I saw that fine countess going down the staircase where she couldn't see me. She was laughing with a satisfaction that certainly wasn't motherly, so I slipped after her to the peristyle where I heard her say to the coachman, 'To Leroy's.' I ran round quickly to Leroy's, and there, sure enough, was the poor mother. I got there in time to see her order and pay for a fifteen-hundred-franc dress; you understand that in those days people were made to pay when they bought. The next day but one she appeared at an ambassador's ball, dressed to please all the world and some one in particular. That day I said to myself:
'I've got a career! When I'm no longer young I'll lend money to great ladies on their finery; for passion never calculates, it pays blindly.' If you want subjects for a vaudeville I can sell you plenty."
She departed after delivering this tirade, in which all the phases of her past life were outlined, leaving Gazonal as much horrified by her revelations as by the five yellow teeth she showed when she tried to smile.
"What shall we do now?" he asked presently.
"Make notes," replied Bixiou, whistling for his porter; "for I want some money, and I'll show you the use of porters. You think they only pull the gate-cord; whereas they really pull poor devils like me and artists whom they take under their protection out of difficulties.
Mine will get the Montyon prize one of these days."
Gazonal opened his eyes to their utmost roundness.
A man between two ages, partly a graybeard, partly an office-boy, but more oily within and without, hair greasy, stomach puffy, skin dull and moist, like that of the prior of a convent, always wearing list shoes, a blue coat, and grayish trousers, made his appearance.
"What is it, monsieur?" he said with an air which combined that of a protector and a subordinate.
"Ravenouillet-- His name is Ravenouillet," said Bixiou turning to Gazonal. "Have you our notebook of bills due with you?"
Ravenouillet pulled out of his pocket the greasiest and stickiest book that Gazonal's eyes had ever beheld.
"Write down at three months' sight two notes of five hundred francs each, which you will proceed to sign."
And Bixiou handed over two notes already drawn to his order by Ravenouillet, which Ravenouillet immediately signed and inscribed on the greasy book, in which his wife also kept account of the debts of the other lodgers.
"Thanks, Ravenouillet," said Bixiou. "And here's a box at the Vaudeville for you."
"Oh! my daughter will enjoy that," said Ravenouillet, departing.
"There are seventy-one tenants in this house," said Bixiou, "and the average of what they owe Ravenouillet is six thousand francs a month, eighteen thousand quarterly for money advanced, postage, etc., not counting the rents due. He is Providence--at thirty per cent, which we all pay him, though he never asks for anything."
"Oh, Paris! Paris!" cried Gazonal.
"I'm going to take you now, cousin Gazonal," said Bixiou, after indorsing the notes, "to see another comedian, who will play you a charming scene gratis."
"Who is it?" said Gazonal.
"A usurer. As we go along I'll tell you the debut of friend Ravenouillet in Paris."
Passing in front of the porter's lodge, Gazonal saw Mademoiselle Lucienne Ravenouillet holding in her hand a music score (she was a pupil of the Conservatoire), her father reading a newspaper, and Madame Ravenouillet with a package of letters to be carried up to the lodgers.
"Thanks, Monsieur Bixiou!" said the girl.
"She's not a rat," explained Leon to his cousin; "she is the larva of the grasshopper."
"Here's the history of Ravenouillet," continued Bixiou, when the three friends reached the boulevard. "In 1831 Massol, the councillor of state who is dealing with your case, was a lawyer-journalist who at that time never thought of being more than Keeper of the Seals, and deigned to have King Louis-Philippe on his throne. Forgive his ambition, he's from Carcassonne. One morning there entered to him a young rustic of his parts, who said: 'You know me very well, Mossoo Massol; I'm your neighbour the grocer's little boy; I've come from down there, for they tell me a fellow is certain to get a place if he comes to Paris.' Hearing these words, Massol shuddered, and said to himself that if he were weak enough to help this compatriot (to him utterly unknown) he should have the whole department prone upon him, his bell-rope would break, his valet leave him, he should have difficulties with his landlord about the stairway, and the other lodgers would assuredly complain of the smell of garlic pervading the house. Consequently, he looked at his visitor as a butcher looks at a sheep whose throat he intends to cut. But whether the rustic comprehended the stab of that glance or not, he went on to say (so Massol told me), 'I've as much ambition as other men. I will never go back to my native place, if I ever do go back, unless I am a rich man.