“Not before dat,” said the Baron.
“My word, how we must lace and brush and fig ourselves out,” Florine went on. “What a dance the women will lead their dressmakers and hairdressers for that evening’s fun!—And when is it to be?”
“Dat is not for me to say.”
“What a woman she must be!” cried Florine. “How much I should like to see her!”
“An’ so should I,” answered the Baron artlessly.
“What! is everything new together—the house, the furniture, and the woman?”
“Even the banker,” said du Tillet, “for my old friend seems to me quite young again.”
“Well, he must go back to his twentieth year,” said Florine; “at any rate, for once.”
In the early days of 1830 everybody in Paris was talking of Nucingen’s passion and the outrageous splendor of his house. The poor Baron, pointed at, laughed at, and fuming with rage, as may easily be imagined, took it into his head that on the occasion of giving the house-warming he would at the same time get rid of his paternal disguise, and get the price of so much generosity. Always circumvented by “La Torpille,” he determined to treat of their union by correspondence, so as to win from her an autograph promise. Bankers have no faith in anything less than a promissory note.
So one morning early in the year he rose early, locked himself into his room, and composed the following letter in very good French; for though he spoke the language very badly, he could write it very well:—