"Mademoiselle," Anselme was saying, "do not think me so base and grasping as to profit by your father's share which I have acquired in the Cephalic Oil. I am keeping his share for him; I nurse it with careful love. I invest the profits; if there is any loss I put it to my own account. We can only belong to one another on the day when your father is restored to his position, free of debt. I work for that day with all the strength that love has given me."
"Will it come soon?" she said.
"Soon," said Popinot. The word was uttered in a tone so full of meaning, that the chaste and pure young girl inclined her head to her dear Anselme, who laid an eager and respectful kiss upon her brow,--so noble was her gesture and action.
"Papa, all is well," she said to Cesar with a little air of confidence. "Be good and sweet; talk to us, put away that sad look."
When this family, so tenderly bound together, re-entered the house, even Cesar, little observing as he was, saw a change in the manner of the Ragons which seemed to denote some remarkable event. The greeting of Madame Ragon was particularly impressive; her look and accent seemed to say to Cesar, "We are paid."
At the dessert, the notary of Sceaux appeared. Pillerault made him sit down, and then looked at Cesar, who began to suspect a surprise, though he was far indeed from imagining the extent of it.
"My nephew, the savings of your wife, your daughter, and yourself, for the last eighteen months, amounted to twenty thousand francs. I have received thirty thousand by the dividend on my claim. We have therefore fifty thousand francs to divide among your creditors.
Monsieur Ragon has received thirty thousand francs for his dividend, and you have now paid him the balance of his claim in full, interest included, for which monsieur here, the notary of Sceaux, has brought you a receipt. The rest of the money is with Crottat, ready for Lourdois, Madame Madou, the mason, carpenter, and the other most pressing creditors. Next year, we may do as well. With time and patience we can go far."
Birotteau's joy is not to be described; he threw himself into his uncle's arms, weeping.
"May he not wear his cross?" said Ragon to the Abbe Loraux.
The confessor fastened the red ribbon to Cesar's buttonhole. The poor clerk looked at himself again and again during the evening in the mirrors of the salon, manifesting a joy at which people thinking themselves superior might have laughed, but which these good bourgeois thought quite natural.
The next day Birotteau went to find Madame Madou.
"Ah, there you are, good soul!" she cried. "I didn't recognize you, you have turned so gray. Yet you don't really drudge, you people;
you've got good places. As for me, I work like a turnspit that deserves baptism."
"But, madame--"
"Never mind, I don't mean it as a reproach," she said. "You have got my receipt."
"I came to tell you that I shall pay you to-morrow, at Monsieur Crottat's, the rest of your claim in full, with interest."
"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 scrape 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.
