by-play of bourgeois love. The Matifats joined in
these games.

"Cesar," said Constance as they drove home, "go and see Monsieur le
Baron de Nucingen on the 8th so as to be sure of having your payments
ready in advance of the 15th. If there should be any hitch, how could
you scrape the money together if you have only one day to do it in?"

"I will see to it, wife," said Cesar, pressing his wife's hand and his
daughter's, adding, "Ah, my dear white lambs, I have given you a sad New
Year's gift!"

The two women, unable to see him in the obscurity of the hackney coach,
felt his tears falling hot upon their hands.

"Be hopeful, dear friend," said Constance.

"All will go well, papa; Monsieur Anselme Popinot told me he would shed
his blood for you."

"For me?" said Cesar, trying to speak gaily; "and for the family as
well. Isn't it so?"

Cesarine pressed her father's hand, as if to let him know she was
betrothed to Anselme.

IV

During the first three days of the year, two hundred visiting cards
were sent to Birotteau. This rush of fictitious friendship, these empty
testimonials of favor, are horrible to those who feel themselves drawn
down into the vortex of misfortune. Birotteau presented himself three
times at the hotel of the famous banker, the Baron de Nucingen, but
in vain. The opening of the year with all its festivities sufficiently
explained the absences of the financier. On the last occasion Birotteau
got as far as the office of the banker, where the head-clerk, a German,
told him that Monsieur de Nucingen had returned at five in the morning
from a ball at the Kellers', and would not be visible until half-past
nine o'clock. Birotteau had the luck to interest this man in his
affairs, and remained talking with him more than half an hour. In the
course of the afternoon this prime minister of the house of Nucingen
wrote Birotteau that the baron would receive him the next day, 13th, at
noon. Though every hour brought its drop of absinthe, the day went by
with frightful rapidity. Cesar took a hackney coach, but stopped it
several paces distant from the hotel, whose courtyard was crowded
with carriages. The poor man's heart sank within him when he saw the
splendors of that noted house.

"And yet he has failed twice," he said to himself as he went up a superb
staircase banked with flowers, and crossed the sumptuous rooms which
helped to make Madame Delphine de Nucingen famous in the Chaussee
d'Antin. T