Honore de Balzac: Cousin Betty

1. PART I: THE PRODIGAL FATHER (continued)

In noble souls, admiration of this divine phenomenon will always be a safeguard to protect them from infidelity. How should a man not worship a beautiful and intellectual creature whose soul can soar to such manifestations?

By one in the morning Hortense was in a state of such intense anguish, that she flew to the door as she recognized her husband's ring at the bell, and clasped him in her arms like a mother.

"At last--here you are!" cried she, finding her voice again. "My dearest, henceforth where you go I go, for I cannot again endure the torture of such waiting.--I pictured you stumbling over a curbstone, with a fractured skull! Killed by thieves!--No, a second time I know I should go mad.--Have you enjoyed yourself so much?--And without me!-- Bad boy!"

"What can I say, my darling? There was Bixiou, who drew fresh caricatures for us; Leon de Lora, as witty as ever; Claude Vignon, to whom I owe the only consolatory article that has come out about the Montcornet statue. There were--"

"Were there no ladies?" Hortense eagerly inquired.

"Worthy Madame Florent--"

"You said the Rocher de Cancale.--Were you at the Florents'?"

"Yes, at their house; I made a mistake."

"You did not take a coach to come home?"

"No."

"And you have walked from the Rue des Tournelles?"

"Stidmann and Bixiou came back with me along the boulevards as far as the Madeleine, talking all the way."

"It is dry then on the boulevards and the Place de la Concorde and the Rue de Bourgogne? You are not muddy at all!" said Hortense, looking at her husband's patent leather boots.