Bureaucracy, Honoré de Balzac [best classic books to read .txt] 📗

France and of Navarre. Last night I succeeded! but with what labor! Madame Colleville asked me what was the matter."

Dutocq. "Do you think we have time to bother ourselves with your intolerable anagrams when the worthy Monsieur de la Billardiere has just expired?"

Colleville. "That's Bixiou's nonsense! I have just come from Monsieur de la Billardiere's; he is still living, though they expect him to die soon." [Godard, indignant at the hoax, goes off grumbling.] "Gentlemen! you would never guess what extraordinary events are revealed by the anagram of this sacramental sentence" [he pulls out a piece of paper and reads], "Charles dix, par la grace de Dieu, roi de France et de Navarre."

Godard [re-entering]. "Tell what it is at once, and don't keep people waiting."

Colleville [triumphantly unfolding the rest of the paper]. "Listen!


"A H. V. il cedera;
De S. C. l. d. partira;
Eh nauf errera,
Decide a Gorix.


"Every letter is there!" [He repeats it.] "A Henry cinq cedera (his crown of course); de Saint-Cloud partira; en nauf (that's an old French word for skiff, vessel, felucca, corvette, anything you like) errera--"

Dutocq. "What a tissue of absurdities! How can the King cede his crown to Henry V., who, according to your nonsense, must be his grandson, when Monseigneur le Dauphin is living. Are you prophesying the Dauphin's death?"

Bixiou. "What's Gorix, pray?--the name of a cat?"

Colleville [provoked]. "It is the archaeological and lapidarial abbreviation of the name of a town, my good friend; I looked it out in Malte-Brun: Goritz, in Latin Gorixia, situated in Bohemia or Hungary, or it may be Austria--"

Bixiou. "Tyrol, the Basque provinces, or South America. Why don't you set it all to music and play it on the clarionet?"

Godard [shrugging his shoulders and departing]. "What utter nonsense!"

Colleville. "Nonsense! nonsense indeed! It is a pity you don't take the trouble to study fatalism, the religion of the Emperor Napoleon."

Godard [irritated at Colleville's tone]. "Monsieur Colleville, let me tell you that Bonaparte may perhaps be styled Emperor by historians, but it is extremely out of place to refer to him as such in a government office."

Bixiou [laughing]. "Get an anagram out of that, my dear fellow."

Colleville [angrily]. "Let me tell you that if Napoleon Bonaparte had studied the letters of his name on the 14th of April, 1814, he might perhaps be Emperor still."

Bixiou. "How do you make that out?"

Colleville [solemnly]. "Napoleon Bonaparte.--No, appear not at Elba!"

Dutocq. "You'll lose your place for talking such nonsense."

Colleville. "If my place is taken from me, Francois Keller will make it hot for your minister." [Dead silence.] "I'd have you to know, Master Dutocq, that all known anagrams have actually come to pass. Look here,--you, yourself,--don't you marry, for there's 'coqu' in your name."

Bixiou [interrupting]. "And d, t, for de-testable."

Dutocq [without seeming angry]. "I don't care, as long as it is only in my name. Why don't you anagrammatize, or whatever you call it, 'Xavier Rabourdin, chef du bureau'?"

Colleville. "Bless you, so I have!"

Bixiou [mending his pen]. "And what did you make of it?"

Colleville. "It comes out as follows: D'abord reva bureaux, E-u,--(you catch the meaning? et eut--and had) E-u fin riche; which signifies that after first belonging to the administration, he gave it up and got rich elsewhere." [Repeats.] "D'abord reva bureaux, E-u fin riche."

Dutocq. "That IS queer!"

Bixiou. "Try Isidore Baudoyer."

Colleville [mysteriously]. "I sha'n't tell the other anagrams to any one but Thuillier."

Bixiou. "I'll bet you a breakfast that I can tell that one myself."

Colleville. "And I'll pay if you find it out."

Bixiou. "Then I shall breakfast at your expense; but you won't be angry, will you? Two such geniuses as you and I need never conflict. 'Isidore Baudoyer' anagrams into 'Ris d'aboyeur d'oie.'"

Colleville [petrified with amazement]. "You stole it from me!"

Bixiou [with dignity]. "Monsieur Colleville, do me the honor to believe that I am rich enough in absurdity not to steal my neighbor's nonsense."

Baudoyer [entering with a bundle of papers in his hand]. "Gentlemen, I request you to shout a little louder; you bring this office into such high repute with the administration. My worthy coadjutor, Monsieur Clergeot, did me the honor just now to come and ask a question, and he heard the noise you are making" [passes into Monsieur Godard's room].

Bixiou [in a low voice]. "The watch-dog is very tame this morning; there'll be a change of weather before night."

Dutocq [whispering to Bixiou]. "I have something I want to say to you."

Bixiou [fingering Dutocq's waistcoat]. "You've a pretty waistcoat, that cost you nothing; is that what you want to say?"

Dutocq. "Nothing, indeed! I never paid so dear for anything in my life. That stuff cost six francs a yard in the best shop in the rue de la Paix,--a fine dead stuff, the very thing for deep mourning."

Bixiou. "You know about engravings and such things, my dear fellow, but you are totally ignorant of the laws of etiquette. Well, no man can be a universal genius! Silk is positively not admissible in deep mourning. Don't you see I am wearing woollen? Monsieur Rabourdin, Monsieur Baudoyer, and the minister are all in woollen; so is the faubourg Saint-Germain. There's no one here but Minard who doesn't wear woollen; he's afraid of being taken for a sheep. That's the reason why he didn't put on mourning for Louis XVIII."

[During this conversation Baudoyer is sitting by the fire in Godard's room, and the two are conversing in a low voice.]

Baudoyer. "Yes, the worthy man is dying. The two ministers are both with him. My father-in-law has been notified of the event. If you want to do me a signal service you will take a cab and go and let Madame Baudoyer know what is happening; for Monsieur Saillard can't leave his desk, nor I my office. Put yourself at my wife's orders; do whatever she wishes. She has, I believe, some ideas of her own, and wants to take certain steps simultaneously." [The two functionaries go out together.]

Godard. "Monsieur Bixiou, I am obliged to leave the office for the rest of the day. You will take my place."

Baudoyer [to Bixiou, benignly]. "Consult me, if there is any necessity."

Bixiou. "This time, La Billardiere is really dead."

Dutocq [in Bixiou's ear]. "Come outside a minute." [The two go into the corridor and gaze at each other like birds of ill-omen.]

Dutocq [whispering]. "Listen. Now is the time for us to understand each other and push our way. What would you say to your being made head of the bureau, and I under you?"

Bixiou [shrugging his shoulders]. "Come, come, don't talk nonsense!"

Dutocq. "If Baudoyer gets La Billardiere's place Rabourdin won't stay on where he is. Between ourselves, Baudoyer is so incapable that if du Bruel and you don't help him he will certainly be dismissed in a couple of months. If I know arithmetic that will give three empty places for us to fill--"

Bixiou. "Three places right under our noses, which will certainly be given to some bloated favorite, some spy, some pious fraud,--to Colleville perhaps, whose wife has ended where all pretty women end--in piety."

Dutocq. "No, to /you/, my dear fellow, if you will only, for once in your life, use your wits logically." [He stopped as if to study the effect of his adverb in Bixiou's face.] "Come, let us play fair."

Bixiou [stolidly]. "Let me see your game."

Dutocq. "I don't wish to be anything more than under-head-clerk. I know myself perfectly well, and I know I haven't the ability, like you, to be head of a bureau. Du Bruel can be director, and you the head of this bureau; he will leave you his place as soon as he has made his pile; and as for me, I shall swim with the tide comfortably, under your protection, till I can retire on a pension."

Bixiou. "Sly dog! but how to you expect to carry out a plan which means forcing the minister's hand and ejecting a man of talent? Between ourselves, Rabourdin is the only man capable of taking charge of the division, and I might say of the ministry. Do you know that they talk of putting in over his head that solid lump of foolishness, that cube of idiocy, Baudoyer?"

Dutocq [consequentially]. "My dear fellow, I am in a position to rouse the whole division against Rabourdin. You know how devoted Fleury is to him? Well, I can make Fleury despise him."

Bixiou. "Despised by Fleury!"

Dutocq. "Not a soul will stand by Rabourdin; the clerks will go in a body and complain of him to the minister,--not only in our division, but in all the divisions--"

Bixiou. "Forward, march! infantry, cavalry, artillery, and marines of the guard! You rave, my good fellow! And I, what part am I to take in the business?"

Dutocq. "You are to make a cutting caricature,--sharp enough to kill a man."

Bixiou. "How much will you pay for it?"

Dutocq. "A hundred francs."

Bixiou [to himself]. "Then there is something in it."

Dutocq [continuing]. "You must represent Rabourdin dressed as a butcher (make it a good likeness), find analogies between a kitchen and a bureau, put a skewer in his hand, draw portraits of the principal clerks and stick their heads on fowls, put them in a monstrous coop labelled 'Civil Service executions'; make him cutting the throat of one, and supposed to take the others in turn. You can have geese and ducks with heads like ours,--you understand! Baudoyer, for instance, he'll make an excellent turkey-buzzard."

Bixiou. "Ris d'aboyeur d'oie!" [He has watched Dutocq carefully for some time.] "Did you think of that yourself?"

Dutocq. "Yes, I myself."

Bixiou [to himself]. "Do evil feelings bring men to the same result as talents?" [Aloud] "Well, I'll do it" [Dutocq makes a motion of delight] "--when" [full stop] "--I know where I am and what I can rely on. If you don't succeed I shall lose my place, and I must make a living. You are a curious kind of innocent still, my dear colleague."

Dutocq. "Well, you needn't make the lithograph till success is proved."

Bixiou. "Why don't you come out and tell me the whole truth?"

Dutocq. "I must first see how the land lays in the bureau; we will talk about it later" [goes off].

Bixiou [alone in the corridor]. "That fish, for he's more a fish than a bird, that Dutocq has a good idea in his head--I'm sure I don't know where he stole it. If Baudoyer should succeed La Billardiere it would be fun, more than fun--profit!" [Returns to the office.] "Gentlemen, I announce glorious changes; papa La Billardiere is dead, really dead,--no nonsense, word of honor! Godard is off on business for our excellent chief Baudoyer, successor presumptive to the deceased." [Minard, Desroys, and Colleville raise their heads in amazement; they all lay down their pens, and Colleville blows his nose.] "Every one of us is to be promoted! Colleville will be under-head-clerk at the very least. Minard may have my place as chief clerk--why not? he is quite as dull as I am. Hey, Minard, if you should get twenty-five hundred francs a-year your little wife would be uncommonly pleased, and you could buy yourself a pair of boots now and then."

Colleville. "But you don't get twenty-five hundred francs."