Bianchon pronounced that to-night at
the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that
await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your
father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his good
news.
"When he came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a
dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will
be Madame Crevel!'--And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's
bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me,
'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy
an estate I have my eye on--Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to
sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of
Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I
have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your
daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too
much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has
never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs
as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have
squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's
fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act
as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their
conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice
to their stepmother, I will receive them.
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