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A Man of Business
Honore de Balzac
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Title: A Man of Business
Author: Honore de Balzac
Release Date: February 24, 2005 [EBook #1813]
Language: English
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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MAN OF BUSINESS ***
Produced by Dagny; and John Bickers
A MAN OF BUSINESS
BY
HONORE DE BALZAC
Translated by Clara Bell and others
DEDICATION
To Monsieur le Baron James de Rothschild, Banker and
Austrian Consul-General at Paris.
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A MAN OF BUSINESS
The word _lorette_ is a euphemism invented to describe the status of a
personage, or a personage of a status, of which it is awkward to
speak; the French Academie, in its modesty, having omitted to supply a
definition out of regard for the age of its forty members. Whenever a
new word comes to supply the place of an unwieldy circumlocution, its
fortune is assured; the word _lorette_ has passed into the language of
every class of society, even where the lorette herself will never gain
an entrance. It was only invented in 1840, and derived beyond a doubt
from the agglomeration of such swallows' nests about the Church of Our
Lady of Loretto. This information is for etymoligists only. Those
gentlemen would not be so often in a quandary if mediaeval writers had
only taken such pains with details of contemporary manners as we take
in these days of analysis and description.
Mlle. Turquet, or Malaga, for she is better known by her pseudonym
(See _La fausse Maitresse_.), was one of the earliest parishioners of
that charming church. At the time to which this story belongs, that
lighthearted and lively damsel gladdened the existence of a notary
with a wife somewhat too bigoted, rigid, and frigid for domestic
happiness.
Now, it so fell out that one Carnival evening Maitre Cardot was
entertaining guests at Mlle. Turquet's house--Desroches the attorney,
Bixiou of the caricatures, Lousteau the journalist, Nathan, and
others; it is quite unnecessary to give any further description of
these personages, all bearers of illustrious names in the _Comedie
Humaine_. Young La Palferine, in spite of his title of Count and his
great descent, which, alas! means a great descent in fortune likewise,
had honored the notary's little establishment with his presence.
At dinner, in such a house, one does not expect to meet the
patriarchal beef, the skinny fowl and salad of domestic and family
life, nor is there any attempt at the hypocritical conversation of
drawing-rooms furnished with highly respectable matrons. When, alas!
will respectability be charming? When will the women in good society
vouchsafe to show rather less of their shoulders and rather more wit
or geniality? Marguerite Turquet, the Aspasia of the Cirque-Olympique,
is one of those frank, very living personalities to whom all is
forgiven, such unconscious sinners are they, such intelligent
penitents; of such as Malaga one might ask, like Cardot--a witty man
enough, albeit a notary--to be well "deceived." And yet you must not
think that any enormities were committed. Desroches and Cardot were
good fellows grown too gray in the profession not to feel at ease with
Bixiou, Lousteau, Nathan, and young La Palferine. And they on their
side had too often had recourse to their legal advisers, and knew them
too well to try to "draw them out," in lorette language.
Conversation, perfumed with seven cigars, at first was as fantastic as
a kid let loose, but finally it settled down upon the strategy of the
constant war waged in Paris between creditors and debtors.
Now, if you will be so good as to recall the history and antecedents
of the guests, you will know that in all Paris, you could scarcely
ads:
find a group of men with more experience in this matter; the
professional men on one hand, and the artists on the other, were
something in the position of magistrates and criminals hobnobbing
together. A set of Bixiou's drawings to illustrate life in the
debtors' prison, led the conversation to take this particular turn;
and from debtors' prisons they went to debts.
It was midnight. They had broken up into little knots round the table
and before the fire, and gave themselves up to the burlesque fun which
is only possible or comprehensible in Paris and in that particular
region which is bounded by the Faubourg Montmartre, the Rue Chaussee
d'Antin, the upper end of the Rue de Navarin and the line of the
boulevards.
In ten minutes' time they had come to an end of all the deep
reflections, all the moralizings, small and great, all the bad puns
made on a subject already exhausted by Rabelais three hundred and
fifty years ago. It was not a little to their credit that the
pyrotechnic display was cut short with a final squib from Malaga.
"It all goes to the shoemakers," she said. "I left a milliner because
she failed twice with my hats. The vixen has been here twenty-seven
times to ask for twenty francs. She did not know that we never have
twenty francs. One has a thousand francs, or one sends to one's notary
for five hundred; but twenty francs I have never had in my life. My
cook and my maid may, perhaps, have so much between them; but for my
own part, I have nothing but credit, and I should lose that if I took
to borrowing small sums. If I were to ask for twenty francs, I should
have nothing to distinguish me from my colleagues that walk the
boulevard."
"Is the milliner paid?" asked La Palferine.
"Oh, come now, are you turning stupid?" said she, with a wink. "She
came this morning for the twenty-seventh time, that is how I came to
mention it."
"What did you do?" asked Desroches.
"I took pity upon her, and--ordered a little hat that I have just
invented, a quite new shape. If Mlle. Amanda succeeds with it, she
will say no more about the money, her fortune is made."
"In my opinion," put in Desroches, "the finest things that I have seen
in a duel of this kind give those who know Paris a far better picture
of the city than all the fancy portraits that they paint. Some of you
think that you know a thing or two," he continued, glancing round at
Nathan, Bixiou, La Palferine, and Lousteau, "but the king of the
ground is a certain Count, now busy ranging himself. In his time, he
was supposed to be the cleverest, adroitest, canniest, boldest,
stoutest, most subtle and experienced of all the pirates, who,
equipped with fine manners, yellow kid gloves, and cabs, have ever
sailed or ever will sail upon the stormy seas of Paris. He fears
neither God nor man. He applies in private life the principles that
guide the English Cabinet. Up to the time of his marriage, his life
was one continual war, like--Lousteau's, for instance. I was, and am
still his solicitor."
"And the first letter of his name is Maxime de Trailles," said La
Palferine.
"For that matter, he has paid every one, and injured no one,"
continued Desroches. "But as your friend Bixiou was saying just now,
it is a violation of the liberty of the subject to be made to pay in
March when you have no mind to pay till October. By virtue of this
article of his particular code, Maxime regarded a creditor's scheme
for making him pay at once as a swindler's trick. It was a long time
since he had grasped the significance of the bill of exchange in all
its bearings, direct and remote. A young man once, in my place, called
a bill of exchange the 'asses' bridge' in his hearing. 'No,' said he,
'it is the Bridge of Sighs; it is the shortest way to an execution.'
Indeed, his knowledge of commercial law was so complete, that a
professional could not have taught him anything. At that time he had
nothing, as you know. His carriage and horses were jobbed; he lived in
his valet's house; and, by the way, he will be a hero to his valet to
the end of the chapter, even after the marriage that he proposes to
make. He belonged to three clubs, and dined at one of them whenever he
did not dine out. As a rule, he was to be found very seldom at his own
address--"
"He once said to me," interrupted La Palferine, "'My one affectation
is the pretence that I make of living in the Rue Pigalle.'"
"Well," resumed Desroches, "he was one of the combatants; and now for
the other. You have heard more or less talk of one Claparon?"
"Had hair like this!" cried Bixiou, ruffling his locks till they stood
on end. Gifted with the same talent for mimicking absurdities which
Chopin the pianist possesses to so high a degree, he proceeded
forthwith to represent the character with startling truth.
"He rolls his head like this when he speaks; he was once a commercial
traveler; he has been all sorts of things--"
"Well, he was born to travel, for at this minute, as I speak, he is on
the sea on his way to America," said Desroches. "It is his only
chance, for in all probability he will be condemned by default as a
fraudulent bankrupt next session."
"Very much at sea!" exclaimed Malaga.
"For six or seven years this Claparon acted as man of straw, cat's
paw, and scapegoat to two friends of ours, du Tillet and Nucingen; but
in 1829 his part was so well known that--"
"Our friends dropped him," put in Bixiou.
"They left him to his fate at last, and he wallowed in the mire,"
continued Desroches. "In 1833 he went into partnership with one
Cerizet--"
"What! he that promoted a joint-stock company so nicely that the Sixth
Chamber cut short his career with a couple of years in jail?" asked
the lorette.
"The same. Under the Restoration, between 1823 and 1827, Cerizet's
occupation consisted in first putting his name intrepidly to various
paragraphs, on which the public prosecutor fastened with avidity, and
subsequently marching off to prison. A man could make a name for
himself with small expense in those days. The Liberal party called
their provincial champion 'the courageous Cerizet,' and towards 1828
so much zeal received its reward in 'general interest.'
"'General interest' is a kind of civic crown bestowed on the
deserving by the daily press. Cerizet tried to discount the 'general
interest' taken in him. He came to Paris, and, with some help from
capitalists in the Opposition, started as a broker, and conducted
financial operations to some extent, the capital being found by a man
in hiding, a skilful gambler who overreached himself, and in
consequence, in July 1830, his capital foundered in the shipwreck of
the Government."
"Oh! it was he whom we used to call the System," cried Bixiou.
"Say no harm of him, poor fellow," protested Malaga. "D'Estourny was a
good sort."
"You can imagine the part that a ruined man was sure to play in 1830
when his name in politics was 'the courageous Cerizet." He was sent
off into a very snug little sub-prefecture. Unluckily for him, it is
one thing to be in opposition--any missile is good enough to throw, so
long as the flight lasts; but quite another to be in office. Three
months later, he was obliged to send in his resignation. Had he not
taken it into his head to attempt to win popularity? Still, as he had
done nothing as yet to imperil his title of 'courageous Cerizet,' the
Government proposed by way of compensation that he should manage a
newspaper; nominally an Opposition newspaper, but Ministerialist _in
petto_. So the fall of this noble nature was really due to the
Government. To Cerizet, as manager of the paper, it was rather too
evident that he was as a bird perched on a rotten bough; and then it
was that he promoted that nice little joint-stock company, and thereby
secured a couple of years in prison; he was caught, while more
ingenious swindlers succeeded in catching the public."
"We are acquainted with the more ingenious," said Bixiou; "let us say
no ill of the poor fellow; he was nabbed; Couture allowed them to
squeeze his cash-box; who would ever have thought it of him?"
"At all events, Cerizet was a low sort of fellow, a good deal damaged
by low debauchery. Now for the duel I spoke about. Never did two
tradesmen of the worst type, with the worst manners, the lowest pair
of villains imaginable, go into partnership in a dirtier business.
Their stock-in-trade consisted of the peculiar idiom of the man about
town, the audacity of poverty, the cunning that comes of experience,
and a special knowledge of Parisian capitalists, their origin,
connections, acquaintances, and intrinsic value. This partnership of
two 'dabblers' (let the Stock Exchange term pass, for it is the only
word which describes them), this partnership of dabblers did not last
very long. They fought like famished curs over every bit of garbage.
"The earlier speculations of the firm of Cerizet and Claparon were,
however, well planned. The two scamps joined forces with Barbet,
Chaboisseau, Samanon, and usurers of that stamp, and bought up
hopelessly bad debts.
"Claparon's place of business at that time was a cramped entresol in
the Rue Chabannais--five rooms at a rent of seven hundred francs at
most. Each partner slept in a little closet, so carefully closed from
prudence, that my head-clerk could never get inside. The furniture of
the other three rooms--an ante-chamber, a waiting-room, and a private
office--would not have fetched three hundred francs altogether at a
distress-warrant sale. You know enough of Paris to know the look of
it; the stuffed horsehair-covered chairs, a table covered with a green
cloth, a trumpery clock between a couple of candle sconces, growing
tarnished under glass shades, the small gilt-framed mirror over the
chimney-piece, and in the grate a charred stick or two of firewood
which had lasted them for two winters, as my head-clerk put it. As for
the office, you can guess what it was like--more letter-files than
business letters, a set of common pigeon-holes for either partner, a
cylinder desk, empty as the cash-box, in the middle of the room, and a
couple of armchairs on either side of a coal fire. The carpet on the
floor was bought cheap at second-hand (like the bills and bad debts).
In short, it was the mahogany furniture of furnished apartments which
usually descends from one occupant of chambers to another during fifty
years of service. Now you know the pair of antagonists.
"During the first three months of a partnership dissolved four months
later in a bout of fisticuffs, Cerizet and Claparon bought up two
thousand francs' worth of bills bearing Maxime's signature (since
Maxime was his name), and filled a couple of letters to bursting with
judgments, appeals, orders of the court, distress-warrants,
application for stay of proceedings, and all the rest of it; to put it
briefly, they had bills for three thousand two hundred francs odd
centimes, for which they had given five hundred francs; the transfer
being made under private seal, with special power of attorney, to save
the expense of registration. Now it so happened at this juncture,
Maxime, being of ripe age, was seized with one of the fancies peculiar
to the man of fifty--"
"Antonia!" exclaimed La Palferine. "That Antonia whose fortune I made
by writing to ask for a toothbrush!"
"Her real name is Chocardelle," said Malaga, not over well pleased by
the fine-sounding pseudonym.
"The same," continued Desroches.
"It was the only mistake Maxime ever made in his life. But what would
you have, no vice is absolutely perfect?" put in Bixiou.
"Maxime had still to learn what sort of a life a man may be led into
by a girl of eighteen when she is minded to take a header from her
honest garret into a sumptuous carriage; it is a lesson that all
statesmen should take to heart. At this time, de Marsay had just been
employing his friend, our friend de Trailles, in the high comedy of
politics. Maxime had looked high for his conquests; he had no
experience of untitled women; and at fifty years he felt that he had a
right to take a bite of the so-called wild fruit, much as a sportsman
will halt under a peasant's apple-tree. So the Count found a
reading-room for Mlle. Chocardelle, a rather smart little place to be
had cheap, as usual--"
"Pooh!" said Nathan. "She did not stay in it six months. She was too
handsome to keep a reading-room."
"Perhaps you are the father of her child?" suggested the lorette.
Desroches resumed.
"Since the firm bought up Maxime's debts, Cerizet's likeness to a
bailiff's officer grew more and more striking, and one morning after
seven fruitless attempts he succeeded in penetrating into the Count's
presence. Suzon, the old man-servant, albeit he was by no means in his
novitiate, at last mistook the visitor for a petitioner, come to
propose a thousand crowns if Maxime would obtain a license to sell
postage stamps for a young lady. Suzon, without the slightest
suspicion of the little scamp, a thoroughbred Paris street-boy into
whom prudence had been rubbed by repeated personal experience of the
police-courts, induced his master to receive him. Can you see the man
of business, with an uneasy eye, a bald forehead, and scarcely any
hair on his head, standing in his threadbare jacket and muddy boots--"
"What a picture of a Dun!" cried Lousteau.
"--standing before the Count, that image of flaunting Debt, in his
blue flannel dressing-gown, slippers worked by some Marquise or other,
trousers of white woolen stuff, and a dazzling shirt? There he stood,
with a gorgeous cap on his black dyed hair, playing with the tassels
at his waist--"
"'Tis a bit of genre for anybody who knows what the pretty little
morning room, hung with silk and full of valuable paintings, where
Maxime breakfasts," said Nathan. "You tread on a Smyrna carpet, you
admire the sideboards filled with curiosities and rarities fit to make
a King of Saxony envious--"
"Now for the scene itself," said Desroches, and the deepest silence
followed.
"'Monsieur le Comte,' began Cerizet, 'I have come from a M. Charles
Claparon, who used to be a banker--'
"'Ah! poor devil, and what does he want with me?'
"'Well, he is at present your creditor for a matter of three thousand
two hundred francs, seventy-five centimes, principal, interest, and
costs--'
"'Coutelier's business?' put in Maxime, who knew his affairs as a
pilot knows his coast.
"'Yes, Monsieur le Comte,' said Cerizet with a bow. 'I have come to
ask your intentions.'
"'I shall only pay when the fancy takes me,' returned Maxime, and he
rang for Suzon. 'It was very rash of Claparon to buy up bills of mine
without speaking to me beforehand. I am sorry for him, for he did so
very well for such a long time as a man of straw for friends of mine.
I always said that a man must really be weak in his intellect to work
for men that stuff themselves with millions, and to serve them so
faithfully for such low wages. And now here he gives me another proof
of his stupidity! Yes, men deserve what they get. It is your own doing
whether you get a crown on your forehead or a bullet through your
head; whether you are a millionaire or a porter, justice is always
done you. I cannot help it, my dear fellow; I myself am not a king, I
stick to my principles. I have no pity for those that put me to
expense or do not know their business as creditors.--Suzon! my tea! Do
you see this gentleman?' he continued when the man came in. 'Well, you
have allowed yourself to be taken in, poor old boy. This gentleman is
a creditor; you ought to have known him by his boots. No friend nor
foe of mine, nor those that are neither and want something of me, come
to see me on foot.--My dear M. Cerizet, do you understand? You will
not wipe your boots on my carpet again' (looking as he spoke at the
mud that whitened the enemy's soles). 'Convey my compliments and
sympathy to Claparon, poor buffer, for I shall file this business
under the letter Z.'
"All this with an easy good-humor fit to give a virtuous citizen the
colic.
"'You are wrong, Monsieur le Comte,' retorted Cerizet, in a slightly
peremptory tone. 'We will be paid in full, and that in a way which you
may not like. That is why I came to you first in a friendly spirit, as
is right and fit between gentlemen--'
"'Oh! so that is how you understand it?' began Maxime, enraged by
this last piece of presumption. There was something of Talleyrand's
wit in the insolent retort, if you have quite grasped the contrast
between the two men and their costumes. Maxime scowled and looked full
at the intruder; Cerizet not merely endured the glare of cold fury,
but even returned it, with an icy, cat-like malignance and fixity of
gaze.
"'Very good, sir, go out--'
"'Very well, good-day, Monsieur le Comte. We shall be quits before
six months are out.'
"'If you can steal the amount of your bill, which is legally due I
own, I shall be indebted to you, sir,' replied Maxime. 'You will have
taught me a new precaution to take. I am very much your servant.'
"'Monsieur le Comte,' said Cerizet, 'it is I, on the contrary, who am
yours.'
"Here was an explicit, forcible, confident declaration on either side.
A couple of tigers confabulating, with the prey before them, and a
fight impending, would have been no finer and no shrewder than this
pair; the insolent fine gentleman as great a blackguard as the other
in his soiled and mud-stained clothes.
"Which will you lay your money on?" asked Desroches, looking round at
an audience, surprised to find how deeply it was interested.
"A pretty story!" cried Malaga. "My dear boy, go on, I beg of you.
This goes to one's heart."
"Nothing commonplace could happen between two fighting-cocks of that
calibre," added La Palferine.
"Pooh!" cried Malaga. "I will wager my cabinet-maker's invoice (the
fellow is dunning me) that the little toad was too many for Maxime."
"I bet on Maxime," said Cardot. "Nobody ever caught him napping."
Desroches drank off a glass that Malaga handed to him.
"Mlle. Chocardelle's reading-room," he continued, after a pause, "was
in the Rue Coquenard, just a step or two from the Rue Pigalle where
Maxime was living. The said Mlle. Chocardelle lived at the back on the
garden side of the house, beyond a big dark place where the books were
kept. Antonia left her aunt to look after the business--"
"Had she an aunt even then?" exclaimed Malaga. "Hang it all, Maxime
did things handsomely."
"Alas! it was a real aunt," said Desroches; "her name was--let me
see----"
"Ida Bonamy," said Bixiou.
"So as Antonia's aunt took a good deal of the work off her hands, she
went to bed late and lay late of a morning, never showing her face at
the desk until the afternoon, some time between two and four. From the
very first her appearance was enough to draw custom. Several elderly
men in the quarter used to come, among them a retired coach-builder,
one Croizeau. Beholding this miracle of female loveliness through the
window-panes, he took it into his head to read the newspapers in the
beauty's reading-room; and a sometime custom-house officer, named
Denisart, with a ribbon in his button-hole, followed the example.
Croizeau chose to look upon Denisart as a rival. '_Monsieur_,' he said
afterwards, 'I did not know what to buy for you!'
"That speech should give you an idea of the man. The Sieur Croizeau
happens to belong to a particular class of old man which should be
known as 'Coquerels' since Henri Monnier's time; so well did Monnier
render the piping voice, the little mannerisms, little queue, little
sprinkling of powder, little movements of the head, prim little
manner, and tripping gait in the part of Coquerel in _La Famille
Improvisee_. This Croizeau used to hand over his halfpence with a
flourish and a 'There, fair lady!'
"Mme. Ida Bonamy the aunt was not long in finding out through a
servant that Croizeau, by popular report of the neighborhood of the
Rue de Buffault, where he lived, was a man of exceeding stinginess,
possessed of forty thousand francs per annum. A week after the
instalment of the charming librarian he was delivered of a pun:
"'You lend me books (livres), but I give you plenty of francs in
return,' said he.
"A few days later he put on a knowing little air, as much as to say,
'I know you are engaged, but my turn will come one day; I am a
widower.'
"He always came arrayed in fine linen, a cornflower blue coat, a
paduasoy waistcoat, black trousers, and black ribbon bows on the
double soled shoes that creaked like an abbe's; he always held a
fourteen franc silk hat in his hand.
"'I am old and I have no children,' he took occasion to confide to
the young lady some few days after Cerizet's visit to Maxime. 'I hold
my relations in horror. They are peasants born to work in the fields.
Just imagine it, I came up from the country with six francs in my
pocket, and made my fortune here. I am not proud. A pretty woman is my
equal. Now would it not be nicer to be Mme. Croizeau for some years to
come than to do a Count's pleasure for a twelvemonth? He will go off
and leave you some time or other; and when that day comes, you will
think of me . . . your servant, my pretty lady!'
"All this was simmering below the surface. The slightest approach at
love-making was made quite on the sly. Not a soul suspected that the
trim little old fogy was smitten with Antonia; and so prudent was the
elderly lover, that no rival could have guessed anything from his
behavior in the reading-room. For a couple of months Croizeau watched
the retired custom-house official; but before the third month was out
he had good reason to believe that his suspicions were groundless. He
exerted his ingenuity to scrape an acquaintance with Denisart, came up
with him in the street, and at length seized his opportunity to
remark, 'It is a fine day, sir!'
"Whereupon the retired official responded with, 'Austerlitz weather,
sir. I was there myself--I was wounded indeed, I won my Cross on that
glorious day.'
"And so from one thing to another the two drifted wrecks of the Empire
struck up an acquaintance. Little Croizeau was attached to the Empire
through his connection with Napoleon's sisters. He had been their
coach-builder, and had frequently dunned them for money; so he gave
out that he 'had had relations with the Imperial family.' Maxime, duly
informed by Antonia of the 'nice old man's' proposals (for so the aunt
called Croizeau), wished to see him. Cerizet's declaration of war had
so far taken effect that he of the yellow kid gloves was studying the
position of every piece, however insignificant, upon the board; and it
so happened that at the mention of that 'nice old man,' an ominous
tinkling sounded in his ears. One evening, therefore, Maxime seated
himself among the book-shelves in the dimly lighted back room,
reconnoitred the seven or eight customers through the chink between
the green curtains, and took the little coach-builder's measure. He
gauged the man's infatuation, and was very well satisfied to find that
the varnished doors of a tolerably sumptuous future were ready to turn
at a word from Antonia so soon as his own fancy had passed off.
"'And that other one yonder?' asked he, pointing out the stout
fine-looking elderly man with the Cross of the Legion of Honor. 'Who
is he?'
"'A retired custom-house officer.'
"'The cut of his countenance is not reassuring,' said Maxime,
beholding the Sieur Denisart.
"And indeed the old soldier held himself upright as a steeple. His
head was remarkable for the amount of powder and pomatum bestowed upon
it; he looked almost like a postilion at a fancy ball. Underneath that
felted covering, moulded to the top of the wearer's cranium, appeared
an elderly profile, half-official, half-soldierly, with a comical
admixture of arrogance,--altogether something like caricatures of the
_Constitutionnel_. The sometime official finding that age, and
hair-powder, and the conformation of his spine made it impossible to
read a word without spectacles, sat displaying a very creditable
expanse of chest with all the pride of an old man with a mistress. Like
old General Montcornet, that pillar of the Vaudeville, he wore earrings.
Denisart was partial to blue; his roomy trousers and well-worn
greatcoat were both of blue cloth.
"'How long is it since that old fogy came here?' inquired Maxime,
thinking that he saw danger in the spectacles.
"'Oh, from the beginning,' returned Antonia, 'pretty nearly two
months ago now.'
"'Good," said Maxime to himself, 'Cerizet only came to me a month
ago.--Just get him to talk,' he added in Antonia's ear; 'I want to
hear his voice.'
"'Pshaw,' said she, 'that is not so easy. He never says a word to
me.'
"'Then why does he come here?' demanded Maxime.
"'For a queer reason,' returned the fair Antonia. 'In the first
place, although he is sixty-nine, he has a fancy; and because he is
sixty-nine, he is as methodical as a clock face. Every day at five
o'clock the old gentleman goes to dine with _her_ in the Rue de la
Victoire. (I am sorry for her.) Then at six o'clock, he comes here,
reads steadily at the papers for four hours, and goes back at ten
o'clock. Daddy Croizeau says that he knows M. Denisart's motives, and
approves his conduct; and in his place, he would do the same. So I
know exactly what to expect. If ever I am Mme. Croizeau, I shall have
four hours to myself between six and ten o'clock.'
"Maxime looked through the directory, and found the following
reassuring item:
"DENISART,* retired custom-house officer, Rue de la Victoire.
"His uneasiness vanished.
"Gradually the Sieur Denisart and the Sieur Croizeau began to exchange
confidences. Nothing so binds two men together as a similarity of
views in the matter of womankind. Daddy Croizeau went to dine with 'M.
Denisart's fair lady,' as he called her. And here I must make a
somewhat important observation.
"The reading-room had been paid for half in cash, half in bills signed
by the said Mlle. Chocardelle. The _quart d'heure de Rabelais_
arrived; the Count had no money. So the first bill of three thousand
francs was met by the amiable coach-builder; that old scoundrel
Denisart having recommended him to secure himself with a mortgage on
the reading-room.
"'For my own part,' said Denisart, 'I have seen pretty doings from
pretty women. So in all cases, even when I have lost my head, I am
always on my guard with a woman. There is this creature, for instance;
I am madly in love with her; but this is not her furniture; no, it
belongs to me. The lease is taken out in my name.'
"You know Maxime! He thought the coach-builder uncommonly green.
Croizeau might pay all three bills, and get nothing for a long while;
for Maxime felt more infatuated with Antonia than ever."
"I can well believe it," said La Palferine. "She is the _bella
Imperia_ of our day."
"With her rough skin!" exclaimed Malaga; "so rough, that she ruins
herself in bran baths!"
"Croizeau spoke with a coach-builder's admiration of the sumptuous
furniture provided by the amorous Denisart as a setting for his fair
one, describing it all in detail with diabolical complacency for
Antonia's benefit," continued Desroches. "The ebony chests inlaid with
mother-of-pearl and gold wire, the Brussels carpets, a mediaeval
bedstead worth three thousand francs, a Boule clock, candelabra in the
four corners of the dining-room, silk curtains, on which Chinese
patience had wrought pictures of birds, and hangings over the doors,
worth more than the portress that opened them.
"'And that is what _you_ ought to have, my pretty lady.--And that is
what I should like to offer you,' he would conclude. 'I am quite aware
that you scarcely care a bit about me; but, at my age, we cannot
expect too much. Judge how much I love you; I have lent you a thousand
francs. I must confess that, in all my born days, I have not lent
anybody _that_ much----'
"He held out his penny as he spoke, with the important air of a man
that gives a learned demonstration.
"That evening at the Varietes, Antonia spoke to the Count.
"'A reading-room is very dull, all the same,' said she; 'I feel that
I have no sort of taste for that kind of life, and I see no future in
it. It is only fit for a widow that wishes to keep body and soul
together, or for some hideously ugly thing that fancies she can catch
a husband with a little finery.'
"'It was your own choice,' returned the Count. Just at that moment,
in came Nucingen, of whom Maxime, king of lions (the 'yellow kid
gloves' were the lions of that day) had won three thousand francs the
evening before. Nucingen had come to pay his gaming debt.
"'Ein writ of attachment haf shoost peen served on me by der order of
dot teufel Glabaron,' he said, seeing Maxime's astonishment.
"'Oh, so that is how they are going to work, is it?' cried Maxime.
'They are not up to much, that pair--'
"'It makes not,' said the banker, 'bay dem, for dey may apply
demselfs to oders pesides, und do you harm. I dake dees bretty voman
to vitness dot I haf baid you dees morning, long pefore dat writ vas
serfed.'"
"Queen of the boards," smiled La Palferine, looking at Malaga, "thou
art about to lose thy bet."
"Once, a long time ago, in a similar case," resumed Desroches, "a too
honest debtor took fright at the idea of a solemn declaration in a
court of law, and declined to pay Maxime after notice was given. That
time we made it hot for the creditor by piling on writs of attachment,
so as to absorb the whole amount in costs--"
"Oh, what is that?" cried Malaga; "it all sounds like gibberish to me.
As you thought the sturgeon so excellent at dinner, let me take out
the value of the sauce in lessons in chicanery."
"Very well," said Desroches. "Suppose that a man owes you money, and
your creditors serve a writ of attachment upon him; there is nothing
to prevent all your other creditors from doing the same thing. And now
what does the court do when all the creditors make application for
orders to pay? _The court divides the whole sum attached,
proportionately among them all._ That division, made under the eye of
a magistrate, is what we call a _contribution_. If you owe ten
thousand francs, and your creditors issue writs of attachment on a
debt due to you of a thousand francs, each one of them gets so much
per cent, 'so much in the pound,' in legal phrase; so much (that
means) in proportion to the amounts severally claimed by the
creditors. But--the creditors cannot touch the money without a special
order from the clerk of the court. Do you guess what all this work
drawn up by a judge and prepared by attorneys must mean? It means a
quantity of stamped paper full of diffuse lines and blanks, the
figures almost lost in vast spaces of completely empty ruled columns.
The first proceeding is to deduct the costs. Now, as the costs are
precisely the same whether the amount attached is one thousand or one
million francs, it is not difficult to eat up three thousand francs
(for instance) in costs, especially if you can manage to raise counter
applications."
"And an attorney always manages to do it," said Cardot. "How many a
time one of you has come to me with, 'What is there to be got out of
the case?'"
"It is particularly easy to manage it if the debtor eggs you on to run
up costs till they eat up the amount. And, as a rule, the Count's
creditors took nothing by that move, and were out of pocket in law and
personal expenses. To get money out of so experienced a debtor as the
Count, a creditor should really be in a position uncommonly difficult
to reach; it is a question of being creditor and debtor both, for then
you are legally entitled to work the confusion of rights, in law
language--"
"To the confusion of the debtor?" asked Malaga, lending an attentive
ear to this discourse.
"No, the confusion of rights of debtor and creditor, and pay yourself
through your own hands. So Claparon's innocence in merely issuing
writs of attachment eased the Count's mind. As he came back from the
Varietes with Antonia, he was so much the more taken with the idea of
selling the reading-room to pay off the last two thousand francs of
the purchase-money, because he did not care to have his name made
public as a partner in such a concern. So he adopted Antonia's plan.
Antonia wished to reach the higher ranks of her calling, with splendid
rooms, a maid, and a carriage; in short, she wanted to rival our
charming hostess, for instance--"
"She was not woman enough for that," cried the famous beauty of the
Circus; "still, she ruined young d'Esgrignon very neatly."
"Ten days afterwards, little Croizeau, perched on his dignity, said
almost exactly the same thing, for the fair Antonia's benefit,"
continued Desroches.
"'Child,' said he, 'your reading-room is a hole of a place. You will
lose your complexion; the gas will ruin your eyesight. You ought to
come out of it; and, look here, let us take advantage of an
opportunity. I have found a young lady for you that asks no better
than to buy your reading-room. She is a ruined woman with nothing
before her but a plunge into the river; but she had four thousand
francs in cash, and the best thing to do is to turn them to account,
so as to feed and educate a couple of children.'
"'Very well. It is kind of you, Daddy Croizeau,' said Antonia.
"'Oh, I shall be much kinder before I have done. Just imagine it,
poor M. Denisart has been worried into the jaundice! Yes, it has gone
to the liver, as it usually does with susceptible old men. It is a
pity he feels things so. I told him so myself; I said, "Be passionate,
there is no harm in that, but as for taking things to heart--draw the
line at that! It is the way to kill yourself."--Really, I would not
have expected him to take on so about it; a man that has sense enough
and experience enough to keep away as he does while he digests his
dinner--'
"'But what is the matter?' inquired Mlle. Chocardelle.
"'That little baggage with whom I dined has cleared out and left him!
. . . Yes. Gave him the slip without any warning but a letter, in
which the spelling was all to seek.'
"'There, Daddy Croizeau, you see what comes of boring a woman--'
"'It is indeed a lesson, my pretty lady,' said the guileful Croizeau.
'Meanwhile, I have never seen a man in such a state. Our friend
Denisart cannot tell his left hand from his right; he will not go back
to look at the "scene of his happiness," as he calls it. He has so
thoroughly lost his wits, that he proposes that I should buy all
Hortense's furniture (Hortense was her name) for four thousand
francs.'
"'A pretty name,' said Antonia.
"'Yes. Napoleon's stepdaughter was called Hortense. I built carriages
for her, as you know.'
"'Very well, I will see,' said cunning Antonia; 'begin by sending
this young woman to me.'
"Antonia hurried off to see the furniture, and came back fascinated.
She brought Maxime under the spell of antiquarian enthusiasm. That
very evening the Count agreed to the sale of the reading-room. The
establishment, you see, nominally belonged to Mlle. Chocardelle.
Maxime burst out laughing at the idea of little Croizeau's finding him
a buyer. The firm of Maxime and Chocardelle was losing two thousand
francs, it is true, but what was the loss compared with four glorious
thousand-franc notes in hand? 'Four thousand francs of live coin!
--there are moments in one's life when one would sign bills for eight
thousand to get them,' as the Count said to me.
"Two days later the Count must see the furniture himself, and took the
four thousand francs upon him. The sale had been arranged; thanks to
little Croizeau's diligence, he pushed matters on; he had 'come round'
the widow, as he expressed it. It was Maxime's intention to have all
the furniture removed at once to a lodging in a new house in the Rue
Tronchet, taken in the name of Mme. Ida Bonamy; he did not trouble
himself much about the nice old man that was about to lose his
thousand francs. But he had sent beforehand for several big furniture
vans.
"Once again he was fascinated by the beautiful furniture which a
wholesale dealer would have valued at six thousand francs. By the
fireside sat the wretched owner, yellow with jaundice, his head tied
up in a couple of printed handkerchiefs, and a cotton night-cap on top
of them; he was huddled up in wrappings like a chandelier, exhausted,
unable to speak, and altogether so knocked to pieces that the Count
was obliged to transact his business with the man-servant. When he had
paid down the four thousand francs, and the servant had taken the
money to his master for a receipt, Maxime turned to tell the man to
call up the vans to the door; but even as he spoke, a voice like a
rattle sounded in his ears.
"'It is not worth while, Monsieur le Comte. You and I are quits; I
have six hundred and thirty francs fifteen centimes to give you!'
"To his utter consternation, he saw Cerizet, emerged from his
wrappings like a butterfly from the chrysalis, holding out the
accursed bundle of documents.
"'When I was down on my luck, I learned to act on the stage,' added
Cerizet. 'I am as good as Bouffe at old men.'
"'I have fallen among thieves!' shouted Maxime.
"'No, Monsieur le Comte, you are in Mlle. Hortense's house. She is a
friend of old Lord Dudley's; he keeps her hidden away here; but she
has the bad taste to like your humble servant.'
"'If ever I longed to kill a man,' so the Count told me afterwards,
'it was at that moment; but what could one do? Hortense showed her
pretty face, one had to laugh. To keep my dignity, I flung her the six
hundred francs. "There's for the girl," said I.'"
"That is Maxime all over!" cried La Palferine.
"More especially as it was little Croizeau's money," added Cardot the
profound.
"Maxime scored a triumph," continued Desroches, "for Hortense
exclaimed, 'Oh, if I had only known that it was you!'"
"A pretty 'confusion' indeed!" put in Malaga. "You have lost, milord,"
she added turning to the notary.
And in this way the cabinetmaker, to whom Malaga owed a hundred
crowns, was paid.
PARIS, 1845.
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Barbet
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
The Seamy Side of History
The Middle Classes
Bixiou, Jean-Jacques
The Purse
A Bachelor's Establishment
The Government Clerks
Modeste Mignon
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Firm of Nucingen
The Muse of the Department
Cousin Betty
The Member for Arcis
Beatrix
Gaudissart II.
The Unconscious Humorists
Cousin Pons
Cardot (Parisian notary)
The Muse of the Department
Jealousies of a Country Town
Pierre Grassou
The Middle Classes
Cousin Pons
Cerizet
Lost Illusions
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Middle Classes
Chaboisseau
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
The Government Clerks
Chocardelle, Mademoiselle
Beatrix
A Prince of Bohemia
Cousin Betty
The Member for Arcis
Claparon, Charles
A Bachelor's Establishment
Cesar Birotteau
Melmoth Reconciled
The Firm of Nucingen
The Middle Classes
Desroches (son)
A Bachelor's Establishment
Colonel Chabert
A Start in Life
A Woman of Thirty
The Commission in Lunacy
The Government Clerks
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Firm of Nucingen
The Middle Classes
Dudley, Lord
The Lily of the Valley
The Thirteen
Another Study of Woman
A Daughter of Eve
Esgrignon, Victurnien, Comte (then Marquis d')
Jealousies of a Country Town
Letters of Two Brides
The Secrets of a Princess
Cousin Betty
Estourny, Charles d'
Modeste Mignon
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Hortense
The Member for Arcis
La Palferine, Comte de
A Prince of Bohemia
Cousin Betty
Beatrix
The Imaginary Mistress
Lousteau, Etienne
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Bachelor's Establishment
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
A Daughter of Eve
Beatrix
The Muse of the Department
Cousin Betty
A Prince of Bohemia
The Middle Classes
The Unconscious Humorists
Montcornet, Marechal, Comte de
Domestic Peace
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Peasantry
Cousin Betty
Nathan, Raoul
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Secrets of a Princess
A Daughter of Eve
Letters of Two Brides
The Seamy Side of History
The Muse of the Department
A Prince of Bohemia
The Unconscious Humorists
Nucingen, Baron Frederic de
The Firm of Nucingen
Father Goriot
Pierrette
Cesar Birotteau
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Another Study of Woman
The Secrets of a Princess
Cousin Betty
The Muse of the Department
The Unconscious Humorists
Samanon
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
The Government Clerks
Cousin Betty
Trailles, Comte Maxime de
Cesar Birotteau
Father Goriot
Gobseck
Ursule Mirouet
The Member for Arcis
The Secrets of a Princess
Cousin Betty
Beatrix
The Unconscious Humorists
Turquet, Marguerite
The Imaginary Mistress
The Muse of the Department
Cousin Betty
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