第59章 VII(7)

The others, on the contrary, stamped with the mark of toil, retained their vulgar attitudes, and amused themselves too heartily; their eyes were full of inconsiderate curiosity; their voices ranged above the low murmur which gives inimitable piquancy to the conversations of a ball-room; above all, they had none of that composed impertinence which contains the germs of epigram, nor the tranquil attitude which characterizes those who are accustomed to maintain empire over themselves. Thus Madame Rabourdin, Madame Jules, and Mademoiselle de Fontaine, who had expected much amusement from the ball of their perfumer, were detached from the background of the bourgeoisie about them by their soft and easy grace, by the exquisite taste of their dress and bearing,--just as three leading singers at an opera stand out in relief from the stolid array of their supernumeraries. They were watched with jealous, wondering eyes. Madame Roguin, Constance, and Cesarine formed, as it were, a link which united the three types of feminine aristocracy to the commercial figures about them.

There came, as there does at all balls, a moment when the animation of the scene, the torrents of light, the gaiety, the music, the excitement of dancing brought on a species of intoxication which puts out of sight these gradations in the /crescendo/ of the /tutti/. The ball was beginning to be noisy, and Mademoiselle de Fontaine made a movement to retire; but when she looked about for the arm of her venerable Vendeen, Birotteau, his wife, and daughter made haste to prevent such a desertion of the aristocracy.

"There is a perfume of good taste about this appartement which really amazes me," remarked that impertinent young woman to the perfumer. "I

congratulate you."

Birotteau was so intoxicated by compliments that he did not comprehend her meaning; but his wife colored, and was at a loss how to reply.

"This is a national fete which does you honor," said Camusot.

"I have seldom seen such a ball," said Monsieur de la Billardiere, to whom an official falsehood was of no consequence.

Birotteau took all these compliments seriously.

"What an enchanting scene! What a fine orchestra! Will you often give us a ball?" said Madame Lebas.

"What a charming appartement! Is this your own taste?" said Madame Desmarets.

Birotteau ventured on a fib, and allowed her to suppose that he had designed it.

Cesarine, who was asked, of course, for all the dances, understood very well Anselme's delicacy in that matter.

"If I thought only of my own wishes," he had whispered as they left the dinner-table, "I should beg you to grant me the favor of a quadrille; but my happiness would be too costly to our mutual self-

love."

Cesarine, who thought all men walked ungracefully if they stood straight on their legs, was resolved to open the ball with Popinot.

Popinot, emboldened by his aunt, who told him to dare all, ventured to tell his love to the charming girl, during the pauses of the quadrille, using, however, the roundabout terms of a timid lover.

"My fortune depends on you, mademoiselle."

"And how?"

"There is but one hope that can enable me to make it."

"Then hope."

"Do you know what you have said to me in those two words?" murmured Popinot.

"Hope for fortune," said Cesarine, with an arch smile.

"Gaudissart! Gaudissart!" exclaimed Anselme, when the quadrille was over, pressing the arm of his friend with Herculean force. "Succeed, or I'll blow my brains out! Success, and I shall marry Cesarine! she has told me so: see how lovely she is!"

"Yes, she is prettily tricked out," said Gaudissart, "and rich. We'll fry her in oil."

The good understanding between Mademoiselle Lourdois and Alexandre Crottat, the promised successor to Roguin, was noticed by Madame Birotteau, who could not give up without a pang the hope of seeing her daughter the wife of a notary of Paris.

Uncle Pillerault, who had exchanged bows with little Molineux, seated himself in an armchair near the bookshelves. He looked at the card-

players, listened to the conversations, and went to the doorway every now and then to watch the oscillating bouquet of flowers formed by the circling heads of the dancers in the /moulinet/. The expression of his face was that of a true philosopher. The men were dreadful,--all, that is, except du Tillet, who had acquired the manners of the great world, little La Billardiere, a budding fashionable, Monsieur Desmarets, and the official personages. But among all the faces, more or less comical, from which the assemblage took its character, there was one that was particularly washed-out, like a five-franc piece of the Republic, and whose owner's apparel rendered him a curiosity. We guess at once the little tyrant of the Cour Batave, arrayed with linen yellowed by lying by in a cupboard, and exhibiting to the eye a shirt-

frill of lace that had been an heirloom, fastened with a bluish cameo set as a pin; he wore short black-silk breeches which revealed the skinny legs on which he boldly stood. Cesar showed him, triumphantly, the four rooms constructed by the architect out of the first floors of the two houses.

"Hey! hey! Well, it is your affair, Monsieur Birotteau," said Molineux. "My first floor thus improved will be worth more than three thousand francs to me."

Birotteau answered with a jest; but he was pricked as if with a pin at the tone in which the little old man had pronounced the words.

"I shall soon have my first floor back again; the man will ruin himself." Such was the real meaning of the speech which Molineux delivered like the scratch of a claw.

The sallow face and vindictive eye of the old man struck du Tillet, whose attention had first been attracted by a watch-chain from which hung a pound of jingling gew-gaws, and by a green coat with a collar whimsically cocked up, which gave the old man the semblance of a rattlesnake. The banker approached the usurer to find out how and why he had thus bedizened himself.

"There, monsieur," said Molineux, planting one foot in the boudoir, "I