Honore de Balzac: Cousin Betty

1. PART I: THE PRODIGAL FATHER (continued)

Atala indignantly withdrew a step.

"You are an old fool!" said she. "Why, my father and mother had had nothing to eat for a week. My mother wanted me to do much worse than that, I think, for my father thrashed her and called her a thief! However, Monsieur Vyder paid all their debts, and gave them some money --oh, a bagful! And he brought me away, and poor papa was crying. But we had to part!--Was it wicked?" she asked.

"And are you very fond of Monsieur Vyder?"

"Fond of him?" said she. "I should think so! He tells me beautiful stories, madame, every evening; and he has given me nice gowns, and linen, and a shawl. Why, I am figged out like a princess, and I never wear sabots now. And then, I have not known what it is to be hungry these two months past. And I don't live on potatoes now. He brings me bonbons and burnt almonds, and chocolate almonds.--Aren't they good?-- I do anything he pleases for a bag of chocolate.--Then my old Daddy is very kind; he takes such care of me, and is so nice; I know now what my mother ought to have been.--He is going to get an old woman to help me, for he doesn't like me to dirty my hands with cooking. For the past month, too, he has been making a little money, and he gives me three francs every evening that I put into a money-box. Only he will never let me out except to come here--and he calls me his little kitten! Mamma never called me anything but bad names--and thief, and vermin!"

"Well, then, my child, why should not Daddy Vyder be your husband?"

"But he is, madame," said the girl, looking at Adeline with calm pride, without a blush, her brow smooth, her eyes steady. "He told me that I was his little wife; but it is a horrid bore to be a man's wife --if it were not for the burnt almonds!"