"I wanted to go to see you, to be sure that you were loved: I shall now be easy and no longer alarmed as to your future.--But will your lover appreciate the magnitude of your sacrifice; is there any gratitude in his affection?""Come to the Rue des Martyrs and you will see!""Yes, I will call," he replied. "I have already passed your door without daring to inquire for you.--You do not yet know the literary world. There are glorious exceptions, no doubt; but these men of letters drag terrible evils in their train; among these I account publicity as one of the greatest, for it blights everything. A woman may commit herself with--""With a Public Prosecutor?" the Baronne put in with a smile.
"Well!--and then after a rupture there is still something to fall back on; the world has known nothing. But with a more or less famous man the public is thoroughly informed. Why look there! What an example you have close at hand! You are sitting back to back with the Comtesse Marie Vandenesse, who was within an ace of committing the utmost folly for a more celebrated man than Lousteau--for Nathan--and now they do not even recognize each other. After going to the very edge of the precipice, the Countess was saved, no one knows how; she neither left her husband nor her house; but as a famous man was scorned, she was the talk of the town for a whole winter. But her husband's great fortune, great name, and high position, but for the admirable management of that true statesman--whose conduct to his wife, they say, was perfect--she would have been ruined; in her position no other woman would have remained respected as she is.""And how was Sancerre when you came away?" asked Madame de la Baudraye, to change the subject.
"Monsieur de la Baudraye announced that your expected confinement after so many years made it necessary that it should take place in Paris, and that he had insisted on your going to be attended by the first physicians," replied Monsieur de Clagny, guessing what it was that Dinah most wanted to know. "And so, in spite of the commotion to which your departure gave rise, you still have your legal status.""Why!" she exclaimed, "can Monsieur de la Baudraye still hope----""Your husband, madame, did what he always does--made a little calculation."The lawyer left the box when the journalist returned, bowing with dignity.
"You are a greater hit than the piece," said Etienne to Dinah.
This brief triumph brought greater happiness to the poor woman than she had ever known in the whole of her provincial existence; still, as they left the theatre she was very grave.
"What ails you, my Didine?" asked Lousteau.
"I am wondering how a woman succeeds in conquering the world?""There are two ways. One is by being Madame de Stael, the other is by having two hundred thousand francs a year.""Society," said she, "asserts its hold on us by appealing to our vanity, our love of appearances.--Pooh! We will be philosophers!"That evening was the last gleam of the delusive well-being in which Madame de la Baudraye had lived since coming to Paris. Three days later she observed a cloud on Lousteau's brow as he walked round the little garden-plot smoking a cigar. This woman, who had acquired from her husband the habit and the pleasure of never owing anybody a sou, was informed that the household was penniless, with two quarters' rent owing, and on the eve, in fact, of an execution.
This reality of Paris life pierced Dinah's heart like a thorn; she repented of having tempted Etienne into the extravagances of love. It is so difficult to pass from pleasure to work, that happiness has wrecked more poems than sorrows ever helped to flow in sparkling jets.
Dinah, happy in seeing Etienne taking his ease, smoking a cigar after breakfast, his face beaming as he basked like a lizard in the sunshine, could not summon up courage enough to make herself the bum-bailiff of a magazine.
It struck her that through the worthy Migeon, Pamela's father, she might pawn the few jewels she possessed, on which her "uncle," for she was learning to talk the slang of the town, advanced her nine hundred francs. She kept three hundred for her baby-clothes and the expenses of her illness, and joyfully presented the sum due to Lousteau, who was ploughing, furrow by furrow, or, if you will, line by line, through a novel for a periodical.
"Dearest heart," said she, "finish your novel without making any sacrifice to necessity; polish the style, work up the subject.--I have played the fine lady too long; I am going to be the housewife and attend to business."For the last four months Etienne had been taking Dinah to the Cafe Riche to dine every day, a corner being always kept for them. The countrywoman was in dismay at being told that five hundred francs were owing for the last fortnight.
"What! we have been drinking wine at six francs a bottle! A sole /Normande/ costs five francs!--and twenty centimes for a roll?" she exclaimed, as she looked through the bill Lousteau showed her.
"Well, it makes very little difference to us whether we are robbed at a restaurant or by a cook," said Lousteau.
"Henceforth, for the cost of your dinner, you shall live like a prince."Having induced the landlord to let her have a kitchen and two servants' rooms, Madame de la Baudraye wrote a few lines to her mother, begging her to send her some linen and a loan of a thousand francs. She received two trunks full of linen, some plate, and two thousand francs, sent by the hand of an honest and pious cook recommended her by her mother.
