Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau, Honoré de Balzac [good fiction books to read .TXT] 📗

Vallee-aux-Loups is seen in all its coquetry, the beauty of the day, the charm of the landscape, the first spring verdure, the delicious memory of the happiest day of all his youth, loosened the tight chords in Cesar's soul; he pressed the arm of his wife against his beating heart; his eye was no longer glassy, for the light of pleasure once more brightened in it.

"At last," said Constance to her husband, "I see you again, my poor Cesar. I think we have all behaved well enough to allow ourselves a little pleasure now and then."

"Ought I?" said the poor man. "Ah! Constance, thy affection is all that remains to me. Yes, I have lost even my old self-confidence; I have no strength left; my only desire is that I may live to die discharged of debt on earth. Thou, dear wife, thou who art my wisdom and my prudence, thou whose eyes saw clear, thou who art irreproachable, thou canst have pleasure. I alone--of us three--am guilty. Eighteen months ago, in the midst of that fatal ball, I saw my Constance, the only woman I have ever loved, more beautiful than the young girl I followed along this path twenty years ago--like our children yonder! In eighteen months I have blasted that beauty,--my pride, my legitimate and sanctioned pride. I love thee better since I know thee well. Oh, _dear_!" he said, giving to the word a tone which reached to the inmost heart of his wife, "I would rather have thee scold me, than see thee so tender to my pain."

"I did not think," she said, "that after twenty years of married life the love of a wife for her husband could deepen."

These words drove from Cesar's mind, for one brief moment, all his sorrows; his heart was so true that they were to him a fortune. He walked forward almost joyously to _their_ tree, which by chance had not been felled. Husband and wife sat down beneath it, watching Anselme and Cesarine, who were sauntering across the grassy slope without perceiving them, thinking probably that they were still following.

"Mademoiselle," Anselme was saying, "do not think me so base and grasping as to profit by your father's share which I have acquired in the Cephalic Oil. I am keeping his share for him; I nurse it with careful love. I invest the profits; if there is any loss I put it to my own account. We can only belong to one another on the day when your father is restored to his position, free of debt. I work for that day with all the strength that love has given me."

"Will it come soon?" she said.

"Soon," said Popinot. The word was uttered in a tone so full of meaning, that the chaste and pure young girl inclined her head to her dear Anselme, who laid an eager and respectful kiss upon her brow,--so noble was her gesture and action.

"Papa, all is well," she said to Cesar with a little air of confidence. "Be good and sweet; talk to us, put away that sad look."

When this family, so tenderly bound together, re-entered the house, even Cesar, little observing as he was, saw a change in the manner of the Ragons which seemed to denote some remarkable event. The greeting of Madame Ragon was particularly impressive; her look and accent seemed to say to Cesar, "We are paid."

At the dessert, the notary of Sceaux appeared. Pillerault made him sit down, and then looked at Cesar, who began to suspect a surprise, though he was far indeed from imagining the extent of it.

"My nephew, the savings of your wife, your daughter, and yourself, for the last eighteen months, amounted to twenty thousand francs. I have received thirty thousand by the dividend on my claim. We have therefore fifty thousand francs to divide among your creditors. Monsieur Ragon has received thirty thousand francs for his dividend, and you have now paid him the balance of his claim in full, interest included, for which monsieur here, the notary of Sceaux, has brought you a receipt. The rest of the money is with Crottat, ready for Lourdois, Madame Madou, the mason, carpenter, and the other most pressing creditors. Next year, we may do as well. With time and patience we can go far."

Birotteau's joy is not to be described; he threw himself into his uncle's arms, weeping.

"May he not wear his cross?" said Ragon to the Abbe Loraux.

The confessor fastened the red ribbon to Cesar's buttonhole. The poor clerk looked at himself again and again during the evening in the mirrors of the salon, manifesting a joy at which people thinking themselves superior might have laughed, but which these good bourgeois thought quite natural.

The next day Birotteau went to find Madame Madou.

"Ah, there you are, good soul!" she cried. "I didn't recognize you, you have turned so gray. Yet you don't really drudge, you people; you've got good places. As for me, I work like a turnspit that deserves baptism."

"But, madame--"

"Never mind, I don't mean it as a reproach," she said. "You have got my receipt."

"I came to tell you that I shall pay you to-morrow, at Monsieur Crottat's, the rest of your claim in full, with interest."

"Is that true?"

"Be there at eleven o'clock."

"Hey! there's honor for you! good measure and running over!" she cried with naive admiration. "Look here, my good monsieur, I am doing a fine trade with your little red-head. He's a nice young fellow; he lets me earn a fair penny without haggling over it, so that I may get an equivalent for that loss. Well, I'll get you a receipt in full, anyhow; you keep the money, my poor old man! La Madou may get in a fury, and she does scold; but she has got something here--" she cried, thumping the most voluminous mounds of flesh ever yet seen in the markets.

"No," said Birotteau, "the law is plain. I wish to pay you in full."

"Then I won't deny you the pleasure," she said; "and to-morrow I'll trumpet your conduct through the markets. Ha! it's rare, rare!"

The worthy man had much the same scene, with variations, at Lourdois the house painter's, father-in-law of Crottat. It was raining; Cesar left his umbrella at the corner of the door. The prosperous painter, seeing the water trickling into the room where he was breakfasting with his wife, was not tender.

"Come, what do you want, my poor Pere Birotteau?" he said, in the hard tone which some people take to importunate beggars.

"Monsieur, has not your son-in-law told you--"

"What?" cried Lourdois, expecting some appeal.

"To be at his office this morning at half past eleven, and give me a receipt for the payment of your claims in full, with interest?"

"Ah, that's another thing! Sit down, Monsieur Birotteau, and eat a mouthful with us."

"Do us the pleasure to share our breakfast," said Madame Lourdois.

"You are doing well, then?" asked the fat Lourdois.

"No, monsieur, I have lived from hand to mouth, that I might scrape up this money; but I hope, in time, to repair the wrongs I have done to my neighbor."

"Ah!" said the painter, swallowing a mouthful of _pate de foie gras_, "you are truly a man of honor."

"What is Madame Birotteau doing?" asked Madame Lourdois.

"She is keeping the books of Monsieur Anselme Popinot."

"Poor people!" said Madame Lourdois, in a low voice to her husband.

"If you ever need me, my dear Monsieur Birotteau, come and see me," said Lourdois. "I might help--"

"I do need you--at eleven o'clock to-day, monsieur," said Birotteau, retiring.

* * * * *


This first result gave courage to the poor bankrupt, but not peace of mind. On the contrary, the thought of regaining his honor agitated his life inordinately; he completely lost the natural color of his cheeks, his eyes grew sunken and dim, and his face hollow. When old acquaintances met him, in the morning at eight o'clock or in the evening at four, as he went to and from the Rue de l'Oratoire, wearing the surtout coat he wore at the time of his fall, and which he husbanded as a poor sub-lieutenant husbands his uniform,--his hair entirely white, his face pale, his manner timid,--some few would stop him in spite of himself; for his eye was alert to avoid those he knew as he crept along beside the walls, like a thief.

"Your conduct is known, my friend," said one; "everybody regrets the sternness with which you treat yourself, also your wife and daughter."

"Take a little more time," said others; "the wounds of money do not kill."

"No, but the wounds of the soul do," the poor worn Cesar answered one day to his friend Matifat.

* * * * *


At the beginning of the year 1822, the Canal Saint-Martin was begun. Land in the Faubourg du Temple increased enormously in value. The canal would cut through the property which du Tillet had bought of Cesar Birotteau. The company who obtained the right of building it agreed to pay the banker an exorbitant sum, provided they could take possession within a given time. The lease Cesar had granted to Popinot, which went with the sale to du Tillet, now hindered the transfer to the canal company. The banker came to the Rue des Cinq-Diamants to see the druggist. If du Tillet was indifferent to Popinot, it is very certain that the lover of Cesarine felt an instinctive hatred for du Tillet. He knew nothing of the theft and the infamous scheme of the prosperous banker, but an inward voice cried to him, "The man is an unpunished rascal." Popinot would never have transacted the smallest business with him; du Tillet's very presence was odious to his feelings. Under the present circumstances it was doubly so, for the banker was now enriched through the forced spoliation of his former master; the lands about the Madeleine, as well as those in the Faubourg du Temple, were beginning to rise in price, and to foreshadow the enormous value they were to reach in 1827. So that after du Tillet had explained the object of his visit, Popinot looked at him with concentrated wrath.

"I shall not refuse to give up my lease; but I demand sixty thousand francs for it, and I shall not take one farthing less."

"Sixty thousand francs!" exclaimed du Tillet, making a movement to leave the shop.

"I have fifteen years' lease still to run; it will, moreover, cost me three thousand francs a year to get other buildings. Therefore, sixty thousand francs, or say no more about it," said Popinot, going to the back of the shop, where du Tillet followed him.

The discussion grew warm, Birotteau's name was mentioned; Madame Cesar heard it and came down, and saw du Tillet for the first time since the famous ball. The banker was unable to restrain a gesture of surprise at the change which had come over the beautiful woman; he lowered his eyes, shocked at the result of his own work.

"Monsieur," said Popinot to Madame Cesar, "is going to make three