Honore de Balzac: Cousin Betty

1. PART I: THE PRODIGAL FATHER (continued)

"She got to know a claqueur, madame, saving your presence, a man paid to clap, you know, the grand nephew of an old mattress-picker of the Faubourg Saint-Marceau. This good-for-naught, as all your good-looking fellows are, paid to make a piece go, is the cock of the walk out on the Boulevard du Temple, where he works up the new plays, and takes care that the actresses get a reception, as he calls it. First, he has a good breakfast in the morning; then, before the play, he dines, to be 'up to the mark,' as he says; in short, he is a born lover of billiards and drams. 'But that is not following a trade,' as I said to Olympe."

"It is a trade men follow, unfortunately," said Josepha.

"Well, the rascal turned Olympe's head, and he, madame, did not keep good company--when I tell you he was very near being nabbed by the police in a tavern where thieves meet. 'Wever, Monsieur Braulard, the leader of the claque, got him out of that. He wears gold earrings, and he lives by doing nothing, hanging on to women, who are fools about these good-looking scamps. He spent all the money Monsieur Thoul used to give the child.

"Then the business was going to grief; what embroidery brought in went out across the billiard table. 'Wever, the young fellow had a pretty sister, madame, who, like her brother, lived by hook and by crook, and no better than she should be neither, over in the students' quarter."

"One of the sluts at the Chaumiere," said Josepha.

"So, madame," said the old woman. "So Idamore, his name is Idamore, leastways that is what he calls himself, for his real name is Chardin --Idamore fancied that your uncle had a deal more money than he owned to, and he managed to send his sister Elodie--and that was a stage name he gave her--to send her to be a workwoman at our place, without my daughter's knowing who she was; and, gracious goodness! but that girl turned the whole place topsy-turvy; she got all those poor girls into mischief--impossible to whitewash them, saving your presence----