The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac (freenovel24 TXT) 📖

with the match ever

lighted; but the wind might extinguish the match or the devil might

flood the mine.

 

The moment when wild beasts seize their food is always the most

critical, and that moment had now arrived for these three hungry

tigers. Cerizet would sometimes say to Theodose, with that

revolutionary glance which twice in this century sovereigns have had

to meet:--

 

"I have made you king, and here am I still nothing! for it is nothing

not to be all."

 

A reaction of envy was rushing its avalanche through Cerizet. Dutocq

was at the mercy of his copying clerk. Theodose would gladly have

burned his copartners could he have burned their papers in the same

conflagration. All three studied each other too carefully, in order to

conceal their own thoughts, not to be in turn divined. Theodose lived

a life of three hells as he thought of what lay below the cards, then

of his own game, and then of his future. His speech to Thuillier was a

cry of despair; he threw his lead into the waters of the old bourgeois

and found there nothing more than twenty-five thousand francs.

 

"And," he said to himself as he went to his own room, "possibly

nothing at all a month hence."

 

He new felt the deepest hatred to the Thuilliers. But Thuillier

himself he held by a harpoon stuck into the depths of the man's

vanity; namely, by the projected work, entitled "Taxation and the

Sinking Fund," for which he intended to rearrange the ideas of the

Saint-Simonian "Globe," giving them a systematic form, and coloring

them with his fervid Southern diction. Thuillier's bureaucratic

knowledge of the subject would be of use to him here. Theodose

therefore clung to this rope, resolving to do battle, on so poor a

base of operations, with the vanity of a fool, which, according to

individual character, is either granite or sand. On reflection,

Theodose was inclined to be content with the prospect.

 

On the evening before the right of redemption expired, Claparon and

Cerizet proceeded to manipulate the notary in the following manner.

Cerizet, to whom Claparon had revealed the password and the notary's

retreat, went out to this hiding-place to say to the latter:--

 

"One of my friends, Claparon, whom you know, has asked me to come and

see you; he will expect you to-morrow, in the evening, you know where.

He has the paper you expect from him, which he will exchange with you

for the ten thousand agreed upon; but I must be present, for five

thousand of that sum belong to me; and I warn you, my dear monsieur,

that the name in the counter-deed is in blank."

 

"I shall be there," replied the ex-notary.

 

The poor devil waited the whole night in agonies of mind that can well

be imagined, for safety or inevitable ruin were in the balance. At

sunrise he saw approaching him, instead of Claparon, a bailiff of the

Court of commerce, who produced a judgment against him in regular

form, and informed him that he must go with him to Clichy.

 

Cerizet had made an arrangement with one of the creditors of the

luckless notary, pledging himself to deliver up the debtor on payment

to himself of half the debt. Out of the ten thousand francs promised

to Claparon, the victim of this trap was obliged, in order to obtain

his liberty, to pay six thousand down, the amount of his debt.

 

On receiving his share of this extortion Cerizet said to himself:

"There's three thousand to make Cerizet clear out."

 

Cerizet then returned to the notary and said: "Claparon is a

scoundrel, monsieur; he has received fifteen thousand francs from the

proposed purchaser of your house, who will now, of course, become the

owner. Threaten to reveal his hiding-place to his creditors, and to

have him sued for fraudulent bankruptcy, and he'll give you half."

 

In his wrath the notary wrote a fulminating letter to Claparon.

Claparon, alarmed, feared an arrest, and Cerizet offered to get him a

passport.

 

"You have played me many a trick, Claparon," he said, "but listen to

me now, and you can judge of my kindness. I possess, as my whole

means, three thousand francs; I'll give them to you; start for

America, and make your fortune there, as I'm trying to make mine

here."

 

That evening Claparon, carefully disguised by Cerizet, left for Havre

by the diligence. Cerizet remained master of the fifteen thousand

francs to be paid to Claparon, and he awaited Theodose with the

payment thereof tranquilly.

 

"The limit for bidding-in is passed," thought Theodose, as he went to

find Dutocq and ask him to bring Cerizet to his office. "Suppose I

were now to make an effort to get rid of my leech?"

 

"You can't settle this affair anywhere but at Cerizet's, because

Claparon must be present, and he is hiding there," said Dutocq.

 

Accordingly, Theodose went, between seven and eight o'clock, to the

den of the "banker of the poor," whom Dutocq had notified of his

coming. Cerizet received him in the horrible kitchen where miseries

and sorrows were chopped and cooked, as we have seen already. The pair

then walked up and down, precisely like two animals in a cage, while

mutually playing the following scene:--

 

"Have you brought the fifteen thousand francs?"

 

"No, but I have them at home."

 

"Why not have them in your pocket?" asked Cerizet, sharply.

 

"I'll tell you," replied Theodose, who, as he walked from the rue

Saint-Dominique to the Estrapade, had decided on his course of action.

 

The Provencal, writhing upon the gridiron on which his partners held

him, became suddenly possessed with a good idea, which flashed from

the body of the live coal under him. Peril has gleams of light. He

resolved to rely on the power of frankness, which affects all men,

even swindlers. Every one is grateful to an adversary who bares

himself to the waist in a duel.

 

"Well!" said Cerizet, "now the humbug begins."

 

The words seemed to come wholly through the hole in his nose with

horrible intonations.

 

"You have put me in a magnificent position, and I shall never forget

the service you have done me, my friend," began Theodose, with

emotion.

 

"Oh, that's how you take it, is it?" said Cerizet.

 

"Listen to me; you don't understand my intentions."

 

"Yes, I do!" replied the lender by "the little week."

 

"No, you don't."

 

"You intend not to give up those fifteen thousand francs."

 

Theodose shrugged his shoulders and looked fixedly at Cerizet, who,

struck by the two motions, kept silence.

 

"Would you live in my position, knowing yourself within range of a

cannon loaded with grape-shot, without feeling a strong desire to get

out of it? Now listen to me carefully. You are doing a dangerous

business, and you would be glad enough to have some solid protection

in the very heart of the magistracy of Paris. If I can continue my

present course, I shall be substitute attorney-general, possibly

attorney-general, in three years. I offer you to-day the offices of a

devoted friendship, which will serve you hereafter most assuredly, if

only to replace you in a honorable position. Here are my conditions--"

 

"Conditions!" exclaimed Cerizet.

 

"In ten minutes I will bring you twenty-five thousand francs if you

return to me all the notes which you have against me."

 

"But Dutocq? and Claparon?" said Cerizet.

 

"Leave them in the lurch!" replied Theodose, with his lips at

Cerizet's ear.

 

"That's a pretty thing to say!" cried Cerizet. "And so you have

invented this little game of hocus-pocus because you hold in your

fingers fifteen thousand francs that don't belong to you!"

 

"But I've added ten thousand francs to them. Besides, you and I know

each other."

 

"If you are able to get ten thousand francs out of your bourgeois you

can surely get fifteen," said Cerizet. "For thirty thousand I'm your

man. Frankness for frankness, you know."

 

"You ask the impossible," replied Theodose. "At this very moment, if

you had to do with Claparon instead of with me, your fifteen thousand

would be lost, for Thuillier is to-day the owner of that house."

 

"I'll speak to Claparon," said Cerizet, pretending to go and consult

him, and mounting the stairs to the bedroom, from which Claparon had

only just departed on his road to Havre.

 

The two adversaries had been speaking, we should here remark, in a

manner not to be overheard; and every time that Theodose raised his

voice Cerizet would make a gesture, intimating that Claparon, from

above, might be listening. The five minutes during which Theodose

heard what seemed to be the murmuring of two voices were torture to

him, for he had staked his very life upon the issue. Cerizet at last

came down, with a smile upon his lips, his eyes sparkling with

infernal mischief, his whole frame quivering in his joy, a Lucifer of

gaiety!

 

"I know nothing, so it seems!" he cried, shaking his shoulders, "but

Claparon knows a great deal; he has worked with the big-wig bankers,

and when I told what you wanted he began to laugh, and said, 'I

thought as much!' You will have to bring me the twenty-five thousand

you offer me to-morrow morning, my lad; and as much more before you

can recover your notes."

 

"Why?" asked Theodose, feeling his spinal column liquidizing as if the

discharge of some inward electric fluid had melted it.

 

"The house is ours."

 

"How?"

 

"Claparon has bit it in under the name of one of his creditors, a

little toad named Sauvaignou. Desroches, the lawyer, has taken the

case, and you'll get a notice to-morrow. This affair will oblige

Claparon, Dutocq, and me to raise funds. What would become of me

without Claparon! So I forgive him--yes, I forgave him, and though you

may not believe it, my dear friend, I actually kissed him! Change your

terms."

 

The last three words were horrible to hear, especially when

illustrated by the face of the speaker, who amused himself by playing

a scene from the "Legataire," all the while studying attentively the

Provencal's character.

 

"Oh, Cerizet!" cried Theodose; "I, who wished to do you so much good!"

 

"Don't you see, my dear fellow," returned Cerizet, "that between you

and me there ought to be _this_,--" and he struck his heart,--"of which

you have none. As soon as you thought you had a lever on us, you have

tried to knock us over. I saved you from the horrors of starvation and

vermin! You'll die like the idiot you are. We put you on the high-road

to fortune; we gave you a fine social skin and a position in which you

could grasp the future--and look what you do! _Now_ I know you! and from

this time forth, we shall go armed."

 

"Then it is war between us!" exclaimed Theodose.

 

"You fired first," returned Cerizet.

 

"If you pull me down, farewell to your hopes and plans; if you don't

pull me down, you have in me an enemy."

 

"That's just what I said yesterday to Dutocq; but, how can we help it?

We are forced to choose between two alternatives--we must go according

to circumstances. I'm a good-natured fellow myself," he added, after a

pause; "bring me your twenty-five thousand francs to-morrow morning

and Thuillier shall keep the house. We'll continue to help you at both

ends, but you'll have to pay up, my boy. After what has just happened

that's pretty kind, isn't it?"

 

And Cerizet patted Theodose on the shoulder, with a cynicism that

seemed to brand him more than the iron of the galleys.

 

"Well, give me till to-morrow at mid-day," replied the Provencal, "for

there'll be, as you said, some manipulation to do."

 

"I'll try to keep Claparon quiet; he's in such a hurry, that man!"

 

"To-morrow then," said Theodose, in the tone of a man who decides his

course.

 

"Good-night, friend," said Cerizet, in his nasal tone, which degraded

the finest word in the language. "There's one who has got a mouthful

to suck!" thought Cerizet, as he watched Theodose going down the

street with the step of a dazed man.

 

When la Peyrade reached the rue des Postes he went with rapid strides

to Madame Colleville's house, exciting himself as he walked along, and

talking aloud. The fire of his roused passions and the sort of inward

conflagration of which many Parisians are conscious (for such

situations abound in Paris) brought him finally to a pitch of frenzy

and eloquence which found expression, as he turned into the rue des

Deux-Eglises, in the words:--

 

"I will kill him!"

 

"There's a fellow who is not content!" said a passing workman, and the

jesting words calmed the incandescent madness to which Theodose was a

prey.

 

As he left Cerizet's the idea came to him to go to Flavie and tell her

all. Southern natures are born thus--strong until certain passions

arise, and then collapsed. He entered Flavie's room; she was alone,

and when she saw Theodose she fancied her last hour had come.

 

"What is the matter?" she cried.

 

"I--I--" he said. "Do you love me, Flavie?"

 

"Oh! how can you doubt it?"

 

"Do you love me absolutely?--if I were criminal, even?"

 

"Has he