Honore de Balzac: Cousin Betty

1. PART I: THE PRODIGAL FATHER (continued)

"Alas, my dear Crevel, it has nothing to do with the children, poor devoted souls!--If your heart is closed to Victorin and Celestine, I shall love them so much that perhaps I may soften the bitterness of their souls caused by your anger. You are punishing your children for a good action!"

"Yes, for a good action badly done! That is half a crime," said Crevel, much pleased with his epigram.

"Doing good, my dear Crevel, does not mean sparing money out of a purse that is bursting with it; it means enduring privations to be generous, suffering for liberality! It is being prepared for ingratitude! Heaven does not see the charity that costs us nothing--"

"Saints, madame, may if they please go to the workhouse; they know that it is for them the door of heaven. For my part, I am worldly-minded; I fear God, but yet more I fear the hell of poverty. To be destitute is the last depth of misfortune in society as now constituted. I am a man of my time; I respect money."

"And you are right," said Adeline, "from the worldly point of view."

She was a thousand miles from her point, and she felt herself on a gridiron, like Saint Laurence, as she thought of her uncle, for she could see him blowing his brains out.

She looked down; then she raised her eyes to gaze at Crevel with angelic sweetness--not with the inviting suggestiveness which was part of Valerie's wit. Three years ago she could have bewitched Crevel by that beautiful look.

"I have known the time," said she, "when you were more generous--you used to talk of three hundred thousand francs like a grand gentleman--"

Crevel looked at Madame Hulot; he beheld her like a lily in the last of its bloom, vague sensations rose within him, but he felt such respect for this saintly creature that he spurned all suspicions and buried them in the most profligate corner of his heart.