This submission thwarted Birotteau, who now employed an innocent ruse to which he had had recourse on similar occasions.
"Listen, Constance. I have not given my word; though it is the same as if I had."
"Oh, Cesar, all is said; let us say no more. Honor before fortune.
Come, go to bed, dear friend, there is no more wood. Besides, we shall talk better in bed, if it amuses you. Oh! that horrid dream! My God!
to see one's self! it was fearful! Cesarine and I will have to make a pretty number of /neuvaines/ for the success of your speculations."
"Doubtless the help of God can do no harm," said Birotteau, gravely.
"But the oil in nuts is also powerful, wife. I made this discovery just as I made that of the Double Paste of Sultans,--by chance. The first time by opening a book; this time by looking at an engraving of Hero and Leander: you know, the woman who pours oil on the head of her lover; pretty, isn't it? The safest speculations are those which depend on vanity, on self-love, on the desire of appearing well. Those sentiments never die."
"Alas! I know it well."
"At a certain age men will turn their souls inside out to get hair, if they haven't any. For some time past hair-dressers have told me that they sell not only Macassar, but all the drugs which are said to dye hair or make it grow. Since the peace, men are more with women, and women don't like bald-heads; hey! hey! Mimi? The demand for that article grows out of the political situation. A composition which will keep the hair in good health will sell like bread; all the more if it has the sanction, as it will have, of the Academy of Sciences. My good Monsieur Vauquelin will perhaps help me once more. I shall go to him to-morrow and submit my idea; offering him at the same time that engraving which I have at last found in Germany, after two years'
search. He is now engaged in analyzing hair: Chiffreville, his associate in the manufacture of chemical products, told me so. If my discovery should jump with his, my essence will be bought by both ***es. The idea is a fortune; I repeat it. Mon Dieu! I can't sleep.
Hey! luckily little Popinot has the finest head of hair in the world.
A shop-girl with hair long enough to touch the ground, and who could say--if the thing were possible without offence to God or my neighbor --that the Oil Comagene (for it shall be an oil, decidedly) has had something to do with it,--all the gray-heads in Paris will fling themselves upon the invention like poverty upon the world. Hey! hey!
Mignonne! how about the ball? I am not wicked, but I should like to meet that little scamp du Tillet, who swells out with his fortune and avoids me at the Bourse. He knows that I know a thing about him which was not fine. Perhaps I have been too kind to him. Isn't it odd, wife, that we are always punished for our good deeds?--here below, I mean. I
behaved like a father to him; you don't know all I did for him."
"You give me goose-flesh merely speaking of it. If you knew what he wished to make of you, you would never have kept the secret of his stealing that three thousand francs,--for I guessed just how the thing was done. If you had sent him to the correctional police, perhaps you would have done a service to a good many people."
"What did he wish to make of me?"
"Nothing. If you were inclined to listen to me to-night, I would give you a piece of good advice, Birotteau; and that is, to let your du Tillet alone."
"Won't it seem strange if I exclude him from my house,--a clerk for whom I endorsed to the amount of twenty thousand francs when he first went into business? Come, let us do good for good's sake. Besides, perhaps du Tillet has mended his ways."
"Everything is to be turned topsy-turvy, then?"
"What do you mean with your topsy-turvy? Everything will be ruled like a sheet of music-paper. Have you forgotten what I have just told you about turning the staircase and hiring the first floor of the next house?--which is all settled with the umbrella-maker, Cayron. He and I
are going to-morrow to see his proprietor, Monsieur Molineux.
To-morrow I have as much to do as a minister of state."
"You turn my brain with your projects," said Constance. "I am all mixed up. Besides, Birotteau, I'm asleep."
"Good-day," replied the husband. "Just listen; I say good-day because it is morning, Mimi. Ah! there she is off, the dear child. Yes! you shall be rich, /richissime/, or I'll renounce my name of Cesar!"
A few moments later Constance and Cesar were peacefully snoring.