What words can picture the alarming zig-zags produced by falling shadows, the fantastic appearance of curtains bulged out by the wind, the flicker of uncertain light thrown by a night-lamp upon the folds of red calico, the rays shed from a curtain-holder whose lurid centre was like the eye of a burglar, the apparition of a kneeling dress,--in short, all the grotesque effects which terrify the imagination at a moment when it has no power except to foresee misfortunes and exaggerate them? Madame Birotteau suddenly saw a strong light in the room beyond her chamber, and thought of fire; but perceiving a red foulard which looked like a pool of blood, her mind turned exclusively to burglars, especially when she thought she saw traces of a struggle in the way the furniture stood about the room. Recollecting the sum of money which was in the desk, a generous fear put an end to the chill ferment of her nightmare. She sprang terrified, and in her night-gown, into the very centre of the room to help her husband, whom she supposed to be in the grasp of assassins.
"Birotteau! Birotteau!" she cried at last in a voice full of anguish.
She then saw the perfumer in the middle of the next room, a yard-stick in his hand measuring the air, and so ill wrapped up in his green cotton dressing-gown with chocolate-colored spots that the cold had reddened his legs without his feeling it, preoccupied as he was. When Cesar turned about to say to his wife, "Well, what do you want, Constance?" his air and manner, like those of a man absorbed in calculations, were so prodigiously silly that Madame Birotteau began to laugh.
"Goodness! Cesar, if you are not an oddity like that!" she said. "Why did you leave me alone without telling me? I have nearly died of terror; I did not know what to imagine. What are you doing there, flying open to all the winds? You'll get as hoarse as a wolf. Do you hear me, Birotteau?"
"Yes, wife, here I am," answered the perfumer, coming into the bedroom.
"Come and warm yourself, and tell me what maggot you've got in your head," replied Madame Birotteau opening the ashes of the fire, which she hastened to relight. "I am frozen. What a goose I was to get up in my night-gown! But I really thought they were assassinating you."
The shopkeeper put his candlestick on the chimney-piece, wrapped his dressing-gown closer about him, and went mechanically to find a flannel petticoat for his wife.
"Here, Mimi, cover yourself up," he said. "Twenty-two by eighteen," he resumed, going on with his monologue; "we can get a superb salon."
"Ah, ca! Birotteau, are you on the high road to insanity? Are you dreaming?"
"No, wife, I am calculating."
"You had better wait till daylight for your nonsense," she cried, fastening the petticoat beneath her short night-gown and going to the door of the room where her daughter was in bed.
"Cesarine is asleep," she said, "she won't hear us. Come, Birotteau, speak up. What is it?"
"We can give a ball."
"Give a ball! we? On the word of an honest woman, you are dreaming, my friend."
"I am not dreaming, my beautiful white doe. Listen. People should always do what their position in life demands. Government has brought me forward into prominence. I belong to the government; it is my duty to study its mind, and further its intentions by developing them. The Duc de Richelieu has just put an end to the occupation of France by the foreign armies. According to Monsieur de la Billardiere, the functionaries who represent the city of Paris should make it their duty, each in his own sphere of influence, to celebrate the liberation of our territory. Let us show a true patriotism which shall put these liberals, these damned intriguers, to the blush; hein? Do you think I
don't love my country? I wish to show the liberals, my enemies, that to love the king is to love France."
"Do you think you have got any enemies, my poor Birotteau?"
"Why, yes, wife, we have enemies. Half our friends in the quarter are our enemies. They all say, 'Birotteau has had luck; Birotteau is a man who came from nothing: yet here he is deputy-mayor; everything succeeds with him.' Well, they are going to be finely surprised. You are the first to be told that I am made a chevalier of the Legion of honor. The king signed the order yesterday."
"Oh! then," said Madame Birotteau, much moved, "of course we must give the ball, my good friend. But what have you done to merit the cross?"
"Yesterday, when Monsieur de la Billardiere told me the news," said Birotteau, modestly, "I asked myself, as you do, what claims I had to it; but I ended by seeing what they were, and in approving the action of the government. In the first place, I am a royalist; I was wounded at Saint-Roch in Vendemiaire: isn't it something to have borne arms in those days for the good cause? Then, according to the merchants, I
exercised my judicial functions in a way to give general satisfaction.