Bureaucracy Part 6

"Every letter is there!" [He repeats it.] "A Henry cinq cedera (his crown of course); de Saint-Cloud partira; en nauf (that's an old French word for skiff, vessel, felucca, corvette, anything you like) errera--"

Dutocq. "What a tissue of absurdities! How can the King cede his crown to Henry V., who, according to your nonsense, must be his grandson, when Monseigneur le Dauphin is living. Are you prophesying the Dauphin's death?"

Bixiou. "What's Gorix, pray?--the name of a cat?"

Colleville [provoked]. "It is the archaeological and lapidarial abbreviation of the name of a town, my good friend; I looked it out in Malte-Brun: Goritz, in Latin Gorixia, situated in Bohemia or Hungary, or it may be Austria--"

Bixiou. "Tyrol, the Basque provinces, or South America. Why don't you set it all to music and play it on the clarionet?"

G.o.dard [shrugging his shoulders and departing]. "What utter nonsense!"

Colleville. "Nonsense! nonsense indeed! It is a pity you don't take the trouble to study fatalism, the religion of the Emperor Napoleon."

G.o.dard [irritated at Colleville's tone]. "Monsieur Colleville, let me tell you that Bonaparte may perhaps be styled Emperor by historians, but it is extremely out of place to refer to him as such in a government office."

Bixiou [laughing]. "Get an anagram out of that, my dear fellow."

Colleville [angrily]. "Let me tell you that if Napoleon Bonaparte had studied the letters of his name on the 14th of April, 1814, he might perhaps be Emperor still."

Bixiou. "How do you make that out?"

Colleville [solemnly]. "Napoleon Bonaparte.--No, appear not at Elba!"

Dutocq. "You'll lose your place for talking such nonsense."

Colleville. "If my place is taken from me, Francois Keller will make it hot for your minister." [Dead silence.] "I'd have you to know, Master Dutocq, that all known anagrams have actually come to pa.s.s. Look here,--you, yourself,--don't you marry, for there's 'coqu' in your name."

Bixiou [interrupting]. "And d, t, for de-testable."

Dutocq [without seeming angry]. "I don't care, as long as it is only in my name. Why don't you anagrammatize, or whatever you call it, 'Xavier Rabourdin, chef du bureau'?"

Colleville. "Bless you, so I have!"

Bixiou [mending his pen]. "And what did you make of it?"

Colleville. "It comes out as follows: D'abord reva bureaux, E-u,--(you catch the meaning? et eut--and had) E-u fin riche; which signifies that after first belonging to the administration, he gave it up and got rich elsewhere." [Repeats.] "D'abord reva bureaux, E-u fin riche."

Dutocq. "That IS queer!"

Bixiou. "Try Isidore Baudoyer."

Colleville [mysteriously]. "I sha'n't tell the other anagrams to any one but Thuillier."

Bixiou. "I'll bet you a breakfast that I can tell that one myself."

Colleville. "And I'll pay if you find it out."

Bixiou. "Then I shall breakfast at your expense; but you won't be angry, will you? Two such geniuses as you and I need never conflict. 'Isidore Baudoyer' anagrams into 'Ris d'aboyeur d'oie.'"

Colleville [petrified with amazement]. "You stole it from me!"

Bixiou [with dignity]. "Monsieur Colleville, do me the honor to believe that I am rich enough in absurdity not to steal my neighbor's nonsense."

Baudoyer [entering with a bundle of papers in his hand]. "Gentlemen, I request you to shout a little louder; you bring this office into such high repute with the administration. My worthy coadjutor, Monsieur Clergeot, did me the honor just now to come and ask a question, and he heard the noise you are making" [pa.s.ses into Monsieur G.o.dard's room].

Bixiou [in a low voice]. "The watch-dog is very tame this morning; there'll be a change of weather before night."

Dutocq [whispering to Bixiou]. "I have something I want to say to you."

Bixiou [fingering Dutocq's waistcoat]. "You've a pretty waistcoat, that cost you nothing; is that what you want to say?"

Dutocq. "Nothing, indeed! I never paid so dear for anything in my life.

That stuff cost six francs a yard in the best shop in the rue de la Paix,--a fine dead stuff, the very thing for deep mourning."

Bixiou. "You know about engravings and such things, my dear fellow, but you are totally ignorant of the laws of etiquette. Well, no man can be a universal genius! Silk is positively not admissible in deep mourning.

Don't you see I am wearing woollen? Monsieur Rabourdin, Monsieur Baudoyer, and the minister are all in woollen; so is the faubourg Saint-Germain. There's no one here but Minard who doesn't wear woollen; he's afraid of being taken for a sheep. That's the reason why he didn't put on mourning for Louis XVIII."

[During this conversation Baudoyer is sitting by the fire in G.o.dard's room, and the two are conversing in a low voice.]

Baudoyer. "Yes, the worthy man is dying. The two ministers are both with him. My father-in-law has been notified of the event. If you want to do me a signal service you will take a cab and go and let Madame Baudoyer know what is happening; for Monsieur Saillard can't leave his desk, nor I my office. Put yourself at my wife's orders; do whatever she wishes.

She has, I believe, some ideas of her own, and wants to take certain steps simultaneously." [The two functionaries go out together.]

G.o.dard. "Monsieur Bixiou, I am obliged to leave the office for the rest of the day. You will take my place."

Baudoyer [to Bixiou, benignly]. "Consult me, if there is any necessity."

Bixiou. "This time, La Billardiere is really dead."

Dutocq [in Bixiou's ear]. "Come outside a minute." [The two go into the corridor and gaze at each other like birds of ill-omen.]

Dutocq [whispering]. "Listen. Now is the time for us to understand each other and push our way. What would you say to your being made head of the bureau, and I under you?"

Bixiou [shrugging his shoulders]. "Come, come, don't talk nonsense!"

Dutocq. "If Baudoyer gets La Billardiere's place Rabourdin won't stay on where he is. Between ourselves, Baudoyer is so incapable that if du Bruel and you don't help him he will certainly be dismissed in a couple of months. If I know arithmetic that will give three empty places for us to fill--"

Bixiou. "Three places right under our noses, which will certainly be given to some bloated favorite, some spy, some pious fraud,--to Colleville perhaps, whose wife has ended where all pretty women end--in piety."

Dutocq. "No, to /you/, my dear fellow, if you will only, for once in your life, use your wits logically." [He stopped as if to study the effect of his adverb in Bixiou's face.] "Come, let us play fair."

Bixiou [stolidly]. "Let me see your game."

Dutocq. "I don't wish to be anything more than under-head-clerk. I know myself perfectly well, and I know I haven't the ability, like you, to be head of a bureau. Du Bruel can be director, and you the head of this bureau; he will leave you his place as soon as he has made his pile; and as for me, I shall swim with the tide comfortably, under your protection, till I can retire on a pension."

Bixiou. "Sly dog! but how to you expect to carry out a plan which means forcing the minister's hand and ejecting a man of talent? Between ourselves, Rabourdin is the only man capable of taking charge of the division, and I might say of the ministry. Do you know that they talk of putting in over his head that solid lump of foolishness, that cube of idiocy, Baudoyer?"

Dutocq [consequentially]. "My dear fellow, I am in a position to rouse the whole division against Rabourdin. You know how devoted Fleury is to him? Well, I can make Fleury despise him."