Honore de Balzac: Cousin Betty

1. PART I: THE PRODIGAL FATHER (continued)

"And she was so sharp, she won over poor old Thoul, and took him away, and we don't know where, and left us in a pretty fix, with a lot of bills coming in. To this day as ever is we have not been able to settle up; but my daughter, who knows all about such things, keeps an eye on them as they fall due.--Then, when Idamore saw he had got hold of the old man, through his sister, you understand, he threw over my daughter, and now he has got hold of a little actress at the Funambules.--And that was how my daughter came to get married, as you will see--"

"But you must know where the mattress-picker lives?" said Josepha.

"What! old Chardin? As if he lived anywhere at all!--He is drunk by six in the morning; he makes a mattress once a month; he hangs about the wineshops all day; he plays at pools--"

"He plays at pools?" said Josepha.

"You do not understand, madame, pools of billiards, I mean, and he wins three or four a day, and then he drinks."

"Water out of the pools, I suppose?" said Josepha. "But if Idamore haunts the Boulevard, by inquiring through my friend Vraulard, we could find him."

"I don't know, madame; all this was six months ago. Idamore was one of the sort who are bound to find their way into the police courts, and from that to Melun--and the--who knows--?"

"To the prison yard!" said Josepha.

"Well, madame, you know everything," said the old woman, smiling. "Well, if my girl had never known that scamp, she would now be--Still, she was in luck, all the same, you will say, for Monsieur Grenouville fell so much in love with her that he married her--"

"And what brought that about?"