“Let us get away,” said Bixiou. “Leon is beginning to moralize.”
“But that man was sincere,” said Gazonal, still stupefied.
“Perfectly sincere,” replied Bixiou; “as sincere as the king of barbers just now.”
“He is mad!” repeated Gazonal.
“And he is not the first man driven man by Fourier’s ideas,” said Bixiou. “You don’t know anything about Paris. Ask it for a hundred thousand francs to realize an idea that will be useful to humanity,—the steam-engine for instance,—and you’ll die, like Salomon de Caux, at Bicetre; but if the money is wanted for some paradoxical absurdity, Parisians will annihilate themselves and their fortune for it. It is the same with systems as it is with material things. Utterly impracticable newspapers have consumed millions within the last fifteen years. What makes your lawsuit so hard to win, is that you have right on your side, and on that of the prefect there are (so you suppose) secret motives.”
“Do you think that a man of intellect having once understood the nature of Paris could live elsewhere?” said Leon to his cousin.
“Suppose we take Gazonal to old Mere Fontaine?” said Bixiou, making a sign to the driver of a citadine to draw up; “it will be a step from the real to the fantastic. Driver, Vieille rue du Temple.”
And all three were presently rolling in the direction of the Marais.
“What are you taking me to see now?” asked Gazonal.
“The proof of what Bixiou told you,” replied Leon; “we shall show you a woman who makes twenty thousand francs a year by working a fantastic idea.”