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Updated: June 5, 2025
Des Lupeaulx allowed himself to be drawn into an engagement by the handsome Madame Rabourdin, who, for the first time, turned her eyes on him as she spoke. He had, accordingly, gone to the rue Duphot, and that tells the tale. Woman has but one trick, cries Figaro, but that's infallible. After dining once at the house of this unimportant official, des Lupeaulx made up his mind to dine there often.
The light of her pure honor flashed from Celestine's eyes; she sprang up like a startled horse and cast a fulminating glance at Rabourdin. "I! I!" she said, on two sublime tones. "Am I a base wife? If I were, you would have been appointed. But," she added mournfully, "it is easier to believe that than to believe what is the truth." "Then what is it?" said Rabourdin.
"I have been longer in the department, I have served twenty-four hours," said Rabourdin with a smile. "I know Monsieur le Comte de Serizy, the minister of State, pretty well, and if he can help you, I will go and see him," said Schinner. The salon soon filled with persons who knew nothing of the government proceedings. Du Bruel did not appear.
In Paris, where men of thought and study bear a certain likeness to one another, living as they do in a common centre, you must have met with several resembling Monsieur Rabourdin, whose acquaintance we are about to make at a moment when he is head of a bureau in one of our most important ministries.
Having had the misfortune to lose his wife, whose salon, at an earlier period, checkmated that of Madame Colleville, Rabourdin occupied as a bachelor the third floor, above the apartment let to Cardot, the notary. As the result of an odious slight to his just claims, Rabourdin had voluntarily resigned his public functions.
"Don't be uneasy," said des Lupeaulx, interposing between the minister and Rabourdin, whom he thus interrupted; "in another week you will probably be appointed " The minister smiled as he thought of des Lupeaulx's enthusiasm for Madame Rabourdin, and he glanced knowingly at his wife.
Absorption in a beloved work is practically equivalent to the cleverest dissimulation, and thus it was that the opinions and ideas of Rabourdin were a sealed book to des Lupeaulx. The former was sorry to see the man in his house, but he was never willing to oppose his wife's wishes.
Go and see; follow the crowd; money returned if you are not satisfied; execution /gratis/! The appointments are postponed. All the bureaus are in arms; Rabourdin has been informed that the minister will not work with him. Come, be off; go and see for yourselves." They all depart except Phellion and Poiret, who are left alone.
"So he has been here!" cried Rabourdin, with a look which would certainly have made a guilty woman turn pale, but which Celestine received with unruffled brow and a laughing eye. "And he is coming back to dinner," she said. "Why that startled air?" "My dear," replied Rabourdin, "I have mortally offended des Lupeaulx; such men never forgive, and yet he fawns upon me! Do you think I don't see why?"
Here follows the portrait of Monsieur Dutocq, order-clerk in the Rabourdin bureau: Thirty-eight years old, oblong face and bilious skin, grizzled hair always cut close, low forehead, heavy eyebrows meeting together, a crooked nose and pinched lips; tall, the right shoulder slightly higher than the left; brown coat, black waistcoat, silk cravat, yellowish trousers, black woollen stockings, and shoes with flapping bows; thus you behold him.
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