Eight days after his ball, the last dying flash of a prosperity of eighteen years now about to be extinguished, Cesar Birotteau watched the passers-by from the windows of his shop, thinking over the expansion of his affairs, and beginning to find them burdensome. Until then all had been simple in his life; he manufactured and sold, or bought to sell again. To-day the land speculation, his share in the house of A. Popinot and Company, the repayment of the hundred and sixty thousand francs thrown upon the market, which necessitated either a traffic in promissory notes (of which his wife would disapprove), or else some unheard-of success in Cephalic Oil, all fretted the poor man by the multiplicity of ideas which they involved;
he felt he had more irons in the fire than he could lay hold of. How would Anselme guide the helm? Birotteau treated Popinot as a professor of rhetoric treats a pupil,--he distrusted his methods, and regretted that he was not at his elbow. The kick he had given Popinot to make him hold his tongue at Vauquelin's explains the uneasiness which the young merchant inspired in his mind.
Birotteau took care that neither his wife nor his daughter nor the clerks should suspect his anxiety; but he was in truth like a humble boatman on the Seine whom the government has suddenly put in command of a frigate. Troubled thoughts filled his mind, never very capable of reflection, as if with a fog; he stood still, as it were, and peered about to see his way. At this moment a figure appeared in the street for which he felt a violent antipathy; it was that of his new landlord, little Molineux. Every one has dreamed dreams filled with the events of a lifetime, in which there appears and reappears some wayward being, commissioned to play the mischief and be the villain of the piece. To Birotteau's fancy Molineux seemed delegated by chance to fill some part in his life. His weird face had grinned diabolically at the ball, and he had looked at its magnificence with an evil eye.
Catching sight of him again at this moment, Cesar was all the more reminded of the impression the little skin-flint (a word of his vocabulary) had made upon him, because Molineux excited fresh repugnance by reappearing in the midst of his anxious reverie.
"Monsieur," said the little man, in his atrociously hypocritical voice, "we settled our business so hastily that you forgot to guarantee the signatures on the little private deed."
Birotteau took the lease to repair the mistake. The architect came in at this moment, and bowed to the perfumer, looking about him with a diplomatic air.
"Monsieur," he whispered to Cesar presently, "you can easily understand that the first steps in a profession are difficult; you said you were satisfied with me, and it would oblige me very much if you would pay me my commission."
Birotteau, who had stripped himself of ready money when he put his current cash into Roguin's hands two weeks earlier, called to Celestin to make out an order for two thousand francs at ninety days' sight, and to write the form of a receipt.
"I am very glad you took part of your neighbor's rental on yourself,"
said Molineux in a sly, half-sneering tone. "My porter came to tell me just now that the sheriff has affixed the seals to the Sieur Cayron's appartement; he has disappeared."
"I hope I'm not juggled out of five thousand francs," thought Birotteau.
"Cayron always seemed to do a good business," said Lourdois, who just then came in to bring his bill.
"A merchant is never safe from commercial reverses until he has retired from business," said little Molineux, folding up his document with fussy precision.
The architect watched the queer old man with the enjoyment all artists find in getting hold of a caricature which confirms their theories about the bourgeoisie.
"When we have got our head under an umbrella we generally think it is protected from the rain," he said.
Molineux noticed the mustachios and the little chin-tuft of the artist much more than he did his face, and he despised that individual folly as much as Grindot despised him. He waited to give him a parting scratch as he went out. By dint of living so long with his cats Molineux had acquired, in his manners as well as in his eyes, something unmistakably feline.
Just at this moment Ragon and Pillerault came in.
"We have been talking of the land affair with the judge," said Ragon in Cesar's ear; "he says that in a speculation of that kind we must have a warranty from the sellers, and record the deeds, and pay in cash, before we are really owners and co-partners."
"Ah! you are talking of the lands about the Madeleine," said Lourdois;
"there is a good deal said about them: there will be some houses to build."
The painter who had come intending to have his bill settled, suddenly thought it more to his interest not to press Birotteau.
"I brought my bill because it was the end of the year," he whispered to Cesar; "but there's no hurry."
"What is the matter, Cesar?" said Pillerault, noticing the amazement of his nephew, who, having glanced at the bill, made no reply to either Ragon or Lourdois.
"Oh, a trifle. I took notes to the amount of five thousand francs from my neighbor, a dealer in umbrellas, and he has failed. If he has given me bad securities I shall be caught, like a fool."
"And yet I have warned you many times," cried Ragon; "a drowning man will catch at his father's leg to save himself, and drown him too. I
have seen so many failures! People are not exactly scoundrels when the disaster begins, but they soon come to be, out of sheer necessity."
"That's true," said Pillerault.
"If I ever get into the Chamber of Deputies, and ever have any influence in the government," said Birotteau, rising on his toes and dropping back on his heels,--
"What would you do?" said Lourdois, "for you've a long head."
