第91章

But he dismissed the minister's private secretary, and read as follows:--"Oh, my dear friend, what a scene I have had to endure! Though you have made me happy for three years, I have paid dearly for it! He came in from the office in a rage that made me quake. I knew he was ugly; I have seen him a monster! His four real teeth chattered, and he threatened me with his odious presence without respite if I should continue to receive you. My poor, dear old boy, our door is closed against you henceforth. You see my tears; they are dropping on the paper and soaking it; can you read what I write, dear Hector? Oh, to think of never seeing you, of giving you up when I bear in me some of your life, as I flatter myself I have your heart--it is enough to kill me. Think of our little Hector!

"Do not forsake me, but do not disgrace yourself for Marneffe's sake; do not yield to his threats.

"I love you as I have never loved! I remember all the sacrifices you have made for your Valerie; she is not, and never will be, ungrateful; you are, and will ever be, my only husband. Think no more of the twelve hundred francs a year I asked you to settle on the dear little Hector who is to come some months hence; I will not cost you anything more. And besides, my money will always be yours.

"Oh, if you only loved me as I love you, my Hector, you would retire on your pension; we should both take leave of our family, our worries, our surroundings, so full of hatred, and we should go to live with Lisbeth in some pretty country place--in Brittany, or wherever you like. There we should see nobody, and we should be happy away from the world. Your pension and the little property I can call my own would be enough for us. You say you are jealous; well, you would then have your Valerie entirely devoted to her Hector, and you would never have to talk in a loud voice, as you did the other day. I shall have but one child--ours--you may be sure, my dearly loved old veteran.

"You cannot conceive of my fury, for you cannot know how he treated me, and the foul words he vomited on your Valerie. Such words would disgrace my paper; a woman such as I am--Montcornet's daughter--ought never to have heard one of them in her life. I only wish you had been there, that I might have punished him with the sight of the mad passion I felt for you. My father would have killed the wretch; I can only do as women do--love you devotedly!

Indeed, my love, in the state of exasperation in which I am, I cannot possibly give up seeing you. I must positively see you, in secret, every day! That is what we are, we women. Your resentment is mine. If you love me, I implore you, do not let him be promoted; leave him to die a second-class clerk.

"At this moment I have lost my head; I still seem to hear him abusing me. Betty, who had meant to leave me, has pity on me, and will stay for a few days.

"My dear kind love, I do not know yet what is to be done. I see nothing for it but flight. I always delight in the country--Brittany, Languedoc, what you will, so long as I am free to love you. Poor dear, how I pity you! Forced now to go back to your old Adeline, to that lachrymal urn--for, as he no doubt told you, the monster means to watch me night and day; he spoke of a detective!

Do not come here, he is capable of anything I know, since he could make use of me for the basest purposes of speculation. I only wish I could return you all the things I have received from your generosity.

"Ah! my kind Hector, I may have flirted, and have seemed to you to be fickle, but you did not know your Valerie; she liked to tease you, but she loves you better than any one in the world.

"He cannot prevent your coming to see your cousin; I will arrange with her that we have speech with each other. My dear old boy, write me just a line, pray, to comfort me in the absence of your dear self. (Oh, I would give one of my hands to have you by me on our sofa!) A letter will work like a charm; write me something full of your noble soul; I will return your note to you, for I must be cautious; I should not know where to hide it, he pokes his nose in everywhere. In short, comfort your Valerie, your little wife, the mother of your child.--To think of my having to write to you, when I used to see you every day. As I say to Lisbeth, 'I did not know how happy I was.' A thousand kisses, dear boy. Be true to your "VALERIE."

"And tears!" said Hulot to himself as he finished this letter, "tears which have blotted out her name.--How is she?" said he to Reine.

"Madame is in bed; she has dreadful spasms," replied Reine. "She had a fit of hysterics that twisted her like a withy round a faggot. It came on after writing. It comes of crying so much. She heard monsieur's voice on the stairs."

The Baron in his distress wrote the following note on office paper with a printed heading:--"Be quite easy, my angel, he will die a second-class clerk!--Your idea is admirable; we will go and live far from Paris, where we shall be happy with our little Hector; I will retire on my pension, and I shall be sure to find some good appointment on a railway.

"Ah, my sweet friend, I feel so much the younger for your letter!

I shall begin life again and make a fortune, you will see, for our dear little one. As I read your letter, a thousand times more ardent than those of the /Nouvelle Heloise/, it worked a miracle!

I had not believed it possible that I could love you more. This evening, at Lisbeth's you will see "YOUR HECTOR, FOR LIFE."

Reine carried off this reply, the first letter the Baron had written to his "sweet friend." Such emotions to some extent counterbalanced the disasters growling in the distance; but the Baron, at this moment believing he could certainly avert the blows aimed at his uncle, Johann Fischer, thought only of the deficit.