er night-gown, into the very
centre of the room to help her husband, whom she supposed to be in the
grasp of assassins.

"Birotteau! Birotteau!" she cried at last in a voice full of anguish.

She then saw the perfumer in the middle of the next room, a yard-stick
in his hand measuring the air, and so ill wrapped up in his green cotton
dressing-gown with chocolate-colored spots that the cold had reddened
his legs without his feeling it, preoccupied as he was. When Cesar
turned about to say to his wife, "Well, what do you want, Constance?"
his air and manner, like those of a man absorbed in calculations, were
so prodigiously silly that Madame Birotteau began to laugh.

"Goodness! Cesar, if you are not an oddity like that!" she said. "Why
did you leave me alone without telling me? I have nearly died of terror;
I did not know what to imagine. What are you doing there, flying open
to all the winds? You'll get as hoarse as a wolf. Do you hear me,
Birotteau?"

"Yes, wife, here I am," answered the perfumer, coming into the bedroom.

"Come and warm yourself, and tell me what maggot you've got in your
head," replied Madame Birotteau opening the ashes of the fire, which she
hastened to relight. "I am frozen. What a goose I was to get up in my
night-gown! But I really thought they were assassinating you."

The shopkeeper put his candlestick on the chimney-piece, wrapped his
dressing-gown closer about him, and went mechanically to find a flannel
petticoat for his wife.

"Here, Mimi, cover yourself up," he said. "Twenty-two by eighteen," he
resumed, going on with his monologue; "we can get a superb salon."

"Ah, ca! Birotteau, are you on the high road to insanity? Are you
dreaming?"

"No, wife, I am calculating."

"You had better wait till daylight for your nonsense," she cried,
fastening the petticoat beneath her short night-gown and going to the
door of the room where her daughter was in bed.

"Cesarine is asleep," she said, "she won't hear us. Come, Birotteau,
speak up. What is it?"

"We can give a ball."

"Give a ball! we? On the word of an honest woman, you are dreaming, my
friend."

"I am not dreaming, my beautiful white doe. Listen. People should
always do what their position in life demands. Government has brought
me forward into prominence. I belong to the government; it is my duty to
study its mind, and further its intentions by developing them. The Duc
de Richelieu has just put an end to the occupation of