Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau [44]
must have got into mischief. Have you come about him, my worthy magistrate?" she said, softening her voice.
"No; I had the honor to tell you that I came as a customer."
"Well, well! and what's your name, my lad? Haven't seen you about before, have I?"
"If you take that tone, you ought to sell your nuts cheap," said Birotteau, who proceeded to give his name and all his distinctions.
"Ha! you're the Birotteau that's got the handsome wife. And how many of the sweet little nuts may you want, my love?"
"Six thousand weight."
"That's all I have," said the seller, in a voice like a hoarse flute. "My dear monsieur, you are not one of the sluggards who waste their time on girls and perfumes. God bless you, you've got something to do! Excuse me a bit. You'll be a jolly customer, dear to the heart of the woman I love best in the world."
"Who is that?"
"Hey! the dear Madame Madou."
"What's the price of your nuts?"
"For you, old fellow, twenty-five francs a hundred, if you take them all."
"Twenty-five francs!" cried Birotteau. "Fifteen hundred francs! I shall want perhaps a hundred thousand a year."
"But just look how fine they are; fresh as a daisy," she said, plunging her red arm into a sack of filberts. "Plump, no empty ones, my dear man. Just think! grocers sell their beggarly trash at twenty- four sous a pound, and in every four pounds they put a pound of /hollows/. Must I lose my profits to oblige you? You're nice enough, but you don't please me all that! If you want so many, we might make a bargain at twenty francs. I don't want to send away a deputy-mayor,-- bad luck to the brides, you know! Now, just handle those nuts; heavy, aren't they? Less than fifty to the pound; no worms there, I can tell you."
"Well, then, send six thousand weight, for two thousand francs at ninety days' sight, to my manufactory, Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple, to-morrow morning early."
"You're in as great a hurry as a bride! Well, adieu, monsieur the mayor; don't bear me a grudge. But if it is all the same to you," she added, following Birotteau through the yard, "I would like your note at forty days, because I have let you have them too cheap, and I don't want to lose the discount. Pere Gigonnet may have a tender heart, but he sucks the soul out of us as a spider sucks a fly."
"Well, then, fifty days. But they are to be weighed by the hundred pounds, so that there may be no hollow ones. Without that, no bargain."
"Ah, the dog! he knows what he's about," said Madame Madou; "can't make a fool of him! It is those rascals in the Rue des Lombards who have put him up to that! Those big wolves are all in a pack to eat up the innocent lambs."
This lamb was five feet high and three feet round, and she looked like a mile-post, dressed in striped calico, without a belt.
The perfumer, lost in thought, was ruminating as he went along the Rue Saint-Honore about his duel with Macassar Oil. He was meditating on the labels and the shape of the bottles, discussing the quality of the corks, the color of the placards. And yet people say there is no poetry in commerce! Newton did not make more calculations for his famous binomial than Birotteau made for his Comagene Essence,--for by this time the Oil had subsided into an Essence, and he went from one description to the other without observing any difference. His head spun with his computations, and he took the lively activity of its emptiness for the substantial work of real talent. He was so preoccupied that he passed the turn leading to his uncle's house in the Rue des Bourdonnais, and had to return upon his steps.
V
Claude-Joseph Pillerault, formerly an iron-monger at the sign of the Cloche d'Or, had one of those faces whose beauty shines from the inner to the outer; about him all things harmonized,--dress and manners, mind and heart, thought and speech, words and acts. He was the sole relation of Madame Birotteau, and had centred all his affections upon her and upon Cesarine, having lost, in the course of his commercial career, his wife and son, and also an
"No; I had the honor to tell you that I came as a customer."
"Well, well! and what's your name, my lad? Haven't seen you about before, have I?"
"If you take that tone, you ought to sell your nuts cheap," said Birotteau, who proceeded to give his name and all his distinctions.
"Ha! you're the Birotteau that's got the handsome wife. And how many of the sweet little nuts may you want, my love?"
"Six thousand weight."
"That's all I have," said the seller, in a voice like a hoarse flute. "My dear monsieur, you are not one of the sluggards who waste their time on girls and perfumes. God bless you, you've got something to do! Excuse me a bit. You'll be a jolly customer, dear to the heart of the woman I love best in the world."
"Who is that?"
"Hey! the dear Madame Madou."
"What's the price of your nuts?"
"For you, old fellow, twenty-five francs a hundred, if you take them all."
"Twenty-five francs!" cried Birotteau. "Fifteen hundred francs! I shall want perhaps a hundred thousand a year."
"But just look how fine they are; fresh as a daisy," she said, plunging her red arm into a sack of filberts. "Plump, no empty ones, my dear man. Just think! grocers sell their beggarly trash at twenty- four sous a pound, and in every four pounds they put a pound of /hollows/. Must I lose my profits to oblige you? You're nice enough, but you don't please me all that! If you want so many, we might make a bargain at twenty francs. I don't want to send away a deputy-mayor,-- bad luck to the brides, you know! Now, just handle those nuts; heavy, aren't they? Less than fifty to the pound; no worms there, I can tell you."
"Well, then, send six thousand weight, for two thousand francs at ninety days' sight, to my manufactory, Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple, to-morrow morning early."
"You're in as great a hurry as a bride! Well, adieu, monsieur the mayor; don't bear me a grudge. But if it is all the same to you," she added, following Birotteau through the yard, "I would like your note at forty days, because I have let you have them too cheap, and I don't want to lose the discount. Pere Gigonnet may have a tender heart, but he sucks the soul out of us as a spider sucks a fly."
"Well, then, fifty days. But they are to be weighed by the hundred pounds, so that there may be no hollow ones. Without that, no bargain."
"Ah, the dog! he knows what he's about," said Madame Madou; "can't make a fool of him! It is those rascals in the Rue des Lombards who have put him up to that! Those big wolves are all in a pack to eat up the innocent lambs."
This lamb was five feet high and three feet round, and she looked like a mile-post, dressed in striped calico, without a belt.
The perfumer, lost in thought, was ruminating as he went along the Rue Saint-Honore about his duel with Macassar Oil. He was meditating on the labels and the shape of the bottles, discussing the quality of the corks, the color of the placards. And yet people say there is no poetry in commerce! Newton did not make more calculations for his famous binomial than Birotteau made for his Comagene Essence,--for by this time the Oil had subsided into an Essence, and he went from one description to the other without observing any difference. His head spun with his computations, and he took the lively activity of its emptiness for the substantial work of real talent. He was so preoccupied that he passed the turn leading to his uncle's house in the Rue des Bourdonnais, and had to return upon his steps.
V
Claude-Joseph Pillerault, formerly an iron-monger at the sign of the Cloche d'Or, had one of those faces whose beauty shines from the inner to the outer; about him all things harmonized,--dress and manners, mind and heart, thought and speech, words and acts. He was the sole relation of Madame Birotteau, and had centred all his affections upon her and upon Cesarine, having lost, in the course of his commercial career, his wife and son, and also an