It occurred to Valerie to invite
Mademoiselle Fischer to a house-warming in the new apartments she was
about to move into. Lisbeth, glad to have found another house to dine
in, and bewitched by Madame Marneffe, had taken a great fancy to
Valerie. Of all the persons she had made acquaintance with, no one had
taken so much pains to please her. In fact, Madame Marneffe, full of
attentions for Mademoiselle Fischer, found herself in the position
towards Lisbeth that Lisbeth held towards the Baroness, Monsieur
Rivet, Crevel, and the others who invited her to dinner.
The Marneffes had excited Lisbeth's compassion by allowing her to see
the extreme poverty of the house, while varnishing it as usual with
the fairest colors; their friends were under obligations to them and
ungrateful; they had had much illness; Madame Fortin, her mother, had
never known of their distress, and had died believing herself wealthy
to the end, thanks to their superhuman efforts--and so forth.
"Poor people!" said she to her Cousin Hulot, "you are right to do what
you can for them; they are so brave and so kind! They can hardly live
on the thousand crowns he gets as deputy-head of the office, for they
have got into debt since Marshal Montcornet's death. It is barbarity
on the part of the Government to suppose that a clerk with a wife and
family can live in Paris on two thousand four hundred francs a year."
And so, within a very short time, a young woman who affected regard
for her, who told her everything, and consulted her, who flattered
her, and seemed ready to yield to her guidance, had become dearer to
the eccentric Cousin Lisbeth than all her relations.
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