Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau [142]
"Then I won't deny you the pleasure," she said; "and to-morrow I'll trumpet your conduct through the markets. Ha! it's rare, rare!"
The worthy man had much the same scene, with variations, at Lourdois the house painter's, father-in-law of Crottat. It was raining; Cesar left his umbrella at the corner of the door. The prosperous painter, seeing the water trickling into the room where he was breakfasting with his wife, was not tender.
"Come, what do you want, my poor Pere Birotteau?" he said, in the hard tone which some people take to importunate beggars.
"Monsieur, has not your son-in-law told you--"
"What?" cried Lourdois, expecting some appeal.
"To be at his office this morning at half past eleven, and give me a receipt for the payment of your claims in full, with interest?"
"Ah, that's another thing! Sit down, Monsieur Birotteau, and eat a mouthful with us."
"Do us the pleasure to share our breakfast," said Madame Lourdois.
"You are doing well, then?" asked the fat Lourdois.
"No, monsieur, I have lived from hand to mouth, that I might scrape up this money; but I hope, in time, to repair the wrongs I have done to my neighbor."
"Ah!" said the painter, swallowing a mouthful of /pate de foie gras/, "you are truly a man of honor."
"What is Madame Birotteau doing?" asked Madame Lourdois.
"She is keeping the books of Monsieur Anselme Popinot."
"Poor people!" said Madame Lourdois, in a low voice to her husband.
"If you ever need me, my dear Monsieur Birotteau, come and see me," said Lourdois. "I might help--"
"I do need you--at eleven o'clock to-day, monsieur," said Birotteau, retiring.
*****
This first result gave courage to the poor bankrupt, but not peace of mind. On the contrary, the thought of regaining his honor agitated his life inordinately; he completely lost the natural color of his cheeks, his eyes grew sunken and dim, and his face hollow. When old acquaintances met him, in the morning at eight o'clock or in the evening at four, as he went to and from the Rue de l'Oratoire, wearing the surtout coat he wore at the time of his fall, and which he husbanded as a poor sub-lieutenant husbands his uniform,--his hair entirely white, his face pale, his manner timid,--some few would stop him in spite of himself; for his eye was alert to avoid those he knew as he crept along beside the walls, like a thief.
"Your conduct is known, my friend," said one; "everybody regrets the sternness with which you treat yourself, also your wife and daughter."
"Take a little more time," said others; "the wounds of money do not kill."
"No, but the wounds of the soul do," the poor worn Cesar answered one day to his friend Matifat.
*****
At the beginning of the year 1822, the Canal Saint-Martin was begun. Land in the Faubourg du Temple increased enormously in value. The canal would cut through the property which du Tillet had bought of Cesar Birotteau. The company who obtained the right of building it agreed to pay the banker an exorbitant sum, provided they could take possession within a given time. The lease Cesar had granted to Popinot, which went with the sale to du Tillet, now hindered the transfer to the canal company. The banker came to the Rue des Cinq- Diamants to see the druggist. If du Tillet was indifferent to Popinot, it is very certain that the lover of Cesarine felt an instinctive hatred for du Tillet. He knew nothing of the theft and the infamous scheme of the prosperous banker, but an inward voice cried to him, "The man is an unpunished rascal." Popinot would never have transacted the smallest business with him; du Tillet's very presence was odious to his feelings. Under the present circumstances it was doubly so, for the banker was now enriched through the forced spoliation of his former master; the lands about the Madeleine, as well as those in the Faubourg du Temple, were beginning to rise in price, and to foreshadow the enormous value they were to reach in 1827. So that after du Tillet had explained the object of his visit, Popinot looked at him with concentrated