第44章 VI(2)
for, Popinot, no nonsense! I am to travel on your commission without pay: your competitors shall pay; I'll diddle it out of them. Let us understand each other clearly. As for me, this triumph is an affair of honor. My reward is to be best man at your wedding! I shall go to Italy, Germany, England! I shall carry with me placards in all languages, paste them everywhere, in villages, on doors of churches, all the best spots I can find in provincial towns! The oil shall sparkle, scintillate, glisten on every head. Ha! your marriage shall not be a sham; we'll make it a pageant, colors flying! You shall have your Cesarine, or my name shall not be ILLUSTRIOUS,--that is what Pere Finot calls me for having got off his gray hats. In selling your oil I
keep to my own sphere, the human head; hats and oil are well-known preservatives of the public hair."
Popinot returned to his aunt's house, where he was to sleep, in such a fever, caused by his visions of success, that the streets seemed to him to be running oil. He slept little, dreamed that his hair was madly growing, and saw two angels who unfolded, as they do in melodramas, a scroll on which was written "Oil Cesarine." He woke, recollected the dream, and vowed to give the oil of nuts that sacred name, accepting the sleeping fancy as a celestial mandate.
Cesar and Popinot were at their work-shop in the Faubourg du Temple the next morning long before the arrival of the nuts. While waiting for Madame Madou's porters, Popinot triumphantly recounted his treaty of alliance with Gaudissart.
"Have we indeed the illustrious Gaudissart? Then are we millionaires!"
cried the perfumer, extending his hand to his cashier with an air which Louis XIV. must have worn when he received the Marechal de Villars on his return from Denain.
"We have something besides," said the happy clerk, producing from his pocket a bottle of a squat shape, like a pumpkin, and ribbed on the sides. "I have found ten thousand bottles like that, all made ready to hand, at four sous, and six months' credit."
"Anselme, said Birotteau, contemplating the wondrous shape of the flask, "yesterday [here his tone of voice became solemn] in the Tuileries,--yes, no later than yesterday,--you said to me, 'I will succeed.' To-day I--I say to you, 'You will succeed.' Four sous! six months! an unparalleled shape! Macassar trembles to its foundations!
Was I not right to seize upon the only nuts in Paris? Where did you find these bottles?"
"I was waiting to speak to Gaudissart, and sauntering--"
"Just like me, when I found the Arab book," cried Birotteau.
"Coming down the Rue Aubry-le-Boucher, I saw in a wholesale glass place, where they make blown glass and cases,--an immense place,--I
caught sight of this flask; it blinded my eyes like a sudden light; a voice cried to me, 'Here's your chance!'"
"Born merchant! he shall have my daughter!," muttered Cesar.
"I went in; I saw thousands of these bottles packed in cases."
"You asked about them?"
"Do you think me such a ninny?" cried Anselme, in a grieved tone.
"Born merchant!" repeated Birotteau.
"I asked for glass cases for the little wax Jesus; and while I was bargaining about them I found fault with the shape of the bottles.
From one thing to another, I trapped the man into admitting that Faille and Bouchot, who lately failed, were starting a new cosmetic and wanted a peculiar style of bottle; he was doubtful about them and asked for half the money down. Faille and Bouchot, expecting to succeed, paid the money; they failed while the bottles were making.
The assignees, when called upon to pay the bill, arranged to leave him the bottles and the money in hand, as an indemnity for the manufacture of articles thought to be ridiculous in shape, and quite unsalable.
They cost originally eight sous; he was glad to get rid of them for four; for, as he said, God knows how long he might have on his hands a shape for which there was no sale! 'Are you willing,' I said to him, 'to furnish ten thousand at four sous? If so, I may perhaps relieve you of them. I am a clerk at Monsieur Birotteau's.' I caught him, I
led him, I mastered him, I worked him up, and he is all ours."
"Four sous!" said Birotteau. "Do you know that we could use oil at three francs, and make a profit of thirty sous, and give twenty sous discount to retailers?"
"Oil Cesarine!" cried Popinot.
"Oil Cesarine?--Ah, lover! would you flatter both father and daughter?
Well, well, so be it; Oil Cesarine! The Cesars owned the whole world.
They must have had fine hair."
"Cesar was bald," said Popinot.
"Because he never used our oil. Three francs for the Oil Cesarine, while Macassar Oil costs double! Gaudissart to the fore! We shall make a hundred thousand francs this year, for we'll pour on every head that respects itself a dozen bottles a year,--eighteen francs; say eighteen thousand heads,--one hundred and eighty thousand francs. We are millionaires!"
The nuts delivered, Raguet, the workmen, Popinot, and Cesar shelled a sufficient quantity, and before four o'clock they had produced several pounds of oil. Popinot carried the product to show to Vauquelin, who made him a present of a recipe for mixing the essence of nuts with other and less costly oleaginous substances, and scenting it. Popinot went to work at once to take out a patent for the invention and all improvements thereon. The devoted Gaudissart lent him the money to pay the fees, for Popinot was ambitious to pay his share in the undertaking.
Prosperity brings with it an intoxication which inferior men are unable to resist. Cesar's exaltation of spirit had a result not difficult to foresee. Grindot came, and presented a colored sketch of a charming interior view of the proposed appartement. Birotteau, seduced, agreed to everything; and soon the house, and the heart of Constance, began to quiver under the blows of pick and hammer. The house-painter, Monsieur Lourdois, a very rich contractor, who had promised that nothing should be wanting, talked of gilding the salon.