Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague.
"As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!"
"Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten pretty women at least seven are false?"
But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly.
Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice.
"You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful wife, and she is virtuous."
"I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous than this Valerie?"
"She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour, Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police."
"How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without heeding Crevel.
"It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred times more profligate than Josepha."
"And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs a year!" cried Hulot.
"And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, with the insolence of a financier who scorns so small a sum.
"You do not love her, that is very evident," said the Baron dolefully.
"I have had enough of her," replied Crevel, "for she has had more than three hundred thousand francs of mine!"
"Where is it? Where does it all go?" said the Baron, clasping his head in his hands.
"If we had come to an agreement, like the simple young men who combine to maintain a twopenny baggage, she would have cost us less."
"That is an idea"! replied the Baron. "But she would still be cheating us; for, my burly friend, what do you say to this Brazilian?"
"Ay, old sly fox, you are right, we are swindled like--like shareholders!" said Crevel. "All such women are an unlimited liability, and we the sleeping partners."
"Then it was she who told you about the candle in the window?"
"My good man," replied Crevel, striking an attitude, "she has fooled us both. Valerie is a--She told me to keep you here.--Now I see it all. She has got her Brazilian!--Oh, I have done with her, for if you hold her hands, she would find a way to cheat you with her feet!
There! she is a minx, a jade!"
"She is lower than a prostitute," said the Baron. "Josepha and Jenny Cadine were in their rights when they were false to us; they make a trade of their charms."
"But she, who affects the saint--the prude!" said Crevel. "I tell you what, Hulot, do you go back to your wife; your money matters are not looking well; I have heard talk of certain notes of hand given to a low usurer whose special line of business is lending to these sluts, a man named Vauvinet. For my part, I am cured of your 'real ladies.'
And, after all, at our time of life what do we want of these swindling hussies, who, to be honest, cannot help playing us false? You have white hair and false teeth; I am of the shape of Silenus. I shall go in for saving. Money never deceives one. Though the Treasury is indeed open to all the world twice a year, it pays you interest, and this woman swallows it. With you, my worthy friend, as Gubetta, as my partner in the concern, I might have resigned myself to a shady bargain--no, a philosophical calm. But with a Brazilian who has possibly smuggled in some doubtful colonial produce----"
"Woman is an inexplicable creature!" said Hulot.
"I can explain her," said Crevel. "We are old; the Brazilian is young and handsome."
"Yes; that, I own, is true," said Hulot; "we are older than we were.
But, my dear fellow, how is one to do without these pretty creatures--seeing them undress, twist up their hair, smile cunningly through their fingers as they screw up their curl-papers, put on all their airs and graces, tell all their lies, declare that we don't love them when we are worried with business; and they cheer us in spite of everything."
"Yes, by the Power! It is the only pleasure in life!" cried Crevel.
"When a saucy little mug smiles at you and says, 'My old dear, you don't know how nice you are! I am not like other women, I suppose, who go crazy over mere boys with goats' beards, smelling of smoke, and as coarse as serving-men! For in their youth they are so insolent!--They come in and they bid you good-morning, and out they go.--I, whom you think such a flirt, I prefer a man of fifty to these brats. A man who will stick by me, who is devoted, who knows a woman is not to be picked up every day, and appreciates us.--That is what I love you for, you old monster!'--and they fill up these avowals with little pettings and prettinesses and--Faugh! they are as false as the bills on the Hotel de Ville."
"A lie is sometimes better than the truth," said Hulot, remembering sundry bewitching scenes called up by Crevel, who mimicked Valerie.
"They are obliged to act upon their lies, to sew spangles on their stage frocks--"
"And they are ours, after all, the lying jades!" said Crevel coarsely.
"Valerie is a witch," said the Baron. "She can turn an old man into a young one."
"Oh, yes!" said Crevel, "she is an eel that wriggles through your hands; but the prettiest eel, as white and sweet as sugar, as amusing as Arnal--and ingenious!"
