The old man was reading the "Constitutionnel" in his chimney-corner, before a little round table on which stood his frugal breakfast,--a roll, some butter, a plate of Brie cheese, and a cup of coffee.
"Here is true wisdom," thought Birotteau, envying his uncle's life.
"Well!" said Pillerault, taking off his spectacles, "I heard at the cafe David last night about Roguin's affair, and the assassination of his mistress, la belle Hollandaise. I hope, as we desire to be actual owners of the property, that you obtained Claparon's receipt for the money."
"Alas! uncle, no. The trouble is just there,--you have put your finger upon the sore."
"Good God! you are ruined!" cried Pillerault, letting fall his newspaper, which Birotteau picked up, though it was the "Constitutionnel."
Pillerault was so violently roused by his reflections that his face--
like the image on a medal and of the same stern character--took a deep bronze tone, such as the metal itself takes under the oscillating tool of a coiner; he remained motionless, gazing through the window-panes at the opposite wall, but seeing nothing,--listening, however, to Birotteau. Evidently he heard and judged, and weighed the /pros/ and /cons/ with the inflexibility of a Minos who had crossed the Styx of commerce when he quitted the Quai des Morfondus for his little third storey.
"Well, uncle?" said Birotteau, who waited for an answer, after closing what he had to say with an entreaty that Pillerault would sell sixty thousand francs out of the Funds.
"Well, my poor nephew, I cannot do it; you are too heavily involved.
The Ragons and I each lose our fifty thousand francs. Those worthy people have, by my advice, sold their shares in the mines of Wortschin: I feel obliged, in case of loss, not to return the capital of course, but to succor them, and to succor my niece and Cesarine.
You may all want bread, and you shall find it with me."
"Want bread, uncle?"
"Yes, bread. See things as they are, Cesar. /You cannot extricate yourself./ With five thousand six hundred francs income, I could set aside four thousand francs for you and the Ragons. If misfortune overtakes you,--I know Constance, she will work herself to the bone, she will deny herself everything; and so will you, Cesar."
"All is not hopeless, uncle."
"I cannot see it as you do."
"I will prove that you are mistaken."
"Nothing would give me greater happiness."
Birotteau left Pillerault without another word. He had come to seek courage and consolation, and he received a blow less severe, perhaps, than the first; but instead of striking his head it struck his heart, and his heart was the whole of life to the poor man. After going down a few stairs he returned.
"Monsieur," he said, in a cold voice, "Constance knows nothing. Keep my secret at any rate; beg the Ragons to say nothing, and not to take from my home the peace I need so much in my struggle against misfortune."
Pillerault made a gesture of assent.
"Courage, Cesar!" he said. "I see you are angry with me; but later, when you think of your wife and daughter, you will do me justice."
Discouraged by his uncle's opinion, and recognizing its clear-
sightedness, Cesar tumbled from the heights of hope into the miry marshes of doubt and uncertainty. In such horrible commercial straits a man, unless his soul is tempered like that of Pillerault, becomes the plaything of events; he follows the ideas of others, or his own, as a traveller pursues a will-o'-the-wisp. He lets the gust whirl him along, instead of lying flat and not looking up as it passes; or else gathering himself together to follow the direction of the storm till he can escape from the edges of it. In the midst of his pain Birotteau bethought him of the steps he ought to take about the mortgage on his property. He turned towards the Rue Vivienne to find Derville, his solicitor, and institute proceedings at once, in case the lawyer should see any chance of annulling the agreement. He found Derville sitting by the fire, wrapped in a white woollen dressing-gown, calm and composed in manner, like all lawyers long used to receiving terrible confidences. Birotteau noticed for the first time in his life this necessary coldness, which struck a chill to the soul of a man grasped by the fever of imperilled interests,--passionate, wounded, and cruelly gashed in his life, his honor, his wife, his child, as Cesar showed himself to be while he related his misfortunes.
"If it can be proved," said Derville, after listening to him, "that the lender no longer had in Roguin's hands the sum which Roguin pretended to borrow for you upon your property, then, as there has been no delivery of the money, there is ground for annulling the contract; the lender may seek redress through the warranty, as you will for your hundred thousand francs. I will answer for the case, however, as much as one can ever answer. No case is won till it is tried."
The opinion of so able a lawyer restored Cesar's courage a little, and he begged Derville to obtain a judgment within a fortnight. The solicitor replied that it might take three months to get such a judgment as would annul the agreement.
"Three months!" cried Birotteau, who needed immediate resources.
"Though we may get the case at once on the docket, we cannot make your adversary keep pace with us. He will employ all the law's delays, and the barristers are seldom ready. Perhaps your opponents will let the case go by default. We can't always get on as we wish," said Derville, smiling.
"In the commercial courts--" began Birotteau.
"Oh!" said the lawyer, "the judges of the commercial courts and the judges of the civil courts are different sorts of judges. You dash through things. At the Palais de Justice we have stricter forms. Forms are the bulwarks of law. How would you like slap-dash judgments, which can't be appealed, and which would make you lose forty thousand francs? Well, your adversary, who sees that sum involved, will defend himself. Delays may be called judicial fortifications."