“Is it not a shame to see madame so lovely in a shabby drawing-room like this?” said Europe to the Baron, as she admitted him.

“Vel, den, come to the Rue Saint-Georches,” said the Baron, coming to a full stop like a dog marking a partridge.  “The veather is splendit, ve shall drife to the Champs Elysees, and Montame Saint-Estefe and Eugenie shall carry dere all your clo’es an’ your linen, an’ ve shall dine in de Rue Saint-Georches.”

“I will do whatever you please,” said Esther, “if only you will be so kind as to call my cook Asie, and Eugenie Europe.  I have given those names to all the women who have served me ever since the first two.  I do not love change——­”

“Asie, Europe! echoed the Baron, laughing.  “How ver’ droll you are.  —­You hafe infentions.—­I should hafe eaten many dinners before I should hafe call’ a cook Asie.”

“It is our business to be droll,” said Esther.  “Come, now, may not a poor girl be fed by Asia and dressed by Europe when you live on the whole world?  It is a myth, I say; some women would devour the earth, I only ask for half.—­You see?”

“Vat a voman is Montame Saint-Estefe!” said the Baron to himself as he admired Esther’s changed demeanor.

“Europe, my girl, I want my bonnet,” said Esther.  “I must have a black silk bonnet lined with pink and trimmed with lace.”

“Madame Thomas has not sent it home.—­Come, Monsieur le Baron; quick, off you go!  Begin your functions as a man-of-all-work—­that is to say, of all pleasure!  Happiness is burdensome.  You have your carriage here, go to Madame Thomas,” said Europe to the Baron.  “Make your servant ask for the bonnet for Madame van Bogseck.—­And, above all,” she added in his ear, “bring her the most beautiful bouquet to be had in Paris.  It is winter, so try to get tropical flowers.”

The Baron went downstairs and told his servants to go to “Montame Thomas.”

The coachman drove to a famous pastrycook’s.

“She is a milliner, you damn’ idiot, and not a cake-shop!” cried the Baron, who rushed off to Madame Prevot’s in the Palais-Royal, where he had a bouquet made up for the price of ten louis, while his man went to the great modiste.

A superficial observer, walking about Paris, wonders who the fools can be that buy the fabulous flowers that grace the illustrious bouquetiere’s shop window, and the choice products displayed by Chevet of European fame—­the only purveyor who can vie with the Rocher de Cancale in a real and delicious Revue des deux Mondes.

Well, every day in Paris a hundred or more passions a la Nucingen come into being, and find expression in offering such rarities as queens dare not purchase, presented, kneeling, to baggages who, to use Asie’s word, like to cut a dash.  But for these little details, a decent citizen would be puzzled to conceive how a fortune melts in the hands of these women, whose social function, in Fourier’s scheme, is perhaps to rectify the disasters caused by avarice and cupidity.  Such squandering is, no doubt, to the social body what a prick of the lancet is to a plethoric subject.  In two months Nucingen had shed broadcast on trade more than two hundred thousand francs.