Cesar's triumphant air, as if certain of fortune, was observed by the clerks, who made signs at each other; for the trip in the hackney-
coach, and the full dress of the cashier and his master had thrown them all into the wildest regions of romance. The mutual satisfaction of Cesar and Anselme, betrayed by looks diplomatically exchanged, the glance full of hope which Popinot cast now and then at Cesarine, proclaimed some great event and gave color to the conjectures of the clerks. In their busy and half cloistral life the smallest events have the interest which a prisoner feels in those of his prison. The bearing of Madame Cesar, who replied to the Olympian looks of her lord with an air of distrust, seemed to point to some new enterprise; for in ordinary times Madame Cesar, delighted with the smallest routine success, would have shared his contentment. It happened, accidentally, that the receipts for the day amounted to more than six thousand francs; for several outstanding bills chanced to be paid.
The dining-room and the kitchen, lighted from a little court, and separated from the dining-room by a passage, from which the staircase, taken out of a corner of the backshop, opened up, was on the /entresol/ where in former days Cesar and Constance had their appartement; in fact, the dining-room, where the honey-moon had been passed, still wore the look of a little salon. During dinner Raguet, the trusty boy of all work, took charge of the shop; but the clerks came down when the dessert was put on table, leaving Cesar, his wife and daughter to finish their dinner alone by the chimney corner. This habit was derived from the Ragons, who kept up the old-fashioned usages and customs of former commercial days, which placed an enormous distance between the masters and the apprentices. Cesarine or Constance then prepared for Birotteau his cup of coffee, which he took sitting on a sofa by the corner of the fire. At this hour he told his wife all the little events of the day, and related what he had seen in the streets, what was going on in the Faubourg du Temple, and the difficulties he had met with in the manufactory, /et caetera/.
"Wife," he said, when the clerks had gone down, "this is certainly one of the most important days in our life! The nuts are bought, the hydraulic press is ready to go to work, the land affair is settled.
Here, lock up that cheque on the Bank of France, he added, handing her Pillerault's paper. "The improvements in the house are ordered, the dignity of our appartement is about to be increased. Bless me! I saw, down in the Cour Batave, a very singular man,"--and he told the tale of Monsieur Molineux.
"I see," said his wife, interrupting him in the middle of a tirade, "that you have gone in debt two hundred thousand francs."
"That is true, wife," said Cesar, with mock humility, "Good God, how shall we pay them? It counts for nothing that the lands about the Madeleine will some day become the finest quarter of Paris."
"Some day, Cesar!"
"Alas!" he said, going on with his joke, "my three eighths will only be worth a million in six years. How shall I ever pay that two hundred thousand francs?" said Cesar, with a gesture of alarm. "Well, we shall be reduced to pay them with that," he added, pulling from his pocket a nut, which he had taken from Madame Madou and carefully preserved.
He showed the nut between his fingers to Constance and Cesarine. His wife was silent, but Cesarine, much puzzled, said to her father, as she gave him his coffee, "What do you mean, papa,--are you joking?"
The perfumer, as well as the clerks, had detected during dinner the glances which Popinot had cast at Cesarine, and he resolved to clear up his suspicions.
"Well, my little daughter," he said, "this nut will revolutionize our home. From this day forth there will be one person the less under my roof."
Cesarine looked at her father with an eye which seemed to say, "What is that to me?"
"Popinot is going away."
Though Cesar was a poor observer, and had, moreover, prepared his phrase as much to herald the creation of the house of A. Popinot and Company, as to set a trap for his daughter, yet his paternal tenderness made him guess the confused feelings which rose in Cesarine's heart, blossomed in roses on her cheek, suffused her forehead and even her eyes as she lowered them. Cesar thought that words must have passed between Cesarine and Popinot. He was mistaken;
the two children comprehended each other, like all timid lovers, without a word.
Some moralists hold that love is an involuntary passion, the most disinterested, the least calculating, of all the passions, except maternal love. This opinion carries with it a vulgar error. Though the majority of men may be ignorant of the causes of love, it is none the less true that all sympathy, moral or physical, is based upon calculations made either by the mind, or by sentiment or brutality.
Love is an essentially selfish passion. Self means deep calculation.
To every mind which looks only at results, it will seem at first sight singular and unlikely that a beautiful girl like Cesarine should love a poor lame fellow with red hair. Yet this phenomenon is completely in harmony with the arithmetic of middle-class sentiments. To explain it, would be to give the reason of marriages which are constantly looked upon with surprise,--marriages between tall and beautiful women and puny men, or between ugly little creatures and handsome men. Every man who is cursed with some bodily infirmity, no matter what it is,--club-