"There is no hope for me!" thought Birotteau with a shrinking heart.
When the banker returned to his study, the troop of courtiers, friends, and self-seekers pressed round him like dogs pursuing a bitch. A few bold curs slipped, in spite of him, into the sanctum. The conferences lasted five, ten, or fifteen minutes. Some went away chap-
fallen; others affected satisfaction, and took on airs of importance.
Time passed; Birotteau looked anxiously at the clock. No one paid the least attention to the hidden grief which moaned silently in the gilded armchair in the chimney corner, near the door of the cabinet where dwelt the universal panacea--credit! Cesar remembered sadly that for a brief moment he too had been a king among his own people, as this man was a king daily; and he measured the depth of the abyss down which he had fallen. Ah, bitter thought! how many tears were driven back during those waiting hours! how many times did he not pray to God that this man might be favorable to him! for he saw, through the coarse varnish of popular good humor, a tone of insolence, a choleric tyranny, a brutal desire to rule, which terrified his gentle spirit.
At last, when only ten or twelve persons were left in the room, Birotteau resolved that the next time the outer door of the study turned on its hinges he would rise and face the great orator, and say to him, "I am Birotteau!" The grenadier who sprang first into the redoubt at Moscow displayed no greater courage than Cesar now summoned up to perform this act.
"After all, I am his mayor," he said to himself as he rose to proclaim his name.
The countenance of Francois Keller at once became affable; he evidently desired to be cordial. He glanced at Cesar's red ribbon, and stepping back, opened the door of his study and motioned him to enter, remaining himself for some time to speak with two men, who rushed in from the staircase with the violence of a waterspout.
"Decazes wants to speak to you," said one of them.
"It is a question of defeating the Pavillon Marsan!" cried the other.
"The King's eyes are opened. He is coming round to us."
"We will go together to the Chamber," said the banker, striking the attitude of the frog who imitates an ox.
"How can he find time to think of business?" thought Birotteau, much disturbed.
The sun of successful superiority dazzled the perfumer, as light blinds those insects who seek the falling day or the half-shadows of a starlit night. On a table of immense size lay the budget, piles of the Chamber records, open volumes of the "Moniteur," with passages carefully marked, to throw at the head of a Minister his forgotten words and force him to recant them, under the jeering plaudits of a foolish crowd incapable of perceiving how circumstances alter cases.
On another table were heaped portfolios, minutes, projects, specifications, and all the thousand memoranda brought to bear upon a man into whose funds so many nascent industries sought to dip. The royal luxury of this cabinet, filled with pictures, statues, and works of art; the encumbered chimney-piece; the accumulation of many interests, national and foreign, heaped together like bales,--all struck Birotteau's mind, dwarfed his powers, heightened his terror, and froze his blood. On Francois Keller's desk lay bundles of notes and checks, letters of credit, and commercial circulars. Keller sat down and began to sign rapidly such letters as needed no examination.
"Monsieur, to what do I owe the honor of this visit?"
At these words, uttered for him alone by a voice which influenced all Europe, while the eager hand was running over the paper, the poor perfumer felt something that was like a hot iron in his stomach. He assumed the ingratiating manner which for ten years past the banker had seen all men put on when they wanted to get the better of him for their own purposes, and which gave him at once the advantage over them. Francois Keller accordingly darted at Cesar a look which shot through his head,--a Napoleonic look. This imitation of Napoleon's glance was a silly satire, then popular with certain parvenus who had never seen so much as the base coin of their emperor. This glance fell upon Birotteau, a devotee of the Right, a partisan of the government, --himself an element of monarchical election,--like the stamp of a custom-house officer affixed to a bale of merchandise.
"Monsieur, I will not waste your time; I will be brief. I come on commercial business only,--to ask if I can obtain a credit. I was formerly a judge of the commercial courts, and known to the Bank of France. You will easily understand that if I had plenty of ready money I need only apply there, where you are yourself a director. I had the honor of sitting on the Bench of commerce with Monsieur le baron Thibon, chairman of the committee on discounts; and he, most assuredly, would not refuse me. But up to this time I have never made use of my credit or my signature; my signature is virgin,--and you know what difficulties that puts in the way of negotiation."
Keller moved his head, and Birotteau took the movement for one of impatience.
"Monsieur, these are the facts," he resumed. "I am engaged in an affair of landed property, outside of my business--"
Francois Keller, who continued to sign and read his documents, without seeming to listen to Birotteau, here turned round and made him a little sign of attention, which encouraged the poor man. He thought the matter was taking a favorable turn, and breathed again.
"Go on; I hear you," said Keller good-naturedly.
"I have purchased, at half its value, certain land about the Madeleine--"
"Yes; I heard Nucingen speak of that immense affair,--undertaken, I
believe, by Claparon and Company."
