of Maitre Crottat, notary, had fallen in love with her, as youth at
two-and-twenty can fall in love. The scrivener would have murdered the
Pope and run amuck through the whole sacred college to procure the
miserable sum of a hundred louis to pay for a shawl which had turned
Euphrasia's head, at which price her waiting-woman had promised that
Euphrasia should be his. The infatuated youth walked to and fro under
Madame Euphrasia's windows, like the polar bears in their cage at the
Jardin des Plantes, with his right hand thrust beneath his waistcoat
in the region of the heart, which he was fit to tear from his bosom,
but as yet he had only wrenched at the elastic of his braces.

"What can one do to raise ten thousand francs?" he asked himself.
"Shall I make off with the money that I must pay on the registration
of that conveyance? Good heavens! my loan would not ruin the
purchaser, a man with seven millions! And then next day I would fling
myself at his feet and say, 'I have taken ten thousand francs
belonging to you, sir; I am twenty-two years of age, and I am in love
with Euphrasia--that is my story. My father is rich, he will pay you
back; do not ruin me! Have not you yourself been twenty-two years old
and madly in love?' But these beggarly landowners have no souls! He
would be quite likely to give me up to the public prosecutor, instead
of taking pity upon me. Good God! if it were only possible to sell
your soul to the Devil! But there is neither a God nor a Devil; it is
all nonsense out of nursery tales and old wives' talk. What shall I
do?"

"If you have a mind to sell your soul to the Devil, sir," said the
house-painter, who had overheard something that the clerk let fall,
"you can have the ten thousand francs."