He was received by the Vervelles with an enthusiasm, a joy, a kindliness, a frank bourgeois absurdity which confounded him. It was indeed a day of triumph. The prospective son-in-law was marched about the grounds on the nankeen-colored paths, all raked as they should be for the steps of so great a man. The trees themselves looked brushed and combed, and the lawns had just been mown. The pure country air wafted to the nostrils a most enticing smell of cooking. All things about the mansion seemed to say:
“We have a great artist among us.”
Little old Vervelle himself rolled like an apple through his park, the daughter meandered like an eel, the mother followed with dignified step. These three beings never let go for one moment of Pierre Grassou for seven hours. After dinner, the length of which equalled its magnificence, Monsieur and Madame Vervelle reached the moment of their grand theatrical effect, — the opening of the picture gallery illuminated by lamps, the reflections of which were managed with the utmost care. Three neighbours, also retired merchants, an old uncle (from whom were expectations), an elderly Demoiselle Vervelle, and a number of other guests invited to be present at this ovation to a great artist followed Grassou into the picture gallery, all curious to hear his opinion of the famous collection of pere Vervelle, who was fond of oppressing them with the fabulous value of his paintings. The bottle-merchant seemed to have the idea of competing with King Louis-Philippe and the galleries of Versailles.
The pictures, magnificently framed, each bore labels on which was read in black letters on a gold ground:
Rubens
Dance of fauns and nymphs
Rembrandt
Interior of a dissecting room. The physician van Tromp
instructing his pupils.
In all, there were one hundred and fifty pictures, varnished and dusted. Some were covered with green baize curtains which were not undrawn in presence of young ladies.
Pierre Grassou stood with arms pendent, gaping mouth, and no word upon his lips as he recognized half his own pictures in these works of art. He was Rubens, he was Rembrandt, Mieris, Metzu, Paul Potter, Gerard Douw! He was twenty great masters all by himself.
“What is the matter? You’ve turned pale!”
“Daughter, a glass of water! quick!” cried Madame Vervelle. The painter took pere Vervelle by the button of his coat and led him to a corner on pretence of looking at a Murillo. Spanish pictures were then the rage.
“You bought your pictures from Elie Magus?”
“Yes, all originals.”
“Between ourselves, tell me what he made you pay for those I shall point out to you.”
Together they walked round the gallery. The guests were amazed at the gravity in which the artist proceeded, in company with the host, to examine each picture.
“Three thousand francs,” said Vervelle in a whisper, as they reached the last, “but I tell everybody forty thousand.”
“Forty thousand for a Titian!” said the artist, aloud. “Why, it is nothing at all!”
“Didn’t I tell you,” said Vervelle, “that I had three hundred thousand francs’ worth of pictures?”
“I painted those pictures,” said Pierre Grassou in Vervelle’s ear, “and I sold them one by one to Elie Magus for less than ten thousand francs the whole lot.”
“Prove it to me,” said the bottle-dealer, “and I double my daughter’s ‘dot,’ for if it is so, you are Rubens, Rembrandt, Titian, Gerard Douw!”
“And Magus is a famous picture-dealer!” said the painter, who now saw the meaning of the misty and aged look imparted to his pictures in Elie’s shop, and the utility of the subjects the picture-dealer had required of him.
Far from losing the esteem of his admiring bottle-merchant, Monsieur de Fougeres (for so the family persisted in calling Pierre Grassou) advanced so much that when the portraits were finished he presented them gratuitously to his father-in-law, his mother-in-law and his wife.
At the present day, Pierre Grassou, who never misses exhibiting at the Salon, passes in bourgeois regions for a fine portrait-painter. He earns some twenty thousand francs a year and spoils a thousand francs’ worth of canvas. His wife has six thousand francs a year in dowry, and he lives with his father-in-law. The Vervelles and the Grassous, who agree delightfully, keep a carriage, and are the happiest people on earth. Pierre Grassou never emerges from the bourgeois circle, in which he is considered one of the greatest artists of the period. Not a family portrait is painted between the barrier du Trone and the rue du Temple that is not done by this great painter; none of them costs less than five hundred francs. The great reason which the bourgeois families have for employing him is this: —
“Say what you will of him, he lays by twenty thousand francs a year with his notary.”
As Grassou took a creditable part on the occasion of the riots of May 12th he was appointed an officer of the Legion of honor. He is a major in the National Guard. The Museum of Versailles felt it incumbent to order a battle-piece of so excellent a citizen, who thereupon walked about Paris to meet his old comrades and have the happiness of saying to them: —
“The King has given me an order for the Museum of Versailles.”
Madame de Fougeres adores her husband, to whom she has presented two children. This painter, a good father and a good husband, is unable to eradicate from his heart a fatal thought, namely, that artists laugh at his work; that his name is a term of contempt in the studios; and that the feuilletons take no notice of his pictures. But he still works on; he aims for the Academy, where, undoubtedly, he will enter. And — oh! vengeance which dilates his heart! — he buys the pictures of celebrated artists who are pinched for means, and he substitutes these true works of arts that are not his own for the wretched daubs in the collection at Ville d’Avray.
There are many mediocrities more aggressive and more mischievous than that of Pierre Grassou, who is, moreover, anonymously benevolent and truly obliging.
The Poor Relations
COUSIN BETTY
Translated by James Waring
Considered by many to be Balzac’s masterpiece, this famous novel was originally published in 1846. Set in mid-19th century Paris, La Cousine Bette tells the story of an unmarried middle-aged woman, who plots the destruction of her extended family. Bette works with Valérie Marneffe, an unhappily married young lady, to seduce and torment a series of men. One of these is Baron Hector Hulot, husband to Bette’s cousin Adeline. He sacrifices his family’s fortune and good name to please Valérie, who leaves him for a tradesman named Crevel.
In the 1840s, a serial format known as the roman-feuilleton was highly popular in France, and the most acclaimed expression of it was the socialist writing of Eugène Sue. Balzac wanted to challenge Sue’s supremacy, and prove himself the most capable author in France. Writing quickly and with intense focus, Balzac produced one of his longest novels in two months. La Cousine Bette was published in book format in Le Constitutionnel at the end of 1846 and then collected with its companion work, Le Cousin Pons, the following year.
La Cousine Bette won immediate critical acclaim, which Balzac had not expected. Whether due to the intensity of its creation or the tumult of his personal life, the author was surprised by the praise he received. He later wrote: “I did not realise how good La Cousine Bette is ... There is an immense reaction in my favour. I have won!”
An original illustration
Balzac, close to the time of publication
The 1971 television adaptation
The 1998 film adaptation
DEDICATION
To Don Michele Angelo Cajetani, Prince of Teano.
It is neither to the Roman Prince, nor to the representative of the illustrious house of Cajetani, which has given more than one Pope to the Christian Church, that I dedicate this short portion of a long history; it is to the learned commentator of Dante.
It was you who led me to understand the marvelous framework of ideas on which the great Italian poet built his poem, the only work which the moder
ns can place by that of Homer. Till I heard you, the Divine Comedy was to me a vast enigma to which none had found the clue — the commentators least of all. Thus, to understand Dante is to be as great as he; but every form of greatness is familiar to you.
A French savant could make a reputation, earn a professor’s chair, and a dozen decorations, by publishing in a dogmatic volume the improvised lecture by which you lent enchantment to one of those evenings which are rest after seeing Rome. You do not know, perhaps, that most of our professors live on Germany, on England, on the East, or on the North, as an insect lives on a tree; and, like the insect, become an integral part of it, borrowing their merit from that of what they feed on. Now, Italy hitherto has not yet been worked out in public lectures. No one will ever give me credit for my literary honesty. Merely by plundering you I might have been as learned as three Schlegels in one, whereas I mean to remain a humble Doctor of the Faculty of Social Medicine, a veterinary surgeon for incurable maladies. Were it only to lay a token of gratitude at the feet of my cicerone, I would fain add your illustrious name to those of Porcia, of San-Severino, of Pareto, of di Negro, and of Belgiojoso, who will represent in this “Human Comedy” the close and constant alliance between Italy and France, to which Bandello did honor in the same way in the sixteenth century — Bandello, the bishop and author of some strange tales indeed, who left us the splendid collection of romances whence Shakespeare derived many of his plots and even complete characters, word for word.
The two sketches I dedicate to you are the two eternal aspects of one and the same fact. Homo duplex, said the great Buffon: why not add Res duplex? Everything has two sides, even virtue. Hence Moliere always shows us both sides of every human problem; and Diderot, imitating him, once wrote, “This is not a mere tale” — in what is perhaps Diderot’s masterpiece, where he shows us the beautiful picture of Mademoiselle de Lachaux sacrificed by Gardanne, side by side with that of a perfect lover dying for his mistress.
In the same way, these two romances form a pair, like twins of opposite sexes. This is a literary vagary to which a writer may for once give way, especially as part of a work in which I am endeavoring to depict every form that can serve as a garb to mind.
Most human quarrels arise from the fact that both wise men and dunces exist who are so constituted as to be incapable of seeing more than one side of any fact or idea, while each asserts that the side he sees is the only true and right one. Thus it is written in the Holy Book, “God will deliver the world over to divisions.” I must confess that this passage of Scripture alone should persuade the Papal See to give you the control of the two Chambers to carry out the text which found its commentary in 1814, in the decree of Louis XVIII.
May your wit and the poetry that is in you extend a protecting hand over these two histories of “The Poor Relations”
Of your affectionate humble servant,
DE BALZAC.
PARIS, August-September, 1846.
COUSIN BETTY
One day, about the middle of July 1838, one of the carriages, then lately introduced to Paris cabstands, and known as Milords, was driving down the Rue de l’Universite, conveying a stout man of middle height in the uniform of a captain of the National Guard.
Among the Paris crowd, who are supposed to be so clever, there are some men who fancy themselves infinitely more attractive in uniform than in their ordinary clothes, and who attribute to women so depraved a taste that they believe they will be favorably impressed by the aspect of a busby and of military accoutrements.
The countenance of this Captain of the Second Company beamed with a self-satisfaction that added splendor to his ruddy and somewhat chubby face. The halo of glory that a fortune made in business gives to a retired tradesman sat on his brow, and stamped him as one of the elect of Paris — at least a retired deputy-mayor of his quarter of the town. And you may be sure that the ribbon of the Legion of Honor was not missing from his breast, gallantly padded a la Prussienne. Proudly seated in one corner of the milord, this splendid person let his gaze wander over the passers-by, who, in Paris, often thus meet an ingratiating smile meant for sweet eyes that are absent.
The vehicle stopped in the part of the street between the Rue de Bellechasse and the Rue de Bourgogne, at the door of a large, newly-build house, standing on part of the court-yard of an ancient mansion that had a garden. The old house remained in its original state, beyond the courtyard curtailed by half its extent.
Only from the way in which the officer accepted the assistance of the coachman to help him out, it was plain that he was past fifty. There are certain movements so undisguisedly heavy that they are as tell-tale as a register of birth. The captain put on his lemon-colored right-hand glove, and, without any question to the gatekeeper, went up the outer steps to the ground of the new house with a look that proclaimed, “She is mine!”
The concierges of Paris have sharp eyes; they do not stop visitors who wear an order, have a blue uniform, and walk ponderously; in short, they know a rich man when they see him.
This ground floor was entirely occupied by Monsieur le Baron Hulot d’Ervy, Commissary General under the Republic, retired army contractor, and at the present time at the head of one of the most important departments of the War Office, Councillor of State, officer of the Legion of Honor, and so forth.
This Baron Hulot had taken the name of d’Ervy — the place of his birth — to distinguish him from his brother, the famous General Hulot, Colonel of the Grenadiers of the Imperial Guard, created by the Emperor Comte de Forzheim after the campaign of 1809. The Count, the elder brother, being responsible for his junior, had, with paternal care, placed him in the commissariat, where, thanks to the services of the two brothers, the Baron deserved and won Napoleon’s good graces. After 1807, Baron Hulot was Commissary General for the army in Spain.
Having rung the bell, the citizen-captain made strenuous efforts to pull his coat into place, for it had rucked up as much at the back as in front, pushed out of shape by the working of a piriform stomach. Being admitted as soon as the servant in livery saw him, the important and imposing personage followed the man, who opened the door of the drawing-room, announcing:
“Monsieur Crevel.”
On hearing the name, singularly appropriate to the figure of the man who bore it, a tall, fair woman, evidently young-looking for her age, rose as if she had received an electric shock.
“Hortense, my darling, go into the garden with your Cousin Betty,” she said hastily to her daughter, who was working at some embroidery at her mother’s side.
After curtseying prettily to the captain, Mademoiselle Hortense went out by a glass door, taking with her a withered-looking spinster, who looked older than the Baroness, though she was five years younger.
“They are settling your marriage,” said Cousin Betty in the girl’s ear, without seeming at all offended at the way in which the Baroness had dismissed them, counting her almost as zero.
The cousin’s dress might, at need, have explained this free-and-easy demeanor. The old maid wore a merino gown of a dark plum color, of which the cut and trimming dated from the year of the Restoration; a little worked collar, worth perhaps three francs; and a common straw hat with blue satin ribbons edged with straw plait, such as the old-clothes buyers wear at market. On looking down at her kid shoes, made, it was evident, by the veriest cobbler, a stranger would have hesitated to recognize Cousin Betty as a member of the family, for she looked exactly like a journeywoman sempstress. But she did not leave the room without bestowing a little friendly nod on Monsieur Crevel, to which that gentleman responded by a look of mutual understanding.
“You are coming to us to-morrow, I hope, Mademoiselle Fischer?” said he.
“You have no company?” asked Cousin Betty.
“My children and yourself, no one else,” replied the visitor.
“Very well,” replied she; “depend on me.”
“And here am I, madame, at your orders,” said the citizen-captain, bowing ag
ain to Madame Hulot.
He gave such a look at Madame Hulot as Tartuffe casts at Elmire — when a provincial actor plays the part and thinks it necessary to emphasize its meaning — at Poitiers, or at Coutances.
“If you will come into this room with me, we shall be more conveniently placed for talking business than we are in this room,” said Madame Hulot, going to an adjoining room, which, as the apartment was arranged, served as a cardroom.
It was divided by a slight partition from a boudoir looking out on the garden, and Madame Hulot left her visitor to himself for a minute, for she thought it wise to shut the window and the door of the boudoir, so that no one should get in and listen. She even took the precaution of shutting the glass door of the drawing-room, smiling on her daughter and her cousin, whom she saw seated in an old summer-house at the end of the garden. As she came back she left the cardroom door open, so as to hear if any one should open that of the drawing-room to come in.
As she came and went, the Baroness, seen by nobody, allowed her face to betray all her thoughts, and any one who could have seen her would have been shocked to see her agitation. But when she finally came back from the glass door of the drawing-room, as she entered the cardroom, her face was hidden behind the impenetrable reserve which every woman, even the most candid, seems to have at her command.
During all these preparations — odd, to say the least — the National Guardsman studied the furniture of the room in which he found himself. As he noted the silk curtains, once red, now faded to dull purple by the sunshine, and frayed in the pleats by long wear; the carpet, from which the hues had faded; the discolored gilding of the furniture; and the silk seats, discolored in patches, and wearing into strips — expressions of scorn, satisfaction, and hope dawned in succession without disguise on his stupid tradesman’s face. He looked at himself in the glass over an old clock of the Empire, and was contemplating the general effect, when the rustle of her silk skirt announced the Baroness. He at once struck at attitude.
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 678