The Lesser Bourgeoisie

CHAPTER VI

A KEYNOTE

When Theo­dose reached home he found, wait­ing for him on the land­ing, a per­son­age who is, as it were, the sub­ma­rine cur­rent of this his­to­ry; he will be found with­in it like some buried church on which has risen the fa­cade of a palace. The sight of this man, who, af­ter vain­ly ring­ing at la Peyrade's door, was now try­ing that of Du­tocq, made the Proven­cal bar­ris­ter trem­ble--but se­cret­ly, with­in him­self, not be­tray­ing ex­ter­nal­ly his in­ward emo­tion. This man was Cer­izet, whom Du­tocq had men­tioned to Thuil­li­er as his copy­ing-​clerk.

Cer­izet was on­ly thir­ty-​eight years old, but he looked a man of fifty, so aged had he be­come from caus­es which age all men. His hair­less head had a yel­low skull, ill-​cov­ered by a rusty, dis­col­ored wig; the mask of his face, pale, flab­by, and un­nat­ural­ly rough, seemed the more hor­ri­ble be­cause the nose was eat­en away, though not suf­fi­cient­ly to ad­mit of its be­ing re­placed by a false one. From the spring of this nose at the fore­head, down to the nos­trils, it re­mained as na­ture had made it; but dis­ease, af­ter gnaw­ing away the sides near the ex­trem­ities, had left two holes of fan­tas­tic shape, which vi­ti­at­ed pro­nun­ci­ation and ham­pered speech. The eyes, orig­inal­ly hand­some, but weak­ened by mis­ery of all kinds and by sleep­less nights, were red around the edges, and deeply sunken; the glance of those eyes, when the soul sent in­to them an ex­pres­sion of ma­lig­nan­cy, would have fright­ened both judges and crim­inals, or any oth­ers whom noth­ing usu­al­ly af­frights.

The mouth, tooth­less ex­cept for a few black fangs, was threat­en­ing; the sali­va made a foam with­in it, which did not, how­ev­er, pass the pale thin lips. Cer­izet, a short man, less spare than shrunk­en, en­deav­ored to rem­edy the de­fects of his per­son by his clothes, and al­though his gar­ments were not those of op­ulence, he kept them in a con­di­tion of neat­ness which may even have in­creased his for­lorn ap­pear­ance. Ev­ery­thing about him seemed du­bi­ous; his age, his nose, his glance in­spired doubt. It was im­pos­si­ble to know if he were thir­ty-​eight or six­ty; if his fad­ed blue trousers, which fit­ted him well, were of a com­ing or a past fash­ion. His boots, worn at the heels, but scrupu­lous­ly blacked, resoled for the third time, and very choice, orig­inal­ly, may have trod­den in their day a min­is­te­ri­al car­pet. The frock coat, soaked by many a down-​pour, with its bran­de­bourgs, the frogs of which were in­dis­creet enough to show their skele­tons, tes­ti­fied by its cut to de­part­ed el­egance. The satin stock-​cra­vat for­tu­nate­ly con­cealed the shirt, but the tongue of the buck­le be­hind the neck had frayed the satin, which was re-​satined, that is, re-​pol­ished, by a species of oil dis­tilled from the wig. In the days of its youth the waist­coat was not, of course, with­out fresh­ness, but it was one of those waist­coats, bought for four francs, which come from the hooks of the ready-​made cloth­ing deal­er. All these things were care­ful­ly brushed, and so was the shiny and mis­shapen hat. They har­mo­nized with each oth­er, even to the black gloves which cov­ered the hands of this sub­al­tern Mephistophe­les, whose whole an­te­ri­or life may be summed up in a sin­gle phrase:--

He was an artist in evil, with whom, from the first, evil had suc­ceed­ed; a man mis­led by these ear­ly suc­cess­es to con­tin­ue the plot­ting of in­fa­mous deeds with­in the lines of strict le­gal­ity. Be­com­ing the head of a print­ing-​of­fice by be­tray­ing his mas­ter [see “Lost Il­lu­sions”], he had af­ter­wards been con­demned to im­pris­on­ment as ed­itor of a lib­er­al news­pa­per. In the provinces, un­der the Restora­tion, he be­came the bete noire of the gov­ern­ment, and was called “that un­for­tu­nate Cer­izet” by some, as peo­ple spoke of “the un­for­tu­nate Chau­vet” and “the hero­ic Merci­er.” He owed to this rep­uta­tion of per­se­cut­ed pa­tri­otism a place as sub-​pre­fect in 1830. Six months lat­er he was dis­missed; but he in­sist­ed that he was judged with­out be­ing heard; and he made so much talk about it that, un­der the min­istry of Casimir Perier, he be­came the ed­itor of an an­ti-​re­pub­li­can news­pa­per in the pay of the gov­ern­ment. He left that po­si­tion to go in­to busi­ness, one phase of which was the most ne­far­ious stock-​com­pa­ny that ev­er fell in­to the hands of the cor­rec­tion­al po­lice. Cer­izet proud­ly ac­cept­ed the se­vere sen­tence he re­ceived; declar­ing it to be a re­venge­ful plot on the part of the re­pub­li­cans, who, he said, would nev­er for­give him for the hard blows he had dealt them in his jour­nal. He spent the time of his im­pris­on­ment in a hos­pi­tal. The gov­ern­ment by this time were ashamed of a man whose al­most in­fa­mous habits and shame­ful busi­ness trans­ac­tions, car­ried on in com­pa­ny with a for­mer banker, named Cla­paron, led him at last in­to well-​de­served pub­lic con­tempt.

Cer­izet, thus fall­en, step by step, to the low­est rung of the so­cial lad­der, had re­course to pity in or­der to ob­tain the place of copy­ing clerk in Du­tocq's of­fice. In the depths of his wretched­ness the man still dreamed of re­venge, and, as he had noth­ing to lose, he em­ployed all means to that end. Du­tocq and him­self were bound to­geth­er in de­prav­ity. Cer­izet was to Du­tocq what the hound is the hunts­man. Know­ing him­self the ne­ces­si­ties of pover­ty and wretched­ness, he set up that busi­ness of gut­ter usury called, in pop­ular par­lance, “the loan by the lit­tle week.” He be­gan this at first by help of Du­tocq, who shared the prof­its; but, at the present mo­ment this man of many le­gal crimes, now the banker of fish­wives, the mon­ey-​lender of coster­mon­gers, was the gnaw­ing ro­dent of the whole faubourg.

“Well,” said Cer­izet as Du­tocq opened his door, “Theo­dose has just come in; let us go to his room.”

The ad­vo­cate of the poor was fain to al­low the two men to pass be­fore him.

All three crossed a lit­tle room, the tiled floor of which, cov­ered with a coat­ing of red en­caus­tic, shone in the light; thence in­to a lit­tle sa­lon with crim­son cur­tains and ma­hogany fur­ni­ture, cov­ered with red Utrecht vel­vet; the wall op­po­site the win­dow be­ing oc­cu­pied by book-​shelves con­tain­ing a le­gal li­brary. The chim­ney-​piece was cov­ered with vul­gar or­na­ments, a clock with four columns in ma­hogany, and can­de­labra un­der glass shades. The study, where the three men seat­ed them­selves be­fore a soft-​coal fire, was the study of a lawyer just be­gin­ning to prac­tise. The fur­ni­ture con­sist­ed of a desk, an arm­chair, lit­tle cur­tains of green silk at the win­dows, a green car­pet, shelves for lawyer's box­es, and a couch, above which hung an ivory Christ on a vel­vet back­ground. The bed­room, kitchen, and rest of the apart­ment looked out up­on the court­yard.

“Well,” said Cer­izet, “how are things go­ing? Are we get­ting on?”

“Yes,” replied Theo­dose.

“You must ad­mit,” cried Du­tocq, “that my idea was a fa­mous one, in lay­ing hold of that im­be­cile of a Thuil­li­er?”

“Yes, but I'm not be­hind­hand ei­ther,” ex­claimed Cer­izet. “I have come now to show you a way to put the thumb­screws on the old maid and make her spin like a tee­to­tum. We mustn't de­ceive our­selves; Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er is the head and front of ev­ery­thing in this af­fair; if we get her on our side the town is won. Let us say lit­tle, but that lit­tle to the point, as be­comes strong men with each oth­er. Cla­paron, you know, is a fool; he'll be all his life what he al­ways was,--a cat's-​paw. Just now he is lend­ing his name to a no­tary in Paris, who is con­cerned with a lot of con­trac­tors, and they are all--no­tary and ma­sons--on the point of ru­in. Cla­paron is go­ing head­long in­to it. He nev­er yet was bankrupt; but there's a first time for ev­ery­thing. He is hid­den now in my hov­el in the rue des Poules, where no one will ev­er find him. He is des­per­ate, and he hasn't a pen­ny. Now, among the five or six hous­es built by these con­trac­tors, which have to be sold, there's a jew­el of a house, built of free­stone, in the neigh­bor­hood of the Madeleine,--a frontage laced like a mel­on, with beau­ti­ful carv­ings,--but not be­ing fin­ished, it will have to be sold for what it will bring; cer­tain­ly not more than a hun­dred thou­sand francs. By spend­ing twen­ty-​five thou­sand francs up­on it it could be let, un­doubt­ed­ly, for ten thou­sand. Make Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er the pro­pri­etor of that house and you'll win her love; she'll be­lieve that you can put such chances in her way ev­ery year. There are two ways of get­ting hold of vain peo­ple: flat­ter their van­ity, _or_ threat­en them; and there are al­so two ways of man­ag­ing mis­ers: fill their purse, or else at­tack it. Now, this stroke of busi­ness, while it does good to Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er, does good to us as well, and it would be a pity not to prof­it by the chance.”

“But why does the no­tary let it slip through his fin­gers?” asked Du­tocq.

“The no­tary, my dear fel­low! Why, he's the very one who saves us. Forced to sell his prac­tice, and ut­ter­ly ru­ined be­sides, he re­served for him­self this crumb of the cake. Be­liev­ing in the hon­esty of that id­iot Cla­paron, he has asked him to find a dum­my pur­chas­er. We'll let him sup­pose that Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er is a wor­thy soul who al­lows Cla­paron to use her name; they'll both be fooled, Cla­paron and the no­tary too. I owe this lit­tle trick to my friend Cla­paron, who left me to bear the whole weight of the trou­ble about his stock-​com­pa­ny, in which we were tricked by Con­ture, and I hope you may nev­er be in that man's skin!” he added, in­fer­nal ha­tred flash­ing from his worn and with­ered eyes. “Now, I've said my say, gen­tle­men,” he con­tin­ued, send­ing out his voice through his nasal holes, and tak­ing a dra­mat­ic at­ti­tude; for once, at a mo­ment of ex­treme penury, he had gone up­on the stage.

As he fin­ished mak­ing his propo­si­tion some one rang at the out­er door, and la Peyrade rose to go and open it. As soon as his back was turned, Cer­izet said, hasti­ly, to Du­tocq:--

“Are you sure of him? I see a sort of air about him--And I'm a good judge of treach­ery.”

“He is so com­plete­ly in our pow­er,” said Du­tocq, “that I don't trou­ble my­self to watch; but, be­tween our­selves, I didn't think him as strong as he proves to be. The fact is, we thought we were putting a barb be­tween the legs of a man who didn't know how to ride, and the rogue is an old jock­ey!”

“Let him take care,” growled Cer­izet. “I can blow him down like a house of cards any day. As for you, pa­pa Du­tocq, you are able to see him at work all the time; watch him care­ful­ly. Be­sides, I'll feel his pulse by get­ting Cla­paron to pro­pose to him to get rid of us; that will help us to judge him.”

“Pret­ty good, that!” said Du­tocq. “You are dar­ing, any­how.”

“I've got my hand in, that's all,” replied Cer­izet.

These words were ex­changed in a low voice dur­ing the time that it took Theo­dose to go to the out­er door and re­turn. Cer­izet was look­ing at the books when the lawyer re-​en­tered the room.

“It is Thuil­li­er,” said Theo­dose. “I thought he'd come; he is in the sa­lon. He mustn't see Cer­izet's frock-​coat; those frogs would fright­en him.”

“Pooh! you re­ceive the poor in your of­fice, don't you? That's in your role. Do you want any mon­ey?” added Cer­izet, pulling a hun­dred francs out of his trousers' pock­et. “There it is; it won't look amiss.”

And he laid the pile on the chim­ney-​piece.

“And now,” said Du­tocq, “we had bet­ter get out through the bed­room.”

“Well, good-​bye,” said Theo­dose, open­ing a hid­den door which com­mu­ni­cat­ed from the study to the bed­room. “Come in, Mon­sieur Thuil­li­er,” he called out to the beau of the Em­pire.

When he saw him safe­ly in the study he went to let out his two as­so­ciates through the bed­room and kitchen in­to the court­yard.

“In six months,” said Cer­izet, “you'll have mar­ried Ce­leste and got your foot in­to the stir­rup. You are lucky, you are, not to have sat, like me, in the pris­on­ers' dock. I've been there twice: once in 1825, for 'sub­ver­sive ar­ti­cles' which I nev­er wrote, and the sec­ond time for re­ceiv­ing the prof­its of a joint-​stock com­pa­ny which had slipped through my fin­gers! Come, let's warm this thing up! Sac-​a-​pa­pi­er! Du­tocq and I are sore­ly in need of that twen­ty-​five thou­sand francs. Good courage, old fel­low!” he added, hold­ing out his hand to Theo­dose, and mak­ing the grasp a test of faith­ful­ness.

The Proven­cal gave Cer­izet his right hand, press­ing the oth­er's hand warm­ly:--

“My good fel­low,” he said, “be very sure that in what­ev­er po­si­tion I may find my­self I shall nev­er for­get that from which you have drawn me by putting me in the sad­dle here. I'm sim­ply your bait; but you are giv­ing me the best part of the catch, and I should be more in­fa­mous than a gal­ley-​slave who turns po­lice­man if I didn't play fair.”

As soon as the door was closed, Cer­izet peeped through the key-​hole, try­ing to catch sight of la Peyrade's face. But the Proven­cal had turned back to meet Thuil­li­er, and his dis­trust­ful as­so­ciate could not de­tect the ex­pres­sion of his coun­te­nance.

That ex­pres­sion was nei­ther dis­gust nor an­noy­ance, it was sim­ply joy, ap­pear­ing on a face that now seemed freed. Theo­dose saw the means of suc­cess ap­proach­ing him, and he flat­tered him­self that the day would come when he might get rid of his ig­no­ble as­so­ciates, to whom he owed ev­ery­thing. Pover­ty has un­fath­omable depths, es­pe­cial­ly in Paris, slimy bot­toms, from which, when a drowned man ris­es to the sur­face of the wa­ter, he brings with him filth and im­pu­ri­ty cling­ing to his clothes, or to his per­son. Cer­izet, the once op­ulent friend and pro­tec­tor of Theo­dose, was the mud­dy mire still cling­ing to the Proven­cal, and the for­mer man­ag­er of the joint-​stock com­pa­ny saw very plain­ly that his tool want­ed to brush him­self on en­ter­ing a sphere where de­cent cloth­ing was a ne­ces­si­ty.

“Well, my dear Theo­dose,” be­gan Thuil­li­er, “we have hoped to see you ev­ery day this week, and ev­ery evening we find our hopes de­ceived. As this is our Sun­day for a din­ner, my sis­ter and my wife have sent me here to beg you to come to us.”

“I have been so busy,” said Theo­dose, “that I have not had two min­utes to give to any one, not even to you, whom I count among my friends, and with whom I have wished to talk about--”

“What? have you re­al­ly been think­ing se­ri­ous­ly over what you said to me?” cried Thuil­li­er, in­ter­rupt­ing him.

“If you had not come here now for a full un­der­stand­ing, I shouldn't re­spect you as I do,” replied la Peyrade, smil­ing. “You have been a sub-​di­rec­tor, and there­fore you must have the re­mains of am­bi­tion --which is deuced­ly le­git­imate in your case! Come, now, be­tween our­selves, when one sees a Mi­nard, that gild­ed pot, dis­play­ing him­self at the Tu­ileries, and com­pli­ment­ing the king, and a Popinot about to be­come a min­is­ter of State, and then look at you! a man trained to ad­min­is­tra­tive work, a man with thir­ty years' ex­pe­ri­ence, who has seen six gov­ern­ments, left to plant bal­sams in a lit­tle gar­den! Heav­ens and earth!--I am frank, my dear Thuil­li­er, and I'll say, hon­est­ly, that I want to ad­vance you, be­cause you'll draw me af­ter you. Well, here's my plan. We are soon to elect a mem­ber of the coun­cil-​gen­er­al from this ar­rondisse­ment; and that mem­ber must be you. And,” he added, dwelling on the word, “it _will_ be you! Af­ter that, you will cer­tain­ly be deputy from the ar­rondisse­ment when the Cham­ber is re-​elect­ed, which must sure­ly be be­fore long. The votes that elect you to the mu­nic­ipal coun­cil will stand by you in the elec­tion for deputy, trust me for that.”

“But how will you man­age all this?” cried Thuil­li­er, fas­ci­nat­ed.

“You shall know in good time; but you must let me con­duct this long and dif­fi­cult af­fair; if you com­mit the slight­est in­dis­cre­tion as to what is said, or planned, or agreed be­tween us, I shall have to drop the whole mat­ter, and good-​bye to you!”

“Oh! you can re­ly on the ab­so­lute dumb­ness of a for­mer sub-​di­rec­tor; I've had se­crets to keep.”

“That's all very well; but these are se­crets to keep from your wife and sis­ter, and from Mon­sieur and Madame Colleville.”

“Not a mus­cle of my face shall re­veal them,” said Thuil­li­er, as­sum­ing a stol­id air.

“Very good,” con­tin­ued Theo­dose. “I shall test you. In or­der to make your­self el­igi­ble, you must pay tax­es on a cer­tain amount of prop­er­ty, and you are not pay­ing them.”

“I beg your par­don; I'm all right for the mu­nic­ipal coun­cil at any rate; I pay two francs nine­ty-​six cen­times.”

“Yes, but the tax on prop­er­ty nec­es­sary for elec­tion to the cham­ber is five hun­dred francs, and there is no time to lose in ac­quir­ing that prop­er­ty, be­cause you must prove pos­ses­sion for one year.”

“The dev­il!” cried Thuil­li­er; “be­tween now and a year hence to be taxed five hun­dred francs on prop­er­ty which--”

“Be­tween now and the end of Ju­ly, at the lat­est, you must pay that tax. Well, I feel enough in­ter­est in you to tell you the se­cret of an af­fair by which you might make from thir­ty to forty thou­sand francs a year, by em­ploy­ing a cap­ital of one hun­dred and fifty thou­sand at most. I know that in your fam­ily it is your sis­ter who does your busi­ness; I am far from think­ing that a mis­take; she has, they tell me, ex­cel­lent judg­ment; and you must let me be­gin by ob­tain­ing her good-​will and friend­ship, and propos­ing this in­vest­ment to her. And this is why: If Made­moi­selle Thuil­li­er is not in­duced to put faith in my plan, we shall cer­tain­ly have dif­fi­cul­ty with her. Be­sides, it won't do for YOU to pro­pose to her that she should put the in­vest­ment of her mon­ey in your name. The idea had bet­ter come from me. As to my means of get­ting you elect­ed to the mu­nic­ipal coun­cil, they are these: Phel­lion con­trols one quar­ter of the ar­rondisse­ment; he and Laudi­geois have lived in it these thir­ty years, and they are lis­tened to like or­acles. I have a friend who con­trols an­oth­er quar­ter; and the rec­tor of Saint-​Jacques, who is not with­out in­flu­ence, thanks to his virtues, dis­pos­es of cer­tain votes. Du­tocq, in his close re­la­tion to the peo­ple, and al­so the jus­tice of peace, will help me, above all, as I'm not act­ing for my­self; and Colleville, as sec­re­tary of the may­or's of­fice, can cer­tain­ly man­age to ob­tain an­oth­er fourth of the votes.”

“You are right!” cried Thuil­li­er. “I'm elect­ed!”

“Do you think so?” said la Peyrade, in a voice of the deep­est sar­casm. “Very good! then go and ask your friend Colleville to help you, and see what he'll say. No tri­umph in elec­tion cas­es is ev­er brought about by the can­di­date him­self, but by his friends. He should nev­er ask any­thing him­self for him­self; he must be in­vit­ed to ac­cept, and ap­pear to be with­out am­bi­tion.”

“La Peyrade!” cried Thuil­li­er, ris­ing, and tak­ing the hand of the young lawyer, “you are a very ca­pa­ble man.”

“Not as ca­pa­ble as you, but I have my mer­its,” said the Proven­cal, smil­ing.

“If we suc­ceed how shall I ev­er re­pay you?” asked Thuil­li­er, naive­ly.

“Ah! that, in­deed! I am afraid you will think me im­per­ti­nent, but re­mem­ber, there is a true feel­ing in my heart which of­fers some ex­cuse for me; in fact, it has giv­en me the spir­it to un­der­take this af­fair. I love--and I take you for my con­fi­dant.”

“But who is it?” said Thuil­li­er.

“Your dear lit­tle Ce­leste,” replied la Peyrade. “My love for her will be a pledge to you of my de­vo­tion. What would I not do for a _fa­ther-​in-​law_! This is pure self­ish­ness; I shall be work­ing for my­self.”

“Hush!” cried Thuil­li­er.

“Eh, my friend!” said la Peyrade, catch­ing Thuil­li­er round the body; “if I hadn't Flavie on my side, and if I didn't know _all_ should I ven­ture to be talk­ing to you thus? But please say noth­ing to Flavie about this; wait till she speaks to you. Lis­ten to me; I'm of the met­al that makes min­is­ters; I do not seek to ob­tain Ce­leste un­til I de­serve her. You shall not be asked to give her to me un­til the day when your elec­tion as a deputy of Paris is as­sured. In or­der to be deputy of Paris, we must get the bet­ter of Mi­nard; and in or­der to crush Mi­nard you must keep in your own hands all your means of in­flu­ence; for that rea­son use Ce­leste as a hope; we'll play them off, these peo­ple, against each oth­er and fool them all--Madame Colleville and you and I will be per­sons of im­por­tance one of these days. Don't think me mer­ce­nary. I want Ce­leste with­out a 'dot,' with noth­ing more than her fu­ture ex­pec­ta­tions. To live in your fam­ily with you, to keep my wife in your midst, that is my de­sire. You see now that I have no hid­den thoughts. As for you, my dear friend, six months af­ter your elec­tion to the mu­nic­ipal coun­cil, you will have the cross of the Le­gion of hon­or, and when you are deputy you will be made an of­fi­cer of it. As for your speech­es in the Cham­ber--well! we'll write them to­geth­er. Per­haps it would be de­sir­able for you to write a book,--a se­ri­ous book on mat­ters half moral and phil­an­thropic, half po­lit­ical; such, for in­stance, as char­ita­ble in­sti­tu­tions con­sid­ered from the high­est stand-​point; or re­forms in the pawn­ing sys­tem, the abus­es of which are re­al­ly fright­ful. Let us fas­ten some slight dis­tinc­tion to your name; it will help you,--es­pe­cial­ly in the ar­rondisse­ment. Now, I say again, trust me, be­lieve in me; do not think of tak­ing me in­to your fam­ily un­til you have the rib­bon in your but­ton­hole on the mor­row of the day when you take your seat in the Cham­ber. I'll do more than that, how­ev­er; I'll put you in the way of mak­ing forty thou­sand francs a year.”

“For any one of those three things you shall have our Ce­leste,” said Thuil­li­er.

“Ah! what a pearl she is!” ex­claimed la Peyrade, rais­ing his eyes to heav­en. “I have the weak­ness to pray to God for her ev­ery day. She is charm­ing; she is ex­act­ly like you--oh! non­sense; sure­ly you needn't cau­tion me! Du­tocq told me all. Well, I'll be with you to-​night. I must go to the Phel­lions' now, and be­gin to work our plan. You don't need me to cau­tion you not to let it be known that you are think­ing of me for Ce­leste; if you do, you'll cut off my arms and legs. There­fore, si­lence! even to Flavie. Wait till she speaks to you her­self. Phel­lion shall to-​night broach the mat­ter of propos­ing you as can­di­date for the coun­cil.”

“To-​night?” said Thuil­li­er.

“Yes, to-​night,” replied la Peyrade, “un­less I don't find him at home now.”

Thuil­li­er de­part­ed, say­ing to him­self:--

“That's a very su­pe­ri­or man; we shall al­ways un­der­stand each oth­er. Faith! it might be hard to do bet­ter for Ce­leste. They will live with us, as in our own fam­ily, and that's a good deal! Yes, he's a fine fel­low, a sound man.”

To minds of Thuil­li­er's cal­ibre, a sec­ondary con­sid­er­ation of­ten as­sumes the im­por­tance of a prin­ci­pal rea­son. Theo­dose had be­haved to him with charm­ing bon­homie.