Title: A Man of Business
Author: Balzac, Honoré de
Language: English
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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.



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 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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