“It is too much,” said the philosopher to the happy lover; “he can never carry all the wine you are pouring out to him.”

Joy was so vivid in their hearts that each attributed Cesar’s emotion and his stumbling step to the natural intoxication of his feelings, —­natural, but sometimes mortal.  When he found himself once more in his own home, when he saw his salon, his guests, the women in their ball-dresses, suddenly the heroic measure in the finale of the great symphony rang forth in his head and heart.  Beethoven’s ideal music echoed, vibrated, in many tones, sounding its clarions through the membranes of the weary brain, of which it was indeed the grand finale.

Oppressed with this inward harmony, Cesar took the arm of his wife and whispered, in a voice suffocated by a rush of blood that was still repressed:  “I am not well.”

Constance, alarmed, led him to her bedroom; he reached it with difficulty, and fell into a chair, saying:  “Monsieur Haudry, Monsieur Loraux.”

The Abbe Loraux came, followed by the guests and the women in their ball-dresses, who stopped short, a frightened group.  In presence of that shining company Cesar pressed the hand of his confessor and laid his head upon the bosom of his kneeling wife.  A vessel had broken in his heart, and the rush of blood strangled his last sigh.

“Behold the death of the righteous!” said the Abbe Loraux solemnly, pointing to Cesar with the divine gesture which Rembrandt gave to Christ in his picture of the Raising of Lazarus.

Jesus commanded the earth to give up its prey; the priest called heaven to behold a martyr of commercial honor worthy to receive the everlasting palm.

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Bianchon, Horace
  Father Goriot
  The Atheist’s Mass
  The Commission in Lunacy
  Lost Illusions
  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
  A Bachelor’s Establishment
  The Secrets of a Princess
  The Government Clerks
  Pierrette
  A Study of Woman
  Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
  Honorine
  The Seamy Side of History
  The Magic Skin
  A Second Home
  A Prince of Bohemia
  Letters of Two Brides
  The Muse of the Department
  The Imaginary Mistress
  The Middle Classes
  Cousin Betty
  The Country Parson
In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following: 
  Another Study of Woman
  La Grande Breteche

Bidault (known as Gigonnet)
  The Government Clerks
  Gobseck
  The Vendetta
  The Firm of Nucingen
  A Daughter of Eve

Birotteau, Cesar
  A Bachelor’s Establishment
  At the Sign of the Cat and Racket

Birotteau, Abbe Francois
  The Lily of the Valley
  The Vicar of Tours

Braschon
  Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life