Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau [111]
word which the anguish of his position forced from Cesar's lips.
Birotteau drew upon the dregs of his courage, and went up the stairway of a mean little /entresol/, at whose windows he had caught a glimpse of green curtains yellowed by the sun. He read the word "Offices," stamped in black letters on an oval copper-plate; he rapped, nobody answered, and he went in. The place, worse than humble, conveyed an idea of penury, or avarice, or neglect. No employe was to be seen behind the brass lattice which topped an unpainted white wooden enclosure, breast-high, within which were tables and desks in stained black wood. These deserted places were littered with inkstands, in which the ink was mouldy and the pens as rumpled as a ragammufin's head, and twisted like sunfish; with boxes and papers and printed matter,--all worthless, no doubt. The floor was as dirty, defaced, and damp as that of a boarding-house. The second room, announced by the word "Counting-Room" on its door, harmonized with the grim /facetiae/ of its neighbor. In one corner was a large space screened off by an oak balustrade, trellised with copper wire and furnished with a sliding cat-hole, within which was an enormous iron chest. This space, apparently given over to the rioting of rats, also contained an odd- looking desk, with a shabby arm-chair, which was ragged, green, and torn in the seat,--from which the horse-hair protruded, like the wig of its master, in half a hundred libertine curls. The chief adornment of this room, which had evidently been the salon of the appartement before it was converted into a banking-office, was a round table covered with a green cloth, round which stood a few old chairs of black leather with tarnished gilt nails. The fireplace, somewhat elegant, showed none of the sooty marks of a fire; the hearth was clean; the mirror, covered with fly-specks, had a paltry air, in keeping with a mahogany clock bought at the sale of some old notary, which annoyed the eye, already depressed by two candelabras without candles and the sticky dust that covered them. The wall-paper, mouse- gray with a pink border, revealed, by certain fuliginous stains, the unwholesome presence of smokers. Nothing ever more faithfully represented that prosaic precinct called by the newspapers an "editorial sanctum." Birotteau, fearing that he might be indiscreet, knocked sharply three times on the door opposite to that by which he entered.
"Come in!" cried Claparon, the reverberation of whose voice revealed the distance it had to traverse and the emptiness of the room,--in which Cesar heard the crackling of a good fire, though the owner was apparently not there.
The room was, in truth, Claparon's private office. Between the ostentatious reception-room of Francois Keller and the untidy abode of the counterfeit banker, there was all the difference that exists between Versailles and the wigwam of a Huron chief. Birotteau had witnessed the splendors of finance; he was now to see its fooleries. Lying in bed, in a sort of oblong recess or den opening from the farther end of the office, and where the habits of a slovenly life had spoiled, dirtied, greased, torn, defaced, obliterated, and ruined furniture which had been elegant in its day, Claparon, at the entrance of Birotteau, wrapped his filthy dressing-gown around him, laid down his pipe, and drew together the curtains of the bed with a haste which made even the innocent perfumer suspect his morals.
"Sit down, monsieur," said the make-believe banker.
Claparon, without his wig, his head wrapped up in a bandanna handkerchief twisted awry, seemed all the more hideous to Birotteau because, when the dressing-gown gaped open, he saw an undershirt of knitted wool, once white, but now yellowed by wear indefinitely prolonged.
"Will you breakfast with me?" said Claparon, recollecting the perfumer's ball, and thinking to make him a return and also to put him off the scent by this invitation.
Cesar now perceived a round table, hastily cleared of its litter, which bore testimony to the presence of jovial company
Birotteau drew upon the dregs of his courage, and went up the stairway of a mean little /entresol/, at whose windows he had caught a glimpse of green curtains yellowed by the sun. He read the word "Offices," stamped in black letters on an oval copper-plate; he rapped, nobody answered, and he went in. The place, worse than humble, conveyed an idea of penury, or avarice, or neglect. No employe was to be seen behind the brass lattice which topped an unpainted white wooden enclosure, breast-high, within which were tables and desks in stained black wood. These deserted places were littered with inkstands, in which the ink was mouldy and the pens as rumpled as a ragammufin's head, and twisted like sunfish; with boxes and papers and printed matter,--all worthless, no doubt. The floor was as dirty, defaced, and damp as that of a boarding-house. The second room, announced by the word "Counting-Room" on its door, harmonized with the grim /facetiae/ of its neighbor. In one corner was a large space screened off by an oak balustrade, trellised with copper wire and furnished with a sliding cat-hole, within which was an enormous iron chest. This space, apparently given over to the rioting of rats, also contained an odd- looking desk, with a shabby arm-chair, which was ragged, green, and torn in the seat,--from which the horse-hair protruded, like the wig of its master, in half a hundred libertine curls. The chief adornment of this room, which had evidently been the salon of the appartement before it was converted into a banking-office, was a round table covered with a green cloth, round which stood a few old chairs of black leather with tarnished gilt nails. The fireplace, somewhat elegant, showed none of the sooty marks of a fire; the hearth was clean; the mirror, covered with fly-specks, had a paltry air, in keeping with a mahogany clock bought at the sale of some old notary, which annoyed the eye, already depressed by two candelabras without candles and the sticky dust that covered them. The wall-paper, mouse- gray with a pink border, revealed, by certain fuliginous stains, the unwholesome presence of smokers. Nothing ever more faithfully represented that prosaic precinct called by the newspapers an "editorial sanctum." Birotteau, fearing that he might be indiscreet, knocked sharply three times on the door opposite to that by which he entered.
"Come in!" cried Claparon, the reverberation of whose voice revealed the distance it had to traverse and the emptiness of the room,--in which Cesar heard the crackling of a good fire, though the owner was apparently not there.
The room was, in truth, Claparon's private office. Between the ostentatious reception-room of Francois Keller and the untidy abode of the counterfeit banker, there was all the difference that exists between Versailles and the wigwam of a Huron chief. Birotteau had witnessed the splendors of finance; he was now to see its fooleries. Lying in bed, in a sort of oblong recess or den opening from the farther end of the office, and where the habits of a slovenly life had spoiled, dirtied, greased, torn, defaced, obliterated, and ruined furniture which had been elegant in its day, Claparon, at the entrance of Birotteau, wrapped his filthy dressing-gown around him, laid down his pipe, and drew together the curtains of the bed with a haste which made even the innocent perfumer suspect his morals.
"Sit down, monsieur," said the make-believe banker.
Claparon, without his wig, his head wrapped up in a bandanna handkerchief twisted awry, seemed all the more hideous to Birotteau because, when the dressing-gown gaped open, he saw an undershirt of knitted wool, once white, but now yellowed by wear indefinitely prolonged.
"Will you breakfast with me?" said Claparon, recollecting the perfumer's ball, and thinking to make him a return and also to put him off the scent by this invitation.
Cesar now perceived a round table, hastily cleared of its litter, which bore testimony to the presence of jovial company