“Why, you are as cold as a paving-stone in winter!” she exclaimed in amazement.  “Come, now.  You will make a whole family happy—­a grandfather who runs all the errands, a mother who is being worn out with work, and two sisters—­one of them very plain—­who make thirty-two sous a day while putting their eyes out.  It will make up for the misery you have caused at home, and you will expiate your sin while you are having as much fun as a minx at Mabille.”

Hulot, to put an end to this temptation, moved his fingers as if he were counting out money.

“Oh! be quite easy as to ways and means,” replied Josepha.  “My Duke will lend you ten thousand francs; seven thousand to start an embroidery shop in Bijou’s name, and three thousand for furnishing; and every three months you will find a cheque here for six hundred and fifty francs.  When you get your pension paid you, you can repay the seventeen thousand francs.  Meanwhile you will be as happy as a cow in clover, and hidden in a hole where the police will never find you.  You must wear a loose serge coat, and you will look like a comfortable householder.  Call yourself Thoul, if that is your fancy.  I will tell Bijou that you are an uncle of mine come from Germany, having failed in business, and you will be cosseted like a divinity.—­There now, Daddy!—­And who knows! you may have no regrets.  In case you should be bored, keep one Sunday rig-out, and you can come and ask me for a dinner and spend the evening here.”

“I!—­and I meant to settle down and behave myself!—­Look here, borrow twenty thousand francs for me, and I will set out to make my fortune in America, like my friend d’Aiglemont when Nucingen cleaned him out.”

“You!” cried Josepha.  “Nay, leave morals to work-a-day folks, to raw recruits, to the worrrthy citizens who have nothing to boast of but their virtue.  You!  You were born to be something better than a nincompoop; you are as a man what I am as a woman—­a spendthrift of genius.”

“We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning.”

“You will dine with the Duke.  My d’Herouville will receive you as civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can decide.  Come, be jolly, old boy!  Life is a garment; when it is dirty, we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep it on as long as we can.”

This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot’s keenest pangs.

At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome.