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Updated: June 5, 2025
Long practical experience had taught Rabourdin that perfection is brought about in all things by changes in the direction of simplicity. To economize is to simplify. To simplify means to suppress unnecessary machinery; removals naturally follow. His system, therefore, depended on the weeding out of officials and the establishment of a new order of administrative offices.
Therefore, let us be friends, you and I, and share the advantages of the conquest you are making." Madame Rabourdin listened in amazement to this singular profession of rascality. The apparent artlessness of this political swindler prevented her from suspecting a trick. "Do you believe he really thinks of me?" she asked, falling into the trap. "I know it; I am certain of it."
Minard the Rabourdin of a lower sphere was filled with the desire of placing his Zelie in better circumstances, and his mind searched the ocean of the wants of luxury in hopes of finding an idea, of making some discovery or some improvement which would bring him a rapid fortune.
Flavie's conduct gave such food for gossip, however, that Madame Rabourdin had declined all her invitations. The friend in Rabourdin's bureau to whom Colleville was so attached was named Thuillier. All who knew one knew the other. Thuillier, called "the handsome Thuillier," an ex-Lothario, led as idle a life as Colleville led a busy one.
"Tell Monsieur Baudoyer that there must be no delay," he added, in the hearing of all the clerks; "my resignation is already in the minister's hands, and I do not wish to stay here longer than is necessary." Seeing Bixiou, Rabourdin went straight up to him, showed him the lithograph, and said, to the great astonishment of all present, "Was I not right in saying you were an artist?
"Dutocq, you have a grudge against Monsieur Rabourdin, and it isn't right; for he has twice saved you from being turned out. However, we are not masters of our own feelings; we sometimes hate our benefactors. Only, remember this; if you show the slightest treachery to Rabourdin, without my permission, it will be your ruin.
"I see that you will always be to me the author of your /secret analysis/. Adieu, madame." Madame Rabourdin bowed coldly. Celestine and Xavier returned at once to their own rooms without a word; both were overcome by their misfortune. The wife thought of the dreadful situation in which she stood toward her husband.
The cashier believed his son-in-law to be as superior in talent to Rabourdin as God was greater than Saint-Crepin, to use his own expression; but the good man coveted this appointment in a straightforward, honest way.
Madame Rabourdin is far superior to Madame Colleville," said the vaudevillist, remembering des Lupeaulx's former affair. "Flavie owes what she is to the men about her, whereas Madame Rabourdin is all things in herself. It is wonderful too what she knows; you can't tell secrets in Latin before /her/. If I had such a wife, I know I should succeed in everything."
Hiding their thoughts from a poor woman for seven years! doubting her devotion!" "But," cried Rabourdin, provoked, "for eleven years and more I have been unable to discuss anything with you because you insist on cutting me short and substituting your ideas for mine. You know nothing at all about my scheme." "Nothing! I know all."
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