“But, my dear friend, why should Roguin speculate? He gets his commissions, and his fortune is made. I see him pass sometimes more full of care than a minister of state, with an underhand look which I don’t like; he hides some secret anxiety. His face has grown in five years to look like that of an old rake. Who can be sure that he won’t kick over the traces when he gets all your property into his own hands. Such things happen. Do we know him well? He has only been a friend for fifteen years, and I wouldn’t put my hand into the fire for him. Why! he is not decent: he does not live with his wife. He must have mistresses who ruin him; I don’t see any other cause for his anxiety. When I am dressing I look through the blinds, and I often see him coming home in the mornings: where from? Nobody knows. He seems to me like a man who has an establishment in town, who spends on his pleasures, and Madame on hers. Is that the life of a notary? If they make fifty thousand francs a year and spend sixty thousand, in twenty years they will get to the end of their property and be as naked as the little Saint John; and then, as they can’t do without luxury, they will prey upon their friends without compunction. Charity begins at home. He is intimate with that little scamp du Tillet, our former clerk; and I see nothing good in that friendship. If he doesn’t know how to judge du Tillet he must be blind; and if he does know him, why does he pet him? You’ll tell me, because his wife is fond of du Tillet. Well, I don’t look for any good in a man who has no honor with respect to his wife. Besides, the present owners of that land must be fools to sell for a hundred sous what is worth a hundred francs. If you met a child who did not know the value of a louis, wouldn’t you feel bound to tell him of it? Your affair looks to me like a theft, be it said without offence.”
“Good God! how queer women are sometimes, and how they mix up ideas! If Roguin were not in this business, you would say to me: ‘Look here, Cesar, you are going into a thing without Roguin; therefore it is worth nothing.’ But to-day he is in it, as security, and you tell me – ”
“No, that is a Monsieur Claparon.”
“But a notary cannot put his own name into a speculation.”
“Then why is he doing a thing forbidden by law? How do you answer that, you who are guided by law?”
“Let me go on. Roguin is in it, and you tell me the business is worthless. Is that reasonable? You say, ‘He is acting against the law.’ But he would put himself openly in the business if it were necessary. Can’t they say the same of me? Would Ragon and Pillerault come and say to me: ‘Why do you have to do with this affair, – you who have made your money as a merchant?’”
“Merchants are not in the same position as notaries,” said Madame Birotteau.
“Well, my conscience is clear,” said Cesar, continuing; “the people who sell, sell because they must; we do not steal from them any more than you steal from others when you buy their stocks at seventy-five. We buy the ground to-day at to-day’s price. In two years it will be another thing; just so with stocks. Know then, Constance-Barbe-Josephine Pillerault, that you will never catch Cesar Birotteau doing anything against the most rigid honor, nor against the laws, nor against his conscience, nor against delicacy. A man established and known for eighteen years, to be suspected in his own household of dishonesty!”
“Come, be calm, Cesar! A woman who has lived with you all that time knows down to the bottom of your soul. You are the master, after all. You earned your fortune, didn’t you? It is yours, and you can spend it. If we are reduced to the last straits of poverty, neither your daughter nor I will make you a single reproach. But, listen; when you invented your Paste of Sultans and Carminative Balm, what did you risk? Five or six thousand francs. To-day you put all your fortune on a game of cards. And you are not the only one to play; you have associates who may be much cleverer than you. Give your ball, remodel the house, spend ten thousand francs if you like, – it is useless but not ruinous. As to your speculations near the Madeleine, I formally object. You are perfumer: be a perfumer, and not a speculator in land. We women have instincts which do not deceive us. I have warned you; now follow your own lead. You have been judge in the department of commerce, you know the laws. So far, you have guided the ship well, Cesar; I shall follow you! But I shall tremble till I see our fortune solidly secure and Cesarine well married. God grant that my dream be not a prophecy!”
This submission thwarted Birotteau, who now employed an innocent ruse to which he had had recourse on similar occasions.
“Listen, Constance. I have not given my word; though it is the same as if I had.”
“Oh, Cesar, all is said; let us say no more. Honor before fortune. Come, go to bed, dear friend, there is no more wood. Besides, we shall talk better in bed, if it amuses you. Oh! that horrid dream! My God! to see one’s self! it was fearful! Cesarine and I will have to make a pretty number of neuvaines for the success of your speculations.”
“Doubtless the help of God can do no harm,” said Birotteau, gravely. “But the oil in nuts is also powerful, wife. I made this discovery just as I made that of the Double Paste of Sultans, – by chance. The first time by opening a book; this time by looking at an engraving of Hero and Leander: you know, the woman who pours oil on the head of her lover; pretty, isn’t it? The safest speculations are those which depend on vanity, on self-love, on the desire of appearing well. Those sentiments never die.”
“Alas! I know it well.”
“At a certain age men will turn their souls inside out to get hair, if they haven’t any. For some time past hair-dressers have told me that they sell not only Macassar, but all the drugs which are said to dye hair or make it grow. Since the peace, men are more with women, and women don’t like bald-heads; hey! hey! Mimi? The demand for that article grows out of the political situation. A composition which will keep the hair in good health will sell like bread; all the more if it has the sanction, as it will have, of the Academy of Sciences. My good Monsieur Vauquelin will perhaps help me once more. I shall go to him to-morrow and submit my idea; offering him at the same time that engraving which I have at last found in Germany, after two years’ search. He is now engaged in analyzing hair: Chiffreville, his associate in the manufacture of chemical products, told me so. If my discovery should jump with his, my essence will be bought by both sexes. The idea is a fortune; I repeat it. Mon Dieu! I can’t sleep. Hey! luckily little Popinot has the finest head of hair in the world. A shop-girl with hair long enough to touch the ground, and who could say – if the thing were possible without offence to God or my neighbor – that the Oil Comagene (for it shall be an oil, decidedly) has had something to do with it, – all the gray-heads in Paris will fling themselves upon the invention like poverty upon the world. Hey! hey! Mignonne! how about the ball? I am not wicked, but I should like to meet that little scamp du Tillet, who swells out with his fortune and avoids me at the Bourse. He knows that I know a thing about him which was not fine. Perhaps I have been too kind to him. Isn’t it odd, wife, that we are always punished for our good deeds? – here below, I mean. I behaved like a father to him; you don’t know all I did for him.”
“You give me goose-flesh merely speaking of it. If you knew what he wished to make of you, you would never have kept the secret of his stealing that three thousand francs, – for I guessed just how the thing was done. If you had sent him to the correctional police, perhaps you would have done a service to a good many people.”
“What did he wish to make of me?”
“Nothing. If you were inclined to listen to me to-night, I would give you a piece of good advice, Birotteau; and that is, to let your du Tillet alone.”
“Won’t it seem strange if I exclude him from my house, – a clerk for whom I endorsed to the amount of twenty thousand francs when he first went into business? Come, let us do good for good’s sake. Besides, perhaps du Tillet has mended his ways.”
“Everything is to be turned topsy-turvy, then?”
“What do you mean with your topsy-turvy? Everything will be ruled like a sheet of music-paper. Have you forgotten what I have just told you about turning the staircase and hiring the first floor of the next house? – which is all settled with the umbrella-maker, Cayron. He and I are going to-morrow to