Shortly afterward, Maurice arrived. Valmorain met him, gesticulating and beating the table, the same old song but this time yelling: he was Valmorain's only heir, destined to carry the title of chevalier with pride and to increase the family's power and fortune, which had been earned with great effort; he was the last male who could perpetuate the dynasty, that was what Valmorain had trained him for, he had imbued him with his principles and sense of honor, he had offered him everything a father can give a son, he would not permit him to stain the illustrious name of the Valmorains with a youthful impulse. No, no, he corrected, it wasn't an impulse it was a vice, a perversion, it was nothing less than incest. He collapsed into his armchair, breathless. On the other side of the wall, glued to her spy hole, Hortense Guizot choked back an exclamation. She had not expected her husband to admit to his son his paternity of Rosette, which he had so carefully hidden from her.
"Incest, monsieur? You forced me to swallow soap when I called Rosette sister," Maurice argued.
"You know very well what I am referring to!"
"I will marry Rosette even though you are her father," said Maurice, attempting to keep a respectful tone.
"But how can you marry a quadroon!" roared Valmorain.
"Apparently, monsieur, you are bothered more by Rosette's color than by our being related. But if you engender a daughter with a woman of color, you should not be surprised that I love another."
"Insolent pup!"
Sancho tried to pacify them with conciliatory gestures. Valmorain understood that he was not getting anywhere down that path and forced himself to appear calm and reasonable.
"You are a good boy, Maurice, but overly sensitive and dreamy," he said. "It was a mistake to send you to that American school. I don't know what ideas they put in your head, but it seems that you do not know who you are, what your position is, or the responsibilities you have to your family and society."
"The school has given me a broader vision of the world, monsieur, but that has nothing to do with Rosette. My feelings for her are the same now as they were fifteen years ago."
"These impulses are normal at your age, son. There's nothing original about your case," Valmorain assured him. "No one marries at eighteen, Maurice. Choose a lover like any other boy of your position. That will calm you down. If there is anything we have a lot of in this city, it's beautiful women of color-"
"No!" his son interrupted. "Rosette is the only woman for me."
"Incest is very serious, Maurice."
"Much more serious is slavery."
"What does one have to do with the other!"
"A great deal, monsieur. Without slavery, which allowed you to abuse your slave, Rosette would not be my sister," Maurice explained.
"How dare you speak that way to your father!"
"Forgive me, monsieur," Maurice replied with irony. "In truth, the mistakes you have made cannot serve as an excuse for mine."
"What you have, son, is lust," said Valmorain with a theatrical sigh. "Nothing easier to understand. You must do what we all do in such cases."
"What is that, monsieur?"
"I thought I did not have to explain these things to you, Maurice. Bed your girl once and for all, and then forget her. That's how it's done. What else can you do with a Negress?"
"That is what you want for your daughter?" Maurice asked, pale, clenching his teeth. Drops of sweat were streaming down his face, and his shirt was damp.
"She is the daughter of a slave! My children are white!" Valmorain shouted.
A frigid silence fell over the library. Sancho backed away, rubbing the back of his neck, with the sensation that all was lost. His brother-in-law's clumsiness seemed irreparable.
"I shall marry her," Maurice said finally, and strode out of the room, ignoring his father's string of threats.
To the Right of the Moon
It had never crossed Tete's mind to go to the ball, and neither had she been invited. She understood it wasn't for people of her status: the other mothers would have been offended and her daughter would have choked with embarrassment, so she worked out an agreement with Violette to act as Rosette's chaperone. The preparations for that night, which had taken months of patience and work, gave the hoped for results: Rosette looked like an angel in her ethereal gown, with jasmine pinned in her hair. Before her daughter climbed into the rented coach, viewed by neighbors who'd come outside to applaud them, Violette repeated to Tete and Loula that she was going to get the best of the young protectors for Rosette. No one imagined that she would come dragging the girl back an hour later, when neighbors were still in the street chatting.
Rosette burst into the house with the mulish expression that had this year replaced her coquetry. She tore off her dress, and locked herself in her room without a word. Violette was hysterical, screaming that that little troublemaker was going to pay, that she had nearly destroyed the ball, that she had deceived everyone, and that she had made her waste time, effort, and money because she had never intended to be placee, the ball had been a vehicle for meeting that wretched Maurice. Violette was certain. Rosette and Maurice had in some inexplicable fashion planned to meet there, because the girl could not go out alone. How she sent and received messages was a mystery she refused to reveal, despite the slapping Violette gave her. That confirmed a suspicion Tete had always had: the z'etoiles of those two children were joined in heaven: some nights they were clearly visible to the right of the moon.
After the scene in the library of the house where he had confronted his father, Maurice left determined to cut his ties to his family forever. Sancho was able to soothe Valmorain a little and then follow his nephew to the apartment they shared, where he found Maurice distraught, red with fever and with pain in his gut. With his servant's help, Sancho got Maurice's clothing off and put him in bed, then forced him to drink a glass of warm whiskey with sugar and lemon, an improvised remedy that occurred to him as a palliative for the pangs of love and which also tumbled Maurice into a deep sleep. He told his servant to keep him cool with wet cloths to bring down his temperature, but that did not keep Maurice from raving with delirium the rest of the afternoon and a good part of the night.
The next morning the youth waked with less fever. The room was dark because the drapes had been closed but he did not want to call the servant, although he needed water and a cup of coffee. When he tried to get up to use the chamber pot, all his muscles were sore, as if he had galloped horseback a week, and he chose to go back to bed. Shortly afterward Sancho arrived with Parmentier. The doctor, who had known Maurice since he was a boy, could only repeat the cliche observation that time slips away faster than money. Where had the years gone? Maurice had gone out the door in short pants and returned through another changed into a man. The doctor examined him meticulously without reaching a diagnosis; the picture still was not clear, he said, he would have to wait. He ordered Maurice to stay in bed and see how he got along. He had recently attended two sailors in the nuns' hospital who had typhus. It wasn't an epidemic, he assured them, these were isolated cases, but they should be aware of that possibility. Rats from the ships often spread the illness, and perhaps Maurice had been infected on the voyage.