The cashier believed his son-in-law to be as superior in talent to Rabourdin as God was greater than Saint-Crepin, to use his own expression; but the good man coveted this appointment in a straightforward, honest way. Influenced by the feeling which leads all officials to seek promotion,--a violent, unreflecting, almost brutal passion,--he desired success, just as he desired the cross of the Legion of honor, without doing anything against his conscience to obtain it, and solely, as he believed, on the strength of his son-in-law's merits. To his thinking, a man who had patiently spent twenty-five years in a government office behind an iron railing had sacrificed himself to his country and deserved the cross. But all that he dreamed of doing to promote his son-in-law's appointment in La Billardiere's place was to say a word to his Excellency's wife when he took her the month's salary.
"Well, Saillard, you look as if you had lost all your friends! Do speak; do, pray, tell us something," cried his wife when he came back into the room.
Saillard, after making a little sign to his daughter, turned on his heel to keep himself from talking politics before strangers. When Monsieur Mitral and the vicar had departed, Saillard rolled back the card-table and sat down in an armchair in the attitude he always assumed when about to tell some office-gossip,--a series of movements which answered the purpose of the three knocks given at the Theatre-Francais. After binding his wife, daughter, and son-in-law to the deepest secrecy,--for, however petty the gossip, their places, as he thought, depended on their discretion,--he related the incomprehensible enigma of the resignation of a deputy, the very legitimate desire of the general-secretary to get elected to the place, and the secret opposition of the minister to this wish of a man who was one of his firmest supporters and most zealous workers. This, of course, brought down an avalanche of suppositions, flooded with the sapient arguments of the two officials, who sent back and forth to each other a wearisome flood of nonsense. Elisabeth quietly asked three questions:--"If Monsieur des Lupeaulx is on our side, will Monsieur Baudoyer be appointed in Monsieur de la Billardiere's place?""Heavens! I should think so," cried the cashier.
"My uncle Bidault and Monsieur Gobseck helped in him 1814," thought she. "Is he in debt?" she asked, aloud.
"Yes," cried the cashier with a hissing and prolonged sound on the last letter; "his salary was attached, but some of the higher powers released it by a bill at sight.""Where is the des Lupeaulx estate?"
"Why, don't you know? in the part of the country where your grandfather and your great-uncle Bidault belong, in the arrondissement of the deputy who wants to resign."When her colossus of a husband had gone to bed, Elisabeth leaned over him, and though he always treated her remarks as women's nonsense, she said, "Perhaps you will really get Monsieur de la Billardiere's place.""There you go with your imaginations!" said Baudoyer; "leave Monsieur Gaudron to speak to the Dauphine and don't meddle with politics."At eleven o'clock, when all were asleep in the place Royale, Monsieur des Lupeaulx was leaving the Opera for the rue Duphot. This particular Wednesday was one of Madame Rabourdin's most brilliant evenings. Many of her customary guests came in from the theatres and swelled the company already assembled, among whom were several celebrities, such as: Canalis the poet, Schinner the painter, Dr. Bianchon, Lucien de Rubempre, Octave de Camps, the Comte de Granville, the Vicomte de Fontaine, du Bruel the vaudevillist, Andoche Finot the journalist, Derville, one of the best heads in the law courts, the Comte du Chatelet, deputy, du Tillet, banker, and several elegant young men, such as Paul de Manerville and the Vicomte de Portenduere. Celestine was pouring out tea when the general-secretary entered. Her dress that evening was very becoming; she wore a black velvet robe without ornament of any kind, a black gauze scarf, her hair smoothly bound about her head and raised in a heavy braided mass, with long curls a l'Anglaise falling on either side of her face. The charms which particularly distinguished this woman were the Italian ease of her artistic nature, her ready comprehension, and the grace with which she welcomed and promoted the least appearance of a wish on the part of others. Nature had given her an elegant, slender figure, which could sway lightly at a word, black eyes of oriental shape, able, like those of the Chinese women, to see out of their corners. She well knew how to manage a soft, insinuating voice, which threw a tender charm into every word, even such as she merely chanced to utter; her feet were like those we see in portraits where the painter boldly lies and flatters his sitter in the only way which does not compromise anatomy.
Her complexion, a little yellow by day, like that of most brunettes, was dazzling at night under the wax candles, which brought out the brilliancy of her black hair and eyes. Her slender and well-defined outlines reminded an artist of the Venus of the Middle Ages rendered by Jean Goujon, the illustrious sculptor of Diane de Poitiers.
Des Lupeaulx stopped in the doorway, and leaned against the woodwork.
