we stand in need of: twelve or fifteen thousand francs for the
trousseau, and a thousand crowns to pay the tradesmen and to prevent
any appearance of straitened circumstances in our house, when M. de la
Brive arrives.

Mme. Mercadet
How can you count on your creditors for that?

Mercadet
Don't they now belong to the family? Can you find any relation who is
as anxious as they are to see me wealthy and rich? Relations are
always a little envious of the happiness of the wealth which comes to
us; the creditor's joy alone is sincere. If I were to die, I should
have at my funeral more creditors than relations, and while the latter
carried their mourning in their hearts or on their heads, the former
would carry it in their ledgers and purses. It is here that my
departure would leave a genuine void! The heart forgets, and crape
disappears at the end of a year, but the account which is unpaid is
ineffaceable, and the void remains eternally unfilled.

Mme. Mercadet
My dear, I know the people to whom you are indebted, and I am quite
certain that you will obtain nothing from them.

Mercadet
I shall obtain both time and money from them, rest assured of that.
(Mme. Mercadet is perturbed.) Don't you see, my dear, that creditors
when once they have opened their purses are like gamblers who continue
to stake their money in order to recover their first losses? (Growing
excited.) Yes! they are inexhaustible gold mines! If a man has no