The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac (best ereader for graphic novels TXT) 📕

ministry of Casimir Perier, he became the editor of an anti-republican

newspaper in the pay of the government. He left that position to go

into business, one phase of which was the most nefarious stock-company

that ever fell into the hands of the correctional police. Cerizet

proudly accepted the severe sentence he received; declaring it to be a

revengeful plot on the part of the republicans, who, he said, would

never forgive him for the hard blows he had dealt them in his journal.

He spent the time of his imprisonment in a hospital. The government by

this time were ashamed of a man whose almost infamous habits and

shameful business transactions, carried on in company with a former

banker, named Claparon, led him at last into well-deserved public

contempt.

Cerizet, thus fallen, step by step, to the lowest rung of the social

ladder, had recourse to pity in order to obtain the place of copying

clerk in Dutocq's office. In the depths of his wretchedness the man

still dreamed of revenge, and, as he had nothing to lose, he employed

all means to that end. Dutocq and himself were bound together in

depravity. Cerizet was to Dutocq what the hound is the huntsman.

Knowing himself the necessities of poverty and wretchedness, he set up

that business of gutter usury called, in popular parlance, "the loan

by the little week." He began this at first by help of Dutocq, who

shared the profits; but, at the present moment this man of many legal

crimes, now the banker of fishwives, the money-lender of

costermongers, was the gnawing rodent of the whole faubourg.

"Well," said Cerizet as Dutocq opened his door, "Theodose has just

come in; let us go to his room."

The advocate of the poor was fain to allow the two men to pass before

him.

All three crossed a little room, the tiled floor of which, covered

with a coating of red encaustic, shone in the light; thence into a

little salon with crimson curtains and mahogany furniture, covered

with red Utrecht velvet; the wall opposite the window being occupied

by book-shelves containing a legal library. The chimney-piece was

covered with vulgar ornaments, a clock with four columns in mahogany,

and candelabra under glass shades. The study, where the three men

seated themselves before a soft-coal fire, was the study of a lawyer

just beginning to practise. The furniture consisted of a desk, an

armchair, little curtains of green silk at the windows, a green

carpet, shelves for lawyer's boxes, and a couch, above which hung an

ivory Christ on a velvet background. The bedroom, kitchen, and rest of

the apartment looked out upon the courtyard.

"Well," said Cerizet, "how are things going? Are we getting on?"

"Yes," replied Theodose.

"You must admit," cried Dutocq, "that my idea was a famous one, in

laying hold of that imbecile of a Thuillier?"

"Yes, but I'm not behindhand either," exclaimed Cerizet. "I have come

now to show you a way to put the thumbscrews on the old maid and make

her spin like a teetotum. We mustn't deceive ourselves; Mademoiselle

Thuillier is the head and front of everything in this affair; if we

get her on our side the town is won. Let us say little, but that

little to the point, as becomes strong men with each other. Claparon,

you know, is a fool; he'll be all his life what he always was,--a

cat's-paw. Just now he is lending his name to a notary in Paris, who

is concerned with a lot of contractors, and they are all--notary and

masons--on the point of ruin. Claparon is going headlong into it. He

never yet was bankrupt; but there's a first time for everything. He is

hidden now in my hovel in the rue des Poules, where no one will ever

find him. He is desperate, and he hasn't a penny. Now, among the five

or six houses built by these contractors, which have to be sold,

there's a jewel of a house, built of freestone, in the neighborhood of

the Madeleine,--a frontage laced like a melon, with beautiful

carvings,--but not being finished, it will have to be sold for what it

will bring; certainly not more than a hundred thousand francs. By

spending twenty-five thousand francs upon it it could be let,

undoubtedly, for ten thousand. Make Mademoiselle Thuillier the

proprietor of that house and you'll win her love; she'll believe that

you can put such chances in her way every year. There are two ways of

getting hold of vain people: flatter their vanity, _or_ threaten them;

and there are also two ways of managing misers: fill their purse, or

else attack it. Now, this stroke of business, while it does good to

Mademoiselle Thuillier, does good to us as well, and it would be a

pity not to profit by the chance."

"But why does the notary let it slip through his fingers?" asked

Dutocq.

"The notary, my dear fellow! Why, he's the very one who saves us.

Forced to sell his practice, and utterly ruined besides, he reserved

for himself this crumb of the cake. Believing in the honesty of that

idiot Claparon, he has asked him to find a dummy purchaser. We'll let

him suppose that Mademoiselle Thuillier is a worthy soul who allows

Claparon to use her name; they'll both be fooled, Claparon and the

notary too. I owe this little trick to my friend Claparon, who left me

to bear the whole weight of the trouble about his stock-company, in

which we were tricked by Conture, and I hope you may never be in that

man's skin!" he added, infernal hatred flashing from his worn and

withered eyes. "Now, I've said my say, gentlemen," he continued,

sending out his voice through his nasal holes, and taking a dramatic

attitude; for once, at a moment of extreme penury, he had gone upon

the stage.

As he finished making his proposition some one rang at the outer door,

and la Peyrade rose to go and open it. As soon as his back was turned,

Cerizet said, hastily, to Dutocq:--

"Are you sure of him? I see a sort of air about him--And I'm a good

judge of treachery."

"He is so completely in our power," said Dutocq, "that I don't trouble

myself to watch; but, between ourselves, I didn't think him as strong

as he proves to be. The fact is, we thought we were putting a barb

between the legs of a man who didn't know how to ride, and the rogue

is an old jockey!"

"Let him take care," growled Cerizet. "I can blow him down like a

house of cards any day. As for you, papa Dutocq, you are able to see

him at work all the time; watch him carefully. Besides, I'll feel his

pulse by getting Claparon to propose to him to get rid of us; that

will help us to judge him."

"Pretty good, that!" said Dutocq. "You are daring, anyhow."

"I've got my hand in, that's all," replied Cerizet.

These words were exchanged in a low voice during the time that it took

Theodose to go to the outer door and return. Cerizet was looking at

the books when the lawyer re-entered the room.

"It is Thuillier," said Theodose. "I thought he'd come; he is in the

salon. He mustn't see Cerizet's frock-coat; those frogs would frighten

him."

"Pooh! you receive the poor in your office, don't you? That's in your

role. Do you want any money?" added Cerizet, pulling a hundred francs

out of his trousers' pocket. "There it is; it won't look amiss."

And he laid the pile on the chimney-piece.

"And now," said Dutocq, "we had better get out through the bedroom."

"Well, good-bye," said Theodose, opening a hidden door which

communicated from the study to the bedroom. "Come in, Monsieur

Thuillier," he called out to the beau of the Empire.

When he saw him safely in the study he went to let out his two

associates through the bedroom and kitchen into the courtyard.

"In six months," said Cerizet, "you'll have married Celeste and got

your foot into the stirrup. You are lucky, you are, not to have sat,

like me, in the prisoners' dock. I've been there twice: once in 1825,

for 'subversive articles' which I never wrote, and the second time for

receiving the profits of a joint-stock company which had slipped

through my fingers! Come, let's warm this thing up! Sac-a-papier!

Dutocq and I are sorely in need of that twenty-five thousand francs.

Good courage, old fellow!" he added, holding out his hand to Theodose,

and making the grasp a test of faithfulness.

The Provencal gave Cerizet his right hand, pressing the other's hand

warmly:--

"My good fellow," he said, "be very sure that in whatever position I

may find myself I shall never forget that from which you have drawn me

by putting me in the saddle here. I'm simply your bait; but you are

giving me the best part of the catch, and I should be more infamous

than a galley-slave who turns policeman if I didn't play fair."

As soon as the door was closed, Cerizet peeped through the key-hole,

trying to catch sight of la Peyrade's face. But the Provencal had

turned back to meet Thuillier, and his distrustful associate could not

detect the expression of his countenance.

That expression was neither disgust nor annoyance, it was simply joy,

appearing on a face that now seemed freed. Theodose saw the means of

success approaching him, and he flattered himself that the day would

come when he might get rid of his ignoble associates, to whom he owed

everything. Poverty has unfathomable depths, especially in Paris,

slimy bottoms, from which, when a drowned man rises to the surface of

the water, he brings with him filth and impurity clinging to his

clothes, or to his person. Cerizet, the once opulent friend and

protector of Theodose, was the muddy mire still clinging to the

Provencal, and the former manager of the joint-stock company saw very

plainly that his tool wanted to brush himself on entering a sphere

where decent clothing was a necessity.

"Well, my dear Theodose," began Thuillier, "we have hoped to see you

every day this week, and every evening we find our hopes deceived. As

this is our Sunday for a dinner, my sister and my wife have sent me

here to beg you to come to us."

"I have been so busy," said Theodose, "that I have not had two minutes

to give to any one, not even to you, whom I count among my friends,

and with whom I have wished to talk about--"

"What? have you really been thinking seriously over what you said to

me?" cried Thuillier, interrupting him.

"If you had not come here now for a full understanding, I shouldn't

respect you as I do," replied la Peyrade, smiling. "You have been a

sub-director, and therefore you must have the remains of ambition

--which is deucedly legitimate in your case! Come, now, between

ourselves, when one sees a Minard, that gilded pot, displaying himself

at the Tuileries, and complimenting the king, and a Popinot about to

become a minister of State, and then look at you! a man trained to

administrative work, a man with thirty years' experience, who has seen

six governments, left to plant balsams in a little garden! Heavens and

earth!--I am frank, my dear Thuillier, and I'll say, honestly, that I

want to advance you, because you'll draw me after you. Well, here's my

plan. We are soon to elect a member of the council-general from this

arrondissement; and that member must be you. And," he added, dwelling

on the word, "it _will_ be you! After that, you will certainly be deputy

from the arrondissement when the Chamber is re-elected, which must

surely be before long. The votes that elect you to the municipal

council will stand by you in the election for deputy, trust me for

that."

"But how will you manage all this?" cried Thuillier, fascinated.

"You shall know in good time; but you must let me conduct this long

and difficult affair; if you commit the slightest indiscretion as to

what is said, or planned, or agreed between us, I shall have to drop

the whole matter, and good-bye to you!"

"Oh! you can rely on the absolute dumbness of a former sub-director;

I've had secrets to keep."

"That's all very well; but these are secrets to keep from your wife

and sister, and from Monsieur and Madame Colleville."

"Not a muscle of my face shall reveal them," said Thuillier, assuming

a stolid air.

"Very good," continued Theodose. "I shall test you. In order to make

yourself eligible, you must pay taxes on a certain amount of property,

and you are not paying them."

"I beg your pardon; I'm all right for the municipal council at any

rate; I pay two francs ninety-six centimes."

"Yes, but the tax on property necessary for election to the chamber is

five hundred francs, and there is