Cousin Bette Read Online Free PDF

not back out in a fright at sight of such ill-concealed evidence of the cruellest kind of poverty there is, the poverty of families that hold their heads high! I have been a shopkeeper and I know. There’s no eye so keen as a Paris shopkeeper’s for telling real wealth from wealth that’s only a sham.… You haven’t got a penny,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘It shows in everything, down to your servant’s coat. Would you like me to let you into shocking secrets that have been kept from you?’
    â€˜Monsieur,’ said Madame Hulot, who was holding a soaking handkerchief to streaming eyes. ‘That’s enough! No more!’
    â€˜Well, my son-in-law gives money to his father. That’s what I wanted to tell you at the beginning, when I was talking about how your son lives. But I’m watching over my daughter’s interests. Don’t you worry.’
    â€˜Oh! if I could only marry my daughter and die!’ cried the unhappy woman, her self-control breaking.
    â€˜Well, here’s the way to do it!’
    Madame Hulot looked at Crevel in sudden hope, with such an instant change of expression that it should have been enough in itself to touch the man, and make him abandon his ridiculous ambition.
    â€˜You will be beautiful for ten years yet,’ went on Crevel, his arms folded, his gaze on infinity. ‘Be kind to me, and Mademoiselle Hortense’s marriage is arranged. Hulot has given me the right, as I told you, to propose the bargain quite bluntly, and he won’t be angry. In the last three years I have been able to make some profitable investments, because my adventures have been restricted. I have three hundred thousand francs to spend, over and above my capital, and the money’s yours –’
    â€˜Go, Monsieur,’ said Madame Hulot;‘go, and never let me see you again. I had to find out what lay behind your base behaviour in the matter of the marriage planned for Hortense. Yes, base,’ she repeated, as Crevel made a gesture. ‘How could you let such private grudges and rancours affect a poor girl, an innocent and lovely creature? If it had not been for the need to know that gave my mother’s heart no peace, you would never have spoken to me again, you would never again have crossed my threshold. Thirty-two years of honourable life, of a wife’s loyalty, are not to be razed by the assaults of Monsieur Crevel!’
    â€˜Retired perfumer, successor to César Birotteau at the Queen of Roses, rue Saint-Honoré’, said Crevel ironically. ‘Former Deputy Mayor, Captain of the National Guard, Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, exactly like my predecessor.’
    â€˜Monsieur,’ the Baroness continued, ‘Monsieur Hulot, after twenty years of fidelity, may have grown tired of his wife – that concerns me, and only me; but you see, Monsieur, that he has preserved some reticence regarding his infidelity, for I did not know that he had succeeded you in Mademoiselle Josépha’s heart.’
    â€˜Oh! at a price, Madame I That song-bird has cost him more than a hundred thousand francs in the last two years. Ah! you haven’t reached the end of trouble yet.’
    â€˜We need not prolong this discussion further, Monsieur Crevel. I do not intend to give up, for your sake, the happiness that a mother feels when she is able to embrace her children with a heart uncankered by remorse, and knows that she is respected and loved by her children. I mean to give my soul back to God unstained.’
    â€˜
Amen
!’ said Crevel, his face distorted by the diabolical bitterness of aspirants of his kind who have failed after a renewed attempt to gain their ends. ‘You don’t know what extreme poverty is like – the shame, the disgrace.… I have tried to open your eyes. I wanted to save you, you and your daughter too! So be it! You shall spell out a modern parable of the prodigal father