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"Do you think me such a ninny?" cried Anselme, in a grieved tone. "Born merchant!" repeated Birotteau. "I asked for glass cases for the little wax Jesus; and while I was bargaining about them I found fault with the shape of the bottles.
"My son ah! excuse me, Monsieur Birotteau Anselme, I forget to tell you " and with an imperious gesture he led his nephew into the street and forced him, in his shirt-sleeves and bareheaded, to listen as they walked towards the Rue des Lombards. "My nephew, your old master may find himself so involved that he will be forced to make an assignment.
To give him a trade, Madame Ragon placed her nephew at "The Queen of Roses," hoping he might some day succeed Birotteau. Anselme Popinot was a little fellow and club-footed, an infirmity bestowed by fate on Lord Byron, Walter Scott, and Monsieur de Talleyrand, that others so afflicted might suffer no discouragement.
"I said to these ladies, because I know how deep an interest they take in your salvation, and because you are accused of boldly defying the commandments of God by working on Sundays, that I had met you this morning at the house of Pere Anselme, a mathematician like yourself, with whom you were busy in solving a problem; I said that your scientific intercourse with that saintly and enlightened man had led to other explanations between you; that you had submitted to him your religious doubts, and he did not despair of removing them.
Shall I call him down?" Prosper, with the fearful resignation of a man who abandons himself, replied, in a stifled voice: "Do as you will." The banker was near the door, which he opened, and, after giving the cashier a last searching look, said to an office-boy: "Anselme, ask the commissary of police to step down."
"Well, well, my sons," said the judge, to whom these words explained the aspect of the table, where there stilled remained the tokens of a very excusable feast. "Anselme," said the old gentleman to his nephew, "dress yourself, and come with me to Monsieur Birotteau's, where I have a visit to pay. You shall sign the deed of partnership, which I have carefully examined.
The cold air struck his face and confronted him with its fierceness; the wind was getting up; to-morrow the waves would again be rough. The village was not far away, and he soon had reached his goal and sent the telegram. Then he stopped at the presbytère. He must speak once more to the priest. The Père Anselme led him in to his bare little parlor and drew him to the warm china stove.
Anselme looked fixedly at Birotteau and said: "Monsieur, will you pledge yourself, here, in presence of your whole family, to consent to our marriage, if mademoiselle will accept me as her husband, on the day when you have retrieved your failure?" There was an instant's silence, during which all present were affected by the emotions painted on the worn face of the poor man.
"I told him in the beginning it were wiser to be certain all cinders were cold before embarking upon fresh ties," Père Anselme remarked meditatively, "and he assured me that he would ascertain facts, and whether or no you felt he could make you happy." "And he did," Sabine's voice was strained.
The religious admiration with which Popinot listened to the father of Cesarine stimulated Birotteau's eloquence, who allowed himself to expatiate in phrases which certainly were extremely wild for a bourgeois. "Be respectful, Anselme," he said, as they reached the street where Monsieur Vauquelin lived, "we are about to enter the sanctuary of science.
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