IV

Birotteau’s neighbor was a small dealer in umbrellas, parasols, and

canes, named Cayron,--a man from Languedoc, doing a poor business, whom

Cesar had several times befriended. Cayron wished nothing better than to

confine himself to the ground-floor and let the rich perfumer take the

floor above it, thus diminishing his rent.

“Well, neighbor,” said Birotteau familiarly, as he entered the man’s

shop, “my wife consents to the enlargement of our premises. If you like,

we will go and see Monsieur Molineux at eleven o’clock.”

“My dear Monsieur Birotteau,” said the umbrella-man, “I have not asked

you any compensation for this cession; but you are aware that a good

merchant ought to make money out of everything.”

“What the devil!” cried Birotteau. “I’m not made of money. I don’t

know that my architect can do the thing at all. He told me that before

concluding my arrangements I must know whether the floors were on the

same level. Then, supposing Monsieur Molineux does allow me to cut

a door in the wall, is it a party-wall? Moreover, I have to turn my

staircase, and make a new landing, so as to get a passage-way on the

same floor. All that costs money, and I don’t want to ruin myself.”

“Oh, monsieur,” said the southerner. “Before you are ruined, the sun

will have married the earth and they’ll have had children.”

Birotteau stroked his chin, rose on the points of his toes, and fell

back upon his heels.

“Besides,” resumed Cayron, “all I ask you to do is to cash these

securities for me--”

And he held out sixteen notes amounting in all to five thousand francs.

“Ah!” said the perfumer turning them over. “Small fry, two months, three

months--”

“Take them as low as six per cent,” said the umbrella-man humbly.

“Am I a usurer?” asked the perfumer reproachfully.

“What can I do, monsieur? I went to your old clerk, du Tillet, and he

would not take them at any price. No doubt he wanted to find out how

much I’d be willing to lose on them.”

“I don’t know those signatures,” said the perfumer.

“We have such queer names in canes and umbrellas; they belong to the

peddlers.”

“Well, I won’t say that I will take all; but I’ll manage the short

ones.”

“For the want of a thousand francs--sure to be repaid in four

months--don’t throw me into the hands of the blood-suckers who get the

best of our profits; do take all, monsieur! I do so little in the way of

discount that I have no credit; that is what kills us little retailers.”

“Well, I’ll cash your notes; Celestin will make out the account. Be

ready at eleven, will you? There’s my architect, Monsieur Grindot,” said

the perfumer, catching sight of the young man, with whom he had made an

appointment at Monsieur de la Billardiere’s the night before.

“Contrary to the custom of men of talent you are punctual, monsieur,”

said Cesar, displaying his finest commercial graces. “If punctuality,

in the words of our king,--a man of wit as well as a statesman,--is the

politeness of princes, it is also the wealth of merchants. Time, time

is gold, especially to you artists. I permit myself to say to you that

architecture is the union of all the arts. We will not enter through the

shop,” he added, opening the private door of his house.

Four years earlier Monsieur Grindot had carried off the _grand prix_ in

architecture, and had lately returned from Rome where he had spent three

years at the cost of the State. In Italy the young man had dreamed

of art; in Paris he thought of fortune. Government alone can pay the

needful millions to raise an architect to glory; it is therefore natural

that every ambitious youth of that calling, returning from Rome

and thinking himself a Fontaine or a Percier, should bow before the

administration. The liberal student became a royalist, and sought to win

the favor of influential persons. When a _grand prix_ man behaves thus,

his comrades call him a trimmer. The young architect in question had two

ways open to him,--either to serve the perfumer well, or put him under

contribution. Birotteau the deputy-mayor, Birotteau the future possessor

of half the lands about the Madeleine, where he would sooner or later

build up a fine neighborhood, was a man to keep on good terms with.

Grindot accordingly resolved to sacrifice his immediate gains to his

future interests. He listened patiently to the plans, the repetitions,

and the ideas of this worthy specimen of the bourgeois class, the

constant butt of the witty shafts and ridicule of artists, and the

object of their everlasting contempt, nodding his head as if to show the

perfumer that he caught his ideas. When Cesar had thoroughly explained

everything, the young man proceeded to sum up for him his own plan.

“You have now three front windows on the first floor, besides the window

on the staircase which lights the landing; to these four windows you

mean to add two on the same level in the next house, by turning the

staircase, so as to open a way from one house to the other on the street

side.”

“You have understood me perfectly,” said the perfumer, surprised.

“To carry out your plan, you must light the new staircase from above,

and manage to get a porter’s lodge beneath it.”

“Beneath it?”

“Yes, the space over which it rests--”

“I understand, monsieur.”

“As for your own appartement, give me carte-blanche to arrange and

decorate it. I wish to make it worthy--”

“Worthy! You have said the word, monsieur.”

“How much time do you give me to complete the work?”

“Twenty days.”

“What sum do you mean to put in the workmen’s pockets?” asked Grindot.

“How much do you think it will cost?”

“An architect can estimate on a new building almost to a farthing,”

answered the young man; “but as I don’t know how to deal with a

bourgeois--ah! excuse me, monsieur, the word slipped out--I must warn

you that it is impossible to calculate the costs of tearing down and

rebuilding. It will take at least eight days before I can give even

an approximate idea of them. Trust yourself to me: you shall have a

charming staircase, lighted from above, with a pretty vestibule opening

from the street, and in the space under the stairway--”

“Must that be used?”

“Don’t be worried--I will find room for a little porter’s lodge. Your

house shall be studied and remodelled _con amore_. Yes, monsieur, I look

to art and not to fortune. Above all things I do not want fame before I

have earned it. To my mind, the best means of winning credit is not to

play into the hands of contractors, but to get at good effects cheaply.”

“With such ideas, young man,” said Birotteau in a patronizing tone, “you

will succeed.”

“Therefore,” resumed Grindot, “employ the masons, painters, locksmiths,

carpenters, and upholsterers yourself. I will simply look over their

accounts. Pay me only two thousand francs commission. It will be money

well laid out. Give me the premises to-morrow at twelve o’clock, and

have your workmen on the spot.”

“How much it will cost, at a rough guess?” said Birotteau.

“From ten to twelve thousand francs,” said Grindot. “That does not count

the furniture; of course you will renew that. Give me the address of

your cabinet-maker; I shall have to arrange with him about the choice of

colors, so as to have everything in keeping.”

“Monsieur Braschon, Rue Saint-Antoine, takes my orders,” said Birotteau,

assuming a ducal air.

The architect wrote down the address in one of those pretty note-books

which invariably come from women.

“Well,” said Birotteau, “I trust to you, monsieur; only you must wait

till the lease of the adjoining house is made over to me, and I will get

permission to cut through the wall.”

“Send me a note this evening,” said the architect; “it will take me all

night to draw the plans--we would rather work for a bourgeois than for

the King of Prussia, that is to say for ourselves. I will now take the

dimensions, the pitch, the size of the widows, the pictures--”

“It must be finished on the appointed day,” said Birotteau. “If not, no

pay.”

“It shall be done,” said the architect. “The workmen must do without

sleep; we will use drying oil in the paint. But don’t let yourself be

taken in by the contractors; always ask their price in advance, and have

a written agreement.”

“Paris is the only place in the world where you can wave a magic wand

like that,” said Birotteau, with an Asiatic gesture worthy of the

Arabian Nights. “You will do me the honor to come to my ball, monsieur?

Men of talent are not all disdainful of commerce; and you will meet a

scientific man of the first order, Monsieur Vauquelin of the Institute;

also Monsieur de la Billardiere, Monsieur le comte de Fontaine,

Monsieur Lebas, judge and president of the Court of commerce, various

magistrates, Monsieur le comte de Grandville of the royal suite,

Monsieur Camusot of the Court of commerce, and Monsieur Cardot, his

father-in-law, and, perhaps, Monsieur le duc de Lenoncourt, first

gentleman of the bed-chamber to the king. I assemble my friends as

much--to celebrate the emancipation of our territory--as to commemorate

my--promotion to the order of the Legion of honor,”--here Grindot made

a curious gesture. “Possibly I showed myself worthy of that--signal--and

royal--favor, by my services on the bench, and by fighting for the

Bourbons upon the steps of Saint-Roch on the 13th Vendemiaire, where I

was wounded by Napoleon. These claims--”

Constance, in a morning gown, here came out of her daughter’s bedroom,

where she had been dressing; her first glance cut short Cesar’s

eloquence just as he was about to formulate in flowing phrase, though

modestly, the tale of his merits.

“_Tiens, Mimi_, this is Monsieur _de_ Grindot, a young man distinguished

in his own sphere of life, and the possessor of a great talent. Monsieur

is the architect recommended to us by Monsieur de la Billardiere to

superintend our _little_ alteration.”

The perfumer slipped behind his wife and made a sign to the architect

to take notice of the word _little_, putting his finger on his lips.

Grindot took the cue.

“Will it be very expensive?” said Constance to the architect.

“Oh, no, madame; six thousand francs at a rough guess.”

“A rough guess!” exclaimed Madame Birotteau. “Monsieur, I entreat you,

begin nothing without an estimate and the specifications signed. I know

the ways of contractors: six thousand francs means twenty thousand.

We are not in a position to commit such extravagance. I beg you,

monsieur,--though of course my husband is master in his own house,--give

him time to reflect.”

“Madame, monsieur the deputy-mayor has ordered me to deliver the

premises, all finished, in twenty days. If we delay, you will be likely

to incur the expense without obtaining the looked-for result.”

“There are expenses and expenses,” said the handsome mistress of “The

Queen of Roses.”

“Ah! madame, do you think an architect who seeks to put up public

buildings finds it glorious to decorate a mere appartement? I have come

down to such details merely to oblige Monsieur de la Billardiere; and if

you fear--”

Here he made a movement to retreat.

“Well, well, monsieur,” said Constance re-entering her daughter’s room,

where she threw her head on Cesarine’s shoulder.

“Ah, my daughter!” she cried, “your father will ruin himself! He has

engaged an architect with mustachios, who talks about public buildings!

He is going to pitch the house out of windows and build us a Louvre.

Cesar is never idle about his follies; he only spoke to me about it in

the night, and he begins it in the morning!”

“Never mind, mamma; let papa do as he likes. The good God has always

taken care of him,” said Cesarine, kissing her mother and sitting down

to the piano, to let the architect know that the perfumer’s daughter was

not ignorant of the fine arts.

When Grindot came in to measure the bedroom he was surprised and taken

aback at the beauty of Cesarine. Just out of her dressing-room and

wearing a pretty morning-gown, fresh and rosy as a young girl is fresh

and rosy at eighteen, blond and slender, with blue eyes, Cesarine seemed

to the young artist a picture of the elasticity, so rare in Paris, that

fills and rounds the delicate cheek, and tints with the color adored of

painters, the tracery of blue veins throbbing beneath the whiteness

of her clear skin. Though she lived in the lymphatic atmosphere of a

Parisian shop, where the air stagnates and the sun seldom shines, her

habits gave her the same advantages which the open-air life of Rome

gives to the Transteverine peasant-woman. Her hair,--which was abundant,

and grew, like that of her father, in points upon her forehead,--was

caught up in a twist which showed the lines of a well-set neck, and then

rippled downward in curls that were scrupulously cared for, after the

fashion of young shop-women, whose desire to attract attention inspires

the truly English minutiae of their toilet. The beauty of this young

girl was not the beauty of an English lady, nor of a French duchess,

but the round and glowing beauty of a Flemish Rubens. Cesarine had the

turned-up nose of her father, but it was piquant through the delicacy of

its modelling,--like those noses, essentially French, which have been

so well reproduced by Largilliere. Her skin, of a firm full texture,

bespoke the vitality of a virgin; she had the fine brow of her mother,

but it was clear with the serenity of a young girl who knows no care.

Her liquid blue eyes, bathed in rich fluid, expressed the tender grace

of a glowing happiness. If that happiness took from her head the poetry

which painters insist on giving to their pictures my making them a shade

too pensive, the vague physical languor of a young girl who has never

left her mother’s side made up for it, and gave her a species of

ideality. Notwithstanding the graceful lines of her figure, she was

strongly built. Her feet betrayed the peasant origin of her father and

her own defects of race, as did the redness of her hands, the sign of

the thoroughly bourgeois life. Sooner or later she would grow stout. She

had caught the sentiment of dress from the elegant young women who came

to the shop, and had learned from them certain movements of the head,

certain ways of speaking and of moving; and she could play the well-bred

woman in a way that turned the heads of all the young men, especially

the clerks, in whose eyes she appeared truly distinguished. Popinot

swore that he would have no other wife than Cesarine. The liquid

brightness of that eye, which a look, or a tone of reproach, might cause

to overflow in tears, was all that kept him to a sense of masculine

superiority. The charming girl inspired love without leaving time to ask

whether she had mind enough to make it durable. But of what value is the

thing they call in Paris _mind_ to a class whose principal element of

happiness is virtue and good sense?

In her moral qualities Cesarine was like her mother, somewhat bettered

by the superfluities of education; she loved music, drew the Madonna

della Sedia in chalk, and read the works of Mmes. Cottin and Riccoboni,

of Bernadin de Saint-Pierre, Fenelon, and Racine. She was never seen

behind the counter with her mother except for a few moments before

sitting down to dinner, or on some special occasion when she replaced

her. Her father and mother, like all persons who have risen from small

beginnings, and who cultivate the ingratitude of their children by

putting them above themselves, delighted in deifying Cesarine, who

happily had the virtues of her class, and took no advantage of their

weakness.

Madame Birotteau followed the architect with an anxious and appealing

eye, watching with terror, and pointing out to her daughter, the

fantastic movements of the four-foot rule, that wand of architects and

builders, with which Grindot was measuring. She saw in those mysterious

weavings a conjuring spirit that augured evil; she wished the walls were

less high, the rooms less large, and dared not question the young man on

the effects of his sorcery.

“Do not be afraid, madame, I shall carry nothing off,” said the artist,

smiling.

Cesarine could not help smiling.

“Monsieur,” said Constance, in a supplicating voice, not even noticing

the tit-for-tat of the young man, “consider economy, and later we may be

able to serve you--”

* * * * *

Before starting to see Monsieur Molineux, the owner of the adjoining

house, Cesar wished to get from Roguin the private deed about the

transference of the lease which Alexandre Crottat had been ordered to

draw up. As he left the notary’s house, he saw du Tillet at the window

of Roguin’s study. Although the _liaison_ of his former clerk with the

lawyer’s wife made it not unlikely that he should see du Tillet there

at this hour when the negotiations about the Madeleine were going on,

Birotteau, in spite of his extreme confidence, felt uneasy. The excited

manner of du Tillet seemed the sign of a discussion. “Can he be in it?”

thought Cesar, with a flash of commercial prudence. The suspicion passed

like lightning through his mind. He looked again and saw Madame Roguin,

and the presence of du Tillet was no longer suspicious. “Still, suppose

Constance were right?” he said to himself. “What a fool I am to listen

to women’s notions! I’ll speak of it to my uncle Pillerault this

morning; it is only a step from the Cour Batave, where Monsieur Molineux

lives, to the Rue des Bourdonnais.”

A cautious observer, or a merchant who had met with swindlers in

his business career, would have been saved by this sight; but the

antecedents of Birotteau, the incapacity of his mind, which had little

power to follow up the chain of inductions by which a superior

man reaches a conclusion, all conspired to blind him. He found the

umbrella-man in full dress, and they were about to start, when Virginie,

the cook, caught him by the arm:--

“Monsieur, madame does not wish you to go out--”

“Pshaw!” said Birotteau, “more women’s notions!”

“--without your coffee, which is ready.”

“That’s true. My neighbor,” he said to Cayron, “I have so many things

in my head that I can’t think of my stomach. Do me the kindness to go

forward; we will meet at Monsieur Molineux’ door, unless you are willing

to go up and explain matters to him, which would save time.”

Monsieur Molineux was a grotesque little man, living on his rents,--a

species of being that exists nowhere but in Paris, like a certain lichen

which grows only in Iceland. This comparison is all the more apt because

he belonged to a mixed nature, to an animal-vegetable kingdom which

some modern Mercier might build up of cryptograms that push up upon, and

flower, and die in or under the plastered walls of the strange unhealthy

houses where they prefer to cluster. The first aspect of this human

plant--umbelliferous, judging by the fluted blue cap which crowned it,

with a stalk encased in greenish trousers, and bulbous roots swathed

in list shoes--offered to the eye a flat and faded countenance, which

certainly betrayed nothing poisonous. In this queer product might be

recognized the typical stockholder, who believes every report which the

daily press baptizes with ink, and is content, for all response, to say,

“Read what the papers say,”--the bourgeois, essentially the friend of

order, always revolting in his moral being against power, though

always obeying it; a creature feeble in the mass but fierce in isolated

circumstances, hard as a constable when his own rights are in question,

yet giving fresh chickweed to his bird and fish-bones to his cat,

interrupting the signing of a lease to whistle to a canary, suspicious

as a jailer, but apt to put his money into a bad business and then

endeavor to get it back by niggardly avarice. The evil savor of this

hybrid flower was only revealed by use; its nauseous bitterness needed

the stewing of some business in which his interests were mingled with

those of other men, to bring it fully out. Like all Parisians, Molineux

had the lust of dominating; he craved the share of sovereignty which is

exercised more or less by every one, even a porter, over a greater or

lesser number of victims,--over wife, children, tenants, clerks, horses,

dogs, monkeys, to whom they send, on the rebound, the mortifications

they have endured in the higher spheres to which they aspired.

This annoying old man had neither wife, child, nephew, or niece. He

bullied his servant-of-all-work too much to make her a victim; for she

escaped all contact with her master by doing her work and keeping out of

his way. His appetite for tyranny was thus balked; and to satisfy it

in some way he patiently studied the laws relating to rentals and

party-walls; he fathomed the jurisprudence which regulates the dwellings

of Paris in an infinite number of petty questions as to tenants,

abutters, liabilities, taxes, repairs, sweepings, decorations for the

Fete-Dieu, waste-pipes, lighting, projections over the public way, and

the neighborhood of unhealthy buildings. His means, his strength, in

fact his whole mind was spent in keeping his proprietary rights on a

complete war-footing. He had made it an amusement, and the amusement

had become a monomania. He was fond of protecting citizens against

the encroachment of illegal proceedings; but finding such subjects of

complaint rare, he had finally turned upon his own tenants. A tenant

became his enemy, his inferior, his subject, his vassal; he laid claim

to his subservience, and looked upon any man as a brute who passed

him on the stairway without speaking. He wrote out his bills for rent

himself, and sent them on the morning of the day they fell due. The

debtor who was behindhand in his payment received a legal notice to quit

at an appointed time. Then followed seizures, law-suits, costs, and

the whole judicial array set in motion with the rapidity of what the

head’s-man calls the “mechanism.” Molineux granted neither grace nor

time; his heart was a callus in the direction of a lease.

“I will lend you the money if you want it,” he would say to a man he

thought solvent, “but pay my rent; all delays carry with them a loss of

interest for which the law does not indemnify us.”

After long study of the caprices and capers of tenants who persisted,

after the fashion of dynasties, in upsetting the arrangements of their

predecessors, he had drawn up a charter of his own and followed it

religiously. In accordance therewith, the old fellow made no repairs:

no chimney ever smoked, the stairs were clean, the ceilings white, the

cornices irreproachable, the floors firm on their joists, the paint

satisfactory; the locks were never more than three years old, not a pane

of glass was missing, there were no cracks, and he saw no broken tiles

until a tenant vacated the premises. When he met the tenants on their

first arrival he was accompanied by a locksmith and a painter and

glazier,--very convenient folks, as he remarked. The lessee was at

liberty to make improvements; but if the unhappy man did so, little

Molineux thought night and day of how he could dislodge him and relet

the improved appartement on better terms. He watched and waited and spun

the web of his mischievous legal proceedings. He knew all the tricks

of Parisian legislation in the matter of leases. Factious and fond of

scribbling, he wrote polite and specious letters to his tenants; but at

the bottom of all his civil sentences could be seen, as in his faded

and cozening face, the soul of a Shylock. He always demanded six months’

rent in advance, to be deducted from the last quarter of the lease under

an array of prickly conditions which he invented. If new tenants offered

themselves, he got information about them from the police; for he would

not have people of certain callings,--he was afraid, for instance, of

hammers. When the lease was to be signed, he kept the deed and spelled

it over for a week, fearing what he called the _et caetera_ of lawyers.

Outside of his notions as a proprietor, Jean-Baptiste Molineux seemed

good and obliging. He played at boston without complaining of the

players; he laughed at the things which make a bourgeois laugh; talked

of what others of his kind talked about,--the arbitrary powers of

bakers who nefariously sell false weights, of the police, of the heroic

seventeen deputies of the Left. He read the “Good Sense” of the Cure

Meslier, and went to Mass; not that he had any choice between deism and

Christianity, but he took the wafer when offered to him, and argued that

he was therefore safe from the interfering claims of the clergy. The

indefatigable litigant wrote letters on this subject to the newspapers,

which the newspapers did not insert and never answered. He was in other

respects one of those estimable bourgeois who solemnly put Christmas

logs on their fire, draw kings at play, invent April-fools, stroll on

the boulevards when the weather is fine, go to see the skating, and are

always to be found on the terrace of the Place Louis XV. at two o’clock

on the days of the fireworks, with a roll in their pockets so that they

may get and keep a front place.

The Cour Batave, where the little old man lived, is the product of one

of those fantastic speculations of which no man can explain the meaning

after they are once completed. This cloistral structure, with arcades

and interior galleries built of free-stone, with a fountain at one

end,--a parched fountain, which opens its lion’s mouth less to give

water than to ask it from the passers-by,--was doubtless invented to

endow the Saint-Denis quarter with a species of Palais-Royal. The place,

unhealthy and buried on all four sides by the high walls of its houses,

has no life or movement except in the daytime; it is a central spot

where dark passages meet, and connect the quarter of the markets with

the Saint-Martin quarter by means of the famous Rue Quincampoix,--damp

ways in which hurried foot-passengers contract rheumatism. But at night

no spot in Paris is more deserted; it might be called the catacombs

of commerce. In it there are various industrial _cloaca_, very

few Dutchmen, but a great many grocers. The apartments in this

merchant-place have, naturally, no other outlook than that of the common

court on which all the windows give, so that rents are at a minimum.

Monsieur Molineux lived in one of the angles, on the sixth floor for

sanitary reasons, the air not being pure at a less height than seventy

feet above the ground. At this altitude the worthy proprietor enjoyed

an enchanting view of the windmills of Montmartre as he walked among

the gutters on the roof, where he cultivated flowers, in spite of police

regulations against the hanging gardens of our modern Babylon. His

appartement was made up of four rooms, without counting the precious

_anglaises_ on the floor above him of which he had the key; they

belonged to him, he had made them, and he felt he was legally entitled

to them. On entering his appartement, a repulsive barrenness plainly

showed the avarice of the owner: in the antechamber were six straw

chairs and a porcelain stove; on the walls, which were covered with

a bottle-green paper, were four engravings bought at auction. In the

dining-room were two sideboards, two cages full of birds, a table

covered with oil-cloth, a barometer, a window-door which opened on the

hanging gardens, and chairs of dark mahogany covered with horse-hair.

The salon had little curtains of some old green-silk stuff, and

furniture of painted white-wood covered with green worsted velvet. As

to the chamber of the old celibate it was furnished with Louis XV.

articles, so dirty and disfigured through long usage that a woman

dressed in white would have been afraid of soiling herself by contact

with them. The chimney-piece was adorned by a clock with two columns,

between which was a dial-case that served as a pedestal to Pallas

brandishing her lance: a myth. The floor was covered with plates full

of scraps intended for the cats, on which there was much danger of

stepping. Above a chest of drawers in rosewood hung a portrait done in

pastel,--Molineux in his youth. There were also books, tables covered

with shabby green bandboxes, on a bracket a number of his deceased

canaries stuffed; and, finally, a chilly bed that might formerly have

belonged to a Carmelite.

* * * * *

Cesar Birotteau was delighted with the extreme politeness of Molineux,

whom he found wrapped in a gray woollen dressing-gown, watching his

milk in a little metal heater on the edge of his fireplace, while his

coffee-grounds were boiling in a little brown earthenware jug from

which, every now and then, he poured a few drops into his coffee-pot.

The umbrella-man, anxious not to disturb his landlord, had gone to the

door to admit Birotteau. Molineux held the mayors and deputies of the

city of Paris in much esteem; he called them “my municipal officers.”

At sight of the magistrate he rose, and remained standing, cap in hand,

until the great Birotteau was seated.

“No, monsieur; yes, monsieur; ah, monsieur, if I had known I should have

had the honor of receiving in the bosom of my humble _penates_ a member

of the municipality of Paris, believe me I should have made it my duty

to call upon you, although I am your landlord--or, on the point of

becoming so.”

Birotteau made him a sign to put on his cap.

“No, I shall not; not until you are seated, and have replaced yours,

if you feel the cold. My room is chilly, the smallness of my means not

permitting--God grant your wishes!” he added, as Birotteau sneezed while

he felt in his pockets for the deeds. In presenting them to Molineux

Cesar remarked, to avoid all unnecessary delay, that Monsieur Roguin had

drawn them up.

“I do not dispute the legal talents of Monsieur Roguin, an old name

well-known in the notariat of Paris; but I have my own little customs, I

do my own business (an excusable hobby), and my notary is--”

“But this matter is very simple,” said the perfumer, who was used to the

quick business methods of merchants.

“Simple!” cried Molineux. “Nothing is simple in such matters. Ah! you

are not a landlord, monsieur, and you may think yourself happy. If

you knew to what lengths of ingratitude tenants can go, and to what

precautions we are driven! Why, monsieur, I once had a tenant--”

And for a quarter an hour he recounted how a Monsieur Gendrin, designer,

had deceived the vigilance of his porter, Rue Saint-Honore. Monsieur

Gendrin had committed infamies worthy of Marat,--obscene drawings at

which the police winked. This Gendrin, a profoundly immoral artist,

had brought in women of bad lives, and made the staircase

intolerable,--conduct worthy of a man who made caricatures of the

government. And why such conduct? Because his rent had been asked for on

the 15th! Gendrin and Molineux were about to have a lawsuit, for, though

he did not pay, Gendrin insisted on holding the empty appartement.

Molineux received anonymous letters, no doubt from Gendrin, which

threatened him with assassination some night in the passages about the

Cour Batave.

“It has got to such a pass, monsieur,” he said, winding up the tale,

“that monsieur the prefect of police, to whom I confided my trouble (I

profited by the occasion to drop him a few words on the modifications

which should be introduced into the laws to meet the case), has

authorized me to carry pistols for my personal safety.”

The little old man got up and fetched the pistols.

“There they are!” he cried.

“But, monsieur, you have nothing to fear from me,” said Birotteau,

looking at Cayron, and giving him a glance and a smile intended to

express pity for such a man.

Molineux detected it; he was mortified at such a look from an officer

of the municipality, whose duty it was to protect all persons under

his administration. In any one else he might have pardoned it, but in

Birotteau the deputy-mayor, never!

“Monsieur,” he said in a dry tone, “an esteemed commercial judge, a

deputy-mayor, and an honorable merchant would not descend to such petty

meannesses,--for they are meannesses. But in your case there is an

opening through the wall which must be agreed to by your landlord,

Monsieur le comte de Grandville; there are stipulations to be made and

agreed upon about replacing the wall at the end of your lease. Besides

which, rents have hitherto been low, but they are rising; the Place

Vendome is looking up, the Rue Castiglione is to be built upon. I am

binding myself--binding myself down!”

“Let us come to a settlement,” said Birotteau, amazed. “How much do you

want? I know business well enough to be certain that all your reasons

can be silenced by the superior consideration of money. Well, how much

is it?”

“That’s only fair, monsieur the deputy. How much longer does your own

lease run?”

“Seven years,” answered Birotteau.

“Think what my first floor will be worth in seven years!” said Molineux.

“Why, what would two furnished rooms let for in that quarter?--more than

two hundred francs a month perhaps! I am binding myself--binding myself

by a lease. The rent ought to be fifteen hundred francs. At that price

I will consent to the transfer of the two rooms by Monsieur Cayron, here

present,” he said, with a sly wink at the umbrella-man; “and I will give

you a lease of them for seven consecutive years. The costs of piercing

the wall are to belong to you; and you must procure the consent of

Monsieur le comte de Grandville and the cession of all his rights in the

matter. You are responsible for all damage done in making this opening.

You will not be expected to replace the wall yourself, that will be

my business; but you will at once pay me five hundred francs as an

indemnity towards it. We never know who may live or die, and I can’t run

after anybody to get the wall rebuilt.”

“Those conditions seem to me pretty fair,” said Birotteau.

“Next,” said Molineux. “You must pay me seven hundred and fifty francs,

_hic et hinc_, to be deducted from the last six months of your lease;

this will be acknowledged in the lease itself. Oh, I will accept small

bills for the value of the rent at any date you please! I am prompt and

square in business. We will agree that you are to close up the door

on my staircase (where you are to have no right of entry), at your own

cost, in masonry. Don’t fear,--I shall ask you no indemnity for that

at the end of your lease; I consider it included in the five hundred

francs. Monsieur, you will find me just.”

“We merchants are not so sharp,” said the perfumer. “It would not be

possible to do business if we made so many stipulations.”

“Oh, in business, that is very different, especially in perfumery, where

everything fits like a glove,” said the old fellow with a sour smile;

“but when you come to letting houses in Paris, nothing is unimportant.

Why, I have a tenant in the Rue Montorgeuil who--”

“Monsieur,” said Birotteau, “I am sorry to detain you from your

breakfast: here are the deeds, correct them. I agree to all that you

propose, we will sign them to-morrow; but to-day let us come to an

agreement by word of mouth, for my architect wants to take possession of

the premises in the morning.”

“Monsieur,” resumed Molineux with a glance at the umbrella-merchant,

“part of a quarter has expired; Monsieur Cayron would not wish to pay

it; we will add it to the rest, so that your lease may run from January

to January. It will be more in order.”

“Very good,” said Birotteau.

“And the five per cent for the porter--”

“But,” said Birotteau, “if you deprive me of the right of entrance, that

is not fair.”

“Oh, you are a tenant,” said little Molineux, peremptorily, up in arms

for the principle. “You must pay the tax on doors and windows and your

share in all the other charges. If everything is clearly understood

there will be no difficulty. You must be doing well, monsieur; your

affairs are prospering?”

“Yes,” said Birotteau. “But my motive is, I may say, something

different. I assemble my friends as much to celebrate the emancipation

of our territory as to commemorate my promotion to the order of the

Legion of honor--”

“Ah! ah!” said Molineux, “a recompense well-deserved!”

“Yes,” said Birotteau, “possibly I showed myself worthy of that signal

and royal favor by my services on the Bench of commerce, and by fighting

for the Bourbons upon the steps of Saint-Roch on the 13th Vendemiaire.

These claims--”

“Are equal to those of our brave soldiers of the old army. The ribbon is

red, for it is dyed with their blood.”

At these words, taken from the “Constitutionnel,” Birotteau could

not keep from inviting little Molineux to the ball, who thanked him

profusely and felt like forgiving the disdainful look. The old man

conducted his new tenant as far as the landing, and overwhelmed him with

politeness. When Birotteau reached the middle of the Cour Batave he gave

Cayron a merry look.

“I did not think there could exist such--weak beings!” he said, with

difficulty keeping back the word _fools_.

“Ah, monsieur,” said Cayron, “it is not everybody that has your

talents.”

Birotteau might easily believe himself a superior being in the presence

of Monsieur Molineux; the answer of the umbrella-man made him smile

agreeably, and he bowed to him with a truly royal air as they parted.

“I am close by the Markets,” thought Cesar; “I’ll attend to the matter

of the nuts.”

* * * * *

After an hour’s search, Birotteau, who was sent by the market-women to

the Rue de Lombards where nuts for sugarplums were to be found, heard

from his friend Matifat that the fruit in bulk was only to be had of a

certain Madame Angelique Madou, living in the Rue Perrin-Gasselin, the

sole establishment which kept the true filbert of Provence, and the

veritable white hazel-nut of the Alps.

The Rue Perrin-Gasselin is one of the narrow thoroughfares in a square

labyrinth enclosed by the quay, the Rue Saint-Denis, the Rue de la

Ferronnerie, and the Rue de la Monnaie; it is, as it were, one of the

entrails of the city. There swarm an infinite number of heterogeneous

and mixed articles of merchandise, evil-smelling and jaunty, herrings

and muslin, silks and honey, butter and gauze, and above all a number of

petty trades, of which Paris knows as little as a man knows of what

is going on in his pancreas, and which, at the present moment, had a

blood-sucker named Bidault, otherwise called Gigonnet, a money-lender,

who lived in the Rue Grenetat. In this quarter old stables were filled

with oil-casks, and the carriage-houses were packed with bales of

cotton. Here were stored in bulk the articles that were sold at retail

in the markets.

Madame Madou, formerly a fish-woman, but thrown, some ten years since,

into the dried-fruit trade by a liaison with the former proprietor of

her present business (an affair which had long fed the gossip of the

markets), had originally a vigorous and enticing beauty, now lost

however in a vast embonpoint. She lived on the lower floor of a yellow

house, which was falling to ruins, and was held together at each story

by iron cross-bars. The deceased proprietor had succeeded in getting rid

of all competitors, and had made his business a monopoly. In spite of a

few slight defects of education, his heiress was able to carry it along,

and take care of her stores, which were in coachhouses, stables, and

old workshops, where she fought the vermin with eminent success. Not

troubled with desk or ledgers, for she could neither read nor write, she

answered a letter with a blow of her fist, considering it an insult. In

the main she was a good woman, with a high-colored face, and a foulard

tied over her cap, who mastered with bugle voice the wagoners when they

brought the merchandise; such squabbles usually ending in a bottle

of the “right sort.” She had no disputes with the agriculturists who

consigned her the fruit, for they corresponded in ready money,--the only

possible method of communication, to receive which Mere Madou paid them

a visit in the fine season of the year.

Birotteau found this shrewish trader among sacks of filberts, nuts, and

chestnuts.

“Good-morning, my dear lady,” said Birotteau with a jaunty air.

“_Your_ dear!” she said. “Hey! my son, what’s there agreeable between

us? Did we ever mount guard over kings and queens together?”

“I am a perfumer, and what is more I am deputy-mayor of the second

arrondissement; thus, as magistrate and as customer, I request you to

take another tone with me.”

“I marry when I please,” said the virago. “I don’t trouble the mayor, or

bother his deputies. As for my customers, they adore me, and I talk to

‘em as I choose. If they don’t like it, they can snake off elsewhere.”

“This is the result of monopoly,” thought Birotteau.

“Popole!--that’s my godson,--he must have got into mischief. Have you

come about him, my worthy magistrate?” she said, softening her voice.

“No; I had the honor to tell you that I came as a customer.”

“Well, well! and what’s your name, my lad? Haven’t seen you about

before, have I?”

“If you take that tone, you ought to sell your nuts cheap,” said

Birotteau, who proceeded to give his name and all his distinctions.

“Ha! you’re the Birotteau that’s got the handsome wife. And how many of

the sweet little nuts may you want, my love?”

“Six thousand weight.”

“That’s all I have,” said the seller, in a voice like a hoarse flute.

“My dear monsieur, you are not one of the sluggards who waste their time

on girls and perfumes. God bless you, you’ve got something to do! Excuse

me a bit. You’ll be a jolly customer, dear to the heart of the woman I

love best in the world.”

“Who is that?”

“Hey! the dear Madame Madou.”

“What’s the price of your nuts?”

“For you, old fellow, twenty-five francs a hundred, if you take them

all.”

“Twenty-five francs!” cried Birotteau. “Fifteen hundred francs! I shall

want perhaps a hundred thousand a year.”

“But just look how fine they are; fresh as a daisy,” she said, plunging

her red arm into a sack of filberts. “Plump, no empty ones, my dear

man. Just think! grocers sell their beggarly trash at twenty-four sous

a pound, and in every four pounds they put a pound of _hollows_. Must I

lose my profits to oblige you? You’re nice enough, but you don’t please

me all that! If you want so many, we might make a bargain at twenty

francs. I don’t want to send away a deputy-mayor,--bad luck to the

brides, you know! Now, just handle those nuts; heavy, aren’t they? Less

than fifty to the pound; no worms there, I can tell you.”

“Well, then, send six thousand weight, for two thousand francs at ninety

days’ sight, to my manufactory, Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple, to-morrow

morning early.”

“You’re in as great a hurry as a bride! Well, adieu, monsieur the mayor;

don’t bear me a grudge. But if it is all the same to you,” she added,

following Birotteau through the yard, “I would like your note at forty

days, because I have let you have them too cheap, and I don’t want to

lose the discount. Pere Gigonnet may have a tender heart, but he sucks

the soul out of us as a spider sucks a fly.”

“Well, then, fifty days. But they are to be weighed by the hundred

pounds, so that there may be no hollow ones. Without that, no bargain.”

“Ah, the dog! he knows what he’s about,” said Madame Madou; “can’t make

a fool of him! It is those rascals in the Rue des Lombards who have

put him up to that! Those big wolves are all in a pack to eat up the

innocent lambs.”

This lamb was five feet high and three feet round, and she looked like a

mile-post, dressed in striped calico, without a belt.

The perfumer, lost in thought, was ruminating as he went along the Rue

Saint-Honore about his duel with Macassar Oil. He was meditating on

the labels and the shape of the bottles, discussing the quality of the

corks, the color of the placards. And yet people say there is no poetry

in commerce! Newton did not make more calculations for his famous

binomial than Birotteau made for his Comagene Essence,--for by this time

the Oil had subsided into an Essence, and he went from one description

to the other without observing any difference. His head spun with his

computations, and he took the lively activity of its emptiness for the

substantial work of real talent. He was so preoccupied that he passed

the turn leading to his uncle’s house in the Rue des Bourdonnais, and

had to return upon his steps.

V

Claude-Joseph Pillerault, formerly an iron-monger at the sign of the

Cloche d’Or, had one of those faces whose beauty shines from the inner

to the outer; about him all things harmonized,--dress and manners, mind

and heart, thought and speech, words and acts. He was the sole relation

of Madame Birotteau, and had centred all his affections upon her and

upon Cesarine, having lost, in the course of his commercial career, his

wife and son, and also an adopted child, the son of his house-keeper.

These heavy losses had driven the good man into a kind of Christian

stoicism,--a noble doctrine, which gave life to his existence, and

colored his latter days with the warm, and at the same time chilling,

tones which gild the sunsets of winter. His head, thin and hollowed and

swarthy, with ochre and bistre tints harmoniously blended, offered

a striking likeness to that which artists bestow on Time, though it

vulgarized it; for the habits of commercial life lowered the stern

and monumental character which painters, sculptors, and clock-makers

exaggerate. Of medium height, Pillerault was more thick-set than stout;

Nature had built him for hard work and long life; his broad shoulders

showed a strong frame; he was dry by temperament, and his skin had,

as it were, no emotions, though it was not insensible. Little

demonstrative, as was shown by his composed face and quiet attitude, the

old man had an inward calm not expressed in phrases nor by emphasis.

His eye, the pupil of which was green, mingled with black lines, was

remarkable for its unalterable clearness. His forehead, wrinkled in

straight lines and yellowed by time, was small and narrow, hard, and

crowned with silver-gray hair cut so short that it looked like felt. His

delicate mouth showed prudence, but not avarice. The vivacity of his

eye showed the purity of his life. Integrity, a sense of duty, and true

modesty made, as it were, a halo round his head, bringing his face into

the relief of a sound and healthful existence.

For sixty years he had led the hard and sober life of a determined

worker. His history was like Cesar’s, except in happiness. A clerk till

thirty years of age, his property was all in his business at the time

when Cesar put his savings into the Funds; he had suffered, like others,

under the Maximum, and the pickaxes and other implements of his

trade had been requisitioned. His reserved and judicious nature, his

forethought and mathematical reflection, were seen in his methods of

work. The greater part of his business was conducted by word of mouth,

and he seldom encountered difficulties. Like all thoughtful people he

was a great observer; he let people talk, and then studied them. He

often refused advantageous bargains on which his neighbors pounced;

later, when they regretted them, they declared that Pillerault had

“a nose for swindlers.” He preferred small and certain gains to bold

strokes which put large sums of money in jeopardy. He dealt in cast-iron

chimney backs, gridirons, coarse fire-dogs, kettles and boilers in

cast or wrought iron, hoes, and all the agricultural implements of the

peasantry. This line, which was sufficiently unremunerative, required an

immense mechanical toil. The gains were not in proportion to the labor;

the profits on such heavy articles, difficult to move and expensive

to store, were small. He himself had nailed up many a case, packed and

unpacked many a bale, unloaded many a wagon. No fortune was ever more

nobly won, more legitimate or more honorable, than his. He had never

overcharged or sought to force a bargain. In his latter business days

he might be seen smoking his pipe before the door of his shop looking

at the passers-by, and watching his clerks as they worked. In 1814, the

period at which he retired from business, his fortune consisted, in the

first place, of seventy thousand francs, which he placed in the public

Funds, and from which he derived an income of five thousand and some odd

hundred francs a year; next of forty thousand francs, the value of his

business, which he had sold to one of his clerks; this sum was to be

paid in full at the end of five years, without interest. Engaged for

thirty years in a business which amounted to a hundred thousand francs

a year, he had made about seven per cent profit on the amount, and his

living had absorbed one half of that profit. Such was his record. His

neighbors, little envious of such mediocrity, praised his excellence

without understanding it.

At the corner of the Rue de la Monnaie and the Rue Saint-Honore is

the cafe David, where a few old merchants, like Pillerault, take their

coffee in the evenings. There, the adoption of the son of his cook had

been the subject of a few jests, such as might be addressed to a man

much respected, for the iron-monger inspired respectful esteem, though

he never sought it; his inward self-respect sufficed him. So when

he lost the young man, two hundred friends followed the body to the

cemetery. In those days he was heroic. His sorrow, restrained like that

of all men who are strong without assumption, increased the sympathy

felt in his neighborhood for the “worthy man,”--a term applied to

Pillerault in a tone which broadened its meaning and ennobled it. The

sobriety of Claude Pillerault, long become a habit, did not yield before

the pleasures of an idle life when, on quitting his business, he sought

the rest which drags down so many of the Parisian bourgeoisie. He kept

up his former ways of life, and enlivened his old age by convictions

and interests, which belonged, we must admit, to the extreme Left.

Pillerault belonged to that working-men’s party which the Revolution

had fused with the bourgeoisie. The only blot upon his character was the

importance he attached to the triumph of that party; he held to all the

rights, to the liberty, and to the fruits of the Revolution; he believed

that his peace of mind and his political stability were endangered by

the Jesuits, whose secret power was proclaimed aloud by the Liberals,

and menaced by the principles with which the “Constitutionnel” endowed

Monsieur. He was quite consistent in his life and ideas; there was

nothing narrow about his politics; he never insulted his adversaries, he

dreaded courtiers and believed in republican virtues; he thought Manuel

a pure man, General Foy a great one, Casimir Perier without ambition,

Lafayette a political prophet, and Courier a worthy fellow. He had

indeed some noble chimeras. The fine old man lived a family life; he

went about among the Ragons, his niece Birotteau, the judge Popinot,

Joseph Lebas, and his friend Matifat. Fifteen hundred francs a year

sufficed for all his personal wants. As to the rest of his income he

spent it on good deeds, and in presents to his great-niece; he gave a

dinner four times a year to his friends, at Roland’s, Rue du Hasard,

and took them afterwards to the theatre. He played the part of those old

bachelors on whom married women draw at sight for their amusements,--a

country jaunt, the opera, the Montagnes-Beaujon, _et caetera_.

Pillerault was made happy by the pleasure he gave; his joys were in the

hearts of others. Though he had sold his business, he did not wish to

leave the neighborhood to which all his habits tied him; and he took

a small appartement of three rooms in the Rue des Bourdonnais on the

fourth floor of an old house.

Just as the moral nature of Molineux could be seen in his strange

interior, the pure and simple life of Pillerault was revealed by

the arrangements of his modest home, consisting of an antechamber, a

sitting-room, and a bed-room. Judged by dimensions, it was the cell of a

Trappist. The antechamber, with a red-tiled floor, had only one window,

screened by a cambric curtain with a red border; mahogany chairs,

covered with reddish sheep’s leather put on with gilt nails, walls hung

with an olive-green paper, and otherwise decorated with the American

Declaration of Independence, a portrait of Bonaparte as First Consul,

and a representation of the battle of Austerlitz. The salon, decorated

undoubtedly by an upholsterer, had a set of furniture with arched

tops covered in yellow, a carpet, chimney ornaments of bronze without

gilding, a painted chimney-board, a console bearing a vase of flowers

under a glass case, a round table covered with a cloth, on which stood

a liqueur-stand. The newness of this room proclaimed a sacrifice made by

the old man to the conventions of the world; for he seldom received

any one at home. In his bedroom, as plain as that of a monk or an old

soldier (the two men best able to estimate life), a crucifix with a

basin of holy-water first caught the eye. This profession of faith in a

stoical old republican was strangely moving to the heart of a spectator.

An old woman came to do his household work; but his respect for

women was so great that he would not let her black his boots, and he

subscribed to a boot-black for that service. His dress was simple, and

invariably the same. He wore a coat and trousers of dark-blue cloth, a

waistcoat of some printed cotton fabric, a white cravat, high shoes, and

on gala days he put on a coat with brass buttons. His habits of rising,

breakfasting, going out, dining, his evening resorts, and his returning

hours were all stamped with the strictest punctuality; for regular

habits are the secret of long life and sound health. Politics never came

to the surface in his intercourse with Cesar, the Ragons, or the Abbe

Loraux; for the good people of that circle knew each other too well to

care to enter the region of proselytism. Like his nephew and like the

Ragons, he put implicit confidence in Roguin. To his mind the notary

was a being worthy of veneration,--the living image of probity. In the

affair of the lands about the Madeleine, Pillerault had undertaken a

private examination, which was the real cause of the boldness with which

Cesar had combated his wife’s presentiments.

The perfumer went up the seventy-eight stairs which led to the little

brown door of his uncle’s appartement, thinking as he went that the old

man must be very hale to mount them daily without complaining. He found

a frock-coat and pair of trousers hanging on the hat-stand outside

the door. Madame Vaillant brushed and cleaned them while this genuine

philosopher, wrapped in a gray woollen garment, breakfasted in

his chimney-corner and read the parliamentary debates in the

“Constitutionnel” or the “Journal du Commerce.”

“Uncle,” said Cesar, “the matter is settled; they are drawing up their

deeds; but you have any fears or regrets, there is still time to give it

up.”

“Why should I give it up? The thing is good; though it may be a long

time before we realize anything, like all safe investments. My

fifty thousand francs are in the bank. I received yesterday the last

instalment, five thousand francs, from my business. As for the Ragons,

they have put their whole fortune into the affair.”

“How do they contrive to life?”

“Never mind how; they do live.”

“Uncle, I understand!” said Birotteau, deeply moved, pressing the hand

of the austere old man.

“How is the affair arranged?” asked Pillerault, brusquely.

“I am in for three eighths, you and the Ragons for one eighth. I shall

credit you for that on my books until the question of registration is

decided.”

“Good! My boy, you must be getting rich to put three hundred thousand

francs into it. It seems to me you are risking a good deal outside of

your business. Won’t the business suffer? However, that is your affair.

If you get a set-back, why the Funds are at eighty, and I could sell two

thousand francs worth of my consolidated stock. But take care, my lad;

for if you have to come upon me, it will be your daughter’s fortune that

you will take.”

“Ah! my uncle, how simply you say things! You touch my heart.”

“General Foy was touching mine in quite another fashion just now. Well,

go on; settle the business; lands can’t fly away. We are getting them at

half price. Suppose we do have to wait six years, there will always be

some returns; there are wood-yards which will bring in a rent. We can’t

really lose anything. There is but one chance against us. Roguin might

run off with the money.”

“My wife told me so this very night. She fears--”

“That Roguin will carry off our funds?” said Pillerault, laughing.

“Pray, why?”

“She says there is too much in his nose; and like men who can’t have

women, he is furious to--”

With a smile of incredulity, Pillerault tore a strip from a little book,

wrote down an amount, and signed the paper.

“There,” said he, “there’s a cheque on the Bank of France for a hundred

thousand francs for the Ragons and for me. Those poor folks have just

sold to your scoundrel of a du Tillet their fifteen shares in the mines

at Wortschin to make up the amount. Worthy people in trouble,--it

wrings my heart; and such good, noble souls, the very flower of the old

bourgeoisie! Their brother, Popinot, the judge, knows nothing about

it; they hid it from him so that he may not feel obliged to give up

his other works of charity. People who have worked, like me, for forty

years!”

“God grant that the Oil of Comagene may triumph!” cried Birotteau. “I

shall be doubly happy. Adieu; come and dine on Sunday with the Ragons,

Roguin, and Monsieur Claparon. We shall sign the papers the day after

to-morrow, for to-morrow is Friday, you know, and I shouldn’t like--”

“You don’t surely give in to such superstitions?”

“Uncle, I shall never believe that the day on which the Son of God was

put to death by man can be a fortunate day. Why, we ourselves stop all

business on the twenty-first of January.”

“On Sunday, then,” said Pillerault brusquely.

“If it were not for his political opinions,” thought Birotteau as he

went down stairs, “I don’t believe he would have his equal here below.

What are politics to him? He would be just as well off if he never

thought of them. His obstinacy in that direction only shows that there

can’t be a perfect man.”

“Three o’clock already!” cried Cesar, as he got back to “The Queen of

Roses.”

“Monsieur, do you mean to take these securities?” asked Celestin,

showing him the notes of the umbrella-maker.

“Yes; at six per cent, without commission. Wife, get my dressing things

all ready; I am going to see Monsieur Vauquelin,--you know why. A white

cravat, of course.”

Birotteau gave a few orders to the clerks. Not seeing Popinot, he

concluded that his future partner had gone to dress; and he went

gaily up to his room, where the Dresden Madonna, magnificently framed

according to his orders, awaited him.

“Hey! that’s pretty,” he said to his daughter.

“Papa, you must say beautiful, or people will laugh at you.”

“Upon my word! a daughter who scolds her father! Well, well! To my

taste I like Hero and Leander quite as much. The Virgin is a religious

subject, suitable for a chapel; but Hero and Leander, ah! I shall buy

it, for that flask of oil gave me an idea--”

“Papa, I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Virginie! a hackney-coach!” cried Cesar, in stentorian tones, as soon

as he had trimmed his beard and seen little Popinot appear, who was

dragging his foot timidly because Cesarine was there.

The lover had never yet perceived that his infirmity no longer existed

in the eyes of his mistress. Delicious sign of love!--which they on whom

chance has inflicted a bodily imperfection can alone obtain.

“Monsieur,” he said, “the press will be ready to work to-morrow.”

“Why, what’s the matter, Popinot?” asked Cesar, as he saw Anselme blush.

“Monsieur, it is the joy of having found a shop, a back-shop, kitchen,

chambers above them, and store-rooms,--all for twelve hundred francs a

year, in the Rue des Cinq-Diamants.”

“We must take a lease of eighteen years,” said Birotteau. “But let us

start for Monsieur Vauquelin’s. We can talk as we go.”

Cesar and Popinot got into the hackney-coach before the eyes of the

astonished clerks, who did not know what to make of these gorgeous

toilets and the abnormal coach, ignorant as they were of the great

project revolving in the mind of the master of “The Queen of Roses.”

“We are going to hear the truth about nuts,” said Cesar, half to

himself.

“Nuts?” said Popinot.

“There you have my secret,” said the perfumer. “I’ve let loose the word

_nuts_,--all is there. The oil of nuts is the only oil that has any real

effect upon hair. No perfumer has ever dreamed of it. I saw an engraving

of Hero and Leander, and I said to myself, If the ancients used all that

oil on their heads they had some reason for it; for the ancients are the

ancients, in spite of all the moderns may say; I stand by Boileau about

the ancients. I took my departure from that point and got the oil of

nuts, thanks to your relation, little Bianchon the medical student; he

told me that at school his comrades used nut oil to promote the growth

of their whiskers and mustachios. All we need is the approval of

Monsieur Vauquelin; enlightened by his science, we shall mislead the

public. I was in the markets just now, talking to a seller of nuts, so

as to get hold of the raw material, and now I am about to meet one of

the greatest scientific men in France, to get at the quintessence of

that commodity. Proverbs are no fools; extremes meet. Now see, my boy,

commerce is the intermediary between the productions of the vegetable

kingdom and science. Angelique Madou gathers, Monsieur Vauquelin

extracts, we sell an essence. Nuts are worth five sous a pound, Monsieur

Vauquelin will increase their value one hundredfold, and we shall,

perhaps, do a service to humanity; for if vanity is the cause of the

greatest torments of mankind, a good cosmetic becomes a benefaction.”

The religious admiration with which Popinot listened to the father

of Cesarine stimulated Birotteau’s eloquence, who allowed himself

to expatiate in phrases which certainly were extremely wild for a

bourgeois.

“Be respectful, Anselme,” he said, as they reached the street where

Monsieur Vauquelin lived, “we are about to enter the sanctuary of

science. Put the Virgin in full sight, but not ostentatiously, in the

dining-room, on a chair. Pray heaven, I may not get mixed up in what I

have to say!” cried Cesar, naively. “Popinot, this man has a chemical

effect upon me; his voice heats my stomach, and even gives me a slight

colic. He is my benefactor, and in a few moments he will be yours.”

These words struck Popinot with a cold chill, and he began to step as

if he were walking on eggs, looking nervously at the wall. Monsieur

Vauquelin was in his study when Birotteau was announced. The academician

knew that the perfumer and deputy-mayor was high in favor, and he

admitted him.

“You do not forget me in the midst of your distinctions,” he said,

“there is only a hand’s-breadth, however, between a chemist and a

perfumer.”

“Ah, monsieur! between your genius and the plainness of a man like me

there is infinity. I owe to you what you call my distinctions: I shall

never forget it in this world, nor in the next.”

“Oh! in the next they say we shall be all alike, kings and cobblers.”

“Provided kings and cobblers lead a holy life here below,” said

Birotteau.

“Is that your son?” asked Vauquelin, looking at little Popinot, who was

amazed at not seeing anything extraordinary in the sanctum, where he

expected to find monstrosities, gigantic engines, flying-machines, and

material substances all alive.

“No, monsieur, but a young man whom I love, and who comes to ask a

kindness equal to your genius,--and that is infinite,” said Cesar with

shrewd courtesy. “We have come to consult you, a second time, on an

important matter, about which I am ignorant as a perfumer can be.”

“Let me hear what it is.”

“I know that hair has lately occupied all your vigils, and that you have

given yourself up to analyzing it; while you have thought of glory, I

have thought of commerce.”

“Dear Monsieur Birotteau, what is it you want of me,--the analysis of

hair?” He took up a little paper. “I am about to read before the Academy

of Sciences a monograph on that subject. Hair is composed of a rather

large quantity of mucus, a small quantity of white oil, a great deal of

greenish oil, iron, a few atoms of oxide of manganese, some phosphate of

lime, a tiny quantity of carbonate of lime, a little silica, and a good

deal of sulphur. The differing proportions of these component parts

cause the differences in the color of the hair. Red hair, for instance,

has more greenish oil than any other.”

Cesar and Popinot opened their eyes to a laughable extent.

“Nine things!” cried Birotteau. “What! are there metals and oils in

hair? Unless I heard it from you, a man I venerate, I could not believe

it. How amazing! God is great, Monsieur Vauquelin.”

“Hair is produced by a follicular organ,” resumed the great chemist,--“a

species of pocket, or sack, open at both extremities. By one end it is

fastened to the nerves and the blood vessels; from the other springs the

hair itself. According to some of our scientific brotherhood, among them

Monsieur Blainville, the hair is really a dead matter expelled from that

pouch, or crypt, which is filled with a species of pulp.”

“Then hair is what you might call threads of sweat!” cried Popinot, to

whom Cesar promptly administered a little kick on his heels.

Vauquelin smiled at Popinot’s idea.

“He knows something, doesn’t he?” said Cesar, looking at Popinot. “But,

monsieur, if the hair is still-born, it is impossible to give it life,

and I am lost! my prospectus will be ridiculous. You don’t know how

queer the public is; you can’t go and tell it--”

“That it has got manure upon its head,” said Popinot, wishing to make

Vauquelin laugh again.

“Cephalic catacombs,” said Vauquelin, continuing the joke.

“My nuts are bought!” cried Birotteau, alive to the commercial loss. “If

this is so why do they sell--”

“Don’t be frightened,” said Vauquelin, smiling, “I see it is a question

of some secret about making the hair grow or keeping it from turning

gray. Listen! this is my opinion on the subject, as the result of my

studies.”

Here Popinot pricked up his ears like a frightened hare.

“The discoloration of this substance, be it living or dead, is, in my

judgment, produced by a check to the secretion of the coloring matter;

which explains why in certain cold climates the fur of animals loses all

color and turns white in winter.”

“Hein! Popinot.”

“It is evident,” resumed Vauquelin, “that alterations in the color of

the hair come from changes in the circumjacent atmosphere--”

“Circumjacent, Popinot! recollect, hold fast to that,” cried Cesar.

“Yes,” said Vauquelin, “from hot and cold changes, or from internal

phenomena which produce the same effect. Probably headaches and other

cephalagic affections absorb, dissipate, or displace the generating

fluids. However, the interior of the head concerns physicians. As for

the exterior, bring on your cosmetics.”

“Monsieur,” said Birotteau, “you restore me to life! I have thought of

selling an oil of nuts, believing that the ancients made use of that oil

for their hair; and the ancients are the ancients, as you know: I agree

with Boileau. Why did the gladiators oil themselves--”

“Olive oil is quite as good as nut oil,” said Vauquelin, who was not

listening to Birotteau. “All oil is good to preserve the bulb from

receiving injury to the substances working within it, or, as we should

say in chemistry, in liquefaction. Perhaps you are right; Dupuytren

told me the oil of nuts had a stimulating property. I will look into

the differences between the various oils, beech-nut, colza, olive, and

hazel, etc.”

“Then I am not mistaken,” cried Birotteau, triumphantly. “I have

coincided with a great man. Macassar is overthrown! Macassar, monsieur,

is a cosmetic given--that is, sold, and sold dear--to make the hair

grow.”

“My dear Monsieur Birotteau,” said Vauquelin, “there are not two ounces

of Macassar oil in all Europe. Macassar oil has not the slightest action

upon the hair; but the Malays buy it up for its weight in gold, thinking

that it preserves the hair: they don’t know that whale-oil is just as

good. No power, chemical, or divine--”

“Divine! oh, don’t say that, Monsieur Vauquelin.”

“But, my dear monsieur, the first law of God is to be consistent with

Himself; without unity, no power--”

“Ah! in that light--”

“No power, as I say, can make the hair grow on bald heads; just as

you can never dye, without serious danger, red or white hair. But in

advertising the benefits of oil you commit no mistake, you tell no

falsehood, and I think that those who use it will probably preserve

their hair.”

“Do you think that the royal Academy of Sciences would approve of--”

“Oh! there is no discovery in all that,” said Vauquelin. “Besides,

charlatans have so abused the name of the Academy that it would not help

you much. My conscience will not allow me to think the oil of nuts a

prodigy.”

“What would be the best way to extract it; by pressure, or decoction?”

asked Birotteau.

“Pressure between two hot slabs will cause the oil to flow more

abundantly; but if obtained by pressure between cold slabs it will be

of better quality. It should be applied to the skin itself,” added

Vauquelin, kindly, “and not to the hair; otherwise the effect might be

lost.”

“Recollect all that, Popinot,” said Birotteau, with an enthusiasm that

sent a glow into his face. “You see before you, monsieur, a young man

who will count this day among the finest in his life. He knew you, he

venerated you, without ever having seen you. We often talk of you in our

home: a name that is in the heart is often on the lips. We pray for

you every day, my wife and daughter and I, as we ought to pray for our

benefactor.”

“Too much for so little,” said Vauquelin, rather bored by the voluble

gratitude of the perfumer.

“Ta, ta, ta!” exclaimed Birotteau, “you can’t prevent our loving you,

you who will take nothing from us. You are like the sun; you give light,

and those whom you illuminate can give you nothing in return.”

The man of science smiled and rose; the perfumer and Popinot rose also.

“Anselme, look well at this room. You permit it, monsieur? Your time is

precious, I know, but he will never have another opportunity.”

“Well, have you got all you wanted?” said Vauquelin to Birotteau. “After

all, we are both commercial men.”

“Pretty nearly, monsieur,” said Birotteau, retreating towards the

dining-room, Vauquelin following. “But to launch our Comagene Essence we

need a good foundation--”

“‘Comagene’ and ‘Essence’ are two words that clash. Call your cosmetic

‘Oil of Birotteau’; or, if you don’t want to give your name to the

world, find some other. Why, there’s the Dresden Madonna! Ah, Monsieur

Birotteau, do you mean that we shall quarrel?”

“Monsieur Vauquelin,” said the perfumer, taking the chemist’s hand.

“This treasure has no value except the time that I have spent in finding

it. We had to ransack all Germany to find it on China paper before

lettering. I knew that you wished for it and that your occupations

did not leave you time to search for it; I have been your commercial

traveller, that is all. Accept therefore, not a paltry engraving, but

efforts, anxieties, despatches to and fro, which are the evidence of my

complete devotion. Would that you had wished for something growing on

the sides of precipices, that I might have sought it and said to you,

‘Here it is!’ Do not refuse my gift. We have so much reason to be

forgotten; allow me therefore to place myself, my wife, my daughter, and

the son-in-law I expect to have, beneath your eyes. You must say when

you look at the Virgin, ‘There are some people in the world who are

thinking of me.’”

“I accept,” said Vauquelin.

Popinot and Birotteau wiped their eyes, so affected were they by the

kindly tone in which the academician uttered the words.

“Will you crown your goodness?” said the perfumer.

“What’s that?” exclaimed Vauquelin.

“I assemble my friends”--he rose from his heels, taking, nevertheless,

a modest air--“as much to celebrate the emancipation of our territory as

to commemorate my promotion to the order of the Legion of honor--”

“Ah!” exclaimed Vauquelin, surprised.

“Possibly I showed myself worthy of that signal and royal favor, by my

services on the Bench of commerce, and by fighting for the Bourbons upon

the steps of Saint-Roch, on the 13th Vendemiaire, where I was wounded

by Napoleon. My wife gives a ball, three weeks from Sunday; pray come to

it, monsieur. Do us the honor to dine with us on that day. Your presence

would double the happiness with which I receive my cross. I will write

you beforehand.”

“Well, yes,” said Vauquelin.

“My heart swells with joy!” cried the perfumer, when he got into the

street. “He comes to my house! I am afraid I’ve forgotten what he said

about hair: do you remember it, Popinot!”

“Yes, monsieur; and twenty years hence I shall remember it still.”

“What a great man! what a glance, what penetration!” said Birotteau.

“Ah! he made no bones about it; he guessed our thoughts at the first

word; he has given us the means of annihilating Macassar oil. Yes!

nothing can make the hair grow; Macassar, you lie! Popinot, our fortune

is made. We’ll go to the manufactory to-morrow morning at seven o’clock;

the nuts will be there, and we will press out some oil. It is all very

well for him to say that any oil is good; if the public knew that, we

should be lost. If we didn’t put some scent and the name of nuts into

the oil, how could we sell it for three or four francs the four ounces?”

“You are about to be decorated, monsieur?” said Popinot, “what glory

for--”

“Commerce; that is true, my boy.”

Cesar’s triumphant air, as if certain of fortune, was observed by the

clerks, who made signs at each other; for the trip in the hackney-coach,

and the full dress of the cashier and his master had thrown them all

into the wildest regions of romance. The mutual satisfaction of Cesar

and Anselme, betrayed by looks diplomatically exchanged, the glance full

of hope which Popinot cast now and then at Cesarine, proclaimed some

great event and gave color to the conjectures of the clerks. In their

busy and half cloistral life the smallest events have the interest which

a prisoner feels in those of his prison. The bearing of Madame Cesar,

who replied to the Olympian looks of her lord with an air of distrust,

seemed to point to some new enterprise; for in ordinary times Madame

Cesar, delighted with the smallest routine success, would have shared

his contentment. It happened, accidentally, that the receipts for the

day amounted to more than six thousand francs; for several outstanding

bills chanced to be paid.

The dining-room and the kitchen, lighted from a little court, and

separated from the dining-room by a passage, from which the staircase,

taken out of a corner of the backshop, opened up, was on the _entresol_

where in former days Cesar and Constance had their appartement; in fact,

the dining-room, where the honey-moon had been passed, still wore the

look of a little salon. During dinner Raguet, the trusty boy of all

work, took charge of the shop; but the clerks came down when the dessert

was put on table, leaving Cesar, his wife and daughter to finish their

dinner alone by the chimney corner. This habit was derived from the

Ragons, who kept up the old-fashioned usages and customs of former

commercial days, which placed an enormous distance between the masters

and the apprentices. Cesarine or Constance then prepared for Birotteau

his cup of coffee, which he took sitting on a sofa by the corner of the

fire. At this hour he told his wife all the little events of the day,

and related what he had seen in the streets, what was going on in

the Faubourg du Temple, and the difficulties he had met with in the

manufactory, _et caetera_.

“Wife,” he said, when the clerks had gone down, “this is certainly

one of the most important days in our life! The nuts are bought, the

hydraulic press is ready to go to work, the land affair is settled.

Here, lock up that cheque on the Bank of France,” he added, handing

her Pillerault’s paper. “The improvements in the house are ordered, the

dignity of our appartement is about to be increased. Bless me! I saw,

down in the Cour Batave, a very singular man,”--and he told the tale of

Monsieur Molineux.

“I see,” said his wife, interrupting him in the middle of a tirade,

“that you have gone in debt two hundred thousand francs.”

“That is true, wife,” said Cesar, with mock humility, “Good God, how

shall we pay them? It counts for nothing that the lands about the

Madeleine will some day become the finest quarter of Paris.”

“Some day, Cesar!”

“Alas!” he said, going on with his joke, “my three eighths will only

be worth a million in six years. How shall I ever pay that two hundred

thousand francs?” said Cesar, with a gesture of alarm. “Well, we shall

be reduced to pay them with that,” he added, pulling from his pocket a

nut, which he had taken from Madame Madou and carefully preserved.

He showed the nut between his fingers to Constance and Cesarine. His

wife was silent, but Cesarine, much puzzled, said to her father, as she

gave him his coffee, “What do you mean, papa,--are you joking?”

The perfumer, as well as the clerks, had detected during dinner the

glances which Popinot had cast at Cesarine, and he resolved to clear up

his suspicions.

“Well, my little daughter,” he said, “this nut will revolutionize our

home. From this day forth there will be one person the less under my

roof.”

Cesarine looked at her father with an eye which seemed to say, “What is

that to me?”

“Popinot is going away.”

Though Cesar was a poor observer, and had, moreover, prepared his phrase

as much to herald the creation of the house of A. Popinot and Company,

as to set a trap for his daughter, yet his paternal tenderness made him

guess the confused feelings which rose in Cesarine’s heart, blossomed

in roses on her cheek, suffused her forehead and even her eyes as she

lowered them. Cesar thought that words must have passed between Cesarine

and Popinot. He was mistaken; the two children comprehended each other,

like all timid lovers, without a word.

Some moralists hold that love is an involuntary passion, the most

disinterested, the least calculating, of all the passions, except

maternal love. This opinion carries with it a vulgar error. Though the

majority of men may be ignorant of the causes of love, it is none

the less true that all sympathy, moral or physical, is based upon

calculations made either by the mind, or by sentiment or brutality. Love

is an essentially selfish passion. Self means deep calculation. To every

mind which looks only at results, it will seem at first sight singular

and unlikely that a beautiful girl like Cesarine should love a poor lame

fellow with red hair. Yet this phenomenon is completely in harmony with

the arithmetic of middle-class sentiments. To explain it, would be

to give the reason of marriages which are constantly looked upon with

surprise,--marriages between tall and beautiful women and puny men, or

between ugly little creatures and handsome men. Every man who is

cursed with some bodily infirmity, no matter what it is,--club-feet, a

halting-gait, a humped-back, excessive ugliness, claret stains upon the

cheek, Roguin’s species of deformity, and other monstrosities the result

of causes beyond the control of the sufferer,--has but two courses open

to him: either he must make himself feared, or he must practise the

virtues of exquisite loving-kindness; he is not permitted to float in

the middle currents of average conduct which are habitual to other men.

If he takes the first course he probably has talent, genius, or strength

of will; a man inspires terror only by the power of evil, respect by

genius, fear through force of mind. If he chooses the second course, he

makes himself adored; he submits to feminine tyranny, and knows better

how to love than men of irreproachable bodily condition.

Anselme, brought up by virtuous people, by the Ragons, models of the

honorable bourgeoisie, and by his uncle the judge, had been led, through

his ingenuous nature and his deep religious sentiments, to redeem the

slight deformity of his person by the perfection of his character.

Constance and Cesar, struck by these tendencies, so attractive in youth,

had repeatedly sung his praises before Cesarine. Petty as they might be

in many ways, husband and wife were noble by nature, and understood the

deep things of the heart. Their praises found an echo in the mind of the

young girl, who, despite her innocence, had read in Anselme’s pure eyes

the violent feeling, which is always flattering whatever be the lover’s

age, or rank, or personal appearance. Little Popinot had far more

reason to adore a woman than a handsome man could ever have. If she were

beautiful, he would love her madly to her dying day; his fondness would

inspire him with ambition; he would sacrifice his own life that his

wife’s might be happy; he would make her mistress of their home, and

be himself the first to accept her sway. Thus thought Cesarine,

involuntarily perhaps, yet not altogether crudely; she gave a bird’s-eye

glance at the harvest of love in her own home, and reasoned by

induction; the happiness of her mother was before her eyes,--she wished

for no better fate; her instinct told her that Anselme was another

Cesar, improved by his education, as she had been improved by hers. She

dreamed of Popinot as mayor of an arrondissement, and liked to picture

herself taking up the collections in their parish church as her mother

did at Saint-Roch. She had reached the point of no longer perceiving the

difference between the left leg and the right leg of her lover, and

was even capable of saying, in all sincerity, “Does he limp?” She loved

those liquid eyes, and liked to watch the effect her own glance had

upon them, as they lighted up for a moment with a chaste flame, and then

fell, sadly.

Roguin’s head-clerk, Alexandre Crottat, who was gifted with the

precocious experience which comes from knowledge acquired in a lawyer’s

office, had an air and manner that was half cynical, half silly, which

revolted Cesarine, already disgusted by the trite and commonplace

character of his conversation. The silence of Popinot, on the other

hand, revealed his gentle nature; she loved the smile, partly mournful,

with which he listened to trivial vulgarities. The silly nonsense which

made him smile filled her with repulsion; they were grave or gay

in sympathy. This hidden vantage-ground did not hinder Anselme from

plunging into his work, and his indefatigable ardor in it pleased

Cesarine, for she guessed that when his comrades in the shop said,

“Mademoiselle Cesarine will marry Roguin’s head-clerk,” the poor lame

Anselme, with his red hair, did not despair of winning her himself. A

high hope is the proof of a great love.

“Where is he going?” asked Cesarine of her father, trying to appear

indifferent.

“He is to set up for himself in the Rue des Cinq-Diamants; and, my

faith! by the grace of God!” cried Cesar, whose exclamations were not

understood by his wife, nor by his daughter.

When Birotteau encountered a moral difficulty he did as the insects do

when there is an obstacle in their way,--he turned either to the right

or to the left. He therefore changed the conversation, resolving to talk

over Cesarine with his wife.

“I told all your fears and fancies about Roguin to your uncle, and he

laughed,” he said to Constance.

“You should never tell what we say to each other!” cried Constance.

“That poor Roguin may be the best man in the world; he is fifty-eight

years old, and perhaps he thinks no longer of--”

She stopped short, seeing that Cesarine was listening attentively, and

made a sign to Cesar.

“Then I have done right to agree to the affair,” said Birotteau.

“You are the master,” she answered.

Cesar took his wife by the hands and kissed her brow; that answer always

conveyed her tacit assent to her husband’s projects.

“Now, then,” cried the perfumer, to his clerks, when he went back to

them, “the shop will be closed at ten o’clock. Gentlemen, lend a hand!

a great feat! We must move, during the night, all the furniture from the

first floor to the second floor. We shall have, as they say, to put the

little pots in the big pots, for my architect must have his elbows

free to-morrow morning--Popinot has gone out without my permission,” he

cried, looking round and not seeing his cashier. “Ah, true, he does not

sleep here any more, I forget that. He is gone,” thought Cesar, “either

to write down Monsieur Vauquelin’s ideas, or else to hire the shop.”

“We all know the cause of this household change,” said Celestin,

speaking in behalf of the two other clerks and Raguet, grouped behind

him. “Is it allowable to congratulate monsieur upon an honor which

reflects its light upon the whole establishment? Popinot has told us

that monsieur--”

“Hey, hey! my children, it is all true. I have been decorated. I am

about to assemble my friends, not only to celebrate the emancipation

of our territory, but to commemorate my promotion to the order of the

Legion of honor. I may, possibly, have shown myself worthy of that

signal and royal favor by my services on the Bench of commerce, and by

fighting for the royal cause; which I defended--at your age--upon the

steps of Saint-Roch on the 13th Vendemiaire, and I give you my word that

Napoleon, called emperor, wounded me himself! wounded me in the thigh;

and Madame Ragon nursed me. Take courage! recompense comes to every man.

Behold, my sons! misfortunes are never wasted.”

“They will never fight in the streets again,” said Celestin.

“Let us hope so,” said Cesar, who thereupon went off into an harangue to

the clerks, which he wound up by inviting them to the ball.

The vision of a ball inspired the three clerks, Raguet, and Virginie the

cook with an ardor that gave them the strength of acrobats. They came

and went up and down the stairs, carrying everything and breaking

nothing. By two o’clock in the morning the removal was effected. Cesar

and his wife slept on the second floor. Popinot’s bedroom became that

of Celestin and the second clerk. On the third floor the furniture was

stored provisionally.

In the grasp of that magnetic ardor, produced by an influx of the

nervous fluid, which lights a brazier in the midriff of ambitious men

and lovers intent on high emprise, Popinot, so gentle and tranquil

usually, pawed the earth like a thoroughbred before the race, when he

came down into the shop after dinner.

“What’s the matter with you?” asked Celestin.

“Oh, what a day! my dear fellow, what a day! I am set up in business,

and Monsieur Cesar is decorated.”

“You are very lucky if the master helps you,” said Celestin.

Popinot did not answer; he disappeared, driven by a furious wind,--the

wind of success.

“Lucky!” said one of the clerks, who was sorting gloves by the dozen, to

another who was comparing prices on the tickets. “Lucky! the master has

found out that Popinot is making eyes at Mademoiselle Cesarine, and,

as the old fellow is pretty clever, he gets rid of Anselme; it would

be difficult to refuse him point-blank, on account of his relations.

Celestin thinks the trick is luck or generosity!”