellows beyond a thousand to three thousand francs a month; they jib at any serious outlay, as a donkey does at a running stream.
"Not like you, old boy. You are a man of passions; you would sell your country for a woman. And, look here, I am ready to do anything for you! You are my father; you started me in life; it is a sacred duty. What do you want? Do you want a hundred thousand francs? I will wear myself to a rag to gain them. As to giving you bed and board – that is nothing. A place will be laid for you here every day; you can have a good room on the second floor, and a hundred crowns a month for pocket-money."
The Baron, deeply touched by such a welcome, had a last qualm of honor.
"No, my dear child, no; I did not come here for you to keep me," said he.
"At your age it is something to be proud of," said she.
"This is what I wish, my child. Your Duc d'Herouville has immense estates in Normandy, and I want to be his steward, under the name of Thoul. I have the capacity, and I am honest. A man may borrow of the Government, and yet not steal from a cash-box – "
"H'm, h'm," said Josepha. "Once drunk, drinks again."
"In short, I only want to live out of sight for three years – "
"Well, it is soon done," said Josepha. "This evening, after dinner, I have only to speak. The Duke would marry me if I wished it, but I have his fortune, and I want something better – his esteem. He is a Duke of the first water. He is high-minded, as noble and great as Louis XIV. and Napoleon rolled into one, though he is a dwarf. Besides, I have done for him what la Schontz did for Rochefide; by taking my advice he has made two millions.
"Now, listen to me, old popgun. I know you; you are always after the women, and you would be dancing attendance on the Normandy girls, who are splendid creatures, and getting your ribs cracked by their lovers and fathers, and the Duke would have to get you out of the scrape. Why, can't I see by the way you look at me that the young man is not dead in you – as Fenelon put it. – No, this stewardship is not the thing for you. A man cannot be off with his Paris and with us, old boy, for the saying! You would die of weariness at Herouville."
"What is to become of me?" said the Baron, "for I will only stay here till I see my way."
"Well, shall I find a pigeon-hole for you? Listen, you old pirate. Women are what you want. They are consolation in all circumstances. Attend now. – At the end of the Alley, Rue Saint-Maur-du-Temple, there is a poor family I know of where there is a jewel of a little girl, prettier than I was at sixteen. – Ah! there is a twinkle in your eye already! – The child works sixteen hours a day at embroidering costly pieces for the silk merchants, and earns sixteen sous a day – one sou an hour! – and feeds like the Irish, on potatoes fried in rats' dripping, with bread five times a week – and drinks canal water out of the town pipes, because the Seine water costs too much; and she cannot set up on her own account for lack of six or seven thousand francs. Your wife and children bore you to death, don't they? – Besides, one cannot submit to be nobody where one has been a little Almighty. A father who has neither money nor honor can only be stuffed and kept in a glass case."
The Baron could not help smiling at these abominable jests.
"Well, now, Bijou is to come to-morrow morning to bring me an embroidered wrapper, a gem! It has taken six months to make; no one else will have any stuff like it! Bijou is very fond of me; I give her tidbits and my old gowns. And I send orders for bread and meat and wood to the family, who would break the shin-bones of the first comer if I bid them. – I try to do a little good. Ah! I know what I endured from hunger myself! – Bijou has confided to me all her little sorrows. There is the making of a super at the Ambigu-Comique in that child. Her dream is to wear fine dresses like mine; above all, to ride in a carriage. I shall say to her, 'Look here, little one, would you like to have a friend of – ' How old are you?" she asked, interrupting herself. "Seventy-two?"
"I have given up counting."
"'Would you like an old gentleman of seventy-two?' I shall say. 'Very clean and neat, and who does not take snuff, who is as sound as a bell, and as good as a young man? He will marry you (in the Thirteenth Arrondissement) and be very kind to you; he will place seven thousand francs in your account, and furnish you a room all in mahogany, and if you are good, he will sometimes take you to the play. He will give you a hundred francs a month for pocket-money, and fifty francs for housekeeping.' – I know Bijou; she is myself at fourteen. I jumped for joy when that horrible Crevel made me his atrocious offers. Well, and you, old man, will be disposed of for three years. She is a good child, well behaved; for three or four years she will have her illusions – not for longer."
Hulot did not hesitate; he had made up his mind to refuse; but to seem grateful to the kind-hearted singer, who was benevolent after her lights, he affected to hesitate between vice and virtue.
"Why, you are as cold as a paving-stone in winter!" she exclaimed in amazement. "Come, now. You will make a whole family happy – a grandfather who runs all the errands, a mother who is being worn out with work, and two sisters – one of them very plain – who make thirty-two sous a day while putting their eyes out. It will make up for the misery you have caused at home, and you will expiate your sin while you are having as much fun as a minx at Mabille."
Hulot, to put an end to this temptation, moved his fingers as if he were counting out money.
"Oh! be quite easy as to ways and means," replied Josepha. "My Duke will lend you ten thousand francs; seven thousand to start an embroidery shop in Bijou's name, and three thousand for furnishing; and every three months you will find a cheque here for six hundred and fifty francs. When you get your pension paid you, you can repay the seventeen thousand francs. Meanwhile you will be as happy as a cow in clover, and hidden in a hole where the police will never find you. You must wear a loose serge coat, and you will look like a comfortable householder. Call yourself Thoul, if that is your fancy. I will tell Bijou that you are an uncle of mine come from Germany, having failed in business, and you will be cosseted like a divinity. – There now, Daddy! – And who knows! you may have no regrets. In case you should be bored, keep one Sunday rig-out, and you can come and ask me for a dinner and spend the evening here."
"I! – and I meant to settle down and behave myself! – Look here, borrow twenty thousand francs for me, and I will set out to make my fortune in America, like my friend d'Aiglemont when Nucingen cleaned him out."
"You!" cried Josepha. "Nay, leave morals to work-a-day folks, to raw recruits, to the worrrthy citizens who have nothing to boast of but their virtue. You! You were born to be something better than a nincompoop; you are as a man what I am as a woman – a spendthrift of genius."
"We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning."
"You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty, we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep it on as long as we can."
This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's keenest pangs.
At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome.
Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary with overwork – black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves. The girl, all unconscious of her charms, had put on her best frock to wait on the fine lady.
The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game; if an emperor were present, he must take aim!
"And warranted sound," said Josepha in his ear. "An honest child, and wanting bread. This is Paris – I have been there!"
"It is a bargain," replied the old man, getting up and rubbing his hands.
When Olympe Bijou was gone, Josepha looked mischievously at the Baron.
"If you want things to keep straight, Daddy," said she, "be as firm as the Public Prosecutor on the bench. Keep a tight hand on her, be a Bartholo! Ware Auguste, Hippolyte, Nestor, Victor —or, that is gold, in every form. When once the child is fed and dressed, if she gets the upper hand, she will drive you like a serf. – I will see to settling you comfortably. The Duke does the handsome; he will lend – that is, give – you ten thousand francs; and he deposits eight thousand with his notary, who will pay you six hundred francs every quarter, for I cannot trust you. – Now, am I nice?"
"Adorable."
Ten days after deserting his family, when they were gathered round Adeline, who seemed to be dying, as she said again and again, in a weak voice, "Where is he?" Hector, under the name of Thoul, was established in the Rue Saint-Maur, at the head of a business as embroiderer, under the name of Thoul and Bijou.
Victorin Hulot, under the overwhelming disasters of his family, had received the finishing touch which makes or mars the man. He was perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman. He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine – who certainly did not realize his dreams – and was wise enough to estimate life at its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second best. He vowed to fulfil his duties, so much had he been shocked by his father's example.
These feelings were confirmed as he stood by his mother's bed on the day when she was out of danger. Nor did this happiness come single. Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy to go with him to see the Minister.
"His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs with you."
The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a friendliness that promised well.
"My dear fellow," said the old soldier, "I promised your uncle, in this room, that I would take care of your mother. That saintly woman, I am told, is getting well again; now is the time to pour oil into your wounds. I have for you here two hundred thousand francs; I will give them to you – "
The lawyer's gesture was worthy of his uncle the Marshal.
"Be quite easy," said the Prince, smiling; "it is money in trust. My days are numbered; I shall not always be here; so take this sum, and fill my place towards your family. You may use this money to pay off the mortgage on your house. These two hundred thousand francs are the property of your mother and your sister. If I gave the money to Madame Hulot, I fear that, in her devotion to her husband, she would be tempted to waste it. And the intention of those who restore it to you is, that it should produce bread for Madame Hulot and her daughter, the Countess Steinbock. You are a steady man, the worthy son of your noble mother, the true nephew of my friend the Marshal; you are appreciated here, you see – and elsewhere. So be the guardian angel of your family, and take this as a legacy from your uncle and me."
"Monseigneur," said Hulot, taking the Minister's hand and pressing it, "such men as you know that thanks in words mean nothing; gratitude must be proven."
"Prove yours – " said the old man.
"In what way?"
"By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police; and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no national opposition!
"Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he loved very truly. – Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence, ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the cost of her hackney coaches.
"You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know; continue in it."
"Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend," said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes."
"Go at once, and take comfort to your family. – By the way," added the Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has disappeared?"
"Alas! yes."
"So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which, indeed, he is not lacking."
"There are bills of his to be met."
"Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps may succeed in releasing your father's pension, pledged to him, without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession. – I know not what – "
So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan of lodging his mother and sister under his roof.
The young lawyer, already famous, had, for his sole fortune, one of the handsomest houses in Paris, purchased in 1834 in preparation for his marriage, situated on the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand. A speculator had built two houses between the boulevard and the street; and between these, with the gardens and courtyards to the front and back, there remained still standing a splendid wing, the remains of the magnificent mansion of the Verneuils. The younger Hulot had purchased this fine property, on the strength of Mademoiselle Crevel's marriage-portion, for one million francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire, depending on unforeseen circumstances.
As the Parisian lounger may have observed, the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand prospered but slowly; it took so long to furbish and beautify itself, that trade did not set up its display there till 1840 – the gold of the money-changers, the fairy-work of fashion, and the luxurious splendor of shop-fronts.
In spite of two hundred thousand francs given by Crevel to his daughter at the time when his vanity was flattered by this marriage, before the Baron had robbed him of Josepha; in spite of the two hundred thousand francs paid off by Victorin in the course of seven years, the property was still burdened with a debt of five hundred thousand francs, in consequence of Victorin's devotion to his father. Happily, a rise in rents and the advantages of the situation had at this time improved the value of the houses. The speculation was justifying itself after eight years' patience, during which the lawyer had strained every nerve to pay the interest and some trifling amounts of the capital borrowed.
The tradespeople were ready to offer good rents for the shops, on condition of being granted leases for eighteen years. The dwelling apartments rose in value by the shifting of the centre in Paris life – henceforth transferred to the region between the Bourse and the Madeleine, now the seat of the political power and financial authority in Paris. The money paid to him by the Minister, added to a year's rent in advance and the premiums paid by his tenants, would finally reduce the outstanding debt to two hundred thousand francs. The two houses, if entirely let, would bring in a hundred thousand francs a year. Within two years more, during which the Hulots could live on his salaries, added to by the Marshal's investments, Victorin would be in a splendid position.
This was manna from heaven. Victorin could give up the first floor of his own house to his mother, and the second to Hortense, excepting two rooms reserved for Lisbeth. With Cousin Betty as the housekeeper, this compound household could bear all these charges, and yet keep up a good appearance, as beseemed a pleader of note. The great stars of the law-courts were rapidly disappearing; and Victorin Hulot, gifted with a shrewd tongue and strict honesty, was listened to by the Bench and Councillors; he studied his cases thoroughly, and advanced nothing that he could not prove. He would not hold every brief that offered; in fact, he was a credit to the bar.
The Baroness' home in the Rue Plumet had become so odious to her, that she allowed herself to be taken to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. Thus, by her son's care, Adeline occupied a fine apartment; she was spared all the daily worries of life; for Lisbeth consented to begin again, working wonders of domestic economy, such as she had achieved for Madame Marneffe, seeing here a way of exerting her silent vengeance on those three noble lives, the object, each, of her hatred, which was kept growing by the overthrow of all her hopes.
Once a month she went to see Valerie, sent, indeed, by Hortense, who wanted news of Wenceslas, and by Celestine, who was seriously uneasy at the acknowledged and well-known connection between her father and a woman to whom her mother-in-law and sister-in-law owed their ruin and their sorrows. As may be supposed, Lisbeth took advantage of this to see Valerie as often as possible.