Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau Part 10

Here Popinot p.r.i.c.ked up his ears like a frightened hare.

"The discoloration of this substance, be it living or dead, is, in my judgment, produced by a check to the secretion of the coloring matter; which explains why in certain cold climates the fur of animals loses all color and turns white in winter."

"Hein! Popinot."

"It is evident," resumed Vauquelin, "that alterations in the color of the hair come from changes in the circ.u.mjacent atmosphere--"

"Circ.u.mjacent, Popinot! recollect, hold fast to that," cried Cesar.

"Yes," said Vauquelin, "from hot and cold changes, or from internal phenomena which produce the same effect. Probably headaches and other cephalagic affections absorb, dissipate, or displace the generating fluids. However, the interior of the head concerns physicians. As for the exterior, bring on your cosmetics."

"Monsieur," said Birotteau, "you restore me to life! I have thought of selling an oil of nuts, believing that the ancients made use of that oil for their hair; and the ancients are the ancients, as you know: I agree with Boileau. Why did the gladiators oil themselves--"

"Olive oil is quite as good as nut oil," said Vauquelin, who was not listening to Birotteau. "All oil is good to preserve the bulb from receiving injury to the substances working within it, or, as we should say in chemistry, in liquefaction. Perhaps you are right; Dupuytren told me the oil of nuts had a stimulating property. I will look into the differences between the various oils, beech-nut, colza, olive, and hazel, etc."

"Then I am not mistaken," cried Birotteau, triumphantly. "I have coincided with a great man. Maca.s.sar is overthrown! Maca.s.sar, monsieur, is a cosmetic given--that is, sold, and sold dear--to make the hair grow."

"My dear Monsieur Birotteau," said Vauquelin, "there are not two ounces of Maca.s.sar oil in all Europe. Maca.s.sar oil has not the slightest action upon the hair; but the Malays buy it up for its weight in gold, thinking that it preserves the hair: they don't know that whale-oil is just as good. No power, chemical, or divine--"

"Divine! oh, don't say that, Monsieur Vauquelin."

"But, my dear monsieur, the first law of G.o.d is to be consistent with Himself; without unity, no power--"

"Ah! in that light--"

"No power, as I say, can make the hair grow on bald heads; just as you can never dye, without serious danger, red or white hair. But in advertising the benefits of oil you commit no mistake, you tell no falsehood, and I think that those who use it will probably preserve their hair."

"Do you think that the royal Academy of Sciences would approve of--"

"Oh! there is no discovery in all that," said Vauquelin. "Besides, charlatans have so abused the name of the Academy that it would not help you much. My conscience will not allow me to think the oil of nuts a prodigy."

"What would be the best way to extract it; by pressure, or decoction?"

asked Birotteau.

"Pressure between two hot slabs will cause the oil to flow more abundantly; but if obtained by pressure between cold slabs it will be of better quality. It should be applied to the skin itself," added Vauquelin, kindly, "and not to the hair; otherwise the effect might be lost."

"Recollect all that, Popinot," said Birotteau, with an enthusiasm that sent a glow into his face. "You see before you, monsieur, a young man who will count this day among the finest in his life. He knew you, he venerated you, without ever having seen you. We often talk of you in our home: a name that is in the heart is often on the lips. We pray for you every day, my wife and daughter and I, as we ought to pray for our benefactor."

"Too much for so little," said Vauquelin, rather bored by the voluble grat.i.tude of the perfumer.

"Ta, ta, ta!" exclaimed Birotteau, "you can't prevent our loving you, you who will take nothing from us. You are like the sun; you give light, and those whom you illuminate can give you nothing in return."

The man of science smiled and rose; the perfumer and Popinot rose also.

"Anselme, look well at this room. You permit it, monsieur? Your time is precious, I know, but he will never have another opportunity."

"Well, have you got all you wanted?" said Vauquelin to Birotteau. "After all, we are both commercial men."

"Pretty nearly, monsieur," said Birotteau, retreating towards the dining-room, Vauquelin following. "But to launch our Comagene Essence we need a good foundation--"

"'Comagene' and 'Essence' are two words that clash. Call your cosmetic 'Oil of Birotteau'; or, if you don't want to give your name to the world, find some other. Why, there's the Dresden Madonna! Ah, Monsieur Birotteau, do you mean that we shall quarrel?"

"Monsieur Vauquelin," said the perfumer, taking the chemist's hand.

"This treasure has no value except the time that I have spent in finding it. We had to ransack all Germany to find it on China paper before lettering. I knew that you wished for it and that your occupations did not leave you time to search for it; I have been your commercial traveller, that is all. Accept therefore, not a paltry engraving, but efforts, anxieties, despatches to and fro, which are the evidence of my complete devotion. Would that you had wished for something growing on the sides of precipices, that I might have sought it and said to you, 'Here it is!' Do not refuse my gift. We have so much reason to be forgotten; allow me therefore to place myself, my wife, my daughter, and the son-in-law I expect to have, beneath your eyes. You must say when you look at the Virgin, 'There are some people in the world who are thinking of me.'"

"I accept," said Vauquelin.

Popinot and Birotteau wiped their eyes, so affected were they by the kindly tone in which the academician uttered the words.

"Will you crown your goodness?" said the perfumer.

"What's that?" exclaimed Vauquelin.

"I a.s.semble my friends"--he rose from his heels, taking, nevertheless, a modest air--"as much to celebrate the emanc.i.p.ation of our territory as to commemorate my promotion to the order of the Legion of honor--"

"Ah!" exclaimed Vauquelin, surprised.

"Possibly I showed myself worthy of that signal and royal favor, by my services on the Bench of commerce, and by fighting for the Bourbons upon the steps of Saint-Roch, on the 13th Vendemiaire, where I was wounded by Napoleon. My wife gives a ball, three weeks from Sunday; pray come to it, monsieur. Do us the honor to dine with us on that day. Your presence would double the happiness with which I receive my cross. I will write you beforehand."

"Well, yes," said Vauquelin.

"My heart swells with joy!" cried the perfumer, when he got into the street. "He comes to my house! I am afraid I've forgotten what he said about hair: do you remember it, Popinot!"

"Yes, monsieur; and twenty years hence I shall remember it still."

"What a great man! what a glance, what penetration!" said Birotteau.

"Ah! he made no bones about it; he guessed our thoughts at the first word; he has given us the means of annihilating Maca.s.sar oil. Yes!

nothing can make the hair grow; Maca.s.sar, you lie! Popinot, our fortune is made. We'll go to the manufactory to-morrow morning at seven o'clock; the nuts will be there, and we will press out some oil. It is all very well for him to say that any oil is good; if the public knew that, we should be lost. If we didn't put some scent and the name of nuts into the oil, how could we sell it for three or four francs the four ounces?"

"You are about to be decorated, monsieur?" said Popinot, "what glory for--"

"Commerce; that is true, my boy."

Cesar's triumphant air, as if certain of fortune, was observed by the clerks, who made signs at each other; for the trip in the hackney-coach, and the full dress of the cas.h.i.+er and his master had thrown them all into the wildest regions of romance. The mutual satisfaction of Cesar and Anselme, betrayed by looks diplomatically exchanged, the glance full of hope which Popinot cast now and then at Cesarine, proclaimed some great event and gave color to the conjectures of the clerks. In their busy and half cloistral life the smallest events have the interest which a prisoner feels in those of his prison. The bearing of Madame Cesar, who replied to the Olympian looks of her lord with an air of distrust, seemed to point to some new enterprise; for in ordinary times Madame Cesar, delighted with the smallest routine success, would have shared his contentment. It happened, accidentally, that the receipts for the day amounted to more than six thousand francs; for several outstanding bills chanced to be paid.

The dining-room and the kitchen, lighted from a little court, and separated from the dining-room by a pa.s.sage, from which the staircase, taken out of a corner of the backshop, opened up, was on the _entresol_ where in former days Cesar and Constance had their appartement; in fact, the dining-room, where the honey-moon had been pa.s.sed, still wore the look of a little salon. During dinner Raguet, the trusty boy of all work, took charge of the shop; but the clerks came down when the dessert was put on table, leaving Cesar, his wife and daughter to finish their dinner alone by the chimney corner. This habit was derived from the Ragons, who kept up the old-fas.h.i.+oned usages and customs of former commercial days, which placed an enormous distance between the masters and the apprentices. Cesarine or Constance then prepared for Birotteau his cup of coffee, which he took sitting on a sofa by the corner of the fire. At this hour he told his wife all the little events of the day, and related what he had seen in the streets, what was going on in the Faubourg du Temple, and the difficulties he had met with in the manufactory, _et caetera_.

"Wife," he said, when the clerks had gone down, "this is certainly one of the most important days in our life! The nuts are bought, the hydraulic press is ready to go to work, the land affair is settled.

Here, lock up that cheque on the Bank of France," he added, handing her Pillerault's paper. "The improvements in the house are ordered, the dignity of our appartement is about to be increased. Bless me! I saw, down in the Cour Batave, a very singular man,"--and he told the tale of Monsieur Molineux.

"I see," said his wife, interrupting him in the middle of a tirade, "that you have gone in debt two hundred thousand francs."

"That is true, wife," said Cesar, with mock humility, "Good G.o.d, how shall we pay them? It counts for nothing that the lands about the Madeleine will some day become the finest quarter of Paris."

"Some day, Cesar!"

"Alas!" he said, going on with his joke, "my three eighths will only be worth a million in six years. How shall I ever pay that two hundred thousand francs?" said Cesar, with a gesture of alarm. "Well, we shall be reduced to pay them with that," he added, pulling from his pocket a nut, which he had taken from Madame Madou and carefully preserved.

He showed the nut between his fingers to Constance and Cesarine. His wife was silent, but Cesarine, much puzzled, said to her father, as she gave him his coffee, "What do you mean, papa,--are you joking?"