He is just the same in private life--body and soul and
conscience--the same through and through--hideous! I hate him; I
despise him! Yes, after all that that despicable Nucingen has told me,
I cannot respect him any longer. A man capable of mixing himself up in
such affairs, and of talking about them to me as he did, without the
slightest scruple,--it is because I have read him through and through
that I am afraid of him. He, my husband, frankly proposed to give me
my liberty, and do you know what that means? It means that if things
turn out badly for him, I am to play into his hands, and be his
stalking-horse."
"But there is law to be had! There is a Place de Greve for sons-in-law
of that sort," cried her father; "why, I would guillotine him myself
if there was no headsman to do it."
"No, father, the law cannot touch him. Listen, this is what he says,
stripped of all his circumlocutions--'Take your choice, you and no one
else can be my accomplice; either everything is lost, you are ruined
and have not a farthing, or you will let me carry this business
through myself.' Is that plain speaking? He _must_ have my assistance.
He is assured that his wife will deal fairly by him; he knows that I
shall leave his money to him and be content with my own.
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