“You shall get me the place as cook to Madame, engage me for ten years, and pay the last five in advance--what is that? Just a little earnest-money. When once I am about madame, I can bring her to these terms. Of course, you must first order her a lovely dress from Madame Auguste, who knows her style and taste; and order the new carriage to be at the door at four o’clock. After the Bourse closes, go to her rooms and take her for a little drive in the Bois de Boulogne. Well, by that act the woman proclaims herself your mistress; she has advertised herself to the eyes and knowledge of all Paris: A hundred thousand francs.--You must dine with her--I know how to cook such a dinner!--You must take her to the play, to the Varietes, to a stage-box, and then all Paris will say, ‘There is that old rascal Nucingen with his mistress.’ It is very flattering to know that such things are said.--Well, all this, for I am not grasping, is included for the first hundred thousand francs.--In a week, by such conduct, you will have made some way----” “But I shall hafe paid ein hundert tousant franc.” “In the course of the second week,” Asie went on, as though she had not heard this lamentable ejaculation, “madame, tempted by these preliminaries, will have made up her mind to leave her little apartment and move to the house you are giving her. Your Esther will have seen the world again, have found her old friends; she will wish to shine and do the honors of her palace--it is in the nature of things: Another hundred thousand francs!--By Heaven! you are at home there, Esther compromised--she must be yours. The rest is a mere trifle, in which you must play the principal part, old elephant. (How wide the monster opens his eyes!) Well, I will undertake that too: Four hundred thousand--and that, my fine fellow, you need not pay till the day after. What do you think of that for honesty? I have more confidence in you than you have in me. If I persuade madame to show herself as your mistress, to compromise herself, to take every gift you offer her,--perhaps this very day, you will believe that I am capable of inducing her to throw open the pass of the Great Saint Bernard. And it is a hard job, I can tell you; it will take as much pulling to get your artillery through as it took the first Consul to get over the Alps.” “But vy?” “Her heart is full of love, old shaver, rasibus, as you say who know Latin,” replied Asie. “She thinks herself the Queen of Sheba, because she has washed herself in sacrifices made for her lover--an idea that that sort of woman gets into her head! Well, well, old fellow, we must be just.--It is fine! That baggage would die of grief at being your mistress--I really should not wonder. But what I trust to, and I tell you to give you courage, is that there is good in the girl at bottom.” “You hafe a genius for corruption,” said the Baron, who had listened to Asie in admiring silence, “just as I hafe de knack of de banking.”