The Lesser Bourgeoisie - Honoré de Balzac (top novels to read txt) 📗

that the less a debt is due, and therefore the more insecure and open to contention it is, the sooner one ought to free one's self by paying it."

"But, my dear la Peyrade," said Dutocq, "why take this bitter tone?"

Pulling from his pocket a portfolio, la Peyrade said:--

"Have you those notes with you, Dutocq?"

"Faith! no, my dear fellow," replied Dutocq, "I don't carry them about with me; besides, they are in Cerizet's hands."

"Well," said the barrister, rising, "whenever you come to my house I'll pay you on the nail, as Cerizet can tell you."

"What! are you going to leave us without your coffee?" said Cerizet, amazed to the last degree.

"Yes; I have an arbitration case at eight o'clock. Besides, we have said all we had to say. You haven't your lease, but you've got your twenty five thousand francs in full, and those of Dutocq are ready for him whenever he chooses to come to my office. I see nothing now to prevent me from going where my private business calls me, and I therefore very cordially bid you good-bye."

"Ah ca! Dutocq," cried Cerizet, as la Peyrade disappeared, "this means a rupture."

"Prepared with the utmost care," added Dutocq. "Did you notice the air with which he pulled out that pocket-book?"

"But where the devil," said the usurer, "could he have got the money?"

"Probably," replied Dutocq, sarcastically, "where he got that with which he paid you in full for those notes you sold at a sacrifice."

"My dear Dutocq," said Cerizet, "I'll explain to you the circumstances under which that insolent fellow freed himself, and you'll see if he didn't rob me of fifteen thousand francs."

"Possibly, but you, my worthy clerk, were trying to get ten thousand away from me."

"No, no; I was positively ordered to buy up your claim; and you ought to remember that my offer had risen to twenty thousand when Theodose came in."

"Well," said Dutocq, "when we leave here we'll go to your house, where you will give me those notes; for, you'll understand that to-morrow morning, at the earliest decent hour, I shall go to la Peyrade's office; I don't mean to let his paying humor cool."

"And right you are; for I can tell you now that before long there'll be a fine upset in his life."

"Then the thing is really serious--this tale of a crazy woman you want him to marry? I must say that in his place, with these money-matters evidently on the rise, I should have backed out of your proposals just as he did. Ninas and Ophelias are all very well on the stage, but in a home--"

"In a home, when they bring a 'dot,' we can be their guardian," replied Cerizet, sententiously. "In point of fact, we get a fortune and not a wife."

"Well," said Dutocq, "that's one way to look at it."

"If you are willing," said Cerizet, "let us go and take our coffee somewhere else. This dinner has turned out so foolishly that I want to get out of this room, where there's no air." He rang for the waiter. "Garcon!" he said, "the bill."

"Monsieur, it is paid."

"Paid! by whom?"

"By the gentleman who just went out."

"But this is outrageous," cried Cerizet. "I ordered the dinner, and you allow some one else to pay for it!"

"It wasn't I, monsieur," said the waiter; "the gentleman went and paid the 'dame du comptoir'; she must have thought it was arranged between you. Besides, it is not so uncommon for gentlemen to have friendly disputes about paying."

"That's enough," said Cerizet, dismissing the waiter.

"Won't these gentlemen take their coffee?--it is paid for," said the man before he left the room.

"A good reason for not taking it," replied Cerizet, angrily. "It is really inconceivable that in a house of this kind such an egregious blunder should be committed. What do you think of such insolence?" he added, when the waiter had left the room.

"Bah!" exclaimed Dutocq, taking his hat, "it is a schoolboy proceeding; he wanted to show he had money; it is easy to see he never had any before."

"No, no! that's not it," said Cerizet; "he meant to mark the rupture. 'I will not owe you even a dinner,' is what he says to me."

"But, after all," said Dutocq, "this banquet was given to celebrate your enthronement as principal tenant of the grand house. Well, he has failed to get you the lease, and I can understand that his conscience was uneasy at letting you pay for a dinner which, like those notes of mine, were an 'obligation without cause.'"

Cerizet made no reply to this malicious observation. They had reached the counter where reigned the dame who had permitted the improper payment, and, for the sake of his dignity, the usurer thought it proper to make a fuss. After which the two men departed, and the copying-clerk took his employer to a low coffee-house in the Passage du Saumon. There Cerizet recovered his good-humor; he was like a fish out of water suddenly returned to his native element; for he had reached that state of degradation when he felt ill at ease in places frequented by good society; and it was with a sort of sensuous pleasure that he felt himself back in the vulgar place where they were noisily playing pool for the benefit of a "former conqueror of the Bastille."

In this establishment Cerizet enjoyed the fame of being a skilful billiard-player, and he was now entreated to take part in a game already begun. In technical language, he "bought his ball"; that is, one of the players sold him his turn and his chances. Dutocq profited by this arrangement to slip away, on pretence of inquiring for a sick friend.

Presently, in his shirt-sleeves, with a pipe between his lips, Cerizet made one of those masterly strokes which bring down the house with frantic applause. As he waited a moment, looking about him triumphantly, his eye lighted on a terrible kill-joy. Standing among the spectators with his chin on his cane, du Portail was steadily watching him.

A tinge of red showed itself in Cerizet's cheeks. He hesitated to bow or to recognize the old gentleman, a most unlikely person to meet in such a place. Not knowing how to take the unpleasant encounter, he went on playing; but his hand betrayed his uneasiness, and presently an unlucky stroke threw him out of the game. While he was putting on his coat in a tolerably ill-humor, du Portail passed, almost brushing him, on his way to the door.

"Rue Montmartre, at the farther end of the Passage," said the old man, in a low tone.

When they met, Cerizet had the bad taste to try to explain the disreputable position in which he had just been detected.

"But," said du Portail, "in order to see you there, I had to be there myself."

"True," returned Cerizet. "I was rather surprised to see a quiet inhabitant of the Saint-Sulpice quarter in such a place."

"It merely proves to you," said the little old man, in a tone which cut short all explanation, and all curiosity, "that I am in the habit of going pretty nearly everywhere, and that my star leads me into the path of those persons whom I wish to meet. I was thinking of you at the very moment you came in. Well, what have you done?"

"Nothing good," replied Cerizet. "After playing me a devilish trick which deprived me of a magnificent bit of business, our man rejected your overture with scorn. There is no hope whatever in that claim of Dutocq's; for la Peyrade is chock-full of money; he wanted to pay the notes just now, and to-morrow morning he will certainly do so."

"Does he regard his marriage to this Demoiselle Colleville as a settled thing?"

"He not only considers it settled, but he is trying now to make people believe it is a love-match. He rattled off a perfect tirade to convince me that he is really in love."

"Very well," said du Portail, wishing, perhaps, to show that he could, on occasion, use the slang of a low billiard-room, "'stop the charge'" (meaning: Do nothing more); "I will undertake to bring monsieur to reason. But come and see me to-morrow, and tell me all about the family he intends to enter. You have failed in this affair; but don't mind that; I shall have others for you."

So saying, he signed to the driver of an empty citadine, which was passing, got into it, and, with a nod to Cerizet, told the man to drive to the rue Honore-Chevalier.

As Cerizet walked down the rue Montmartre to regain the Estrapade quarter, he puzzled his brains to divine who that little old man with the curt speech, the imperious manner, and a tone that seemed to cast upon all those with whom he spoke a boarding-grapnel, could be; a man, too, who came from such a distance to spend his evening in a place where, judging by his clothes alone, he had no business to be.

Cerizet had reached the Market without finding any solution to that problem, when he was roughly shaken out of it by a heavy blow in the back. Turning hastily, he found himself in presence of Madame Cardinal, an encounter with whom, at a spot where she came every morning to get fish to peddle, was certainly not surprising.

Since that evening in Toupillier's garret, the worthy woman, in spite of the clemency so promptly shown to her, had judged it imprudent to make other than very short apparitions in her own domicile, and for the last two days she had been drowning among the liquor-dealers (called "retailers of comfort") the pangs of her defeat. With flaming face and thickened voice she now addressed her late accomplice:--

"Well, papa," she said, "what happened after I left you with that little old fellow?"

"I made him understand in a very few words," replied the banker of the poor, "that it was all a mistake as to me. In this affair, my dear Madame Cardinal, you behaved with a really unpardonable heedlessness. How came you to ask my assistance in obtaining your inheritance from your uncle, when with proper inquiry you might have known there was a natural daughter, in whose favor he had long declared he should make a will? That little old man, who interrupted you in your foolish attempt to anticipate your legacy, was no other than the guardian of the daughter to whom everything is left."

"Ha! guardian, indeed! a fine thing, guardian!" cried the Cardinal. "To talk of a woman of my age, just because I wanted to see if my uncle owned anything at all, to talk to _me_ of the police! It's hateful! it's _disgusting_!"

"Come, come!" said Cerizet, "you needn't complain; you got off cheaply."

"Well, and you, who broke the locks and said you were going to take the diamonds, under color of marrying my daughter! Just as if she would have you,--a legitimate daughter like her! 'Never, mother,' said she; 'never will I give my heart to a man with such a nose.'"

"So you've found her, have you?" said Cerizet.

"Not until last night. She has left her blackguard of a player, and she is now, I flatter myself, in a fine position, eating money; has her citadine by the month, and is much respected by a barrister who would marry her at once, but