II

BIROTTEAU'S EARLY MARRIED LIFE[55]

"You will have a good husband, my little girl," said M, Pillerault.
"He has a warm heart and sentiments of honor. He is as straight as a
line, and as good as the child Jesus; he is a king of men, in short."

[Footnote 55: From "The Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau," as
translated by Ellen Marriage.]

Constance put away once and for all the dreams of a brilliant future,
which, like most shop-girls, she had sometimes indulged. She meant to be a
faithful wife and a good mother, and took up this life in accordance with
the religious program of the middle classes. After all, her new ideas were
much better than the dangerous vanities tempting to a youthful Parisian
imagination. Constance's intelligence was a narrow one; she was the typical
small tradesman's wife, who always grumbles a little over her work, who
refuses a thing at the outset, and is vexed when she is taken at her word;
whose restless activity takes all things, from cash-box to kitchen, as its
province, and supervises everything, from the weightiest business
transaction down to almost invisible darns in the household linen. Such a
woman scolds while she loves, and can only conceive ideas of the very
simplest; only the small change, as it were; of thought passes current with
her; she argues about everything, lives in chronic fear of the unknown,
makes constant forecasts, and is always thinking of the future. Her
statuesque yet girlish beauty, her engaging looks, her freshness, prevented
Cesar from thinking of her shortcomings; and moreover, she made up for them
by a woman's sensitive conscientiousness, an excessive thrift, by her
fanatical love of work, and genius as a saleswoman.

Constance was just eighteen years old, and the possessor of eleven
thousand francs. Cesar, in whom love had developed the most unbounded
ambition, bought the perfumery business, and transplanted the Queen of
Roses to a handsome shop near the Place Vendome. He was only
twenty-one years of age, married to a beautiful and adored wife, and
almost the owner of his establishment, for he had paid three-fourths
of the amount. He saw (how should he have seen otherwise?) the future
in fair colors, which seemed fairer still as he measured his career
from its starting-point.

Roguin (Ragon's notary) drew up the marriage-contract, and gave sage
counsels to the young perfumer; he it was who interfered when the
latter was about to complete the purch