heart is full of love, old shaver, rasibus, as you say who know
Latin," replied Asie. "She thinks herself the Queen of Sheba, because
she has washed herself in sacrifices made for her lover--an idea that
that sort of woman gets into her head! Well, well, old fellow, we must
be just.--It is fine! That baggage would die of grief at being your
mistress--I really should not wonder. But what I trust to, and I tell
you to give you courage, is that there is good in the girl at bottom."

"You hafe a genius for corruption," said the Baron, who had listened to
Asie in admiring silence, "just as I hafe de knack of de banking."

"Then it is settled, my pigeon?" said Asie.

"Done for fifty tousant franc insteat of ein hundert tousant!--An' I
shall give you fife hundert tousant de day after my triumph."

"Very good, I will set to work," said Asie. "And you may come,
monsieur," she added respectfully. "You will find madame as soft already
as a cat's back, and perhaps inclined to make herself pleasant."

"Go, go, my goot voman," said the banker, rubbing his hands.

And after seeing the horrible mulatto out of the house, he said to
himself:

"How vise it is to hafe much money."

He sprang out of bed, went down to his office, and resumed the conduct
of his immense business with a light heart.

Nothing could be more fatal to Esther than the steps taken by Nucingen.
The hapless girl, in defending her fidelity, was defending her life.
This very natural instinct was what Carlos called prudery. Now Asie,
not without taking such precautions as usual in such cases, went off to
report to Carlos the conference she had held with the Baron, and all the
profit she had made by it. The man's rage, like himself, was terrible;
he came forthwith to Esther, in a carriage with the blinds drawn,
driving into the courtyard. Still almost white with fury, the
double-dyed forger went straight into the poor girl's room; she looked
at him--she was standing up--and she dropped on to a chair as though her
legs had snapped.

"What is the matter, monsieur?" said she, quaking in every limb.

"Leave us, Europe," said he to the maid.

Esther looked at the woman as a child might look at its mother, from
whom some assassin had snatched it to murder it.

"Do you know where you will send Lucien?" Carlos went on when he was
alone with Esther.

"Where?" asked she in a low voice, venturing to glance at her
executioner.

"Where I come from, my beauty." Est