Bureaucracy Part 17

"At last I find the husband of my dreams!" she cried. "My ignorance of your real merit has saved you from des Lupeaulx's claws. I calumniated you to him gloriously and in good faith."

The man wept with joy. His day of triumph had come at last. Having labored for many years to satisfy his wife, he found himself a great man in the eyes of his sole public.

"To one who knows how good you are, how tender, how equable in anger, how loving, you are tenfold greater still. But," she added, "a man of genius is always more or less a child; and you are a child, a dearly beloved child," she said, caressing him. Then she drew that invitation from that particular spot where women put what they sacredly hide, and showed it to him.

"Here is what I wanted," she said; "Des Lupeaulx has put me face to face with the minister, and were he a man of iron, his Excellency shall be made for a time to bend the knee to me."

The next day Celestine began her preparations for entrance into the inner circle of the ministry. It was her day of triumph, her own! Never courtesan took such pains with herself as this honest woman bestowed upon her person. No dressmaker was ever so tormented as hers. Madame Rabourdin forgot nothing. She went herself to the stable where she hired carriages, and chose a coupe that was neither old, nor bourgeois, nor showy. Her footman, like the footmen of great houses, had the dress and appearance of a master. About ten on the evening of the eventful Tuesday, she left home in a charming full mourning attire. Her hair was dressed with jet grapes of exquisite workmanship,--an ornament costing three thousand francs, made by Fossin for an Englishwoman who had left Paris before it was finished. The leaves were of stamped iron-work, as light as the vine-leaves themselves, and the artist had not forgotten the graceful tendrils, which twined in the wearer's curls just as, in nature, they catch upon the branches. The bracelets, necklace, and earrings were all what is called Berlin iron-work; but these delicate arabesques were made in Vienna, and seemed to have been fashioned by the fairies who, the stories tell us, are condemned by a jealous Carabosse to collect the eyes of ants, or weave a fabric so diaphanous that a nutsh.e.l.l can contain it. Madame Rabourdin's graceful figure, made more slender still by the black draperies, was shown to advantage by a carefully cut dress, the two sides of which met at the shoulders in a single strap without sleeves. At every motion she seemed, like a b.u.t.terfly, to be about to leave her covering; but the gown held firmly on by some contrivance of the wonderful dressmaker. The robe was of mousseline de laine--a material which the manufacturers had not yet sent to the Paris markets; a delightful stuff which some months later was to have a wild success, a success which went further and lasted longer than most French fashions. The actual economy of mousseline de laine, which needs no washing, has since injured the sale of cotton fabrics enough to revolutionize the Rouen manufactories. Celestine's little feet, covered with fine silk stockings and turk-satin shoes (for silk-satin is inadmissible in deep mourning) were of elegant proportions. Thus dressed, she was very handsome. Her complexion, beautified by a bran-bath, was softly radiant. Her eyes, suffused with the light of hope, and sparkling with intelligence, justified her claims to the superiority which des Lupeaulx, proud and happy on this occasion, a.s.serted for her.

She entered the room well (women will understand the meaning of that expression), bowed gracefully to the minister's wife, with a happy mixture of deference and of self-respect, and gave no offence by a certain reliance on her own dignity; for every beautiful woman has the right to seem a queen. With the minister himself she took the pretty air of sauciness which women may properly allow themselves with men, even when they are grand dukes. She reconnoitred the field, as it were, while taking her seat, and saw that she was in the midst of one of those select parties of few persons, where the women eye and appraise each other, and every word said echoes in all ears; where every glance is a stab, and conversation a duel with witnesses; where all that is commonplace seems commoner still, and where every form of merit or distinction is silently accepted as though it were the natural level of all present. Rabourdin betook himself to the adjoining salon in which a few persons were playing cards; and there he planted himself on exhibition, as it were, which proved that he was not without social intelligence.

"My dear," said the Marquise d'Espard to the Comtesse Feraud, Louis XVIII.'s last mistress, "Paris is certainly unique. It produces--whence and how, who knows?--women like this person, who seems ready to will and to do anything."

"She really does will, and does do everything," put in des Lupeaulx, puffed up with satisfaction.

At this moment the wily Madame Rabourdin was courting the minister's wife. Carefully coached the evening before by des Lupeaulx, who knew all the countess's weak spots, she was flattering her without seeming to do so. Every now and then she kept silence; for des Lupeaulx, in love as he was, knew her defects, and said to her the night before, "Be careful not to talk too much,"--words which were really an immense proof of attachment. Bertrand Barrere left behind him this sublime axiom: "Never interrupt a woman when dancing to give her advice," to which we may add (to make this chapter of the female code complete), "Never blame a woman for scattering her pearls."

The conversation became general. From time to time Madame Rabourdin joined in, just as a well-trained cat puts a velvet paw on her mistress's laces with the claws carefully drawn in. The minister, in matters of the heart, had few emotions. There was not another statesman under the Restoration who had so completely done with gallantry as he; even the opposition papers, the "Miroir," "Pandora," and "Figaro," could not find a single throbbing artery with which to reproach him. Madame Rabourdin knew this, but she knew also that ghosts return to old castles, and she had taken it into her head to make the minister jealous of the happiness which des Lupeaulx was appearing to enjoy. The latter's throat literally gurgled with the name of his divinity. To launch his supposed mistress successfully, he was endeavoring to persuade the Marquise d'Espard, Madame de Nucingen, and the countess, in an eight-ear conversation, that they had better admit Madame Rabourdin to their coalition; and Madame de Camps was supporting him. At the end of the hour the minister's vanity was greatly tickled; Madame Rabourdin's cleverness pleased him, and she had won his wife, who, delighted with the siren, invited her to come to all her receptions whenever she pleased.

"For your husband, my dear," she said, "will soon be director; the minister intends to unite the two divisions and place them under one director; you will then be one of us, you know."

His Excellency carried off Madame Rabourdin on his arm to show her a certain room, which was then quite celebrated because the opposition journals blamed him for decorating it extravagantly; and together they laughed over the absurdities of journalism.

"Madame, you really must give the countess and myself the pleasure of seeing you here often."

And he went on with a round of ministerial compliments.

"But, Monseigneur," she replied, with one of those glances which women hold in reserve, "it seems to me that that depends on you."

"How so?"

"You alone can give me the right to come here."

"Pray explain."

"No; I said to myself before I came that I would certainly not have the bad taste to seem a pet.i.tioner."

"No, no, speak freely. Places asked in this way are never out of place,"

said the minister, laughing; for there is no jest too silly to amuse a solemn man.

"Well, then, I must tell you plainly that the wife of the head of a bureau is out of place here; a director's wife is not."

"That point need not be considered," said the minister, "your husband is indispensable to the administration; he is already appointed."

"Is that a veritable fact?"

"Would you like to see the papers in my study? They are already drawn up."

"Then," she said, pausing in a corner where she was alone with the minister, whose eager attentions were now very marked, "let me tell you that I can make you a return."

She was on the point of revealing her husband's plan, when des Lupeaulx, who had glided noiselessly up to them, uttered an angry sound, which meant that he did not wish to appear to have overheard what, in fact, he had been listening to. The minister gave an ill-tempered look at the old beau, who, impatient to win his reward, had hurried, beyond all precedent, the preliminary work of the appointment. He had carried the papers to his Excellency that evening, and desired to take himself, on the morrow, the news of the appointment to her whom he was now endeavoring to exhibit as his mistress. Just then the minister's valet approached des Lupeaulx in a mysterious manner, and told him that his own servant wished him to deliver to him at once a letter of the utmost importance.

The general-secretary went up to a lamp and read a note thus worded:--

Contrary to my custom, I am waiting in your ante-chamber to see you; you have not a moment to lose if you wish to come to terms with

Your obedient servant, Gobseck.

The secretary shuddered when he saw the signature, which we regret we cannot give in fac-simile, for it would be valuable to those who like to guess character from what may be called the physiognomy of signature.

If ever a hieroglyphic sign expressed an animal, it was a.s.suredly this written name, in which the first and the final letter approached each other like the voracious jaws of a shark,--insatiable, always open, seeking whom to devour, both strong and weak. As for the wording of the note, the spirit of usury alone could have inspired a sentence so imperative, so insolently curt and cruel, which said all and revealed nothing. Those who had never heard of Gobseck would have felt, on reading words which compelled him to whom they were addressed to obey, yet gave no order, the presence of the implacable money-lender of the rue des Gres. Like a dog called to heel by the huntsman, des Lupeaulx left his present quest and went immediately to his own rooms, thinking of his hazardous position. Imagine a general to whom an aide-de-camp rides up and says: "The enemy with thirty thousand fresh troops is attacking on our right flank."

A very few words will serve to explain this sudden arrival of Gigonnet and Gobseck on the field of battle,--for des Lupeaulx found them both waiting. At eight o'clock that evening, Martin Falleix, returning on the wings of the wind,--thanks to three francs to the postboys and a courier in advance,--had brought back with him the deeds of the property signed the night before. Taken at once to the Cafe Themis by Mitral, these securities pa.s.sed into the hands of the two usurers, who hastened (though on foot) to the ministry. It was past eleven o'clock. Des Lupeaulx trembled when he saw those sinister faces, emitting a simultaneous look as direct as a pistol shot and as brilliant as the flash itself.

"What is it, my masters?" he said.

The two extortioners continued cold and motionless. Gigonnet silently pointed to the doc.u.ments in his hand, and then at the servant.

"Come into my study," said des Lupeaulx, dismissing his valet by a sign.

"You understand French very well," remarked Gigonnet, approvingly.

"Have you come here to torment a man who enabled each of you to make a couple of hundred thousand francs?"

"And who will help us to make more, I hope," said Gigonnet.

"Some new affair?" asked des Lupeaulx. "If you want me to help you, consider that I recollect the past."

"So do we," answered Gigonnet.

"My debts must be paid," said des Lupeaulx, disdainfully, so as not to seem worsted at the outset.

"True," said Gobseck.

"Let us come to the point, my son," said Gigonnet. "Don't stiffen your chin in your cravat; with us all that is useless. Take these deeds and read them."

The two usurers took a mental inventory of des Lupeaulx's study while he read with amazement and stupefaction a deed of purchase which seemed wafted to him from the clouds by angels.

"Don't you think you have a pair of intelligent business agents in Gobseck and me?" asked Gigonnet.

"But tell me, to what do I owe such able co-operation?" said des Lupeaulx, suspicious and uneasy.

"We knew eight days ago a fact that without us you would not have known till to-morrow morning. The president of the chamber of commerce, a deputy, as you know, feels himself obliged to resign."

Des Lupeaulx's eyes dilated, and were as big as daisies.

"Your minister has been tricking you about this event," said the concise Gobseck.