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Constance Pillerault was daily receiving brilliant proposals, in which there was no question of marriage; and though her heart was as pure as her forehead was white, it was only after six months of marches and counter-marches, in the course of which Cesar revealed his inextinguishable love, that she condescended to receive his attentions, and even then without committing herself to an answer, a prudence suggested by the number of her swains, wholesale wine-merchants, rich proprietors of cafes, and others who made soft eyes at her.
The law requires that while the drama is being acted, the creditors shall provide for the support of the bankrupt and his family. Pillerault notified the commissioner that he would himself supply the wants of his niece and nephew. Du Tillet had worked all things together to make the failure a prolonged agony for his old master; and this is how he did it.
For a man who can hold himself above it all, or for a merchant who expects to recover himself, this ceremony is little feared. But to a man like Cesar Birotteau it was agony only to be compared to the last day of a criminal condemned to death. Pillerault did all in his power to make that terrible day endurable to his nephew.
Is it your uncle Pillerault, who loves us like the apple of his eye, and dines with us every Sunday? Is it good old Ragon, our predecessor, who has forty upright years in business to boast of, and with whom we play our game of boston? Is it Roguin, a notary, a man fifty-seven years old, twenty-five of which he has been in office?
Let us sell the business, marry Cesarine, and give up your visions. We can come and pass the winters in Paris with our son-in-law; we shall be happy; nothing in politics or commerce can then change our way of life. Why do you want to crush others? Isn't our present fortune enough for us? When you are a millionaire can you eat two dinners; will you want two wives? Look at my uncle Pillerault!
"Go and take a walk in the Aulnay woods," said Pillerault, putting Cesar's hand into that of Constance; "go with Anselme and Cesarine! but come back by four o'clock." "Poor souls, we should be a restraint upon them," said Madame Ragon, touched by the deep grief of her debtor. "He will be very happy presently." "It is repentance without sin," said the Abbe Loraux.
The sometime house-student set sail for Mexico, that land of gold, taking poor Poulain's little savings with him; and, to add insult to injury, the opera-dancer treated him as an extortioner when he applied to her for his money. Not a single rich patient had come to him since he had the luck to cure old M. Pillerault.
The landlord, astride of his hobby, the law, begged du Tillet to favor him with his ideas; and he bought a copy of the commercial Code. Happily, Joseph Lebas, cautioned by Pillerault, had already requested the president of the Board of Commerce to select a sagacious and well-meaning commissioner.
Molineux, interested in any discussion about law, lingered in the shop; and as the attention of a few persons is apt to make others attentive, Pillerault and Ragon listened as gravely as the three strangers, though they perfectly well knew Cesar's opinions. "I would have," said the perfumer, "a court of irremovable judges, with a magistracy to attend to the application and execution of the laws.
"They are talking about us in the papers," he said to Pillerault. "Well, what of it?" answered his uncle, who had a special antipathy to the "Journal des Debats." "That article may help to sell the Paste of Sultans and the Carminative Balm," whispered Madame Cesar to Madame Ragon, not sharing the intoxication of her husband.
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