Have you how in childhood, or at the early of social life, we create a model for our own imitation, with our own hands as it were, and often without it? The banker's clerk, for instance, as he enters his master's drawing-room, of such another. If he makes a fortune, it will not be the luxury of the day, twenty years later, that you will in his house, but the old-fashioned that him of yore. It is to tell how many are to this jealousy; and in the same way we know nothing of the to the that men to copy the type they have set themselves, and their powers in with a light, like the moon.
Crevel was his had been; he was Major he Cesar Birotteau's epaulettes. In the same way, by the by Grindot the architect, at the time when Fortune had his master to the top of the wheel, Crevel had "never looked at of a crown-piece," to use his own language, when he wanted to "do up" his rooms; he had gone with his open and his to Grindot, who by this time was forgotten. It is to how long an may survive, supported by such admiration.
So Grindot, for the thousandth time had his white-and-gold drawing-room with damask. The furniture, of rosewood, carved, as such work is done for the trade, had in the country been the of just in Paris on the occasion of an exhibition. The candelabra, the fire-dogs, the fender, the chandelier, the clock, were all in the most of scroll-work; the table, a in the middle of the room, was a of of Italian and marbles, from Rome, where these are of specimens—for all the world like tailors' patterns—an object of to Crevel's citizen friends. The portraits of the late Madame Crevel, of Crevel himself, of his and his son-in-law, on the walls, two and two; they were the work of Pierre Grassou, the painter of the bourgeoisie, to Crevel his Byronic attitude. The frames, a thousand each, were in with this coffee-house magnificence, which would have any true artist his shoulders.
Money yet missed the smallest opportunity of being stupid. We should have in Paris ten Venices if our retired merchants had had the for of the Italians. Even in our own day a Milanese merchant five hundred thousand to the Duomo, to the of the Virgin that the edifice. Canova, in his will, his to a church four francs, and that something on his own account. Would a citizen of Paris—and they all, like Rivet, love their Paris in their heart—ever of the that are to the towers of Notre-Dame? And only think of the that to the State in property for which no are found.
All the of Paris might have been with the money on castings, mouldings, and the last fifteen years by of the Crevel stamp.
Beyond this drawing-room was a with tables and in of Boulle.
The bedroom, with chintz, also opened out of the drawing-room. Mahogany in all its the dining-room, and Swiss views, framed, the panels. Crevel, who to travel in Switzerland, had set his on the in painting till the time should come when he might see it in reality.
So, as will have been seen, Crevel, the Mayor's deputy, of the Legion of Honor and of the National Guard, had all the magnificence, as to furniture, of his predecessor. Under the Restoration, where one had sunk, this other, overlooked, had come to the top—not by any of fortune, but by the of circumstance. In revolutions, as in at sea, solid goes to the bottom, and light are to the surface. Cesar Birotteau, a Royalist, in and envied, had been the mark of hostility, while its in Crevel.
This apartment, at a rent of a thousand crowns, with all the that money can buy, the of a old house a and a garden. Everything was as spick-and-span as the in an case, for Crevel very little at home.
This was the citizen's legal domicile. His of a woman-cook and a valet; he two men, and had a dinner sent in by Chevet, he gave a to his political friends, to men he wanted to or to a family party.
The seat of Crevel's domesticity, in the Rue Notre-Dame de Lorette, with Mademoiselle Heloise Brisetout, had been transferred, as we have seen, to the Rue Chauchat. Every the retired merchant—every ex-tradesman is a retired merchant—spent two hours in the Rue Saussayes to to business, and gave the of his time to Mademoiselle Zaire, which Zaire very much. Orosmanes-Crevel had a with Mademoiselle Heloise; she him five hundred of every month, and no "bills delivered." He paid for his dinner and all extras. This agreement, with bonuses, for he her a good many presents, to the ex-attache of the great singer; and he would say to who were of their daughters, that it paid to job your than to have a of your own. At the same time, if the reader the speech to the Baron by the at the Rue Chauchat, Crevel did not the and the groom.
Crevel, as may be seen, had his for his to the of his self-indulgence. The of the was by the morality. And then the ex-perfumer from this of living—it was the inevitable, a free-and-easy life, Regence, Pompadour, Marechal de Richelieu, what not—a of superiority. Crevel set up for being a man of views, a with an air and grace, a man with nothing narrow in his ideas—and all for the small of about twelve to fifteen hundred a month. This was the result not of policy, but of middle-class vanity, though it came to the same in the end.
On the Bourse Crevel was as a man to his time, and as a man of pleasure, a vivant. In this particular Crevel himself that he had his friend Birotteau by a hundred cubits.
"And is it you?" Crevel, into a as he saw Lisbeth enter the room, "who have plotted this marriage Mademoiselle Hulot and your Count, you have been up by hand for her?"
"You don't best pleased at it?" said Lisbeth, a on Crevel. "What can you have in my cousin's marriage? For it was you, I am told, who her marrying Monsieur Lebas' son."
"You are a good and to be trusted," said Crevel. "Well, then, do you that I will Monsieur Hulot for the of having me of Josepha—especially when he a girl, I should have married in my old age, into a good-for-nothing slut, a mountebank, an singer! No, no. Never!"
"He is a very good fellow, too, is Monsieur Hulot," said Cousin Betty.
"Amiable, very amiable—too amiable," Crevel. "I wish him no harm; but I do wish to have my revenge, and I will have it. It is my one idea."
"And is that the why you no longer visit Madame Hulot?"
"Possibly."
"Ah, ha! then you were my cousin?" said Lisbeth, with a smile. "I as much."
"And she me like a dog! worse, like a footman; nay, I might say like a political prisoner. But I will succeed yet," said he, his with his fist.
"Poor man! It would be to catch his wife him after being packed off by his mistress."
"Josepha?" Crevel. "Has Josepha him over, packed him off, him out and crop? Bravo, Josepha, you have me! I will send you a pair of pearls to in your ears, my ex-sweetheart! I nothing of it; for after I had you, on the day after that when the Adeline had me the door, I to visit the Lebas, at Corbeil, and have but just come back. Heloise played the very to me into the country, and I have out the purpose of her game; she wanted me out of the way while she gave a house-warming in the Rue Chauchat, with some artists, and players, and writers. She took me in! But I can her, for Heloise me. She is a Dejazet under a bushel. What a the is! There is the note I last evening:
"‘DEAR OLD CHAP,—I have my in the Rue Chauchat. I
have taken the of a friends to clean up the
paint. All is well. Come when you please, monsieur; Hagar awaits
her Abraham.'
"Heloise will have some news for me, for she has her at her fingers' end."
"But Monsieur Hulot took the very calmly," said Lisbeth.
"Impossible!" Crevel, stopping in a as regular as the of a pendulum.
"Monsieur Hulot is not as as he was," Lisbeth significantly.
"I know that," said Crevel, "but in one point we are alike: Hulot cannot do without an attachment. He is of going to his wife. It would be a for him, but an end to my vengeance. You smile, Mademoiselle Fischer—ah! you know something?"
"I am at your notions," Lisbeth. "Yes, my is still to a passion. I should in love with her if I were a man."
"Cut and come again!" Crevel. "You are laughing at me. The Baron has already consolation?"
Lisbeth affirmatively.
"He is a lucky man if he can a second Josepha twenty-four hours!" said Crevel. "But I am not surprised, for he told me one at supper that when he was a man he always had three on hand that he might not be left high and dry—the one he was over, the one in possession, and the one he was for a emergency. He had some little work-woman in reserve, no doubt—in his fish-pond—his Parc-aux-cerfs! He is very Louis XV., is my gentleman. He is in luck to be so handsome! However, he is ageing; his it. He has taken up with some little milliner?"
"Dear me, no," Lisbeth.
"Oh!" Crevel, "what would I not do to him from up his hat! I not win Josepha; of that come to their love. Besides, it is said, such a return is not love. But, Cousin Betty, I would pay fifty thousand francs—that is to say, I would it—to that great good-looking of his mistress, and to him that a Major with a and a brain to Mayor of Paris, though he is a grandfather, is not to have his away by a without the tables."
"My position," said Lisbeth, "compels me to and know nothing. You may talk to me without fear; I repeat a word of what any one may choose to tell me. How can you I should that of conduct? No one would trust me again."
"I know," said Crevel; "you are the very of old maids. Still, come, there are exceptions. Look here, the family have settled an on you?"
"But I have my pride," said Lisbeth. "I do not choose to be an to anybody."
"If you will but help me to my revenge," the on, "I will ten thousand in an for you. Tell me, my cousin, tell me who has into Josepha's shoes, and you will have money to pay your rent, your little in the morning, the good coffee you love so well—you might allow pure Mocha, heh! And a very good thing is pure Mocha!"
"I do not so much for the ten thousand in an annuity, which would me nearly five hundred a year, as for secrecy," said Lisbeth. "For, you see, my dear Monsieur Crevel, the Baron is very good to me; he is to pay my rent "
"Oh yes, long may that last! I you to trust him," Crevel. "Where will he the money?"
"Ah, that I don't know. At the same time, he is more than thirty thousand on the rooms he is for this little lady."
"A lady! What, a woman in society; the rascal, what luck he has! He is the only favorite!"
"A married woman, and the lady," Lisbeth affirmed.
"Really and truly?" Crevel, opening wide with envy, as much as at the magic the lady.
"Yes, really," said Lisbeth. "Clever, a musician, three-and-twenty, a pretty, face, a white skin, teeth like a puppy's, like stars, a forehead—and feet, I saw the like, they are not than her stay-busk."
"And ears?" asked Crevel, alive to this of charms.
"Ears for a model," she replied.
"And small hands?"
"I tell you, in words, a of a woman—and high-minded, and modest, and refined! A soul, an angel—and with every distinction, for her father was a Marshal of France "
"A Marshal of France!" Crevel, positively with excitement. "Good Heavens! by the Holy Piper! By all the in Paradise! The rascal! I your pardon, Cousin, I am going crazy! I think I would give a hundred thousand "
"I say you would, and, I tell you, she is a woman—a woman of virtue. The Baron has out handsomely."
"He has not a sou, I tell you."
"There is a husband he has pushed "
"Where did he push him?" asked Crevel, with a laugh.
"He is promoted to be second in his office—this husband who will oblige, no doubt;—and his name is for the Cross of the Legion of Honor."
"The Government ought to be and respect those who have the Cross by not it broadcast," said Crevel, with the look of an politician. "But what is there about the man—that old of a Baron?" he on. "It to me that I am a match for him," and he an as he looked at himself in the glass. "Heloise has told me many a time, at moments when a woman speaks the truth, that I was wonderful."
"Oh," said Lisbeth, "women like big men; they are almost always good-natured; and if I had to decide you and the Baron, I should choose you. Monsieur Hulot is amusing, handsome, and has a figure; but you, you are substantial, and then—you see—you look an than he does."
"It is how all women, women, take to men who have that about them!" Crevel, his arm Lisbeth's waist, he was so jubilant.
"The not there," said Betty. "You must see that a woman who is so many will not be to her for nothing; and it would cost you more than a hundred odd thousand francs, for our little friend can look to her husband at the of his office two years' time. It is that is the little into that pit."
Crevel was up and the drawing-room in a of frenzy.
"He must be of the woman?" he after a pause, while his desires, thus by Lisbeth, rose to a of madness.
"You may judge for yourself," Lisbeth. "I don't he has had that of her," said she, her against one of her white teeth, "and he has her ten thousand francs' of presents already."
"What a good joke it would be!" Crevel, "if I got to the post first!"
"Good heavens! It is too of me to be telling you all this tittle-tattle," said Lisbeth, with an air of compunction.
"No. I to put your relations to the blush. tomorrow I shall in your name such a in five-per-cents as will give you six hundred a year; but then you must tell me everything—his Dulcinea's name and residence. To you I will make a clean of it. I have had a lady for a mistress, and it is the of my ambition. Mahomet's are nothing in with what I a woman of fashion must be. In short, it is my dream, my mania, and to such a point, that I to you the Baroness Hulot to me will be fifty," said he, one of the of the last century. "I you, my good Lisbeth, I am prepared to a hundred, two hundred—Hush! Here are the people, I see them the courtyard. I shall have learned anything through you, I give you my word of honor; for I do not want you to the Baron's confidence, the contrary. He must be of this woman—that old boy."
"He is about her," said Lisbeth. "He not thousand to his off, but he has got them somehow for his new passion."
"And do you think that she loves him?"
"At his age!" said the old maid.
"Oh, what an I am!" Crevel, "when I myself allowed Heloise to keep her artist as Henri IX. allowed Gabrielle her Bellegrade. Alas! old age, old age! Good-morning, Celestine. How do, my jewel! And the brat? Ah! here he comes; on my honor, he is to be like me! Good-day, Hulot—quite well? We shall soon be having another wedding in the family."
Celestine and her husband, as a hint to their father, at the old maid, who asked, in reply to Crevel:
"Indeed—whose?"
Crevel put on an air of which was meant to that he would make up for her indiscretions.
"That of Hortense," he replied; "but it is not yet settled. I have just come from the Lebas', and they were talking of Mademoiselle Popinot as a match for their son, the councillor, for he would like to the of a court. Now, come to dinner."
