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.