III

It was not until the 29th of December that Birotteau was allowed to

re-enter Adolphe's cabinet. The first time he called, Adolphe had gone

into the country to look at a piece of property which the great orator

thought of buying. The second time, the two Kellers were deeply

engaged for the whole day, preparing a tender for a loan proposed in

the Chamber, and they begged Monsieur Birotteau to return on the

following Friday. These delays were killing to the poor man. But

Friday came at last. Birotteau found himself in the cabinet, placed in

one corner of the fireplace, facing the light from a window, with

Adolphe Keller opposite to him.

"They are all right, monsieur," said the banker, pointing to the

deeds. "But what payments have you made on the price of the land?"

"One hundred and forty thousand francs."

"Cash?"

"Notes."

"Are they paid?"

"They are not yet due."

"But supposing you have paid more than the present value of the

property, where will be our security? It will rest solely on the

respect you inspire, and the consideration in which you are held.

Business is not conducted on sentiment. If you had paid two hundred

thousand francs, supposing that there were another one hundred

thousand paid down in advance for possession of the land, we should

then have had the security of a hundred thousand francs, to warrant us

in giving you a credit of one hundred thousand. The result might be to

make us owners of your share by our paying for it, instead of your

doing so; consequently we must be satisfied that the affair is a sound

one. To wait five years to double our capital won't do for us; it is

better to employ it in other ways. There are so many chances! You are

trying to circulate paper to pay your notes when they fall due,--a

dangerous game. It is wiser to step back for a better leap. The affair

does not suit us."

This sentence struck Birotteau as if the executioner had stamped his

shoulder with the marking-iron; he lost his head.

"Come," said Adolphe, "my brother feels a great interest in you; he

spoke of you to me. Let us examine into your affairs," he added,

glancing at Cesar with the look of a courtesan eager to pay her rent.

Birotteau became Molineux,--a being at whom he had once laughed so

loftily. Enticed along by the banker,--who enjoyed disentangling the

bobbins of the poor man's thought, and who knew as well how to cross-

question a merchant as Popinot the judge knew how to make a criminal

betray himself,--Cesar recounted all his enterprises; he put forward

his Double Paste of Sultans and Carminative Balm, the Roguin affair,

and his lawsuit about the mortgage on which he had received no money.

As he watched the smiling, attentive face of Keller and the motions of

his head, Birotteau said to himself, "He is listening; I interest him;

I shall get my credit!" Adolphe Keller was laughing at Cesar, just as

Cesar had laughed at Molineux. Carried away by the lust of speech

peculiar to those who are made drunk by misfortune, Cesar revealed his

inner man; he gave his measure when he ended by offering the security

of Cephalic Oil and the firm of Popinot,--his last stake. The worthy

man, led on by false hopes, allowed Adolphe Keller to sound and fathom

him, and he stood revealed to the banker's eyes as a royalist jackass

on the point of failure. Delighted to foresee the bankruptcy of a

deputy-mayor of the arrondissement, an official just decorated, and a

man in power, Keller now curtly told Birotteau that he could neither

give him a credit nor say anything in his favor to his brother

Francois. If Francois gave way to idiotic generosity, and helped

people of another way of thinking from his own, men who were his

political enemies, he, Adolphe, would oppose with might and main any

attempt to make a dupe of him, and would prevent him from holding out

a hand to the adversary of Napoleon, wounded at Saint-Roch. Birotteau,

exasperated, tried to say something about the cupidity of the great

banking-houses, their harshness, their false philanthropy; but he was

seized with so violent a pain that he could scarcely stammer a few

words about the Bank of France, from which the Kellers were allowed to

borrow.

"Yes," said Adolphe Keller; "but the Bank would never discount paper

which a private bank refused."

"The Bank of France," said Birotteau, "has always seemed to me to miss

its vocation when it congratulates itself, as it does in presenting

its reports, on never losing more than one or two hundred thousand

francs through Parisian commerce: it should be the guardian and

protector of Parisian commerce."

Adolphe smiled, and got up with the air and gesture of being bored.

"If the Bank were mixed up as silent partners with people who are

involved in the most knavish and hazardous market in the world, it

would soon have to hand in its schedule. It has, even now, immense

difficulty in protecting itself against forgeries and false

circulations of all kinds. Where would it be if it had to take account

of the business of every one who wanted to get something out of it?"

*****

"Where shall I find ten thousand francs for to-morrow, the THIRTIETH?"

cried Birotteau, as he crossed the courtyard.

According to Parisian custom, notes were paid on the thirtieth, if the

thirty-first was a holiday.

As Cesar reached the outer gate, his eyes bathed in tears, he scarcely

saw a fine English horse, covered with sweat, which drew the

handsomest cabriolet that rolled in those days along the pavements of

Paris, and which was now pulled up suddenly beside him. He would

gladly have been run over and crushed by it; if he died by accident,

the confusion of his affairs would be laid to that circumstance. He

did not recognize du Tillet, who in elegant morning dress jumped

lightly down, throwing the reins to his groom and a blanket over the

back of his smoking thoroughbred.

"What chance brings you here?" said the former clerk to his old

patron.

Du Tillet knew very well what it was, for the Kellers had made

inquiries of Claparon, who by referring them to du Tillet had

demolished the past reputation of the poor man. Though quickly

checked, the tears on Cesar's face spoke volumes.

"It is possible that you have asked assistance from these Bedouins?"

said du Tillet, "these cut-throats of commerce, full of infamous

tricks; who run up indigo when they have monopolized the trade, and

pull down rice to force the holders to sell at low prices, and so

enable them to manage the market? Atrocious pirates, who have neither

faith, nor law, nor soul, nor honor! You don't know what they are

capable of doing. They will give you a credit if they think you have

got a good thing, and close it the moment you get into the thick of

the enterprise; and then you will be forced to make it all over to

them, at any villanous price they choose to give. Havre, Bordeaux,

Marseilles, could tell you tales about them! They make use of politics

to cover up their filthy ways. If I were you I should get what I could

out of them in any way, and without scruple. Let us walk on,

Birotteau. Joseph, lead the horse about, he is too hot: the devil! he

is a capital of a thousand crowns."

So saying, he turned toward the boulevard.

"Come, my dear master,--for you were once my master,--tell me, are you

in want of money? Have they asked you for securities, the scoundrels?

I, who know you, I offer you money on your simple note. I have made an

honorable fortune with infinite pains. I began it in Germany; I may as

well tell you that I bought up the debts of the king, at sixty per

cent of their amount: your endorsement was very useful to me at that

time, and I am not ungrateful,--not I. If you want ten thousand

francs, they are yours."

"Du Tillet!" cried Cesar, "can it be true? you are not joking with me?

Yes, I am rather pinched, but only for a moment."

"I know,--that affair of Roguin," replied du Tillet. "Hey! I am in for

ten thousand francs which the old rogue borrowed of me just before he

went off; but Madame Roguin will pay them back from her dower. I have

advised the poor woman not to be so foolish as to spend her own

fortune in paying debts contracted for a prostitute. Of course, it

would be well if she paid everything, but she cannot favor some

creditors to the detriment of others. You are not a Roguin; I know

you," said du Tillet,--"you would blow your brains out rather than

make me lose a sou. Here we are at Rue de la Chaussee-d'Antin; come

home with me."

They entered a bedroom, with which Madame Birotteau's compared like

that of a chorus-singer's on a fourth floor with the appartement of a

prima-donna. The ceiling was of violet-colored satin, heightened in

its effect by folds of white satin; a rug of ermine lay at the

bedside, and contrasted with the purple tones of a Turkish carpet. The

furniture and all the accessories were novel in shape, costly, and

choice in character. Birotteau paused before an exquisite clock,

decorated with Cupid and Psyche, just designed for a famous banker,

from whom du Tillet had obtained the sole copy ever made of it. The

former master and his former clerk at last reached an elegant

coquettish cabinet, more redolent of love than finance. Madame Roguin

had doubtless contributed, in return for the care bestowed upon her

fortune, the paper-knife in chiselled gold, the paper-weights of

carved malachite, and all the costly knick-knacks of unrestrained

luxury. The carpet, one of the rich products of Belgium, was as

pleasant to the eye as to the foot which felt the soft thickness of

its texture. Du Tillet made the poor, amazed, bewildered perfumer sit

down at a corner of the fireplace.

"Will you breakfast with me?"

He rang the bell. Enter a footman better dressed than Birotteau.

"Tell Monsieur Legras to come here, and then find Joseph at the door

of the Messrs. Keller; tell him to return to the stable. Leave word

with Adolphe Keller that instead of going to see him, I shall expect

him at the Bourse; and order breakfast served immediately."

These commands amazed Cesar.

"He whistles to that formidable Adolphe Keller like a dog!--he, du

Tillet!"

A little tiger, about a thumb high, set out a table, which Birotteau

had not observed, so slim was it, and brought in a /pate de foie

gras/, a bottle of claret, and a number of dainty dishes which only

appeared in Birotteau's household once in three months, on great

festive occasions. Du Tillet enjoyed the effect. His hatred towards

the only man who had it in his power to despise him burned so hotly

that Birotteau seemed, even to his own mind, like a sheep defending

itself against a tiger. For an instant, a generous idea entered du

Tillet's heart: he asked himself if his vengeance were not

sufficiently accomplished. He hesitated between this awakened mercy

and his dormant hate.

"I can annihilate him commercially," he thought; "I have the power of

life or death over him,--over his wife who insulted me, and his

daughter whose hand once seemed to me a fortune. I have got his money;

suppose I content myself with letting the poor fool swim at the end of

a line I'll hold for him?"

Honest minds are devoid of tact; their excellence is uncalculating,

even unreflecting, because they are wholly without evasions or mental

reservations of their own. Birotteau now brought about his downfall;

he incensed the tiger, pierced him to the heart without knowing it,

made him implacable by a thoughtless word, a eulogy, a virtuous

recognition,--by the kind-heartedness, as it were, of his own

integrity. When the cashier entered, du Tillet motioned him to take

notice of Cesar.

"Monsieur Legras, bring me ten thousand francs, and a note of hand for

that amount, drawn to my order, at ninety days' sight, by monsieur,

who is Monsieur Cesar Birotteau, you know."

Du Tillet cut the pate, poured out a glass of claret, and urged Cesar

to eat. The poor man felt he was saved, and gave way to convulsive

laughter; he played with his watch-chain, and only put a mouthful into

his mouth, when du Tillet said to him, "You are not eating!" Birotteau

thus betrayed the depths of the abyss into which du Tillet's hand had

plunged him, from which that hand now withdrew him, and into which it

had the power to plunge him again. When the cashier returned, and

Cesar signed the note, and felt the ten bank-notes in his pocket, he

was no longer master of himself. A moment sooner, and the Bank, his

neighborhood, every one, was to know that he could not meet his

payments, and he must have told his ruin to his wife; now, all was

safe! The joy of this deliverance equalled in its intensity the

tortures of his peril. The eyes of the poor man moistened, in spite of

himself.

"What is the matter with you, my dear master?" asked du Tillet. "Would

you not do for me to-morrow what I do for you to-day? Is it not as

simple as saying, How do you do?"

"Du Tillet," said the worthy man, with gravity and emphasis, and

rising to take the hand of his former clerk, "I give you back my

esteem."

"What! had I lost it?" cried du Tillet, so violently stabbed in the

very bosom of his prosperity that the color came into his face.

"Lost?--well, not precisely," said Birotteau, thunder-struck at his

own stupidity: "they told me certain things about your /liaison/ with

Madame Roguin. The devil! taking the wife of another man--"

"You are beating round the bush, old fellow," thought du Tillet, and

as the words crossed his mind he came back to his original project,

and vowed to bring that virtue low, to trample it under foot, to

render despicable in the marts of Paris the honorable and virtuous

merchant who had caught him, red-handed, in a theft. All hatreds,

public or private, from woman to woman, from man to man, have no other

cause then some such detection. People do not hate each other for

injured interests, for wounds, not even for a blow; all such wrongs

can be redressed. But to have been seized, /flagrante delicto/, in a

base act! The duel which follows between the criminal and the witness

of his crime ends only with the death of the one or of the other.

"Oh! Madame Roguin!" said du Tillet, jestingly, "don't you call that a

feather in a young man's cap? I understand you, my dear master;

somebody has told you that she lent me money. Well, on the contrary it

is I who have protected her fortune, which was strangely involved in

her husband's affairs. The origin of my fortune is pure, as I have

just told you. I had nothing, you know. Young men are sometimes in

positions of frightful necessity. They may lose their self-control in

the depths of poverty, and if they make, as the Republic made, forced

loans--well, they pay them back; and in so doing they are more honest

than France herself."

"That is true," cried Birotteau. "My son, God--is it not Voltaire who

says,--

"'He rendered repentance the virtue of mortals'?"

"Provided," answered du Tillet, stabbed afresh by this quotation,--

"provided they do not carry off the property of their neighbors,

basely, meanly; as, for example, you would do if you failed within

three months, and my ten thousand francs went to perdition."

"I fail!" cried Birotteau, who had taken three glasses of wine, and

was half-drunk with joy. "Everybody knows what I think about failure!

Failure is death to a merchant; I should die of it!"

"I drink your health," said du Tillet.

"Your health and prosperity," returned Cesar. "Why don't you buy your

perfumery from me?"

"The fact is," said du Tillet, "I am afraid of Madame Cesar; she

always made an impression on me. If you had not been my master, on my

word! I--"

"You are not the first to think her beautiful; others have desired

her; but she loves me! Well, now, du Tillet, my friend," resumed

Birotteau, "don't do things by halves."

"What is it?"

Birotteau explained the affair of the lands to his former clerk, who

pretended to open his eyes wide, and complimented the perfumer on his

perspicacity and penetration, and praised the enterprise.

"Well, I am very glad to have your approbation; you are thought one of

the wise-heads of the banking business, du Tillet. Dear fellow, you

might get me a credit at the Bank of France, so that I can wait for

the profits of Cephalic Oil at my ease."

"I can give you a letter to the firm of Nucingen," answered du Tillet,

perceiving that he could make his victim dance all the figures in the

reel of bankruptcy.

Ferdinand sat down to his desk and wrote the following letter:--

/To Monsieur le baron de Nucingen/:

My dear Baron,--The bearer of this letter is Monsieur Cesar

Birotteau, deputy-mayor of the second arrondissement, and one of

the best known manufacturers of Parisian perfumery; he wishes to

have business relations with your house. You can confidently do

all that he asks of you; and in obliging him you will oblige

Your friend,

F. Du Tillet.

Du Tillet did not dot the /i/ in his signature. To those with whom he

did business this intentional error was a sign previously agreed upon.

The strongest recommendations, the warmest appeals contained in the

letter were to mean nothing. All such letters, in which exclamation

marks were suppliants and du Tillet placed himself, as it were, upon

his knees, were to be considered as extorted by necessity; he could

not refuse to write them, but they were to be regarded as not written.

Seeing the /i/ without a dot, the correspondent was to amuse the

petitioner with empty promises. Even men of the world, and sometimes

the most distinguished, are thus gulled like children by business men,

bankers, and lawyers, who all have a double signature,--one dead, the

other living. The cleverest among them are fooled in this way. To

understand the trick, we must experience the two-fold effects of a

warm letter and a cold one.

"You have saved me, du Tillet!" said Cesar, reading the letter.

"Thank heaven!" said du Tillet, "ask for what money you want. When

Nucingen reads my letter he will give you all you need. Unhappily, my

own funds are tied up for a few days; if not, I certainly would not

send you to the great banking princes. The Kellers are mere pygmies

compared to Baron de Nucingen. Law reappears on earth in Nucingen.

With this letter of mine you can face the 15th of January, and after

that, we will see about it. Nucingen and I are the best friends in the

world; he would not disoblige me for a million."

"It is a guarantee in itself," thought Birotteau, as he went away full

of gratitude to his old clerk. "Well, a benefit is never lost!" he

continued, philosophizing very wide of the mark. Nevertheless, one

thought embittered his joy. For several days he had prevented his wife

from looking into the ledgers; he had put the business on Celestin's

shoulders and assisted in it himself; he wished, apparently, that his

wife and daughter should be at liberty to take full enjoyment out of

the beautiful appartement he had given them. But the first flush of

happiness over, Madame Birotteau would have died rather than renounce

her right of personally inspecting the affairs of the house,--of

holding, as she phrased it, the handle of the frying-pan. Birotteau

was at his wits' end; he had used all his cunning in trying to hide

from his wife the symptoms of his embarrassment. Constance strongly

disapproved of sending round the bills; she had scolded the clerks and

accused Celestin of wishing to ruin the establishment, thinking that

it was all his doing. Celestin, by Birotteau's order, had allowed

himself to be scolded. In the eyes of the clerks Madame Cesar governed

her husband; for though it is possible to deceive the public, the

inmates of a household are never deceived as to who exercises the real

authority. Birotteau knew that he must now reveal his real situation

to his wife, for the account with du Tillet needed an explanation.

When he got back to the shop, he saw, not without a shudder, that

Constance was sitting in her old place behind the counter, examining

the expense account, and no doubt counting up the money in the desk.

"How will you meet your payments to-morrow?" she whispered as he sat

down beside her.

"With money," he answered, pulling out the bank-bills, and signing to

Celestin to take them.

"Where did you get that money?"

"I'll tell you all about it this evening. Celestin, write down, 'Last

of March, note for ten thousand francs, to du Tillet's order.'"

"Du Tillet!" repeated Constance, struck with consternation.

"I am going to see Popinot," said Cesar; "it is very wrong in me not

to have gone before. Have we sold his oil?"

"The three hundred bottles he sent us are all gone."

"Birotteau, don't go out; I want to speak to you," said Constance,

taking him by the arm, and leading him into her bedroom with an

impetuosity which would have caused a laugh under other circumstances.

"Du Tillet," she said, when she had made sure no one but Cesarine was

with them,--"du Tillet, who robbed us of three thousand francs! So you

are doing business with du Tillet,--a monster, who wished to seduce

me," she whispered in his ear.

"Folly of youth," said Birotteau, assuming for the nonce the tone of a

free-thinker.

"Listen to me, Birotteau! You are all upset; you don't go to the

manufactory any more; there is something the matter, I feel it! You

must tell me; I must know what it is."

"Well," said Birotteau, "we came very near being ruined,--we were

ruined this very morning; but it is all safe now."

And he told the horrible story of his two weeks' misery.

"So that was the cause of your illness!" exclaimed Constance.

"Yes, mamma," cried Cesarine, "and papa has been so courageous! All

that I desire in life is to be loved as he loves you. He has thought

only of your grief."

"My dream is fulfilled!" said the poor woman, dropping upon the sofa

at the corner of the fireplace, pale, livid, terrified. "I foresaw it

all. I warned you on that fatal night, in our old room which you

pulled to pieces, that we should have nothing left but our eyes to

weep with. My poor Cesarine, I--"

"Now, there you go!" cried Cesar; "you will take away from me the

courage I need."

"Forgive me, dear friend," said Constance, taking his hand, and

pressing it with a tenderness which went to the heart of the poor man.

"I do wrong. Misfortune has come; I will be silent, resigned, strong

to bear it. No, you shall never hear a complaint from me." She threw

herself into his arms, weeping, and whispering, "Courage, dear friend,

courage! I will have courage for both, if necessary."

"My oil, wife,--my oil will save us!"

"May God help us!" said Constance.

"Anselme will help my father," said Cesarine.

"I'll go and see him," cried Cesar, deeply moved by the passionate

accents of his wife, who after nineteen years of married life was not

yet fully known to him. "Constance, fear nothing! Here, read du

Tillet's letter to Monsieur de Nucingen; we are sure to obtain a

credit. Besides," he said, allowing himself a necessary lie, "there is

our uncle Pillerault; that is enough to give us courage."

"If that were all!" said Constance, smiling.

Birotteau, relieved of a heavy weight, walked away like a man suddenly

set at liberty, though he felt within him that indefinable sinking

which succeeds great moral struggles in which more of the nervous

fluid, more of the will is emitted than should be spent at one time,

and by which, if we may say so, the capital of the existence is drawn

upon. Birotteau had aged already.

*****

The house of A. Popinot, Rue des Cinq-Diamants, had undergone a great

change in two months. The shop was repainted. The shelves,

re-varnished and gilded and crowded with bottles, rejoiced the eye of

those who had eyes to see the symptoms of prosperity. The floors were

littered with packages and wrapping-paper. The storerooms held small

casks of various oils, obtained for Popinot on commission by the

devoted Gaudissart. The ledgers, the accounts, and the desks were

moved into the rooms above the shop and the back-shop. An old cook did

all the household work for the master and his three clerks. Popinot,

penned up in a corner of the shop closed in with glass, might be seen

in a serge apron and long sleeves of green linen, with a pen behind

his ear, in the midst of a mass of papers, where in fact Birotteau now

found him, as he was overhauling his letters full of proposals and

checks and orders. At the words "Hey, my boy!" uttered by his old

master, Popinot raised his head, locked up his cubby-hole, and came

forward with a joyous air and the end of his nose a little red. There

was no fire in the shop, and the door was always open.

"I feared you were never coming," he said respectfully.

The clerks crowded round to look at the distinguished perfumer, the

decorated deputy-mayor, the partner of their own master. Birotteau, so

pitifully small at the Kellers, felt a craving to imitate those

magnates; he stroked his chin, rose on his heels with native self-

complacency, and talked his usual platitudes.

"Hey, my lad! we get up early, don't we?" he remarked.

"No, for we don't always go to bed," said Popinot. "We must clutch

success."

"What did I tell you? My oil will make your fortune!"

"Yes, monsieur. But the means employed to sell it count for something.

I have set your diamond well."

"How do we stand?" said Cesar. "How far have you got? What are the

profits?"

"Profits! at the end of two months! How can you expect it? Friend

Gaudissart has only been on the road for twenty-five days; he took a

post-chaise without saying a word to me. Oh, he is devoted! We owe a

great deal to my uncle. The newspapers alone (here he whispered in

Birotteau's ear) will cost us twelve thousand francs."

"Newspapers!" exclaimed the deputy-mayor.

"Haven't you read them?"

"No."

"Then you know nothing," said Popinot. "Twenty thousand francs worth

of placards, gilt frames, copies of the prospectus. One hundred

thousand bottles bought. Ah, it is all paying through the nose at this

moment! We are manufacturing on a grand scale. If you had set foot in

the faubourg, where I often work all night, you would have seen a

little nut-cracker which isn't to be sneezed at, I can tell you. On my

own account, I have made, in the last five days, not less than ten

thousand francs, merely by commissions on the sale of druggists'

oils."

"What a capable head!" said Birotteau, laying his hand on little

Popinot's thick hair and rubbing it about as if he were a baby. "I

found it out."

Several persons here came in.

"On Sunday we dine at your aunt Ragon's," added Cesar, leaving Popinot

to go on with his business, for he perceived that the fresh meat he

had come to taste was not yet cut up.

"It is amazing! A clerk becomes a merchant in twenty-four hours,"

thought Birotteau, who understood the happiness and self-assurance of

Anselme as little as the dandy luxury of du Tillet. "Anselme put on a

little stiff air when I patted him on the head, just as if he were

Francois Keller himself."

Birotteau never once reflected that the clerks were looking on, and

that the master of the establishment had his dignity to preserve. In

this instance, as in the case of his speech to du Tillet, the worthy

soul committed a folly out of pure goodness of heart, and for lack of

knowing how to withhold an honest sentiment vulgarly expressed. By

this trifling act Cesar would have wounded irretrievably any other man

than little Popinot.

*****

The Sunday dinner at the Ragon's was destined to be the last pleasure

of the nineteen happy years of the Birotteau household,--years of

happiness that were full to overflowing. Ragon lived in the Rue du

Petit-Bourbon-Saint-Sulpice, on the second floor of a dignified old

house, in an appartement decorated with large panels where painted

shepherdesses danced in panniers, before whom fed the sheep of our

nineteenth century, the sober and serious bourgeoisie,--whose comical

demeanor, with their respectful notions about the nobility, and their

devotion to the Sovereign and the Church, were all admirably

represented by Ragon himself. The furniture, the clocks, linen,

dinner-service, all seemed patriarchal; novel in form because of their

very age. The salon, hung with old damask and draped with curtains in

brocatelle, contained portraits of duchesses and other royalist

tributes; also a superb Popinot, sheriff of Sancerre, painted by

Latour,--the father of Madame Ragon, a worthy, excellent man, in a

picture out of which he smiled like a parvenu in all his glory. When

at home, Madame Ragon completed her natural self with a little King

Charles spaniel, which presented a surprisingly harmonious effect as

it lay on the hard little sofa, rococo in shape, that assuredly never

played the part assigned to the sofa of Crebillon.

Among their many virtues, the Ragons were noted for the possession of

old wines which had come to perfect mellowness, and for certain of

Madame Anfoux's liqueurs, which certain persons, obstinately (though

it was said hopelessly) bent on making love to Madame Ragon, had

brought her from the West Indies. Thus their little dinners were much

prized. Jeannette, the old cook, took care of the aged couple with

blind devotion: she would have stolen the fruit to make their

sweetmeats. Instead of taking her money to the savings-bank, she put

it judiciously into lotteries, hoping that some day she could bestow a

good round sum on her master and mistress. On the appointed Sundays

when they received their guests, she was, despite her years, active in

the kitchen to superintend the dishes, which she served at the table

with an agility that (to use a favorite expression of the worthy

Ragon) might have given points to Mademoiselle Contat when she played

Susanne in the "Mariage de Figaro."

The guests on this occasion were Popinot the judge, Pillerault,

Anselme, the three Birotteaus, three Matifats, and the Abbe Loraux.

Madame Matifat, whom we lately met crowned with a turban for the ball,

now wore a gown of blue velvet, with coarse cotton stockings, leather

shoes, gloves of chamois-skin with a border of green plush, and a

bonnet lined with pink, filled in with white puffs about the face.

These ten personages assembled at five o'clock. The old Ragons always

requested their guests to be punctual. When this worthy couple were

invited out, their hosts always put the dinner at the same hour,

remembering that stomachs which were sixty-five years old could not

adapt themselves to the novel hours recently adopted in the great

world.

Cesarine was sure that Madame Ragon would place her beside Anselme;

for all women, be they fools or saints, know what is what in love. The

daughter of "The Queen of Roses" therefore dressed with the intention

of turning Popinot's head. Her mother--having renounced, not without

pain, the thought of marrying her to Crottat, who to her eyes played

the part of heir-apparent--assisted, with some bitter thoughts, at the

toilet. Maternal forethought lowered the modest gauzy neckerchief to

show a little of Cesarine's shoulders and the spring of her graceful

throat, which was remarkably elegant. The Grecian bodice, crossing

from left to right with five folds, opened slightly, showing delicious

curves; the gray merino dress with green furbelows defined the pretty

waist, which had never looked so slender nor so supple. She wore

earrings of gold fret-work, and her hair, gathered up /a la chinoise/,

let the eye take in the soft freshness of a skin traced with blue

veins, where the light shone chastely on the pure white tones.

Cesarine was so coquettishly lovely that Madame Matifat could not help

admitting it, without, however, perceiving that mother and daughter

had the one purpose of bewitching Anselme.

Neither Birotteau, his wife, Madame Matifat nor any of the others

disturbed the sweet converse which the young people, thrilling with

love, held in whispering voices within the embrasure of a window,

through whose chinks the north wind blew its chilly whistle. The

conversation of the elders became animated when Popinot the judge let

fall a word about Roguin's flight, remarking that he was the second

notary who had absconded,--a crime formerly unknown. Madame Ragon, at

the word Roguin, touched her brother's foot, Pillerault spoke loudly

to drown his voice, and both made him a sign to remember Madame

Birotteau.

"I know all," said Constance in a low, pained voice.

"Well, then," said Madame Matifat to Birotteau, who humbly bowed his

head, "how much did he carry of? If we are to believe the gossips, you

are ruined."

"He had two hundred thousand francs of mine," said Cesar. "As to the

forty thousand he pretended to make me borrow from one of his clients,

whose property he had already squandered, I am now bringing a suit to

recover them."

"The case will be decided this week," said Popinot. I thought you

would not be unwilling that I should explain your situation to

Monsieur le president; he has ordered that all Roguin's papers be

submitted to the custody of the court, so as to ascertain the exact

time when Roguin made away with the funds of his client, and thus

verify the facts alleged by Derville, who made the argument himself to

save you the expense."

"Shall we win?" asked Madame Birotteau.

"I don't know," answered Popinot. "Though I belong to the court in

which the suit is bought, I shall abstain from giving an opinion, even

if called upon."

"Can there be any doubt in such a simple case?" said Pillerault. "Such

deeds make mention that payment has been made, and notaries are

obliged to declare that they have seen the money passed from the

lender to the borrower. Roguin would be sent to the galleys if the law

could get hold of him.

"According to my ideas," said the judge, "the lender ought to have

sued Roguin for the costs and the caution-money; but it sometimes

happens at the Cour Royale that in matters even more plain than this

the judges stand six against six."

"Mademoiselle, what are they saying? Has Monsieur Roguin absconded?"

said Anselme, hearing at last what was going on about him. "Monsieur

said nothing of it to me,--to me who would shed my blood for him--"

Cesarine fully understood that the whole family were included in the

"for him"; for if the innocent girl could mistake the accent, she

could not misunderstand the glance, which wrapped her, as it were, in

a rosy flame.

"I know you would; I told him so. He hid everything from my mother,

and confided only in me."

"You spoke to him of me?" said Popinot; "you have read my heart? Have

you read all that is there?"

"Perhaps."

"I am very happy," said Popinot. "If you would lighten all my fears--

in a year I shall be so prosperous that your father cannot object when

I speak to him of our marriage. From henceforth I shall sleep only

five hours a night."

"Do not injure yourself," said Cesarine, with an inexpressible accent

and a look in which Popinot was suffered to read her thoughts.

"Wife," said Cesar, as they rose from table, "I think those young

people love each other."

"Well, so much the better," said Constance, in a grave voice; "my

daughter will be the wife of a man of sense and energy. Talent is the

best dower a man can offer."

She left the room hastily and went to Madame Ragon's bedchamber. Cesar

during the dinner had make various fatuous remarks, which caused the

judge and Pillerault to smile, and reminded the unhappy woman of how

unfitted her poor husband was to grapple with misfortune. Her heart

was full of tears; and she instinctively dreaded du Tillet, for every

mother knows the /Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes/, even if she does not

know Latin. Constance wept in the arms of Madame Ragon and her

daughter, though she would not tell them the cause of her distress.

"I m nervous," she said.

The rest of the evening was spent by the elders at the card-table, and

by the young people in those little games called innocent because they

cover the innocent by-play of bourgeois love. The Matifats joined in

these games.

"Cesar," said Constance as they drove home, "go and see Monsieur le

Baron de Nucingen on the 8th so as to be sure of having your payments

ready in advance of the 15th. If there should be any hitch, how could

you scrape the money together if you have only one day to do it in?"

"I will see to it, wife," said Cesar, pressing his wife's hand and his

daughter's, adding, "Ah, my dear white lambs, I have given you a sad

New Year's gift!"

The two women, unable to see him in the obscurity of the hackney

coach, felt his tears falling hot upon their hands.

"Be hopeful, dear friend," said Constance.

"All will go well, papa; Monsieur Anselme Popinot told me he would

shed his blood for you."

"For me?" said Cesar, trying to speak gaily; "and for the family as

well. Isn't it so?"

Cesarine pressed her father's hand, as if to let him know she was

betrothed to Anselme.