But Celestin Crevel was so unconscious and so perfect a type of the
Parisian parvenu, that we can scarcely venture so unceremoniously into
the presence of Cesar Birotteau's successor. Celestin Crevel was a
world in himself; and he, even more than Rivet, deserves the honors of
the palette by reason of his importance in this domestic drama.
Have you ever observed how in childhood, or at the early stages of
social life, we create a model for our own imitation, with our own
hands as it were, and often without knowing it? The banker's clerk,
for instance, as he enters his master's drawing-room, dreams of
possessing such another. If he makes a fortune, it will not be the
luxury of the day, twenty years later, that you will find in his
house, but the old-fashioned splendor that fascinated him of yore. It
is impossible to tell how many absurdities are due to this
retrospective jealousy; and in the same way we know nothing of the
follies due to the covert rivalry that urges men to copy the type they
have set themselves, and exhaust their powers in shining with a
reflected light, like the moon.
Crevel was deputy mayor because his predecessor had been; he was Major
because he coveted Cesar Birotteau's epaulettes. In the same way,
struck by the marvels wrought by Grindot the architect, at the time
when Fortune had carried his master to the top of the wheel, Crevel
had "never looked at both sides of a crown-piece," to use his own
language, when he wanted to "do up" his rooms; he had gone with his
purse open and his eyes shut to Grindot, who by this time was quite
forgotten.
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