Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau Part 37

"Is that true?"

"Be there at eleven o'clock."

"Hey! there's honor for you! good measure and running over!" she cried with naive admiration. "Look here, my good monsieur, I am doing a fine trade with your little red-head. He's a nice young fellow; he lets me earn a fair penny without haggling over it, so that I may get an equivalent for that loss. Well, I'll get you a receipt in full, anyhow; you keep the money, my poor old man! La Madou may get in a fury, and she does scold; but she has got something here--" she cried, thumping the most voluminous mounds of flesh ever yet seen in the markets.

"No," said Birotteau, "the law is plain. I wish to pay you in full."

"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 sc.r.a.pe 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 Ca.n.a.l Saint-Martin was begun.

Land in the Faubourg du Temple increased enormously in value. The ca.n.a.l 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 ca.n.a.l 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 circ.u.mstances 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 wrath.

"I shall not refuse to give up my lease; but I demand sixty thousand francs for it, and I shall not take one farthing less."

"Sixty thousand francs!" exclaimed du Tillet, making a movement to leave the shop.

"I have fifteen years' lease still to run; it will, moreover, cost me three thousand francs a year to get other buildings. Therefore, sixty thousand francs, or say no more about it," said Popinot, going to the back of the shop, where du Tillet followed him.

The discussion grew warm, Birotteau's name was mentioned; Madame Cesar heard it and came down, and saw du Tillet for the first time since the famous ball. The banker was unable to restrain a gesture of surprise at the change which had come over the beautiful woman; he lowered his eyes, shocked at the result of his own work.

"Monsieur," said Popinot to Madame Cesar, "is going to make three hundred thousand francs out of _your_ land, and he refuses _us_ sixty thousand francs' indemnity for _our_ lease."

"That is three thousand francs a year," said du Tillet.

"Three--thousand--francs!" said Madame Cesar, slowly, in a clear, penetrating voice.

Du Tillet turned pale. Popinot looked at Madame Birotteau. There was a moment of profound silence, which made the scene still more inexplicable to Anselme.

"Sign your relinquishment of the lease, which I have made Crottat draw up," said du Tillet, drawing a stamped paper from a side-pocket. "I will give you a cheque on the Bank of France for sixty thousand francs."

Popinot looked at Madame Cesar without concealing his astonishment; he thought he was dreaming. While du Tillet was writing his cheque at a high desk, Madame Cesar disappeared and went upstairs. The druggist and the banker exchanged papers. Du Tillet bowed coldly to Popinot, and went away.

"At last, in a few months," thought Popinot, as he watched du Tillet going towards the Rue des Lombards, where his cabriolet was waiting, "thanks to this extraordinary affair, I shall have my Cesarine. My poor little wife shall not wear herself out any longer. A look from Madame Cesar was enough! What secret is there between her and that brigand? The whole thing is extraordinary."

Popinot sent the cheque at once to the Bank, and went up to speak to Madame Birotteau; she was not in the counting-room, and had doubtless gone to her chamber. Anselme and Constance lived like mother-in-law and son-in-law when people in that relation suit each other; he therefore rushed up to Madame Cesar's appartement with the natural eagerness of a lover on the threshold of his happiness. The young man was prodigiously surprised to find her, as he sprang like a cat into the room, reading a letter from du Tillet, whose handwriting he recognized at a glance. A lighted candle, and the black and quivering phantoms of burned letters lying on the floor made him shudder, for his quick eyes caught the following words in the letter which Constance held in her hand:--

"I adore you! You know it well, angel of my life, and--"

"What power have you over du Tillet that could force him to agree to such terms?" he said with a convulsive laugh that came from repressed suspicion.

"Do not let us speak of that," she said, showing great distress.

"No," said Popinot, bewildered; "let us rather talk of the end of all your troubles." Anselme turned on his heel towards the window, and drummed with his fingers on the panes as he gazed into the court.

"Well," he said to himself, "even if she did love du Tillet, is that any reason why I should not behave like an honorable man?"

"What is the matter, my child?" said the poor woman.

"The total of the net profits of Cephalic Oil mount up to two hundred and forty-two thousand francs; half of that is one hundred and twenty-one thousand," said Popinot, brusquely. "If I withdraw from that amount the forty-eight thousand francs which I paid to Monsieur Birotteau, there remains seventy-three thousand, which, joined to these sixty thousand paid for the relinquishment of the lease, gives _you_ one hundred and thirty-three thousand francs."

Madame Cesar listened with fluctuations of joy which made her tremble so violently that Popinot could hear the beating of her heart.

"Well, I have always considered Monsieur Birotteau as my partner," he went on; "we can use this sum to pay his creditors in full. Add the twenty-eight thousand you have saved and placed in our uncle Pillerault's hands, and we have one hundred and sixty-one thousand francs. Our uncle will not refuse his receipt for his own claim of twenty-five thousand. No human power can deprive me of the right of lending to my father-in-law, by antic.i.p.ating our profits of next year, the necessary sum to make up the total amount due to his creditor, and--he--will--be--reinstated--restored--"

"Restored!" cried Madame Cesar, falling on her knees beside a chair. She joined her hands and said a prayer; as she did so, the letter slid from her fingers. "Dear Anselme," she said, crossing herself, "dear son!" She took his head in her hands, kissed him on the forehead, pressed him to her heart, and seemed for a moment beside herself. "Cesarine is thine!

My daughter will be happy at last. She can leave that shop where she is killing herself--"