II

The old man was reading the "Constitutionnel" in his chimney-corner,

before a little round table on which stood his frugal breakfast,--a

roll, some butter, a plate of Brie cheese, and a cup of coffee.

"Here is true wisdom," thought Birotteau, envying his uncle's life.

"Well!" said Pillerault, taking off his spectacles, "I heard at the

cafe David last night about Roguin's affair, and the assassination of

his mistress, la belle Hollandaise. I hope, as we desire to be actual

owners of the property, that you obtained Claparon's receipt for the

money."

"Alas! uncle, no. The trouble is just there,--you have put your finger

upon the sore."

"Good God! you are ruined!" cried Pillerault, letting fall his

newspaper, which Birotteau picked up, though it was the

"Constitutionnel."

Pillerault was so violently roused by his reflections that his face--

like the image on a medal and of the same stern character--took a deep

bronze tone, such as the metal itself takes under the oscillating tool

of a coiner; he remained motionless, gazing through the window-panes

at the opposite wall, but seeing nothing,--listening, however, to

Birotteau. Evidently he heard and judged, and weighed the /pros/ and

/cons/ with the inflexibility of a Minos who had crossed the Styx of

commerce when he quitted the Quai des Morfondus for his little third

storey.

"Well, uncle?" said Birotteau, who waited for an answer, after closing

what he had to say with an entreaty that Pillerault would sell sixty

thousand francs out of the Funds.

"Well, my poor nephew, I cannot do it; you are too heavily involved.

The Ragons and I each lose our fifty thousand francs. Those worthy

people have, by my advice, sold their shares in the mines of

Wortschin: I feel obliged, in case of loss, not to return the capital

of course, but to succor them, and to succor my niece and Cesarine.

You may all want bread, and you shall find it with me."

"Want bread, uncle?"

"Yes, bread. See things as they are, Cesar. /You cannot extricate

yourself./ With five thousand six hundred francs income, I could set

aside four thousand francs for you and the Ragons. If misfortune

overtakes you,--I know Constance, she will work herself to the bone,

she will deny herself everything; and so will you, Cesar."

"All is not hopeless, uncle."

"I cannot see it as you do."

"I will prove that you are mistaken."

"Nothing would give me greater happiness."

Birotteau left Pillerault without another word. He had come to seek

courage and consolation, and he received a blow less severe, perhaps,

than the first; but instead of striking his head it struck his heart,

and his heart was the whole of life to the poor man. After going down

a few stairs he returned.

"Monsieur," he said, in a cold voice, "Constance knows nothing. Keep

my secret at any rate; beg the Ragons to say nothing, and not to take

from my home the peace I need so much in my struggle against

misfortune."

Pillerault made a gesture of assent.

"Courage, Cesar!" he said. "I see you are angry with me; but later,

when you think of your wife and daughter, you will do me justice."

Discouraged by his uncle's opinion, and recognizing its clear-

sightedness, Cesar tumbled from the heights of hope into the miry

marshes of doubt and uncertainty. In such horrible commercial straits

a man, unless his soul is tempered like that of Pillerault, becomes

the plaything of events; he follows the ideas of others, or his own,

as a traveller pursues a will-o'-the-wisp. He lets the gust whirl him

along, instead of lying flat and not looking up as it passes; or else

gathering himself together to follow the direction of the storm till

he can escape from the edges of it. In the midst of his pain Birotteau

bethought him of the steps he ought to take about the mortgage on his

property. He turned towards the Rue Vivienne to find Derville, his

solicitor, and institute proceedings at once, in case the lawyer

should see any chance of annulling the agreement. He found Derville

sitting by the fire, wrapped in a white woollen dressing-gown, calm

and composed in manner, like all lawyers long used to receiving

terrible confidences. Birotteau noticed for the first time in his life

this necessary coldness, which struck a chill to the soul of a man

grasped by the fever of imperilled interests,--passionate, wounded,

and cruelly gashed in his life, his honor, his wife, his child, as

Cesar showed himself to be while he related his misfortunes.

"If it can be proved," said Derville, after listening to him, "that

the lender no longer had in Roguin's hands the sum which Roguin

pretended to borrow for you upon your property, then, as there has

been no delivery of the money, there is ground for annulling the

contract; the lender may seek redress through the warranty, as you

will for your hundred thousand francs. I will answer for the case,

however, as much as one can ever answer. No case is won till it is

tried."

The opinion of so able a lawyer restored Cesar's courage a little, and

he begged Derville to obtain a judgment within a fortnight. The

solicitor replied that it might take three months to get such a

judgment as would annul the agreement.

"Three months!" cried Birotteau, who needed immediate resources.

"Though we may get the case at once on the docket, we cannot make your

adversary keep pace with us. He will employ all the law's delays, and

the barristers are seldom ready. Perhaps your opponents will let the

case go by default. We can't always get on as we wish," said Derville,

smiling.

"In the commercial courts--" began Birotteau.

"Oh!" said the lawyer, "the judges of the commercial courts and the

judges of the civil courts are different sorts of judges. You dash

through things. At the Palais de Justice we have stricter forms. Forms

are the bulwarks of law. How would you like slap-dash judgments, which

can't be appealed, and which would make you lose forty thousand

francs? Well, your adversary, who sees that sum involved, will defend

himself. Delays may be called judicial fortifications."

"You are right," said Birotteau, bidding Derville good-by, and going

hurriedly away, with death in his heart.

"They are all right. Money! money! I must have money!" he cried as he

went along the streets, talking to himself like other busy men in the

turbulent and seething city, which a modern poet has called a vat.

When he entered his shop, the clerk who had carried round the bills

informed him that the customers had returned the receipts and kept the

accounts, as it was so near the first of January.

"Then there is no money to be had anywhere," said the perfumer, aloud.

He bit his lips, for the clerks all raised their heads and looked at

him.

Five days went by; five days during which Braschon, Lourdois, Thorein,

Grindot, Chaffaroux, and all the other creditors with unpaid bills

passed through the chameleon phases that are customary to uneasy

creditors before they take the sanguinary colors of the commercial

Bellona, and reach a state of peaceful confidence. In Paris the

astringent stage of suspicion and mistrust is as quick to declare

itself as the expansive flow of confidence is slow in gathering way.

The creditor who has once turned into the narrow path of commercial

fears and precautions speedily takes a course of malignant meanness

which puts him below the level of his debtor. He passes from specious

civility to impatient rage, to the surly clamor of importunity, to

bursts of disappointment, to the livid coldness of a mind made up to

vengeance, and the scowling insolence of a summons before the courts.

Braschon, the rich upholsterer of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, who was

not invited to the ball, and was therefore stabbed in his self-love,

sounded the charge; he insisted on being paid within twenty-four

hours. He demanded security; not an attachment on the furniture, but a

second mortgage on the property in the Faubourg du Temple.

In spite of such attacks and the violence of these recriminations, a

few peaceful intervals occurred, when Birotteau breathed once more;

but instead of resolutely facing and vanquishing the first

skirmishings of adverse fortune, Cesar employed his whole mind in the

effort to keep his wife, the only person able to advise him, from

knowing anything about them. He guarded the very threshold of his

door, and set a watch on all around him. He took Celestin into

confidence so far as to admit a momentary embarrassment, and Celestin

examined him with an amazed and inquisitive look. In his eyes Cesar

lessened, as men lessen in presence of disasters when accustomed only

to success, and when their whole mental strength consists of knowledge

which commonplace minds acquire through routine.

Menaced as he was on so many sides at once, and without the energy or

capacity to defend himself, Cesar nevertheless had the courage to look

his position in the face. To meet the payments on his house and on his

loans, and to pay his rents and his current expenses, he required,

between the end of December and the fifteenth of January, a sum of

sixty thousand francs, half of which must be obtained before the

thirtieth of December. All his resources put together gave him a scant

twenty thousand; he lacked ten thousand francs for the first payments.

To his mind the position did not seem desperate; for like an

adventurer who lives from day to day, he saw only the present moment.

He resolved to attempt, before the news of his embarrassments was made

public, what seemed to him a great stroke, and seek out the famous

Francois Keller, banker, orator, and philanthropist, celebrated for

his benevolence and for his desire to serve the interests of Parisian

commerce,--with the view, we may add, of being always returned to the

Chamber as a deputy of Paris.

The banker was Liberal, Birotteau was Royalist; but the perfumer

judged by his own heart, and believed that the difference in their

political opinions would only be one reason the more for obtaining the

credit he intended to ask. In case actual securities were required he

felt no doubt of Popinot's devotion, from whom he expected to obtain

some thirty thousand francs, which would enable him to await the

result of his law-suit by satisfying the demands of the most exacting

of the creditors. The demonstrative perfumer, who told his dear

Constance, with his head on her pillow, the smallest thoughts and

feelings of his whole life, looking for the lights of her

contradiction, and gathering courage as he did so, was now prevented

from speaking of his situation to his head-clerk, his uncle, or his

wife. His thoughts were therefore doubly heavy,--and yet the generous

martyr preferred to suffer, rather than fling the fiery brand into the

soul of his wife. He meant to tell her of the danger when it was over.

The awe with which she inspired him gave him courage. He went every

morning to hear Mass at Saint-Roch, and took God for his confidant.

"If I do not meet a soldier coming home from Saint-Roch, my request

will be granted. That will be God's answer," he said to himself, after

praying that God would help him.

And he was overjoyed when it happened that he did not meet a soldier.

Still, his heart was so heavy that he needed another heart on which to

lean and moan. Cesarine, to whom from the first he confided the fatal

truth, knew all his secrets. Many stolen glances passed between them,

glances of despair or smothered hope,--interpellations of the eye

darted with mutual eagerness, inquiries and replies full of sympathy,

rays passing from soul to soul. Birotteau compelled himself to seem

gay, even jovial, with his wife. If Constance asked a question--bah!

everything was going well; Popinot (about whom Cesar knew nothing) was

succeeding; the oil was looking up; the notes with Claparon would be

paid; there was nothing to fear. His mock joy was terrible to witness.

When his wife had fallen asleep in the sumptuous bed, Birotteau would

rise to a sitting position and think over his troubles. Cesarine would

sometimes creep in with her bare feet, in her chemise, and a shawl

over her white shoulders.

"Papa, I hear you,--you are crying," she would say, crying herself.

Birotteau sank into such a torpor, after writing the letter which

asked for an interview with the great Francois Keller, that his

daughter took him out for a walk through the streets of Paris. For the

first time he was roused to notice enormous scarlet placards on all

the walls, and his eyes encountered the words "Cephalic Oil."

While catastrophes thus threatened "The Queen of Roses" to westward,

the house of A. Popinot was rising, radiant in the eastern splendors

of success. By the advice of Gaudissart and Finot, Anselme launched

his oil heroically. Two thousand placards were pasted in three days on

the most conspicuous spots in all Paris. No one could avoid coming

face to face with Cephalic Oil, and reading a pithy sentence,

constructed by Finot, which announced the impossibility of forcing the

hair to grow and the dangers of dyeing it, and was judiciously

accompanied by a quotation from Vauquelin's report to the Academy of

Sciences,--in short, a regular certificate of life for dead hair,

offered to all those who used Cephalic Oil. Every hair-dresser in

Paris, and all the perfumers, ornamented their doorways with gilt

frames containing a fine impression of the prospectus on vellum, at

the top of which shone the engraving of Hero and Leander, reduced in

size, with the following assertion as an epigraph: "The peoples of

antiquity preserved their hair by the use of Cephalic Oil."

"He has devised frames, permanent frames, perpetual placards," said

Birotteau to himself, quite dumbfounded as he stood before the shop-

front of the Cloche d'Argent.

"Then you have not seen," said his daughter, "the frame which Monsieur

Anselme has brought with his own hands, sending Celestin three hundred

bottles of oil?"

"No," he said.

"Celestin has already sold fifty to passers-by, and sixty to regular

customers."

"Ah!" exclaimed Cesar.

The poor man, bewildered by the clash of bells which misery jangles in

the ears of its victims, lived and moved in a dazed condition. The

night before, Popinot had waited more than an hour to see him, and

went away after talking with Constance and Cesarine, who told him that

Cesar was absorbed in his great enterprise.

"Ah, true! the lands about the Madeleine."

Happily, Popinot--who for a month had never left the Rue des Cinq-

Diamants, sitting up all night, and working all Sunday at the

manufactory--had seen neither the Ragons, nor Pillerault, nor his

uncle the judge. He allowed himself but two hours' sleep, poor lad! he

had only two clerks, but at the rate things were now going, he would

soon need four. In business, opportunity is everything. He who does

not spring upon the back of success and clutch it by the mane, lets

fortune escape. Popinot felt that his suit would prosper if six months

hence he could say to his uncle and aunt, "I am secure; my fortune is

made," and carry to Birotteau thirty or forty thousand francs as his

share of the profits. He was ignorant of Roguin's flight, of the

disasters and embarrassments which were closing down on Cesar, and he

therefore could say nothing indiscreet to Madame Birotteau.

Popinot had promised Finot five hundred francs for every puff in a

first-class newspaper, and already there were ten of them; three

hundred francs for every second-rate paper, and there were ten of

those,--in all of them Cephalic Oil was mentioned three times a month!

Finot saw three thousand francs for himself out of these eight

thousand--his first stake on the vast green table of speculation! He

therefore sprang like a lion on his friends and acquaintances; he

haunted the editorial rooms; he wormed himself to the very bedsides of

editors in the morning, and prowled about the lobby of the theatres at

night. "Think of my oil, dear friend; I have no interest in it--bit of

good fellowship, you know!" "Gaudissart, jolly dog!" Such was the

first and the last phrase of all his allocutions. He begged for the

bottom lines of the final columns of the newspapers, and inserted

articles for which he asked no pay from the editors. Wily as a

supernumerary who wants to be an actor, wide-awake as an errand-boy

who earns sixty francs a month, he wrote wheedling letters, flattered

the self-love of editors-in-chief, and did them base services to get

his articles inserted. Money, dinners, platitudes, all served the

purpose of his eager activity. With tickets for the theatre, he bribed

the printers who about midnight are finishing up the columns of a

newspaper with little facts and ready-made items kept on hand. At that

hour Finot hovered around printing-presses, busy, apparently, with

proofs to be corrected. Keeping friends with everybody, he brought

Cephalic Oil to a triumphant success over Pate de Regnauld, and

Brazilian Mixture, and all the other inventions which had the genius

to comprehend journalistic influence and the suction power that

reiterated newspaper articles have upon the public mind. In these

early days of their innocence many journalists were like cattle; they

were unaware of their inborn power; their heads were full of

actresses,--Florine, Tullia, Mariette, etc. They laid down the law to

everybody, but they picked up nothing for themselves. As Finot's

schemes did not concern actresses who wanted applause, nor plays to be

puffed, nor vaudevilles to be accepted, nor articles which had to be

paid for,--on the contrary, he paid money on occasion, and gave timely

breakfasts,--there was soon not a newspaper in Paris which did not

mention Cephalic Oil, and call attention to its remarkable concurrence

with the principles of Vauquelin's analysis; ridiculing all those who

thought hair could be made to grow, and proclaiming the danger of

dyeing it.

These articles rejoiced the soul of Gaudissart, who used them as

ammunition to destroy prejudices, bringing to bear upon the provinces

what his successors have since named, in honor of him, "the charge of

the tongue-battery." In those days Parisian newspapers ruled the

departments, which were still (unhappy regions!) without /local

organs/. The papers were therefore soberly studied, from the title to

the name of the printer,--a last line which may have hidden the

ironies of persecuted opinion. Gaudissart, thus backed up by the

press, met with startling success from the very first town which he

favored with his tongue. Every shopkeeper in the provinces wanted the

gilt frames, and the prospectuses with Hero and Leander at the top of

them.

In Paris, Finot fired at Macassar Oil that delightful joke which made

people so merry at the Funambules, when Pierrot, taking an old hair-

broom, anointed it with Macassar Oil, and the broom incontinently

became a mop. This ironical scene excited universal laughter. Finot

gaily related in after days that without the thousand crowns he earned

through Cephalic Oil he should have died of misery and despair. To him

a thousand crowns was fortune. It was in this campaign that he guessed

--let him have the honor of being the first to do so--the illimitable

power of advertisement, of which he made so great and so judicious a

use. Three months later he became editor-in-chief of a little journal

which he finally bought, and which laid the foundation of his ultimate

success. Just as the tongue-battery of the illustrious Gaudissart,

that Murat of travellers, when brought to bear upon the provinces and

the frontiers, made the house of A. Popinot and Company a triumphant

mercantile success in the country regions, so likewise did Cephalic

Oil triumph in Parisian opinion, thanks to Finot's famishing assault

upon the newspapers, which gave it as much publicity as that obtained

by Brazilian Mixture and the Pate de Regnauld. From the start, public

opinion, thus carried by storm, begot three successes, three fortunes,

and proved the advance guard of that invasion of ambitious schemes

which since have poured their crowded battalions into the arena of

journalism, for which they have created--oh, mighty revolution!--the

paid advertisement. The name of A. Popinot and Company now flaunted on

all the walls and all the shop-fronts. Incapable of perceiving the

full bearing of such publicity, Birotteau merely said to his

daughter,--

"Little Popinot is following in my steps."

He did not understand the difference of the times, nor appreciate the

power of the novel methods of execution, whose rapidity and extent

took in, far more promptly than ever before, the whole commercial

universe. Birotteau had not set foot in his manufactory since the

ball; he knew nothing therefore of the energy and enterprise displayed

by Popinot. Anselme had engaged all Cesar's workmen, and often slept

himself on the premises. His fancy pictured Cesarine sitting on the

cases, and hovering over the shipments; her name seemed printed on the

bills; and as he worked with his coat off, and his shirt-sleeves

rolled up, courageously nailing up the cases himself, in default of

the necessary clerks, he said in his heart, "She shall be mine!"

*****

The following day Cesar went to Francois Keller's house in Rue du

Houssaye, having spent the night turning over in his mind what he

ought to say, or ought not to say, to a leading man in banking

circles. Horrible palpitations of the heart assailed him as he

approached the house of the Liberal banker, who belonged to a party

accused, with good reason, of seeking the overthrow of the restored

Bourbons. The perfumer, like all the lesser tradesmen of Paris, was

ignorant of the habits and customs of the upper banking circles.

Between the higher walks of finance and ordinary commerce, there is in

Paris a class of secondary houses, useful intermediaries for banking

interests, which find in them an additional security. Constance and

Birotteau, who had never gone beyond their means, whose purse had

never run dry, and who kept their moneys in their own possession, had

so far never needed the services of these intermediary houses; they

were therefore unknown in the higher regions of a bank. Perhaps it is

a mistake not to take out credits, even if we do not need them.

Opinions vary on this point. However that may be, Birotteau now deeply

regretted that his signature was unknown. Still, as deputy-mayor, and

therefore known in politics, he thought he had only to present his

name and be admitted: he was quite ignorant of the ceremonial, half

regal, which attended an audience with Francois Keller. He was shown

into a salon which adjoined the study of the celebrated banker,--

celebrated in various ways. Birotteau found himself among a numerous

company of deputies, writers, journalists, stock-brokers, merchants of

the upper grades, agents, engineers, and above all satellites, or

henchmen, who passed from group to group, and knocked in a peculiar

manner at the door of the study, which they were, as it seemed,

privileged to enter.

"What am I in the midst of all this?" thought Birotteau, quite

bewildered by the stir of this intellectual kiln, where the daily

bread of the opposition was kneaded and baked, and the scenes of the

grand tragi-comedy played by the Left were rehearsed. On one side he

heard them discussing the question of loans to complete the net-work

of canals proposed by the department on highways; and the discussion

involved millions! On the other, journalists, pandering to the

banker's self-love, were talking about the session of the day before,

and the impromptu speech of the great man. In the course of two long

hours Birotteau saw the banker three times, as he accompanied certain

persons of importance three steps from the door of his study. But

Francois Keller went to the door of the antechamber with the last, who

was General Foy.

"There is no hope for me!" thought Birotteau with a shrinking heart.

When the banker returned to his study, the troop of courtiers,

friends, and self-seekers pressed round him like dogs pursuing a

bitch. A few bold curs slipped, in spite of him, into the sanctum. The

conferences lasted five, ten, or fifteen minutes. Some went away chap-

fallen; others affected satisfaction, and took on airs of importance.

Time passed; Birotteau looked anxiously at the clock. No one paid the

least attention to the hidden grief which moaned silently in the

gilded armchair in the chimney corner, near the door of the cabinet

where dwelt the universal panacea--credit! Cesar remembered sadly that

for a brief moment he too had been a king among his own people, as

this man was a king daily; and he measured the depth of the abyss down

which he had fallen. Ah, bitter thought! how many tears were driven

back during those waiting hours! how many times did he not pray to God

that this man might be favorable to him! for he saw, through the

coarse varnish of popular good humor, a tone of insolence, a choleric

tyranny, a brutal desire to rule, which terrified his gentle spirit.

At last, when only ten or twelve persons were left in the room,

Birotteau resolved that the next time the outer door of the study

turned on its hinges he would rise and face the great orator, and say

to him, "I am Birotteau!" The grenadier who sprang first into the

redoubt at Moscow displayed no greater courage than Cesar now summoned

up to perform this act.

"After all, I am his mayor," he said to himself as he rose to proclaim

his name.

The countenance of Francois Keller at once became affable; he

evidently desired to be cordial. He glanced at Cesar's red ribbon, and

stepping back, opened the door of his study and motioned him to enter,

remaining himself for some time to speak with two men, who rushed in

from the staircase with the violence of a waterspout.

"Decazes wants to speak to you," said one of them.

"It is a question of defeating the Pavillon Marsan!" cried the other.

"The King's eyes are opened. He is coming round to us."

"We will go together to the Chamber," said the banker, striking the

attitude of the frog who imitates an ox.

"How can he find time to think of business?" thought Birotteau, much

disturbed.

The sun of successful superiority dazzled the perfumer, as light

blinds those insects who seek the falling day or the half-shadows of a

starlit night. On a table of immense size lay the budget, piles of the

Chamber records, open volumes of the "Moniteur," with passages

carefully marked, to throw at the head of a Minister his forgotten

words and force him to recant them, under the jeering plaudits of a

foolish crowd incapable of perceiving how circumstances alter cases.

On another table were heaped portfolios, minutes, projects,

specifications, and all the thousand memoranda brought to bear upon a

man into whose funds so many nascent industries sought to dip. The

royal luxury of this cabinet, filled with pictures, statues, and works

of art; the encumbered chimney-piece; the accumulation of many

interests, national and foreign, heaped together like bales,--all

struck Birotteau's mind, dwarfed his powers, heightened his terror,

and froze his blood. On Francois Keller's desk lay bundles of notes

and checks, letters of credit, and commercial circulars. Keller sat

down and began to sign rapidly such letters as needed no examination.

"Monsieur, to what do I owe the honor of this visit?"

At these words, uttered for him alone by a voice which influenced all

Europe, while the eager hand was running over the paper, the poor

perfumer felt something that was like a hot iron in his stomach. He

assumed the ingratiating manner which for ten years past the banker

had seen all men put on when they wanted to get the better of him for

their own purposes, and which gave him at once the advantage over

them. Francois Keller accordingly darted at Cesar a look which shot

through his head,--a Napoleonic look. This imitation of Napoleon's

glance was a silly satire, then popular with certain parvenus who had

never seen so much as the base coin of their emperor. This glance fell

upon Birotteau, a devotee of the Right, a partisan of the government,

--himself an element of monarchical election,--like the stamp of a

custom-house officer affixed to a bale of merchandise.

"Monsieur, I will not waste your time; I will be brief. I come on

commercial business only,--to ask if I can obtain a credit. I was

formerly a judge of the commercial courts, and known to the Bank of

France. You will easily understand that if I had plenty of ready money

I need only apply there, where you are yourself a director. I had the

honor of sitting on the Bench of commerce with Monsieur le baron

Thibon, chairman of the committee on discounts; and he, most

assuredly, would not refuse me. But up to this time I have never made

use of my credit or my signature; my signature is virgin,--and you

know what difficulties that puts in the way of negotiation."

Keller moved his head, and Birotteau took the movement for one of

impatience.

"Monsieur, these are the facts," he resumed. "I am engaged in an

affair of landed property, outside of my business--"

Francois Keller, who continued to sign and read his documents, without

seeming to listen to Birotteau, here turned round and made him a

little sign of attention, which encouraged the poor man. He thought

the matter was taking a favorable turn, and breathed again.

"Go on; I hear you," said Keller good-naturedly.

"I have purchased, at half its value, certain land about the

Madeleine--"

"Yes; I heard Nucingen speak of that immense affair,--undertaken, I

believe, by Claparon and Company."

"Well," continued Cesar, "a credit of a hundred thousand francs,

secured on my share of the purchase, will suffice to carry me along

until I can reap certain profits from a discovery of mine in

perfumery. Should it be necessary, I will cover your risk by notes on

a new establishment,--the firm of A. Popinot--"

Keller seemed to care very little about the firm of Popinot; and

Birotteau, perceiving that he had made a false move, stopped short;

then, alarmed by the silence, he resumed, "As for the interest, we--"

"Yes, yes," said the banker, "the matter can be arranged; don't doubt

my desire to be of service to you. Busy as I am,--for I have the

finances of Europe on my shoulders, and the Chamber takes all my

time,--you will not be surprised to hear that I leave the vast bulk of

our affairs to the examination of others. Go and see my brother

Adolphe, downstairs; explain to him the nature of your securities; if

he approves of the operation, come back here with him to-morrow or the

day after, at five in the morning,--the hour at which I examine into

certain business matters. We shall be proud and happy to obtain your

confidence. You are one of those consistent royalists with whom, of

course, we are political enemies, but whose good-will is always

flattering--"

"Monsieur," said Cesar, elated by this specimen of tribune eloquence,

"I trust I am as worthy of the honor you do me as I was of the signal

and royal favor which I earned by my services on the Bench of

commerce, and by fighting--"

"Yes, yes," interrupted the banker, "your reputation is a passport,

Monsieur Birotteau. You will, of course, propose nothing that is not

feasible, and you can depend on our co-operation."

A lady, Madame Keller, one of the two daughters of the Comte de

Gondreville, here opened a door which Birotteau had not observed.

"I hope to see you before you go the Chamber," she said.

"It is two o'clock," exclaimed the banker; "the battle has begun.

Excuse me, monsieur, it is a question of upsetting the ministry. See

my brother--"

He conducted the perfumer to the door of the salon, and said to one of

the servants, "Show monsieur the way to Monsieur Adolphe."

As Cesar traversed a labyrinth of staircases, under the guidance of a

man in livery, towards an office far less sumptuous but more useful

than that of the head of the house, feeling himself astride the gentle

steed of hope, he stroked his chin, and augured well from the

flatteries of the great man. He regretted that an enemy of the

Bourbons should be so gracious, so able, so fine an orator.

Full of these illusions he entered a cold bare room, furnished with

two desks on rollers, some shabby armchairs, a threadbare carpet, and

curtains that were much neglected. This cabinet was to that of the

elder brother like a kitchen to a dining-room, or a work-room to a

shop. Here were turned inside out all matters touching the bank and

commerce; here all enterprises were sifted, and the first tithes

levied, on behalf of the bank, upon the profits of industries judged

worthy of being upheld. Here were devised those bold strokes by which

short-lived monopolies were called into being and rapidly sucked dry.

Here defects of legislation were chronicled; and bargains driven,

without shame, for what the Bourse terms "pickings to be gobbled up,"

commissions exacted for the smallest services, such as lending their

name to an enterprise, and allowing it credit. Here were hatched the

specious, legal plots by which silent partnerships were taken in

doubtful enterprises, that the bank might lie in wait for the moment

of success, and then crush them and seize the property by demanding a

return of the capital at a critical moment,--an infamous trick, which

involves and ruins many small shareholders.

The two brothers had each selected his appropriate part. Upstairs,

Francois, the brilliant man of the world and of politics, assumed a

regal air, bestowed courtesies and promises, and made himself

agreeable to all. His manners were easy and complying; he looked at

business from a lofty standpoint; he intoxicated new recruits and

fledgling speculators with the wine of his favor and his fervid

speech, as he made plain to them their own ideas. Downstairs, Adolphe

unsaid his brother's words, excused him on the ground of political

preoccupation, and cleverly slipped the rake along the cloth. He

played the part of the responsible partner, the careful business man.

Two words, two speeches, two interviews, were required before an

understanding could be reached with this perfidious house. Often the

gracious "yes" of the sumptuous upper floor became a dry "no" in

Adolphe's region. This obstructive manoeuvre gave time for reflection,

and often served to fool unskilful applicants. As Cesar entered, the

banker's brother was conversing with the famous Palma, intimate

adviser of the house of Keller, who retired on the appearance of the

perfumer. When Birotteau had explained his errand, Adolphe--much the

cleverest of the two brothers, a thorough lynx, with a keen eye, thin

lips, and a dry skin--cast at Birotteau, lowering his head to look

over his spectacles as he did so, a look which we must call the

banker-look,--a cross between that of a vulture and that of an

attorney; eager yet indifferent, clear yet vague, glittering though

sombre.

"Have the goodness to send me the deeds relating to the affair of the

Madeleine," he said; "our security in making you this credit lies

there: we must examine them before we consent to make it, or discuss

the terms. If the affair is sound, we shall be willing, so as not to

embarrass you, to take a share of the profits in place of receiving a

discount."

"Well," thought Birotteau, as he walked away, "I see what it means.

Like the hunted beaver, I am to give up a part of my skin. After all,

it is better to be shorn than killed."

He went home smiling gaily, and his gaiety was genuine.

"I am saved," he said to Cesarine. "I am to have a credit with the

Kellers."