indorsing the notes, “to see another comedian, who will play you a
charming scene gratis.”
“Who is it?” said Gazonal.
“A usurer. As we go along I’ll tell you the debut of friend Ravenouillet
in Paris.”
Passing in front of the porter’s lodge, Gazonal saw Mademoiselle
Lucienne Ravenouillet holding in her hand a music score (she was a
pupil of the Conservatoire), her father reading a newspaper, and Madame
Ravenouillet with a package of letters to be carried up to the lodgers.
“Thanks, Monsieur Bixiou!” said the girl.
“She’s not a rat,” explained Leon to his cousin; “she is the larva of
the grasshopper.”
“Here’s the history of Ravenouillet,” continued Bixiou, when the three
friends reached the boulevard. “In 1831 Massol, the councillor of state
who is dealing with your case, was a lawyer-journalist who at that time
never thought of being more than Keeper of the Seals, and deigned to
have King Louis-Philippe on his throne. Forgive his ambition, he’s from
Carcassonne. One morning there entered to him a young rustic of his
parts, who said: ‘You know me very well, Mossoo Massol; I’m your
neighbour the grocer’s little boy; I’ve come from down there, for
they tell me a fellow is certain to get a place if he comes to Paris.’
Hearing these words, Massol shuddered, and said to himself that if he
were weak enough to help this compatriot (to him utterly unknown) he
should have the whole department prone upon him, his bell-rope would
break, his valet leave him, he should have difficulties with his
landlord about the stairway, and the other lodgers would assuredly
complain of the smell of garlic pervading the house. Consequently, he
looked at his visitor as a butcher looks at a sheep whose throat he
intends to cut. But whether the rustic comprehended the stab of that
glance or not, he went on to say (so Massol told me), ‘I’ve as much
ambition as other men. I will never go back to my native place, if I
ever do go back, unless I am a rich man. Paris is the antechamber of
Paradise. They tell me that you who write the newspapers can make, as
they say, ‘fine weather and foul’; that is, you have things all your own
way, and it’s enough to ask your help to get any place, no matter what,
under government. Now, though I have faculties, like others, I know
myself: I have no education; I don’t know how to write, and that’s a
misfortune, for I have ideas. I am not seeking, therefore, to be your
rival; I judge myself, and I know I couldn’t succeed there. But, as you
are so powerful, and as we are almost brothers, having played together
in childhood, I count upon you to launch me in a career and to protect
me--Oh, you _must_; I want a place, a place suitable to my capacity, to
such as I am, a place were I can make my fortune.’ Massol was just about
to put his compatriot neck and crop out of the door with some brutal
speech, when the rustic ended his appeal thus: ‘I don’t ask to enter the
administration where people advance like tortoises--there’s your cousin,
who has stuck in one post for twenty years. No, I only want to make
my debut.’--‘On the stage?’ asked Massol only too happy at that
conclusion.--‘No, though I have gesture enough, and figure, and memory.
But there’s too much wear and tear; I prefer the career of _porter_.’
Massol kept his countenance, and replied: ‘I think there’s more wear and
tear in that, but as your choice is made I’ll see what I can do’; and he
got him, as Ravenouillet says, his first ‘cordon.’”
“I was the first master,” said Leon, “to consider the race of
porter. You’ll find knaves of morality, mountebanks of vanity, modern
sycophants, septembriseurs, disguised in philanthropy, inventors of
palpitating questions, preaching the emancipation of the negroes,
improvement of little thieves, benevolence to liberated convicts, and
who, nevertheless, leave their porters in a condition worse than that
of the Irish, in holes more dreadful than a mud cabin, and pay them less
money to live on than the State pays to support a convict. I have done
but one good action in my life, and that was to build my porter a decent
lodge.”
“Yes,” said Bixiou, “if a man, having built a great cage divided into
thousands of compartments like the cells of a beehive or the dens of
a menagerie, constructed to receive human beings of all trades and all
kinds, if that animal, calling itself the proprietor, should go to a man
of science and say: ‘I want an individual of the bimanous species, able
to live in holes full of old boots, pestiferous with rags, and ten
feet square; I want him such that he can live there all his life, sleep
there, eat there, be happy, get children as pretty as little cupids,
work, toil, cultivate flowers, sing there, stay there, and live in
darkness but see and know everything,’ most assuredly the man of science
could never have invented the porter to oblige the proprietor; Paris,
and Paris only could create him, or, if you choose, the devil.”
“Parisian creative powers have gone farther than that,” said Gazonal;
“look at the workmen! You don’t know all the products of industry,
though you exhibit them. Our toilers fight against the toilers of the
continent by force of misery, as Napoleon fought Europe by force of
regiments.”
“Here we are, at my friend the usurer’s,” said Bixiou. “His name is
Vauvinet. One of the greatest mistakes made by writers who describe our
manners and morals is to harp on old portraits. In these days all trades
change. The grocer becomes a peer of France, artists capitalize their
money, vaudevillists have incomes. A few rare beings may remain what
they originally were, but professions in general have no longer either
their special costume or their formerly fixed habits and ways. In the
past we had Gobseck, Gigounet, Samonon,--the last of the Romans; to-day
we rejoice in Vauvinet, the good-fellow usurer, the dandy who frequents
the greenroom and the lorettes, and drives about in a little coupe with
one horse. Take special note of my man, friend Gazonal, and you’ll see
the comedy of money, the cold man who won’t give a penny, the hot man
who snuffs a profit; listen to him attentively!”
All three went up to the second floor of a fine-looking house on the
boulevard des Italiens, where they found themselves surrounded by the
elegances then in fashion. A young man about twenty-eight years of
age advanced to meet them with a smiling face, for he saw Leon de Lora
first. Vauvinet held out his hand with apparent friendliness to Bixiou,
and bowed coldly to Gazonal as he motioned them to enter his office,
where bourgeois taste was visible beneath the artistic appearance of the
furniture, and in spite of the statuettes and the thousand other little
trifles applied to our little apartments by modern art, which has made
itself as small as its patrons.
Vauvinet was dressed, like other young men of our day who go into
business, with extreme elegance, which many of them regard as a species
of prospectus.
“I’ve come for some money,” said Bixiou, laughing, and presenting his
notes.
Vauvinet assumed a serious air, which made Gazonal smile, such
difference was there between the smiling visage that received them and
the countenance of the money-lender recalled to business.
“My dear fellow,” said Vauvinet, looking at Bixiou, “I should certainly
oblige you with the greatest pleasure, but I haven’t any money to loan
at the present time.”
“Ah, bah!”
“No; I have given all I had to--you know who. That poor Lousteau
went into partnership for the management of a theatre with an old
vaudevillist who has great influence with the ministry, Ridal; and they
came to me yesterday for thirty thousand francs. I’m cleaned out, and
so completely that I was just in the act of sending to Cerizet for
a hundred louis, when I lost at lansquenet this morning, at Jenny
Cadine’s.”
“You must indeed me hard-up if you can’t oblige this poor Bixiou,” said
Leon de Lora; “for he can be very sharp-tongued when he hasn’t a sou.”
“Well,” said Bixiou, “I could never say anything but good of Vauvinet;
he’s full of goods.”
“My dear friend,” said Vauvinet, “if I had the money, I couldn’t
possibly discount, even at fifty per cent, notes which are drawn by your
porter. Ravenouillet’s paper isn’t in demand. He’s not a Rothschild.
I warn you that his notes are worn thin; you had better invent another
firm. Find an uncle. As for a friend who’ll sign notes for us there’s
no such being to be found; the matter-of-factness of the present age is
making awful progress.”
“I have a friend,” said Bixiou, motioning to Leon’s cousin. “Monsieur
here; one of the most distinguished manufacturers of cloth in the South,
named Gazonal. His hair is not very well dressed,” added Bixiou, looking
at the touzled and luxuriant crop on the provincial’s head, “but I
am going to take him to Marius, who will make him look less like a
poodle-dog, an appearance so injurious to his credit, and to ours.”
“I don’t believe in Southern securities, be it said without offence to
monsieur,” replied Vauvinet, with whom Gazonal was so entertained that
he did not resent his insolence.
Gazonal, that extremely penetrating intellect, thought that the painter
and Bixiou intended, by way of teaching him to know Paris, to make him
pay the thousand francs for his breakfast at the Cafe de Paris, for this
son of the Pyrenees had never got out of that armor of distrust which
incloses the provincial in Paris.
“How can you expect me to have outstanding business at seven hundred
miles from Paris?” added Vauvinet.
“Then you refuse me positively?” asked Bixiou.
“I have twenty francs, and no more,” said the young usurer.
“I’m sorry for you,” said the joker. “I thought I was worth a thousand
francs.”
“You are worth two hundred thousand francs,” replied Vauvinet, “and
sometimes you are worth your weight in gold, or at least your tongue is;
but I tell you I haven’t a penny.”
“Very good,” replied Bixiou; “then we won’t say anything more about
it. I had arranged for this evening, at Carabine’s, the thing you most
wanted--you know?”
Vauvinet winked an eye at Bixiou; the wink that two jockeys give each
other when they want to say: “Don’t try trickery.”
“Don’t you remember catching me round the waist as if I were a pretty
woman,” said Bixiou, “and coaxing me with look and speech, and saying,
‘I’ll do anything for you if you’ll only get me shares at par in that
railroad du Tillet and Nucingen have made an offer for?’ Well, old
fellow, du Tillet and Nucingen are coming to Carabine’s to-night, where
they will meet a number of political characters. You’ve lost a fine
opportunity. Good-bye to you, old carrot.”
Bixiou rose, leaving Vauvinet apparently indifferent, but inwardly
annoyed by the sense that he had committed a folly.
“One moment, my dear fellow,” said the money-lender. “Though I haven’t
the money, I have credit. If your notes are worth nothing, I can keep
them and give you notes in exchange. If we can come to an agreement
about that railway stock we could share the profits, of course in due
proportion and I’ll allow you that on--”
“No, no,” said Bixiou, “I want money in hand, and I must get those notes
of Ravenouillet’s cashed.”
“Ravenouillet is sound,” said Vauvinet. “He puts money into the
savings-bank; he is good security.”
“Better than you,” interposed Leon, “for HE doesn’t stipend lorettes; he
hasn’t any rent to pay; and he never rushes into speculations which keep
him dreading either a rise or fall.”
“You think you can laugh at me, great man,” returned Vauvinet, once more
jovial and caressing; “you’ve turned La Fontaine’s fable of ‘Le Chene
et le Roseau’ into an elixir--Come, Gubetta, my old accomplice,” he
continued, seizing Bixiou round the waist, “you want money; well, I can
borrow three thousand francs from my friend Cerizet instead of two; ‘Let
us be friends, Cinna!’ hand over your colossal cabbages,--made to trick
the public like a gardener’s catalogue. If I refused you it was because
it is pretty hard on a man who can only do his poor little business by
turning over his money, to have to keep your Ravenouillet notes in the
drawer of his desk. Hard, hard, very hard!”
“What discount do you want?” asked Bixiou.
“Next to nothing,” returned Vauvinet. “It will cost you a miserable
fifty francs at the end of the quarter.”
“As Emile Blondet used to say, you shall be my benefactor,” replied
Bixiou.
“Twenty per cent!” whispered Gazonal to Bixiou, who replied by a punch
of his elbow in the provincial’s oesophagus.
“Bless me!” said Vauvinet opening a drawer in his desk as if to put away
the Ravenouillet notes, “here’s an old bill of five hundred francs stuck
in the drawer! I didn’t know I was so rich. And here’s a note payable
at the end of the month for four hundred and fifty; Cerizet will take it
without much diminution, and there’s your sum in hand. But no nonsense,
Bixiou! Hein? to-night, at Carabine’s, will you swear to me--”
“Haven’t we _re_-friended?” said Bixiou, pocketing the
five-hundred-franc bill and the note for four hundred and fifty. “I give
you my word of honor that you shall see du Tillet, and many other men
who want to make their way--their railway--to-night at Carabine’s.”
Vauvinet conducted the three friends to the landing of the staircase,
cajoling Bixiou on the way. Bixiou kept a grave face till he reached the
outer door, listening to Gazonal, who tried to enlighten him on his late
operation, and to prove to him that if Vauvinet’s follower, Cerizet,
took another twenty francs out of his four hundred and fifty, he was
getting money at forty per cent.
When they reached the asphalt Bixiou frightened Gazonal by the laugh of
a Parisian hoaxer,--that cold, mute laugh, a sort of labial north wind.
“The assignment of the contract for that railway is adjourned,
positively, by the Chamber; I heard this yesterday from that marcheuse
whom we smiled at just now. If I win five or six thousand francs at
lansquenet to-night, why should I grudge sixty-five francs for the power
to stake, hey?”
“Lansquenet is another of the thousand facets of Paris as it is,” said
Leon. “And therefore, cousin, I intend to present you to-night in the
salon of a duchess,--a duchess of the rue Saint-Georges, where you will
see the aristocracy of the lorettes, and probably be able to win your
lawsuit. But it is quite impossible to present you anywhere with that
mop of Pyrenean hair; you look like a porcupine; and therefore we’ll
take you close by, Place de la Bourse, to Marius, another of our
comedians--”
“Who is he?”
“I’ll tell you his tale,” said Bixiou. “In the year 1800 a Toulousian
named Cabot, a young wig-maker devoured by ambition, came to Paris, and
set up a shop (I use your slang). This man of genius,--he now has an
income of twenty-four thousand francs a year, and lives, retired from
business, at Libourne,--well, he saw that so vulgar and ignoble a name
as Cabot could never attain celebrity. Monsieur de Parny, whose hair he
cut, gave him the name of Marius, infinitely superior, you perceive, to
the Christian names of Armand and Hippolyte, behind which patronymics
attacked by the Cabot evil are wont to hide. All the successors of Cabot
have called themselves Marius. The present Marius is Marius V.; his real
name is Mongin. This occurs in various other trades; for ‘Botot water,’
and for ‘Little-Virtue’ ink. Names become commercial property in Paris,
and have ended by constituting a sort of ensign of nobility. The present
Marius, who takes pupils, has created, he says, the leading school of
hair-dressing in the world.
“I’ve seen, in coming through France,” said Gazonal, “a great many signs
bearing the words: ‘Such a one, pupil of Marius.’”
“His pupils have to wash their hands after every head,” said Bixiou;
“but Marius does not take them indifferently; they must have nice hands,
and not be ill-looking. The most remarkable for manners, appearance,
and elocution are sent out to dress heads; and they come back tired to
death. Marius himself never turns out except for titled women; he drives
his cabriolet and has a groom.”
“But, after all, he is nothing but a barber!” cried Gazonal, somewhat
shocked.
“Barber!” exclaimed Bixiou; “please remember that he is captain in the
National Guard, and is decorated for being the first to spring into a
barricade in 1832.”
“And take care what you say to him: he is neither barber, hair-dresser,
nor wig-maker; he is a director of salons for hair-dressing,” said Leon,
as they went up a staircase with crystal balusters and mahogany rail,
the steps of which were covered with a sumptuous carpet.
“Ah ca! mind you don’t compromise us,” said Bixiou. “In the antechamber
you’ll see lacqueys who will take off your coat, and seize your hat, to
brush them; and they’ll accompany you to the door of the salons to open
and shut it. I mention this, friend Gazonal,” added Bixiou, slyly, “lest
you might think they were after your property, and cry ‘Stop thief!’”
“These salons,” said Leon, “are three boudoirs where the director
has collected all the inventions of modern luxury: lambrequins to the
windows, jardinieres everywhere, downy divans where each customer can
wait his turn and read the newspapers. You might suppose, when you
first go in, that five francs would be the least they’d get out of your
waistcoat pocket; but nothing is ever extracted beyond ten sous for
combing and frizzing your hair, or twenty sous for cutting and frizzing.
Elegant dressing-tables stand about among the jardinieres; water is
laid on to the washstands; enormous mirrors reproduce the whole figure.
Therefore don’t look astonished. When the client (that’s the elegant
word substituted by Marius for the ignoble word customer),--when the
client appears at the door, Marius gives him a glance which appraises
him: to Marius you are a _head_, more or less susceptible of occupying
his mind. To him there’s no mankind; there are only heads.”
“We let you hear Marius on all the notes of his scale,” said Bixiou,
“and you know how to follow our lead.”
As soon as Gazonal showed himself, the glance was given, and was
evidently favourable, for Marius exclaimed: “Regulus! yours this head!
Prepare it first with the little scissors.”
“Excuse me,” said Gazonal to the pupil, at a sign from Bixiou. “I prefer
to have my head dressed by Monsieur Marius himself.”
Marius, much flattered by this demand, advanced, leaving the head on
which he was engaged.
“I am with you in a moment; I am just finishing. Pray have no
uneasiness, my pupil will prepare you; I alone will decide the cut.”
Marius, a slim little man, his hair frizzed like that of Rubini, and jet
black, dressed also in black, with long white cuffs, and the frill of
his shirt adorned with a diamond, now saw Bixiou, to whom he bowed as to
a power the equal of his own.
“That is only an ordinary head,” he said to Leon, pointing to the person
on whom he was operating,--“a grocer, or something of that kind. But if
we devoted ourselves to art only, we should lie in Bicetre, mad!” and
he turned back with an inimitable gesture to his client, after saying to
Regulus, “Prepare monsieur, he is evidently an artist.”
“A journalist,” said Bixiou.
Hearing that word, Marius gave two or three strokes of the comb to the
ordinary head and flung himself upon Gazonal, taking Regulus by the arm
at the instant that the pupil was about to begin the operation of the
little scissors.
“I will take charge of monsieur. Look, monsieur,” he said to the grocer,
“reflect yourself in the great mirror--if the mirror permits. Ossian!”
A lacquey entered, and took hold of the client to dress him.
“You pay at the desk, monsieur,” said Marius to the stupefied grocer,
who was pulling out his purse.
“Is there any use, my dear fellow,” said Bixiou, “in going through this
operation of the little scissors?”
“No head ever comes to me uncleansed,” replied the illustrious
hair-dresser; “but for your sake, I will do that of monsieur myself,
wholly. My pupils sketch out the scheme, or my strength would not hold
out. Every one says as you do: ‘Dressed by Marius!’ Therefore, I can
give only the finishing strokes. What journal is monsieur on?”
“If I were you, I should keep three or four Mariuses,” said Gazonal.
“Ah! monsieur, I see, is a feuilletonist,” said Marius. “Alas! in
dressing heads which expose us to notice it is impossible. Excuse me!”
He left Gazonal to overlook Regulus, who was “preparing” a newly arrived
head. Tapping his tongue against his palate, he made a disapproving
noise, which may perhaps be written down as “titt, titt, titt.”
“There, there! good heavens! that cut is not square; your scissors are
hacking it. Here! see there! Regulus, you are not clipping poodles;
these are men--who have a character; if you continue to look at the
ceiling instead of looking only between the glass and the head, you will
dishonor my house.”
“You are stern, Monsieur Marius.”
“I owe them the secrets of my art.”
“Then it is an art?” said Gazonal.
Marius, affronted, looked at Gazonal in the glass, and stopped short,
the scissors in one hand, the comb in the other.
“Monsieur, you speak like a--child! and yet, from your accent, I judge
you are from the South, the birthplace of men of genius.”
“Yes, I know that hair-dressing requires some taste,” replied Gazonal.