The Purse

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These involuntary reflections prompted him to watch the old man
and the Baroness, whose meaning looks and certain sidelong
glances cast at Adelaide displeased him. "Am I being duped?" was
Hippolyte's last idea--horrible, scathing, for he believed it
just enough to be tortured by it. He determined to stay after the
departure of the two old men, to confirm or dissipate his
suspicions. He drew out his purse to pay Adelaide; but carried
away by his poignant thoughts, he laid it on the table, falling
into a reverie of brief duration; then, ashamed of his silence,
he rose, answered some commonplace question from Madame de
Rouville, and went close up to her to examine the withered
features while he was talking to her.

He went away, racked by a thousand doubts. He had gone down but a
few steps when he turned back to fetch the forgotten purse.

"I left my purse here!" he said to the young girl.

"No," she said, reddening.

"I thought it was there," and he pointed to the card-table. Not
finding it, in his shame for Adelaide and the Baroness, he looked
at them with a blank amazement that made them laugh, turned pale,
felt his waistcoat, and said, "I must have made a mistake. I have
it somewhere no doubt."

In one end of the purse there were fifteen louis d'or, and in the
other some small change. The theft was so flagrant, and denied
with such effrontery, that Hippolyte no longer felt a doubt as to
his neighbors' morals. He stood still on the stairs, and got down
with some difficulty; his knees shook, he felt dizzy, he was in a
cold sweat, he shivered, and found himself unable to walk,
struggling, as he was, with the agonizing shock caused by the
destruction of all his hopes. And at this moment he found lurking
in his memory a number of observations, trifling in themselves,
but which corroborated his frightful suspicions, and which, by
proving the certainty of this last incident, opened his eyes as
to the character and life of these two women.

Had they really waited till the portrait was given them before
robbing him of his purse? In such a combination the theft was
even more odious. The painter recollected that for the last two
or three evenings Adelaide, while seeming to examine with a
girl's curiosity the particular stitch of the worn silk netting,
was probably counting the coins in the purse, while making some
light jests, quite innocent in appearance, but no doubt with the
object of watching for a moment when the sum was worth stealing.

"The old admiral has perhaps good reasons for not marrying
Adelaide, and so the Baroness has tried----"

But at this hypothesis he checked himself, not finishing his
thought, which was contradicted by a very just reflection, "If
the Baroness hopes to get me to marry her daughter," thought he,
"they would not have robbed me."

Then, clinging to his illusions, to the love that already had
taken such deep root, he tried to find a justification in some
accident. "The purse must have fallen on the floor," said he to
himself, "or I left it lying on my chair. Or perhaps I have it
about me--I am so absent-minded!" He searched himself with
hurried movements, but did not find the ill-starred purse. His
memory cruelly retraced the fatal truth, minute by minute. He
distinctly saw the purse lying on the green cloth; but then,
doubtful no longer, he excused Adelaide, telling himself that
persons in misfortune should not be so hastily condemned. There
was, of course, some secret behind this apparently degrading
action. He would not admit that that proud and noble face was a
lie.

At the same time the wretched rooms rose before him, denuded of
the poetry of love which beautifies everything; he saw them dirty
and faded, regarding them as emblematic of an inner life devoid
of honor, idle and vicious. Are not our feelings written, as it
were, on the things about us?

Next morning he rose, not having slept. The heartache, that
terrible malady of the soul, had made rapid inroads. To lose the
bliss we dreamed of, to renounce our whole future, is a keener
pang than that caused by the loss of known happiness, however
complete it may have been; for is not Hope better than Memory?
The thoughts into which our spirit is suddenly plunged are like a
shoreless sea, in which we may swim for a moment, but where our
love is doomed to drown and die. And it is a frightful death. Are
not our feelings the most glorious part of our life? It is this
partial death which, in certain delicate or powerful natures,
leads to the terrible ruin produced by disenchantment, by hopes
and passions betrayed. Thus it was with the young painter. He
went out at a very early hour to walk under the fresh shade of
the Tuileries, absorbed in his thoughts, forgetting everything in
the world.

There by chance he met one of his most intimate friends, a
school-fellow and studio-mate, with whom he had lived on better
terms than with a brother.

"Why, Hippolyte, what ails you?" asked Francois Souchet, the
young sculptor who had just won the first prize, and was soon to
set out for Italy.

"I am most unhappy," replied Hippolyte gravely.

"Nothing but a love affair can cause you grief. Money, glory,
respect--you lack nothing."

Insensibly the painter was led into confidences, and confessed
his love. The moment he mentioned the Rue de Suresnes, and a
young girl living on the fourth floor, "Stop, stop," cried
Souchet lightly. "A little girl I see every morning at the Church
of the Assumption, and with whom I have a flirtation. But, my
dear fellow, we all know her. The mother is a Baroness. Do you
really believe in a Baroness living up four flights of stairs?
Brrr! Why, you are a relic of the golden age! We see the old
mother here, in this avenue, every day; why, her face, her
appearance, tell everything. What, have you not known her for
what she is by the way she holds her bag?"

The two friends walked up and down for some time, and several
young men who knew Souchet or Schinner joined them. The painter's
adventure, which the sculptor regarded as unimportant, was
repeated by him.

"So he, too, has seen that young lady!" said Souchet.

And then there were comments, laughter, innocent mockery, full of
the liveliness familiar to artists, but which pained Hippolyte
frightfully. A certain native reticence made him uncomfortable as
he saw his heart's secret so carelessly handled, his passion
rent, torn to tatters, a young and unknown girl, whose life
seemed to be so modest, the victim of condemnation, right or
wrong, but pronounced with such reckless indifference. He
pretended to be moved by a spirit of contradiction, asking each
for proofs of his assertions, and their jests began again.

"But, my dear boy, have you seen the Baroness' shawl?" asked
Souchet.

"Have you ever followed the girl when she patters off to church
in the morning?" said Joseph Bridau, a young dauber in Gros'
studio.

"Oh, the mother has among other virtues a certain gray gown,
which I regard as typical," said Bixiou, the caricaturist.

"Listen, Hippolyte," the sculptor went on. "Come here at about
four o'clock, and just study the walk of both mother and
daughter. If after that you still have doubts! well, no one can
ever make anything of you; you would be capable of marrying your
porter's daughter."

Torn by the most conflicting feelings, the painter parted from
his friends. It seemed to him that Adelaide and her mother must
be superior to these accusations, and at the bottom of his heart
he was filled with remorse for having suspected the purity of
this beautiful and simple girl. He went to his studio, passing
the door of the rooms where Adelaide was, and conscious of a pain
at his heart which no man can misapprehend. He loved Mademoiselle
de Rouville so passionately that, in spite of the theft of the
purse, he still worshiped her. His love was that of the Chevalier
des Grieux admiring his mistress, and holding her as pure, even
on the cart which carries such lost creatures to prison. "Why
should not my love keep her the purest of women? Why abandon her
to evil and to vice without holding out a rescuing hand to her?"

The idea of this mission pleased him. Love makes a gain of
everything. Nothing tempts a young man more than to play the part
of a good genius to a woman. There is something inexplicably
romantic in such an enterprise which appeals to a highly-strung
soul. Is it not the utmost stretch of devotion under the loftiest
and most engaging aspect? Is there not something grand in the
thought that we love enough still to love on when the love of
others dwindles and dies?

Hippolyte sat down in his studio, gazed at his picture without
doing anything to it, seeing the figures through tears that
swelled in his eyes, holding his brush in his hand, going up to
the canvas as if to soften down an effect, but not touching it.
Night fell, and he was still in this attitude. Roused from his
moodiness by the darkness, he went downstairs, met the old
admiral on the way, looked darkly at him as he bowed, and fled.

He had intended going in to see the ladies, but the sight of
Adelaide's protector froze his heart and dispelled his purpose.
For the hundredth time he wondered what interest could bring this
old prodigal, with his eighty thousand francs a year, to this
fourth story, where he lost about forty francs every evening; and
he thought he could guess what it was.

The next and following days Hippolyte threw himself into his
work, and to try to conquer his passion by the swift rush of
ideas and the ardor of composition. He half succeeded. Study
consoled him, though it could not smother the memories of so many
tender hours spent with Adelaide.

One evening, as he left his studio, he saw the door of the
ladies' rooms half open. Somebody was standing in the recess of
the window, and the position of the door and the staircase made
it impossible that the painter should pass without seeing
Adelaide. He bowed coldly, with a glance of supreme indifference;
but judging of the girl's suffering by his own, he felt an inward
shudder as he reflected on the bitterness which that look and
that coldness must produce in a loving heart. To crown the most
delightful feast which ever brought joy to two pure souls, by
eight days of disdain, of the deepest and most utter contempt!--A
frightful conclusion. And perhaps the purse had been found,
perhaps Adelaide had looked for her friend every evening.

This simple and natural idea filled the lover with fresh remorse;
he asked himself whether the proofs of attachment given him by
the young girl, the delightful talks, full of the love that had
so charmed him, did not deserve at least an inquiry; were not
worthy of some justification. Ashamed of having resisted the
promptings of his heart for a whole week, and feeling himself
almost a criminal in this mental struggle, he called the same
evening on Madame de Rouville.

All his suspicions, all his evil thoughts vanished at the sight
of the young girl, who had grown pale and thin.

"Good heavens! what is the matter?" he asked her, after greeting
the Baroness.

Adelaide made no reply, but she gave him a look of deep
melancholy, a sad, dejected look, which pained him.

"You have, no doubt, been working hard," said the old lady. "You
are altered. We are the cause of your seclusion. That portrait
had delayed some pictures essential to your reputation."

Hippolyte was glad to find so good an excuse for his rudeness.

"Yes," he said, "I have been very busy, but I have been
suffering----"

At these words Adelaide raised her head, looked at her lover, and
her anxious eyes had now no hint of reproach.

"You must have thought us quite indifferent to any good or ill
that may befall you?" said the old lady.

"I was wrong," he replied. "Still, there are forms of pain which
we know not how to confide to any one, even to a friendship of
older date than that with which you honor me."

"The sincerity and strength of friendship are not to be measured
by time. I have seen old friends who had not a tear to bestow on
misfortune," said the Baroness, nodding sadly.

"But you--what ails you?" the young man asked Adelaide.

"Oh, nothing," replied the Baroness. "Adelaide has sat up late
for some nights to finish some little piece of woman's work, and
would not listen to me when I told her that a day more or less
did not matter----"

Hippolyte was not listening. As he looked at these two noble,
calm faces, he blushed for his suspicions, and ascribed the loss
of his purse to some unknown accident.

This was a delicious evening to him, and perhaps to her too.
There are some secrets which young souls understand so well.
Adelaide could read Hippolyte's thoughts. Though he could not
confess his misdeeds, the painter knew them, and he had come back
to his mistress more in love, and more affectionate, trying thus
to purchase her tacit forgiveness. Adelaide was enjoying such
perfect, such sweet happiness, that she did not think she had
paid too dear for it with all the grief that had so cruelly
crushed her soul. And yet, this true concord of hearts, this
understanding so full of magic charm, was disturbed by a little
speech of Madame de Rouville's.

"Let us have our little game," she said, "for my old friend
Kergarouet will not let me off."

These words revived all the young painter's fears; he colored as
he looked at Adelaide's mother, but he saw nothing in her
countenance but the expression of the frankest good-nature; no
double meaning marred its charm; its keenness was not
perifidious, its humor seemed kindly, and no trace of remorse
disturbed its equanimity.

He sat down to the card-table. Adelaide took side with the
painter, saying that he did not know piquet, and needed a
partner.

All through the game Madame de Rouville and her daughter
exchanged looks of intelligence, which alarmed Hippolyte all the
more because he was winning; but at last a final hand left the
lovers in the old lady's debt.

To feel for some money in his pocket the painter took his hands
off the table, and he then saw before him a purse which Adelaide
had slipped in front of him without his noticing it; the poor
child had the old one in her hand, and, to keep her countenance,
was looking into it for the money to pay her mother. The blood
rushed to Hippolyte's heart with such force that he was near
fainting.

The new purse, substituted for his own, and which contained his
fifteen gold louis, was worked with gilt beads. The rings and
tassels bore witness to Adelaide's good taste, and she had no
doubt spent all her little hoard in ornamenting this pretty piece
of work. It was impossible to say with greater delicacy that the
painter's gift could only be repaid by some proof of affection.

Hippolyte, overcome with happiness, turned to look at Adelaide
and her mother, and saw that they were tremulous with pleasure
and delight at their little trick. He felt himself mean, sordid,
a fool; he longed to punish himself, to rend his heart. A few
tears rose to his eyes; by an irresistible impulse he sprang up,
clasped Adelaide in his arms, pressed her to his heart, and stole
a kiss; then with the simple heartiness of an artist, "I ask for
her for my wife!" he exclaimed, looking at the Baroness.

Adelaide looked at him with half-wrathful eyes, and Madame de
Rouville, somewhat astonished, was considering her reply, when
the scene was interrupted by a ring at the bell. The old
vice-admiral came in, followed by his shadow, and Madame Schinner.
Having guessed the cause of the grief her son vainly endeavored
to conceal, Hippolyte's mother had made inquiries among her
friends concerning Adelaide. Very justly alarmed by the calumnies
which weighed on the young girl, unknown to the Comte de
Kergarouet, whose name she learned from the porter's wife, she
went to report them to the vice-admiral; and he, in his rage,
declared "he would crop all the scoundrels' ears for them."

Then, prompted by his wrath, he went on to explain to Madame
Schinner the secret of his losing intentionally at cards, because
the Baronne's pride left him none but these ingenious means of
assisting her.

When Madame Schinner had paid her respects to Madame de Rouville,
the Baroness looked at the Comte de Kergarouet, at the Chevalier
du Halga--the friend of the departed Comtesse de Kergarouet--at
Hippolyte, and Adelaide, and said, with the grace that comes from
the heart, "So we are a family party this evening."



PARIS, May 1832




ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Bixiou, Jean-Jacques
A Bachelor's Establishment
The Government Clerks
Modeste Mignon
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Firm of Nucingen
The Muse of the Department
Cousin Betty
The Member for Arcis
Beatrix
A Man of Business
Gaudissart II.
The Unconscious Humorists
Cousin Pons

Bridau, Joseph
A Bachelor's Establishment
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Start in Life
Modeste Mignon
Another Study of Woman
Pierre Grassou
Letters of Two Brides
Cousin Betty
The Member for Arcis

Halga, Chevalier du
Beatrix

Kergarouet, Comte de
The Ball at Sceaux
Ursule Mirouet

Molineux, Jean-Baptiste
A Second Home
Cesar Birotteau

Schinner, Hippolyte
A Bachelor's Establishment
Pierre Grassou
A Start in Life
Albert Savarus
The Government Clerks
Modeste Mignon
The Imaginary Mistress
The Unconscious Humorists

Souchet, Francois
The Imaginary Mistress
A Daughter of Eve