Honore de Balzac: Cousin Betty

1. PART I: THE PRODIGAL FATHER (continued)

"I! advise you! I don't know," replied Stidmann. "But your wife loves you, I imagine? Well, then, she will believe anything. Tell her that you were on your way to me when I was on my way to you; that, at any rate, will set this morning's business right. Good-bye."

Lisbeth, called down by Reine, ran after Wenceslas and caught him up at the corner of the Rue Hillerin-Bertin; she was afraid of his Polish artlessness. Not wishing to be involved in the matter, she said a few words to Wenceslas, who in his joy hugged her then and there. She had no doubt pushed out a plank to enable the artist to cross this awkward place in his conjugal affairs.

At the sight of her mother, who had flown to her aid, Hortense burst into floods of tears. This happily changed the character of the hysterical attack.

"Treachery, dear mamma!" cried she. "Wenceslas, after giving me his word of honor that he would not go near Madame Marneffe, dined with her last night, and did not come in till a quarter-past one in the morning.--If you only knew! The day before we had had a discussion, not a quarrel, and I had appealed to him so touchingly. I told him I was jealous, that I should die if he were unfaithful; that I was easily suspicious, but that he ought to have some consideration for my weaknesses, as they came of my love for him; that I had my father's blood in my veins as well as yours; that at the first moment of such discovery I should be mad, and capable of mad deeds--of avenging myself--of dishonoring us all, him, his child, and myself; that I might even kill him first and myself after--and so on.

"And yet he went there; he is there!--That woman is bent on breaking all our hearts! Only yesterday my brother and Celestine pledged their all to pay off seventy thousand francs on notes of hand signed for that good-for-nothing creature.--Yes, mamma, my father would have been arrested and put into prison. Cannot that dreadful woman be content with having my father, and with all your tears? Why take my Wenceslas? --I will go to see her and stab her!"