“But when there are so many threads in a skein, there are apt to be knots.  Rastignac trembled for Delphine’s money.  He stipulated that Delphine must be independent and her estate separated from her husband’s, swearing to himself that he would repay her by trebling her fortune.  As, however, Rastignac said nothing of himself, Nucingen begged him to take, in the event of success, twenty-five shares of a thousand francs in the argentiferous lead-mines, and Eugene took them —­not to offend him!  Nucingen had put Rastignac up to this the day before that evening in the Rue Joubert when our friend counseled Malvina to marry.  A cold shiver ran through Rastignac at the sight of so many happy folk in Paris going to and fro unconscious of the impending loss; even so a young commander might shiver at the first sight of an army drawn up before a battle.  He saw the d’Aiglemonts, the d’Aldriggers, and Beaudenord.  Poor little Isaure and Godefroid playing at love, what were they but Acis and Galatea under the rock which a hulking Polyphemus was about to send down upon them?”

“That monkey of a Bixiou has something almost like talent,” said Blondet.

“Oh! so I am not maundering now?” asked Bixiou, enjoying his success as he looked round at his surprised auditors.—­“For two months past,” he continued, “Godefroid had given himself up to all the little pleasures of preparation for the marriage.  At such times men are like birds building nests in spring; they come and go, pick up their bits of straw, and fly off with them in their beaks to line the nest that is to hold a brood of young birds by and by.  Isaure’s bridegroom had taken a house in the Rue de la Plancher at a thousand crowns, a comfortable little house neither too large nor too small, which suited them.  Every morning he went round to take a look at the workmen and to superintend the painters.  He had introduced ‘comfort’ (the only good thing in England)—­heating apparatus to maintain an even temperature all over the house; fresh, soft colors, carefully chosen furniture, neither too showy nor too much in fashion; spring-blinds fitted to every window inside and out; silver plate and new carriages.  He had seen to the stables, coach-house, and harness-room, where Toby Joby Paddy floundered and fidgeted about like a marmot let loose, apparently rejoiced to know that there would be women about the place and a ‘lady’!  This fervent passion of a man that sets up housekeeping, choosing clocks, going to visit his betrothed with his pockets full of patterns of stuffs, consulting her as to the bedroom furniture, going, coming, and trotting about, for love’s sake,—­all this, I say, is a spectacle in the highest degree calculated to rejoice the hearts of honest people, especially tradespeople.  And as nothing pleases folk better than the marriage of a good-looking young fellow of seven-and-twenty and a charming girl of nineteen that dances admirably well, Godefroid in his perplexity over the corbeille asked Mme. de Nucingen and Rastignac to breakfast with him and advise him on this all-important point.  He hit likewise on the happy idea of asking his cousin d’Aiglemont and his wife to meet them, as well as Mme. de Serizy.  Women of the world are ready enough to join for once in an improvised breakfast-party at a bachelor’s rooms.”