“Is not she dried up!” cried Joseph.
“By the fires of repentance,” said Flore. “I can have no priest, I have nothing, not even a crucifix to see the Image of God. Oh! monsieur,” she went on, uplifting arms like two carved wooden sticks, “I have been very wicked, but God never punished anyone as He has punished me! Philippe killed Max, who had bidden me to do horrible things, and now he is killing me too. God is using him as a scourge for me! Behave yourself well, for we all have our Philippe.”
“Leave me alone with her,” said Bianchon; “I want to find out if her complaint is curable.”
“If she can be cured, Philippe Bridau will be mad with rage,” said Desroches. “I will have an affidavit prepared as to the state his wife is in; he has not taken any steps against her for adultery; she has all her conjugal rights; he must face the scandal of a trial. First of all, we will have Madame la Comtesse conveyed to Doctor Dubois’ Home for the Sick in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis; she will there be nursed in luxury. Then I shall call upon the Count for reinstatement under her husband’s roof.”
“Bravo, Desroches!” cried Bixiou. “What joy to be able to do good that will hurt so much!”
Ten minutes later Bianchon came down and said to his friends: “I am off at once to Desplein; he can save this woman by an operation. Ah! he will see that she is taken good care of, for the habit of drinking spirits has developed in her a splendid disease that we thought was extinct.”
“You wretch of a doctor, get along! As if she had but one disease,” said Bixiou.
But Bianchon was already in the courtyard, so great was his haste to go and tell the grand news to Desplein. Two hours later Joseph’s unhappy sister-in-law was carried to the private hospital founded by Doctor Dubois, which was subsequently bought by the city of Paris.
Three weeks later the Hospital Gazette contained an account of one of the boldest attempts of modern surgery in operating on a patient mentioned under the initials F. B. The subject died, much more of the weakness consequent on prolonged privations than as a result of the operation.
The Comte de Brambourg at once went in deep mourning to call on the Comte de Soulanges, and inform him of the melancholy loss he had sustained. It was whispered in the fashionable world that the Comte de Soulanges was allowing his daughter to marry a parvenu of distinguished merit, who was to be made Maréchal de Camp and Colonel of a regiment of the Bodyguard. De Marsay announced the news to Rastignac, who spoke of it at a supper at the Rocher de Cancale where he met Bixiou.
“That shall never be!” said the cunning artist to himself.
If among the friends Philippe had cut adrift there were some who, like Giroudeau, could not revenge themselves, he had proved himself unwary in offending Bixiou, whose wit secured him a reception everywhere, and who never forgave a slight. Now at the Rocher de Cancale, in the presence of highly respectable persons at supper there, Philippe had replied when Bixiou asked him to invite him to the Hôtel de Brambourg, “You may come to my house when you are a minister.”
“Must I also become a Protestant to get into your house?” replied Bixiou lightly; but he said to himself, “Though you may be a Goliath, I have a sling, and plenty of stones to fling.”
Next day the practical joker dressed at the house of an actor, a friend of his, and was metamorphosed by the omnipotent art of “makeup” into a secularized priest in green spectacles; then he took a fly and drove to the house of the Comte de Soulanges. Bixiou, treated by Philippe as a buffoon, meant to play a trick on him.
Being admitted by the Comte de Soulanges on his urgent plea that he had an important matter to lay before the Count, Bixiou played the part of a venerable personage charged with an important secret. In an assumed voice he related the history of the dead Countess’ illness, of which Bianchon had given him the particulars, that of Agathe’s death, that of old Rouget’s death, of which the Comte de Brambourg had boasted, and that of old Madame Descoings’ end; the story of the “loan” from the cashbox of the newspaper, and the facts as to Philippe’s general conduct in his worst times.
“Monsieur le Comte, do not give him your daughter till you have made every inquiry; question his former friends—Bixiou, Captain Giroudeau, and others.”
Three months after this the Comte de Brambourg entertained a party at supper: du Tillet, Nucingen, Rastignac, Maxime de Trailles, and de Marsay. The host was taking very easily the half-consolatory speeches made to him by guests concerning his rupture with the house of Soulanges.
“You can do better,” said Maxime.
“What fortune would be expected to qualify a man to marry a demoiselle de Grandlieu?” asked Philippe of de Marsay.
“To qualify you?—They would not let you have the ugliest of the six for less than ten million francs,” replied de Marsay insolently.
“Pooh!” said Rastignac; “but with two hundred thousand francs a year you may have Mademoiselle de Langeais, the Marquis’ daughter; she is ugly, she is thirty, and has not a sou of her own. That ought to satisfy you.”
“I shall have ten millions within two years’ time,” replied Philippe Bridau.
“It is January 16th, 1829,” cried du Tillet, smiling. “I have been working for ten years, and I have not so much, not I!”
“We will advise each other, and you will see how I manage money matters.”
“Why, how much have you altogether?” asked Nucingen.
“If I sold my securities and everything, excepting my estate and this house, which I could not and will not risk, as they are secured by entail, I could certainly handle three millions.”
Nucingen and du Tillet looked at each other; then
