Honore de Balzac: Cousin Betty

1. PART I: THE PRODIGAL FATHER (continued)

"I, madame, am still the same; but a retired merchant, if he is a grand gentleman, plays, and must play, the part with method and economy; he carries his ideas of order into everything. He opens an account for his little amusements, and devotes certain profits to that head of expenditure; but as to touching his capital! it would be folly. My children will have their fortune intact, mine and my wife's; but I do not suppose that they wish their father to be dull, a monk and a mummy! My life is a very jolly one; I float gaily down the stream. I fulfil all the duties imposed on me by law, by my affections, and by family ties, just as I always used to be punctual in paying my bills when they fell due. If only my children conduct themselves in their domestic life as I do, I shall be satisfied; and for the present, so long as my follies--for I have committed follies-- are no loss to any one but the gulls--excuse me, you do not perhaps understand the slang word--they will have nothing to blame me for, and will find a tidy little sum still left when I die. Your children cannot say as much of their father, who is ruining his son and my daughter by his pranks--"

The Baroness was getting further from her object as he went on.

"You are very unkind about my husband, my dear Crevel--and yet, if you had found his wife obliging, you would have been his best friend----"

She shot a burning glance at Crevel; but, like Dubois, who gave the Regent three kicks, she affected too much, and the rakish perfumer's thoughts jumped at such profligate suggestions, that he said to himself, "Does she want to turn the tables on Hulot?--Does she think me more attractive as a Mayor than as a National Guardsman? Women are strange creatures!"

And he assumed the position of his second manner, looking at the Baroness with his Regency leer.

"I could almost fancy," she went on, "that you want to visit on him your resentment against the virtue that resisted you--in a woman whom you loved well enough--to--to buy her," she added in a low voice.