The Lesser Bourgeoisie, Honore de Balzac [good book recommendations .TXT] 📗

at a sacrifice."

 

"My dear Dutocq," said Cerizet, "I'll explain to you the circumstances

under which that insolent fellow freed himself, and you'll see if he

didn't rob me of fifteen thousand francs."

 

"Possibly, but you, my worthy clerk, were trying to get ten thousand

away from me."

 

"No, no; I was positively ordered to buy up your claim; and you ought

to remember that my offer had risen to twenty thousand when Theodose

came in."

 

"Well," said Dutocq, "when we leave here we'll go to your house, where

you will give me those notes; for, you'll understand that to-morrow

morning, at the earliest decent hour, I shall go to la Peyrade's

office; I don't mean to let his paying humor cool."

 

"And right you are; for I can tell you now that before long there'll

be a fine upset in his life."

 

"Then the thing is really serious--this tale of a crazy woman you want

him to marry? I must say that in his place, with these money-matters

evidently on the rise, I should have backed out of your proposals just

as he did. Ninas and Ophelias are all very well on the stage, but in a

home--"

 

"In a home, when they bring a 'dot,' we can be their guardian,"

replied Cerizet, sententiously. "In point of fact, we get a fortune

and not a wife."

 

"Well," said Dutocq, "that's one way to look at it."

 

"If you are willing," said Cerizet, "let us go and take our coffee

somewhere else. This dinner has turned out so foolishly that I want to

get out of this room, where there's no air." He rang for the waiter.

"Garcon!" he said, "the bill."

 

"Monsieur, it is paid."

 

"Paid! by whom?"

 

"By the gentleman who just went out."

 

"But this is outrageous," cried Cerizet. "I ordered the dinner, and

you allow some one else to pay for it!"

 

"It wasn't I, monsieur," said the waiter; "the gentleman went and paid

the 'dame du comptoir'; she must have thought it was arranged between

you. Besides, it is not so uncommon for gentlemen to have friendly

disputes about paying."

 

"That's enough," said Cerizet, dismissing the waiter.

 

"Won't these gentlemen take their coffee?--it is paid for," said the

man before he left the room.

 

"A good reason for not taking it," replied Cerizet, angrily. "It is

really inconceivable that in a house of this kind such an egregious

blunder should be committed. What do you think of such insolence?" he

added, when the waiter had left the room.

 

"Bah!" exclaimed Dutocq, taking his hat, "it is a schoolboy

proceeding; he wanted to show he had money; it is easy to see he never

had any before."

 

"No, no! that's not it," said Cerizet; "he meant to mark the rupture.

'I will not owe you even a dinner,' is what he says to me."

 

"But, after all," said Dutocq, "this banquet was given to celebrate

your enthronement as principal tenant of the grand house. Well, he has

failed to get you the lease, and I can understand that his conscience

was uneasy at letting you pay for a dinner which, like those notes of

mine, were an 'obligation without cause.'"

 

Cerizet made no reply to this malicious observation. They had reached

the counter where reigned the dame who had permitted the improper

payment, and, for the sake of his dignity, the usurer thought it

proper to make a fuss. After which the two men departed, and the

copying-clerk took his employer to a low coffee-house in the Passage

du Saumon. There Cerizet recovered his good-humor; he was like a fish

out of water suddenly returned to his native element; for he had

reached that state of degradation when he felt ill at ease in places

frequented by good society; and it was with a sort of sensuous

pleasure that he felt himself back in the vulgar place where they were

noisily playing pool for the benefit of a "former conqueror of the

Bastille."

 

In this establishment Cerizet enjoyed the fame of being a skilful

billiard-player, and he was now entreated to take part in a game

already begun. In technical language, he "bought his ball"; that is,

one of the players sold him his turn and his chances. Dutocq profited

by this arrangement to slip away, on pretence of inquiring for a sick

friend.

 

Presently, in his shirt-sleeves, with a pipe between his lips, Cerizet

made one of those masterly strokes which bring down the house with

frantic applause. As he waited a moment, looking about him

triumphantly, his eye lighted on a terrible kill-joy. Standing among

the spectators with his chin on his cane, du Portail was steadily

watching him.

 

A tinge of red showed itself in Cerizet's cheeks. He hesitated to bow

or to recognize the old gentleman, a most unlikely person to meet in

such a place. Not knowing how to take the unpleasant encounter, he

went on playing; but his hand betrayed his uneasiness, and presently

an unlucky stroke threw him out of the game. While he was putting on

his coat in a tolerably ill-humor, du Portail passed, almost brushing

him, on his way to the door.

 

"Rue Montmartre, at the farther end of the Passage," said the old man,

in a low tone.

 

When they met, Cerizet had the bad taste to try to explain the

disreputable position in which he had just been detected.

 

"But," said du Portail, "in order to see you there, I had to be there

myself."

 

"True," returned Cerizet. "I was rather surprised to see a quiet

inhabitant of the Saint-Sulpice quarter in such a place."

 

"It merely proves to you," said the little old man, in a tone which

cut short all explanation, and all curiosity, "that I am in the habit

of going pretty nearly everywhere, and that my star leads me into the

path of those persons whom I wish to meet. I was thinking of you at

the very moment you came in. Well, what have you done?"

 

"Nothing good," replied Cerizet. "After playing me a devilish trick

which deprived me of a magnificent bit of business, our man rejected

your overture with scorn. There is no hope whatever in that claim of

Dutocq's; for la Peyrade is chock-full of money; he wanted to pay the

notes just now, and to-morrow morning he will certainly do so."

 

"Does he regard his marriage to this Demoiselle Colleville as a

settled thing?"

 

"He not only considers it settled, but he is trying now to make people

believe it is a love-match. He rattled off a perfect tirade to

convince me that he is really in love."

 

"Very well," said du Portail, wishing, perhaps, to show that he could,

on occasion, use the slang of a low billiard-room, "'stop the charge'"

(meaning: Do nothing more); "I will undertake to bring monsieur to

reason. But come and see me to-morrow, and tell me all about the

family he intends to enter. You have failed in this affair; but don't

mind that; I shall have others for you."

 

So saying, he signed to the driver of an empty citadine, which was

passing, got into it, and, with a nod to Cerizet, told the man to

drive to the rue Honore-Chevalier.

 

As Cerizet walked down the rue Montmartre to regain the Estrapade

quarter, he puzzled his brains to divine who that little old man with

the curt speech, the imperious manner, and a tone that seemed to cast

upon all those with whom he spoke a boarding-grapnel, could be; a man,

too, who came from such a distance to spend his evening in a place

where, judging by his clothes alone, he had no business to be.

 

Cerizet had reached the Market without finding any solution to that

problem, when he was roughly shaken out of it by a heavy blow in the

back. Turning hastily, he found himself in presence of Madame

Cardinal, an encounter with whom, at a spot where she came every

morning to get fish to peddle, was certainly not surprising.

 

Since that evening in Toupillier's garret, the worthy woman, in spite

of the clemency so promptly shown to her, had judged it imprudent to

make other than very short apparitions in her own domicile, and for

the last two days she had been drowning among the liquor-dealers

(called "retailers of comfort") the pangs of her defeat. With flaming

face and thickened voice she now addressed her late accomplice:--

 

"Well, papa," she said, "what happened after I left you with that

little old fellow?"

 

"I made him understand in a very few words," replied the banker of the

poor, "that it was all a mistake as to me. In this affair, my dear

Madame Cardinal, you behaved with a really unpardonable heedlessness.

How came you to ask my assistance in obtaining your inheritance from

your uncle, when with proper inquiry you might have known there was a

natural daughter, in whose favor he had long declared he should make a

will? That little old man, who interrupted you in your foolish attempt

to anticipate your legacy, was no other than the guardian of the

daughter to whom everything is left."

 

"Ha! guardian, indeed! a fine thing, guardian!" cried the Cardinal.

"To talk of a woman of my age, just because I wanted to see if my

uncle owned anything at all, to talk to _me_ of the police! It's

hateful! it's _disgusting_!"

 

"Come, come!" said Cerizet, "you needn't complain; you got off

cheaply."

 

"Well, and you, who broke the locks and said you were going to take

the diamonds, under color of marrying my daughter! Just as if she

would have you,--a legitimate daughter like her! 'Never, mother,' said

she; 'never will I give my heart to a man with such a nose.'"

 

"So you've found her, have you?" said Cerizet.

 

"Not until last night. She has left her blackguard of a player, and

she is now, I flatter myself, in a fine position, eating money; has

her citadine by the month, and is much respected by a barrister who

would marry her at once, but he has got to wait till his parents die,

for the father happens to be mayor, and the government wouldn't like

it."

 

"What mayor?"

 

"11th arrondissement,--Minard, powerfully rich, used to do a business

in cocoa."

 

"Ah! very good! very good! I know all about him. You say Olympe is

living with his son?"

 

"Well, not to say living together, for that would make talk, though he

only sees her with good motives. He lives at home with his father, but

he has bought their furniture, and has put it, and my daughter, too,

into a lodging in the Chausee d'Antin; stylish quarter, isn't it?"

 

"It seems to me pretty well arranged," said Cerizet; "and as Heaven,

it appears, didn't destine us for each other--"

 

"No, yes, well, that's how it was; and I think that girl is going to

give me great satisfaction; and there's something I want to consult

you about."

 

"What?" demanded Cerizet.

 

"Well, my daughter being in luck, I don't think I ought to continue to

cry fish in the streets; and now that my uncle has disinherited me, I

have, it seems to me, a right to an 'elementary allowance.'"

 

"You are dreaming, my poor woman; your daughter is a minor; it is you

who ought to be feeding her; the law doesn't require her to give you

aliment."

 

"Then do you mean," said Madame Cardinal, "that those who have nothing

are to give to those who have much? A fine thing such a law as that!

It's as bad as guardians who, for nothing at all, talk about calling

the police. Yes! I'd like to see 'em calling the police to me! Let 'em

guillotine me! It won't prevent my saying that the rich are swindlers;

yes, swindlers! and the people ought to make another revolution to get

their rights; and _then_, my lad, you, and my daughter, and barrister

Minard, and that little old guardian, you'll all come down under it--"

 

Perceiving that his ex-mother-in-law was reaching stage of exaltation

that was not unalarming, Cerizet hastened to get away, her epithets

pursuing him for more than a hundred feet; but he comforted himself by

thinking that he would make her pay for them the next time she came to

his back to ask for a "convenience." 

CHAPTER XVIII (SET A SAINT TO CATCH A SAINT)