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diff --git a/old/12900.txt b/old/12900.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ce390d9 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12900.txt @@ -0,0 +1,31682 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poor Relations, by Honore de Balzac + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Poor Relations + +Author: Honore de Balzac + +Release Date: July 13, 2004 [EBook #12900] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POOR RELATIONS *** + + + + +Produced by Dagny, and John Bickers, + + + + + POOR RELATIONS + + BY + + HONORE DE BALZAC + + + + INTRODUCTION + + +_La Cousine Bette_ was perhaps the last really great thing that Balzac +did--for _Le Cousin Pons_, which now follows it, was actually written +before--and it is beyond all question one of the very greatest of his +works. It was written at the highest possible pressure, and (contrary +to the author's more usual system) in parts, without even seeing a +proof, for the _Constitutionnel_ in the autumn, winter, and early +spring of 1846-47, before his departure from Vierzschovnia, the object +being to secure a certain sum of ready money to clear off +indebtedness. And it has been sometimes asserted that this labor, +coming on the top of many years of scarcely less hard works, was +almost the last straw which broke down Balzac's gigantic strength. Of +these things it is never possible to be certain; as to the greatness +of _La Cousine Bette_, there is no uncertainty. + +In the first place, it is a very long book for Balzac; it is, I think, +putting aside books like _Les Illusions Perdues_, and _Les +Celibataires_, and _Splendeurs et Miseres des Courtisanes_, which are +really groups of work written at different times, the longest of all +his novels, if we except the still later and rather doubtful _Petits +Bourgeois_. In the second place, this length is not obtained--as +length with him is too often obtained--by digressions, by long +retrospective narrations, or even by the insertion of such "padding" +as the collection business in _Le Cousin Pons_. The whole stuff and +substance of _La Cousine Bette_ is honestly woven novel-stuff, of one +piece and one tenor and texture, with for constant subject the +subterranean malignity of the heroine, the erotomania of Hulot and +Crevel, the sufferings of Adeline, and the _pieuvre_ operations of +Marneffe and his wife,--all of which fit in and work together with +each other as exactly as the cogs and gear of a harmonious piece of +machinery do. Even such much simpler and shorter books as _Le Pere +Goriot_ by no means possess this seamless unity of construction, this +even march, shoulder to shoulder, of all the personages of the story. + +In the second place, this story itself strikes hold on the reader with +a force not less irresistible than that of the older and simpler +stories just referred to. As compared even with its companion, this +force of grasp is remarkable. It is not absolutely criminal or +contemptible to feel that _Le Cousin Pons_ sometimes languishes and +loses itself; this can never be said of the history of the evil +destiny partly personified in Elizabeth Fischer, which hovers over the +house of Hulot. + +Some, I believe, have felt inclined to question the propriety of the +title of the book, and to assign the true heroineship to Valerie +Marneffe, whom also the same and other persons are fond of comparing +with her contemporary Becky Sharp, not to the advantage of the latter. +This is no place for a detailed examination of the comparison, as to +which I shall only say that I do not think Thackeray has anything to +fear from it. Valerie herself is, beyond all doubt, a powerful study +of the "strange woman," enforcing the Biblical view of that personage +with singular force and effectiveness. But her methods are coarser and +more commonplace than Becky's; she never could have long sustained +such an ordeal as the tenure of the house in Curzon Street without +losing even an equivocal position in decent English society; and it +must always be remembered that she was under the orders, so to speak, +of Lisbeth, and inspired by her. + +Lisbeth herself, on the other hand, is not one of a class; she stands +alone as much as Becky herself does. It is, no doubt, an arduous and, +some milky-veined critics would say, a doubtfully healthy or +praiseworthy task to depict almost pure wickedness; it is excessively +hard to render it human; and if the difficulty is not increased, it is +certainly not much lessened by the artist's determination to represent +the malefactress as undiscovered and even unsuspected throughout. +Balzac, however, has surmounted these difficulties with almost +complete success. The only advantage--it is no doubt a considerable +one--which he has taken over Shakespeare, when Shakespeare devised +Iago, is that of making Mademoiselle Fischer a person of low birth, +narrow education, and intellectual faculties narrower still, for all +their keenness and intensity. The largeness of brain with which +Shakespeare endows his human devil, and the largeness of heart of +which he does not seem to wish us to imagine him as in certain +circumstances incapable, contrast sharply enough with the peasant +meanness of Lisbeth. Indeed, Balzac, whose seldom erring instinct in +fixing on the viler parts of human nature may have been somewhat too +much dwelt on, but is undeniable, has here and elsewhere hit the fault +of the lower class generally very well. It does not appear that the +Hulots, though they treated her without much ceremony, gave Bette any +real cause of complaint, or that there was anything in their conduct +corresponding to that of the Camusots to the luckless Pons. That her +cousin Adeline had been prettier than herself in childhood, and was +richer and more highly placed in middle life, was enough for Lisbeth +--the incarnation of the Radical hatred of superiority in any kind. +And so she set to work to ruin and degrade the unhappy family, to set +it at variance, and make it miserable, as best she could. + +The way of her doing this is wonderfully told, and the various +characters, minor as well as major, muster in wonderful strength. I do +not know that Balzac has made quite the most of Hector Hulot's vice +--in fact, here, as elsewhere, I think the novelist is not happy in +treating this particular deadly sin. The man is a rather disgusting +and wholly idiotic old fribble rather than a tragic victim of +Libitina. So also his wife is too angelic. But Crevel, the very +pattern and model of the vicious bourgeois who had made his fortune; +and Wenceslas Steinbock, pattern again and model of the foibles of +_Polen aus der Polackei_; and Hortense, with the better energy of the +Hulots in her; and the loathsome reptile Marneffe, and Victoria, and +Celestine, and the Brazilian (though he, to be sure, is rather a +transpontine _rastaqouere_), and all the rest are capital, and do their +work capitally. But they would not be half so fine as they are if, +behind them, there were not the savage Pagan naturalism of Lisbeth +Fischer, the "angel of the family"--and a black angel indeed. + +One of the last and largest of Balzac's great works--the very last of +them, if we accept _La Cousine Bette_, to which is pendant and +contrast--_Le Cousin Pons_ has always united suffrages from very +different classes of admirers. In the first place, it is not +"disagreeable," as the common euphemism has it, and as _La Cousine +Bette_ certainly is. In the second, it cannot be accused of being a +_berquinade_, as those who like Balzac best when he is doing moral +rag-picking are apt to describe books like _Le Medecin de Campagne_ +and _Le Lys dans la Vallee_, if not even like _Eugenie Grandet_. It +has a considerable variety of interest; its central figure is +curiously pathetic and attractive, even though the curse of something +like folly, which so often attends Balzac's good characters, may a +little weigh on him. It would be a book of exceptional charm even if +it were anonymous, or if we knew no more about the author than we know +about Shakespeare. + +As it happens, however, _Le Cousin Pons_ has other attractions than +this. In the first place, Balzac is always great--perhaps he is at his +greatest--in depicting a mania, a passion, whether the subject be +pleasure or gold-hunger or parental affection. Pons has two manias, +and the one does not interfere with, but rather helps, the other. But +this would be nothing if it were not that his chief mania, his ruling +passion, is one of Balzac's own. For, as we have often had occasion to +notice, Balzac is not by any means one of the great impersonal +artists. He can do many things; but he is never at his best in doing +any unless his own personal interests, his likings and hatreds, his +sufferings and enjoyments, are concerned. He was a kind of +actor-manager in his _Comedie Humaine_; and perhaps, like other +actor-managers, he took rather disproportionate care of the parts +which he played himself. + +Now, he was even more desperate as a collector and fancier of bibelots +than he was as a speculator; and while the one mania was nearly as +responsible for his pecuniary troubles and his need to overwork +himself as the other, it certainly gave him more constant and more +comparatively harmless satisfactions. His connoisseurship would be +nothing if he did not question the competence of another, if not of +all others. It seems certain that Balzac frequently bought things for +what they were not; and probable that his own acquisitions went, in +his own eyes, through that succession of stages which Charles Lamb (a +sort of Cousin Pons in his way too) described inimitably. His +pictures, like John Lamb's, were apt to begin as Raphaels, and end as +Carlo Marattis. Balzac, too, like Pons, was even more addicted to +bric-a-brac than to art proper; and after many vicissitudes, he and +Madame Hanska seem to have succeeded in getting together a very +considerable, if also a very miscellaneous and unequal collection in +the house in the Rue du Paradis, the contents of which were dispersed +in part (though, I believe, the Rochschild who bought it, bought most +of them too) not many years ago. Pons, indeed, was too poor, and +probably too queer, to indulge in one fancy which Balzac had, and +which, I think, all collectors of the nobler and more poetic class +have, though this number may not be large. Balzac liked to have new +beautiful things as well as old--to have beautiful things made for +him. He was an unwearied customer, though not an uncomplaining one, of +the great jeweler Froment Meurice, whose tardiness in carrying out his +behests he pathetically upbraids in more than one extant letter. + +Therefore, Balzac "did more than sympathize, he felt"--and it has been +well put--with Pons in the bric-a-brac matter; and would appear that +he did so likewise in that of music, though we have rather less direct +evidence. This other sympathy has resulted in the addition to Pons +himself of the figure of Schmucke, a minor and more parochial figure, +but good in itself, and very much appreciated, I believe, by fellow +_melomanes_. + +It is with even more than his usual art that Balzac has surrounded +these two originals--these "humorists," as our own ancestors would +have called them--with figures much, very much, more of the ordinary +world than themselves. The grasping worldliness of the _parvenue_ +family of Camusot in one degree and the greed of the portress, Madame +Cibot, in the other, are admirably represented; the latter, in +particular, must always hold a very high place among Balzac's greatest +successes. She is, indeed a sort of companion sketch to Cousine Bette +herself in a still lower rank of life representing the diabolical in +woman; and perhaps we should not wrong the author's intentions if we +suspected that Diane de Maufrigneuse has some claims to make up the +trio in a sphere even more above Lisbeth's than Lisbeth's is above +Madame Cibot's own. + +Different opinions have been held of the actual "bric-a-bracery" of +this piece--that is to say, not of Balzac's competence in the matter +but of the artistic value of his introduction of it. Perhaps his +enthusiasm does a little run away with him; perhaps he gives us a +little too much of it, and avails himself too freely of the license, +at least of the temptation, to digress which the introduction of such +persons as Elie Magus affords. And it is also open to any one to say +that the climax, or what is in effect the climax, is introduced +somewhat too soon; that the struggle, first over the body and then +over the property of Patroclus-Pons, is inordinately spun out, and +that, even granting the author's mania, he might have utilized it +better by giving us more of the harmless and ill-treated cousin's +happy hunts, and less of the disputes over his accumulated quarry. +This, however, means simply the old, and generally rather impertinent, +suggestion to the artist that he shall do with his art something +different from that which he has himself chosen to do. It is, or +should be, sufficient that _Le Cousin Pons_ is a very agreeable book, +more pathetic if less "grimy," than its companion, full of its +author's idiosyncracy, and characteristic of his genius. It may not be +uninteresting to add that _Le Cousin Pons_ was originally called _Le +Deux Musiciens_, or _Le Parasite_, and that the change, which is a +great improvement, was due to the instances of Madame Hanska. + +The bibliography of the two divisions of _Les Parents Pauvres_ is so +closely connected, that it is difficult to extricate the separate +histories. Originally the author had intended to begin with _Le Cousin +Pons_ (which then bore the title of _Les Deux Musiciens_), and to make +it the more important of the two; but _La Cousine Bette_ grew under +his hands, and became, in more than one sense, the leader. Both +appeared in the _Constitutionnel_; the first between October 8th and +December 3rd, 1846, the second between March 18th and May of the next +year. In the winter of 1847-48 the two were published as a book in +twelve volumes by Chlendowski and Petion. In the newspaper (where +Balzac received--a rarely exact detail--12,836 francs for the +_Cousine_, and 9,238 for the _Cousin_) the first-named had +thirty-eight headed chapter-divisions, which in book form became a +hundred and thirty-two. _Le Cousin Pons_ had two parts in _feuilleton_, +and thirty-one chapters, which in book form became no parts and +seventy-eight chapters. All divisions were swept away when, at the end +of 1848, the books were added together to the _Comedie_. + + George Saintsbury + + + + + I + + + + + COUSIN BETTY + + BY + + HONORE DE BALZAC + + + Translated by + + James Waring + + + + DEDICATION + + To Don Michele Angelo Cajetani, Prince of Teano. + + It is neither to the Roman Prince, nor to the representative of + the illustrious house of Cajetani, which has given more than one + Pope to the Christian Church, that I dedicate this short portion + of a long history; it is to the learned commentator of Dante. + + It was you who led me to understand the marvelous framework of + ideas on which the great Italian poet built his poem, the only + work which the moderns can place by that of Homer. Till I heard + you, the Divine Comedy was to me a vast enigma to which none had + found the clue--the commentators least of all. Thus, to understand + Dante is to be as great as he; but every form of greatness is + familiar to you. + + A French savant could make a reputation, earn a professor's chair, + and a dozen decorations, by publishing in a dogmatic volume the + improvised lecture by which you lent enchantment to one of those + evenings which are rest after seeing Rome. You do not know, + perhaps, that most of our professors live on Germany, on England, + on the East, or on the North, as an insect lives on a tree; and, + like the insect, become an integral part of it, borrowing their + merit from that of what they feed on. Now, Italy hitherto has not + yet been worked out in public lectures. No one will ever give me + credit for my literary honesty. Merely by plundering you I might + have been as learned as three Schlegels in one, whereas I mean to + remain a humble Doctor of the Faculty of Social Medicine, a + veterinary surgeon for incurable maladies. Were it only to lay a + token of gratitude at the feet of my cicerone, I would fain add + your illustrious name to those of Porcia, of San-Severino, of + Pareto, of di Negro, and of Belgiojoso, who will represent in this + "Human Comedy" the close and constant alliance between Italy and + France, to which Bandello did honor in the same way in the + sixteenth century--Bandello, the bishop and author of some strange + tales indeed, who left us the splendid collection of romances + whence Shakespeare derived many of his plots and even complete + characters, word for word. + + The two sketches I dedicate to you are the two eternal aspects of + one and the same fact. Homo duplex, said the great Buffon: why not + add Res duplex? Everything has two sides, even virtue. Hence + Moliere always shows us both sides of every human problem; and + Diderot, imitating him, once wrote, "This is not a mere tale"--in + what is perhaps Diderot's masterpiece, where he shows us the + beautiful picture of Mademoiselle de Lachaux sacrificed by + Gardanne, side by side with that of a perfect lover dying for his + mistress. + + In the same way, these two romances form a pair, like twins of + opposite sexes. This is a literary vagary to which a writer may + for once give way, especially as part of a work in which I am + endeavoring to depict every form that can serve as a garb to mind. + + Most human quarrels arise from the fact that both wise men and + dunces exist who are so constituted as to be incapable of seeing + more than one side of any fact or idea, while each asserts that + the side he sees is the only true and right one. Thus it is + written in the Holy Book, "God will deliver the world over to + divisions." I must confess that this passage of Scripture alone + should persuade the Papal See to give you the control of the two + Chambers to carry out the text which found its commentary in 1814, + in the decree of Louis XVIII. + + May your wit and the poetry that is in you extend a protecting + hand over these two histories of "The Poor Relations" + +Of your affectionate humble servant, + +DE BALZAC. +PARIS, August-September, 1846. + + + + COUSIN BETTY + + + +One day, about the middle of July 1838, one of the carriages, then +lately introduced to Paris cabstands, and known as _Milords_, was +driving down the Rue de l'Universite, conveying a stout man of middle +height in the uniform of a captain of the National Guard. + +Among the Paris crowd, who are supposed to be so clever, there are +some men who fancy themselves infinitely more attractive in uniform +than in their ordinary clothes, and who attribute to women so depraved +a taste that they believe they will be favorably impressed by the +aspect of a busby and of military accoutrements. + +The countenance of this Captain of the Second Company beamed with a +self-satisfaction that added splendor to his ruddy and somewhat chubby +face. The halo of glory that a fortune made in business gives to a +retired tradesman sat on his brow, and stamped him as one of the elect +of Paris--at least a retired deputy-mayor of his quarter of the town. +And you may be sure that the ribbon of the Legion of Honor was not +missing from his breast, gallantly padded _a la Prussienne_. Proudly +seated in one corner of the _milord_, this splendid person let his +gaze wander over the passers-by, who, in Paris, often thus meet an +ingratiating smile meant for sweet eyes that are absent. + +The vehicle stopped in the part of the street between the Rue de +Bellechasse and the Rue de Bourgogne, at the door of a large, +newly-build house, standing on part of the court-yard of an ancient +mansion that had a garden. The old house remained in its original +state, beyond the courtyard curtailed by half its extent. + +Only from the way in which the officer accepted the assistance of the +coachman to help him out, it was plain that he was past fifty. There +are certain movements so undisguisedly heavy that they are as +tell-tale as a register of birth. The captain put on his lemon-colored +right-hand glove, and, without any question to the gatekeeper, went up +the outer steps to the ground of the new house with a look that +proclaimed, "She is mine!" + +The _concierges_ of Paris have sharp eyes; they do not stop visitors +who wear an order, have a blue uniform, and walk ponderously; in +short, they know a rich man when they see him. + +This ground floor was entirely occupied by Monsieur le Baron Hulot +d'Ervy, Commissary General under the Republic, retired army +contractor, and at the present time at the head of one of the most +important departments of the War Office, Councillor of State, officer +of the Legion of Honor, and so forth. + +This Baron Hulot had taken the name of d'Ervy--the place of his birth +--to distinguish him from his brother, the famous General Hulot, +Colonel of the Grenadiers of the Imperial Guard, created by the +Emperor Comte de Forzheim after the campaign of 1809. The Count, the +elder brother, being responsible for his junior, had, with paternal +care, placed him in the commissariat, where, thanks to the services of +the two brothers, the Baron deserved and won Napoleon's good graces. +After 1807, Baron Hulot was Commissary General for the army in Spain. + +Having rung the bell, the citizen-captain made strenuous efforts to +pull his coat into place, for it had rucked up as much at the back as +in front, pushed out of shape by the working of a piriform stomach. +Being admitted as soon as the servant in livery saw him, the important +and imposing personage followed the man, who opened the door of the +drawing-room, announcing: + +"Monsieur Crevel." + +On hearing the name, singularly appropriate to the figure of the man +who bore it, a tall, fair woman, evidently young-looking for her age, +rose as if she had received an electric shock. + +"Hortense, my darling, go into the garden with your Cousin Betty," she +said hastily to her daughter, who was working at some embroidery at +her mother's side. + +After curtseying prettily to the captain, Mademoiselle Hortense went +out by a glass door, taking with her a withered-looking spinster, who +looked older than the Baroness, though she was five years younger. + +"They are settling your marriage," said Cousin Betty in the girl's +ear, without seeming at all offended at the way in which the Baroness +had dismissed them, counting her almost as zero. + +The cousin's dress might, at need, have explained this free-and-easy +demeanor. The old maid wore a merino gown of a dark plum color, of +which the cut and trimming dated from the year of the Restoration; a +little worked collar, worth perhaps three francs; and a common straw +hat with blue satin ribbons edged with straw plait, such as the +old-clothes buyers wear at market. On looking down at her kid shoes, +made, it was evident, by the veriest cobbler, a stranger would have +hesitated to recognize Cousin Betty as a member of the family, for she +looked exactly like a journeywoman sempstress. But she did not leave +the room without bestowing a little friendly nod on Monsieur Crevel, +to which that gentleman responded by a look of mutual understanding. + +"You are coming to us to-morrow, I hope, Mademoiselle Fischer?" said +he. + +"You have no company?" asked Cousin Betty. + +"My children and yourself, no one else," replied the visitor. + +"Very well," replied she; "depend on me." + +"And here am I, madame, at your orders," said the citizen-captain, +bowing again to Madame Hulot. + +He gave such a look at Madame Hulot as Tartuffe casts at Elmire--when +a provincial actor plays the part and thinks it necessary to emphasize +its meaning--at Poitiers, or at Coutances. + +"If you will come into this room with me, we shall be more +conveniently placed for talking business than we are in this room," +said Madame Hulot, going to an adjoining room, which, as the apartment +was arranged, served as a cardroom. + +It was divided by a slight partition from a boudoir looking out on the +garden, and Madame Hulot left her visitor to himself for a minute, for +she thought it wise to shut the window and the door of the boudoir, so +that no one should get in and listen. She even took the precaution of +shutting the glass door of the drawing-room, smiling on her daughter +and her cousin, whom she saw seated in an old summer-house at the end +of the garden. As she came back she left the cardroom door open, so as +to hear if any one should open that of the drawing-room to come in. + +As she came and went, the Baroness, seen by nobody, allowed her face +to betray all her thoughts, and any one who could have seen her would +have been shocked to see her agitation. But when she finally came back +from the glass door of the drawing-room, as she entered the cardroom, +her face was hidden behind the impenetrable reserve which every woman, +even the most candid, seems to have at her command. + +During all these preparations--odd, to say the least--the National +Guardsman studied the furniture of the room in which he found himself. +As he noted the silk curtains, once red, now faded to dull purple by +the sunshine, and frayed in the pleats by long wear; the carpet, from +which the hues had faded; the discolored gilding of the furniture; and +the silk seats, discolored in patches, and wearing into strips +--expressions of scorn, satisfaction, and hope dawned in succession +without disguise on his stupid tradesman's face. He looked at himself +in the glass over an old clock of the Empire, and was contemplating +the general effect, when the rustle of her silk skirt announced the +Baroness. He at once struck at attitude. + +After dropping on to a sofa, which had been a very handsome one in the +year 1809, the Baroness, pointing to an armchair with the arms ending +in bronze sphinxes' heads, while the paint was peeling from the wood, +which showed through in many places, signed to Crevel to be seated. + +"All the precautions you are taking, madame, would seem full of +promise to a----" + +"To a lover," said she, interrupting him. + +"The word is too feeble," said he, placing his right hand on his +heart, and rolling his eyes in a way which almost always makes a woman +laugh when she, in cold blood, sees such a look. "A lover! A lover? +Say a man bewitched----" + +"Listen, Monsieur Crevel," said the Baroness, too anxious to be able +to laugh, "you are fifty--ten years younger than Monsieur Hulot, I +know; but at my age a woman's follies ought to be justified by beauty, +youth, fame, superior merit--some one of the splendid qualities which +can dazzle us to the point of making us forget all else--even at our +age. Though you may have fifty thousand francs a year, your age +counterbalances your fortune; thus you have nothing whatever of what a +woman looks for----" + +"But love!" said the officer, rising and coming forward. "Such love +as----" + +"No, monsieur, such obstinacy!" said the Baroness, interrupting him to +put an end to his absurdity. + +"Yes, obstinacy," said he, "and love; but something stronger still--a +claim----" + +"A claim!" cried Madame Hulot, rising sublime with scorn, defiance, +and indignation. "But," she went on, "this will bring us to no issues; +I did not ask you to come here to discuss the matter which led to your +banishment in spite of the connection between our families----" + +"I had fancied so." + +"What! still?" cried she. "Do you not see, monsieur, by the entire +ease and freedom with which I can speak of lovers and love, of +everything least creditable to a woman, that I am perfectly secure in +my own virtue? I fear nothing--not even to shut myself in alone with +you. Is that the conduct of a weak woman? You know full well why I +begged you to come." + +"No, madame," replied Crevel, with an assumption of great coldness. He +pursed up his lips, and again struck an attitude. + +"Well, I will be brief, to shorten our common discomfort," said the +Baroness, looking at Crevel. + +Crevel made an ironical bow, in which a man who knew the race would +have recognized the graces of a bagman. + +"Our son married your daughter----" + +"And if it were to do again----" said Crevel. + +"It would not be done at all, I suspect," said the baroness hastily. +"However, you have nothing to complain of. My son is not only one of +the leading pleaders of Paris, but for the last year he has sat as +Deputy, and his maiden speech was brilliant enough to lead us to +suppose that ere long he will be in office. Victorin has twice been +called upon to report on important measures; and he might even now, if +he chose, be made Attorney-General in the Court of Appeal. So, if you +mean to say that your son-in-law has no fortune----" + +"Worse than that, madame, a son-in-law whom I am obliged to maintain," +replied Crevel. "Of the five hundred thousand francs that formed my +daughter's marriage portion, two hundred thousand have vanished--God +knows how!--in paying the young gentleman's debts, in furnishing his +house splendaciously--a house costing five hundred thousand francs, +and bringing in scarcely fifteen thousand, since he occupies the +larger part of it, while he owes two hundred and sixty thousand francs +of the purchase-money. The rent he gets barely pays the interest on +the debt. I have had to give my daughter twenty thousand francs this +year to help her to make both ends meet. And then my son-in-law, who +was making thirty thousand francs a year at the Assizes, I am told, is +going to throw that up for the Chamber----" + +"This, again, Monsieur Crevel, is beside the mark; we are wandering +from the point. Still, to dispose of it finally, it may be said that +if my son gets into office, if he has you made an officer of the +Legion of Honor and councillor of the municipality of Paris, you, as a +retired perfumer, will not have much to complain of----" + +"Ah! there we are again, madame! Yes, I am a tradesman, a shopkeeper, +a retail dealer in almond-paste, eau-de-Portugal, and hair-oil, and +was only too much honored when my only daughter was married to the son +of Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy--my daughter will be a Baroness! +This is Regency, Louis XV., (Eil-de-boeuf--quite tip-top!--very good.) +I love Celestine as a man loves his only child--so well indeed, that, +to preserve her from having either brother or sister, I resigned +myself to all the privations of a widower--in Paris, and in the prime +of life, madame. But you must understand that, in spite of this +extravagant affection for my daughter, I do not intend to reduce my +fortune for the sake of your son, whose expenses are not wholly +accounted for--in my eyes, as an old man of business." + +"Monsieur, you may at this day see in the Ministry of Commerce +Monsieur Popinot, formerly a druggist in the Rue des Lombards----" + +"And a friend of mine, madame," said the ex-perfumer. "For I, Celestin +Crevel, foreman once to old Cesar Birotteau, brought up the said Cesar +Birotteau's stock; and he was Popinot's father-in-law. Why, that very +Popinot was no more than a shopman in the establishment, and he is the +first to remind me of it; for he is not proud, to do him justice, to +men in a good position with an income of sixty thousand francs in the +funds." + +"Well then, monsieur, the notions you term 'Regency' are quite out of +date at a time when a man is taken at his personal worth; and that is +what you did when you married your daughter to my son." + +"But you do not know how the marriage was brought about!" cried +Crevel. "Oh, that cursed bachelor life! But for my misconduct, my +Celestine might at this day be Vicomtesse Popinot!" + +"Once more have done with recriminations over accomplished facts," +said the Baroness anxiously. "Let us rather discuss the complaints I +have found on your strange behavior. My daughter Hortense had a chance +of marrying; the match depended entirely on you; I believed you felt +some sentiments of generosity; I thought you would do justice to a +woman who has never had a thought in her heart for any man but her +husband, that you would have understood how necessary it is for her +not to receive a man who may compromise her, and that for the honor of +the family with which you are allied you would have been eager to +promote Hortense's settlement with Monsieur le Conseiller Lebas.--And +it is you, monsieur, you have hindered the marriage." + +"Madame," said the ex-perfumer, "I acted the part of an honest man. I +was asked whether the two hundred thousand francs to be settled on +Mademoiselle Hortense would be forthcoming. I replied exactly in these +words: 'I would not answer for it. My son-in-law, to whom the Hulots +had promised the same sum, was in debt; and I believe that if Monsieur +Hulot d'Ervy were to die to-morrow, his widow would have nothing to +live on.'--There, fair lady." + +"And would you have said as much, monsieur," asked Madame Hulot, +looking Crevel steadily in the face, "if I had been false to my duty?" + +"I should not be in a position to say it, dearest Adeline," cried this +singular adorer, interrupting the Baroness, "for you would have found +the amount in my pocket-book." + +And adding action to word, the fat guardsman knelt down on one knee +and kissed Madame Hulot's hand, seeing that his speech had filled her +with speechless horror, which he took for hesitancy. + +"What, buy my daughter's fortune at the cost of----? Rise, monsieur +--or I ring the bell." + +Crevel rose with great difficulty. This fact made him so furious that +he again struck his favorite attitude. Most men have some habitual +position by which they fancy that they show to the best advantage the +good points bestowed on them by nature. This attitude in Crevel +consisted in crossing his arms like Napoleon, his head showing +three-quarters face, and his eyes fixed on the horizon, as the painter +has shown the Emperor in his portrait. + +"To be faithful," he began, with well-acted indignation, "so faithful +to a liber----" + +"To a husband who is worthy of such fidelity," Madame Hulot put in, to +hinder Crevel from saying a word she did not choose to hear. + +"Come, madame; you wrote to bid me here, you ask the reasons for my +conduct, you drive me to extremities with your imperial airs, your +scorn, and your contempt! Any one might think I was a Negro. But I +repeat it, and you may believe me, I have a right to--to make love to +you, for---- But no; I love you well enough to hold my tongue." + +"You may speak, monsieur. In a few days I shall be eight-and-forty; I +am no prude; I can hear whatever you can say." + +"Then will you give me your word of honor as an honest woman--for you +are, alas for me! an honest woman--never to mention my name or to say +that it was I who betrayed the secret?" + +"If that is the condition on which you speak, I will swear never to +tell any one from whom I heard the horrors you propose to tell me, not +even my husband." + +"I should think not indeed, for only you and he are concerned." + +Madame Hulot turned pale. + +"Oh, if you still really love Hulot, it will distress you. Shall I say +no more?" + +"Speak, monsieur; for by your account you wish to justify in my eyes +the extraordinary declarations you have chosen to make me, and your +persistency in tormenting a woman of my age, whose only wish is to see +her daughter married, and then--to die in peace----" + +"You see; you are unhappy." + +"I, monsieur?" + +"Yes, beautiful, noble creature!" cried Crevel. "You have indeed been +too wretched!" + +"Monsieur, be silent and go--or speak to me as you ought." + +"Do you know, madame, how Master Hulot and I first made acquaintance? +--At our mistresses', madame." + +"Oh, monsieur!" + +"Yes, madame, at our mistresses'," Crevel repeated in a melodramatic +tone, and leaving his position to wave his right hand. + +"Well, and what then?" said the Baroness coolly, to Crevel's great +amazement. + +Such mean seducers cannot understand a great soul. + +"I, a widower five years since," Crevel began, in the tone of a man +who has a story to tell, "and not wishing to marry again for the sake +of the daughter I adore, not choosing either to cultivate any such +connection in my own establishment, though I had at the time a very +pretty lady-accountant. I set up, 'on her own account,' as they say, a +little sempstress of fifteen--really a miracle of beauty, with whom I +fell desperately in love. And in fact, madame, I asked an aunt of my +own, my mother's sister, whom I sent for from the country, to live +with the sweet creature and keep an eye on her, that she might behave +as well as might be in this rather--what shall I say--shady?--no, +delicate position. + +"The child, whose talent for music was striking, had masters, she was +educated--I had to give her something to do. Besides, I wished to be +at once her father, her benefactor, and--well, out with it--her lover; +to kill two birds with one stone, a good action and a sweetheart. For +five years I was very happy. The girl had one of those voices that +make the fortune of a theatre; I can only describe her by saying that +she is a Duprez in petticoats. It cost me two thousand francs a year +only to cultivate her talent as a singer. She made me music-mad; I +took a box at the opera for her and for my daughter, and went there +alternate evenings with Celestine or Josepha." + +"What, the famous singer?" + +"Yes, madame," said Crevel with pride, "the famous Josepha owes +everything to me.--At last, in 1834, when the child was twenty, +believing that I had attached her to me for ever, and being very weak +where she was concerned, I thought I would give her a little +amusement, and I introduced her to a pretty little actress, Jenny +Cadine, whose life had been somewhat like her own. This actress also +owed everything to a protector who had brought her up in +leading-strings. That protector was Baron Hulot." + +"I know that," said the Baroness, in a calm voice without the least +agitation. + +"Bless me!" cried Crevel, more and more astounded. "Well! But do you +know that your monster of a husband took Jenny Cadine in hand at the +age of thirteen?" + +"What then?" said the Baroness. + +"As Jenny Cadine and Josepha were both aged twenty when they first +met," the ex-tradesman went on, "the Baron had been playing the part +of Louis XV. to Mademoiselle de Romans ever since 1826, and you were +twelve years younger then----" + +"I had my reasons, monsieur, for leaving Monsieur Hulot his liberty." + +"That falsehood, madame, will surely be enough to wipe out every sin +you have ever committed, and to open to you the gates of Paradise," +replied Crevel, with a knowing air that brought the color to the +Baroness' cheeks. "Sublime and adored woman, tell that to those who +will believe it, but not to old Crevel, who has, I may tell you, +feasted too often as one of four with your rascally husband not to +know what your high merits are! Many a time has he blamed himself when +half tipsy as he has expatiated on your perfections. Oh, I know you +well!--A libertine might hesitate between you and a girl of twenty. I +do not hesitate----" + +"Monsieur!" + +"Well, I say no more. But you must know, saintly and noble woman, that +a husband under certain circumstances will tell things about his wife +to his mistress that will mightily amuse her." + +Tears of shame hanging to Madame Hulot's long lashes checked the +National Guardsman. He stopped short, and forgot his attitude. + +"To proceed," said he. "We became intimate, the Baron and I, through +the two hussies. The Baron, like all bad lots, is very pleasant, a +thoroughly jolly good fellow. Yes, he took my fancy, the old rascal. +He could be so funny!--Well, enough of those reminiscences. We got to +be like brothers. The scoundrel--quite Regency in his notions--tried +indeed to deprave me altogether, preached Saint-Simonism as to women, +and all sorts of lordly ideas; but, you see, I was fond enough of my +girl to have married her, only I was afraid of having children. + +"Then between two old daddies, such friends as--as we were, what more +natural than that we should think of our children marrying each other? +--Three months after his son had married my Celestine, Hulot--I don't +know how I can utter the wretch's name! he has cheated us both, madame +--well, the villain did me out of my little Josepha. The scoundrel +knew that he was supplanted in the heart of Jenny Cadine by a young +lawyer and by an artist--only two of them!--for the girl had more and +more of a howling success, and he stole my sweet little girl, a +perfect darling--but you must have seen her at the opera; he got her +an engagement there. Your husband is not so well behaved as I am. I am +ruled as straight as a sheet of music-paper. He had dropped a good +deal of money on Jenny Cadine, who must have cost him near on thirty +thousand francs a year. Well, I can only tell you that he is ruining +himself outright for Josepha. + +"Josepha, madame, is a Jewess. Her name is Mirah, the anagram of +Hiram, an Israelite mark that stamps her, for she was a foundling +picked up in Germany, and the inquiries I have made prove that she is +the illegitimate child of a rich Jew banker. The life of the theatre, +and, above all, the teaching of Jenny Cadine, Madame Schontz, Malaga, +and Carabine, as to the way to treat an old man, have developed, in +the child whom I had kept in a respectable and not too expensive way +of life, all the native Hebrew instinct for gold and jewels--for the +golden calf. + +"So this famous singer, hungering for plunder, now wants to be rich, +very rich. She tried her 'prentice hand on Baron Hulot, and soon +plucked him bare--plucked him, ay, and singed him to the skin. The +miserable man, after trying to vie with one of the Kellers and with +the Marquis d'Esgrignon, both perfectly mad about Josepha, to say +nothing of unknown worshipers, is about to see her carried off by that +very rich Duke, who is such a patron of the arts. Oh, what is his +name?--a dwarf.--Ah, the Duc d'Herouville. This fine gentleman insists +on having Josepha for his very own, and all that set are talking about +it; the Baron knows nothing of it as yet; for it is the same in the +Thirteenth Arrondissement as in every other: the lover, like the +husband, is last to get the news. + +"Now, do you understand my claim? Your husband, dear lady, has robbed +me of my joy in life, the only happiness I have known since I became a +widower. Yes, if I had not been so unlucky as to come across that old +rip, Josepha would still be mine; for I, you know, should never have +placed her on the stage. She would have lived obscure, well conducted, +and mine. Oh! if you could but have seen her eight years ago, slight +and wiry, with the golden skin of an Andalusian, as they say, black +hair as shiny as satin, an eye that flashed lightning under long brown +lashes, the style of a duchess in every movement, the modesty of a +dependent, decent grace, and the pretty ways of a wild fawn. And by +that Hulot's doing all this charm and purity has been degraded to a +man-trap, a money-box for five-franc pieces! The girl is the Queen of +Trollops; and nowadays she humbugs every one--she who knew nothing, +not even that word." + +At this stage the retired perfumer wiped his eyes, which were full of +tears. The sincerity of his grief touched Madame Hulot, and roused her +from the meditation into which she had sunk. + +"Tell me, madame, is a man of fifty-two likely to find such another +jewel? At my age love costs thirty thousand francs a year. It is +through your husband's experience that I know the price, and I love +Celestine too truly to be her ruin. When I saw you, at the first +evening party you gave in our honor, I wondered how that scoundrel +Hulot could keep a Jenny Cadine--you had the manner of an Empress. You +do not look thirty," he went on. "To me, madame, you look young, and +you are beautiful. On my word of honor, that evening I was struck to +the heart. I said to myself, 'If I had not Josepha, since old Hulot +neglects his wife, she would fit me like a glove.' Forgive me--it is a +reminiscence of my old business. The perfumer will crop up now and +then, and that is what keeps me from standing to be elected deputy. + +"And then, when I was so abominably deceived by the Baron, for really +between old rips like us our friend's mistress should be sacred, I +swore I would have his wife. It is but justice. The Baron could say +nothing; we are certain of impunity. You showed me the door like a +mangy dog at the first words I uttered as to the state of my feelings; +you only made my passion--my obstinacy, if you will--twice as strong, +and you shall be mine." + +"Indeed; how?" + +"I do not know; but it will come to pass. You see, madame, an idiot of +a perfumer--retired from business--who has but one idea in his head, +is stronger than a clever fellow who has a thousand. I am smitten with +you, and you are the means of my revenge; it is like being in love +twice over. I am speaking to you quite frankly, as a man who knows +what he means. I speak coldly to you, just as you do to me, when you +say, 'I never will be yours,' In fact, as they say, I play the game +with the cards on the table. Yes, you shall be mine, sooner or later; +if you were fifty, you should still be my mistress. And it will be; +for I expect anything from your husband!" + +Madame Hulot looked at this vulgar intriguer with such a fixed stare +of terror, that he thought she had gone mad, and he stopped. + +"You insisted on it, you heaped me with scorn, you defied me--and I +have spoken," said he, feeling that he must justify the ferocity of +his last words. + +"Oh, my daughter, my daughter," moaned the Baroness in a voice like a +dying woman's. + +"Oh! I have forgotten all else," Crevel went on. "The day when I was +robbed of Josepha I was like a tigress robbed of her cubs; in short, +as you see me now.--Your daughter? Yes, I regard her as the means of +winning you. Yes, I put a spoke in her marriage--and you will not get +her married without my help! Handsome as Mademoiselle Hortense is, she +needs a fortune----" + +"Alas! yes," said the Baroness, wiping her eyes. + +"Well, just ask your husband for ten thousand francs," said Crevel, +striking his attitude once more. He waited a minute, like an actor who +has made a point. + +"If he had the money, he would give it to the woman who will take +Josepha's place," he went on, emphasizing his tones. "Does a man ever +pull up on the road he has taken? In the first place, he is too sweet +on women. There is a happy medium in all things, as our King has told +us. And then his vanity is implicated! He is a handsome man!--He would +bring you all to ruin for his pleasure; in fact, you are already on +the highroad to the workhouse. Why, look, never since I set foot in +your house have you been able to do up your drawing-room furniture. +'Hard up' is the word shouted by every slit in the stuff. Where will +you find a son-in-law who would not turn his back in horror of the +ill-concealed evidence of the most cruel misery there is--that of +people in decent society? I have kept shop, and I know. There is no +eye so quick as that of the Paris tradesman to detect real wealth from +its sham.--You have no money," he said, in a lower voice. "It is +written everywhere, even on your man-servant's coat. + +"Would you like me to disclose any more hideous mysteries that are +kept from you?" + +"Monsieur," cried Madame Hulot, whose handkerchief was wet through +with her tears, "enough, enough!" + +"My son-in-law, I tell you, gives his father money, and this is what I +particularly wanted to come to when I began by speaking of your son's +expenses. But I keep an eye on my daughter's interests, be easy." + +"Oh, if I could but see my daughter married, and die!" cried the poor +woman, quite losing her head. + +"Well, then, this is the way," said the ex-perfumer. + +Madame Hulot looked at Crevel with a hopeful expression, which so +completely changed her countenance, that this alone ought to have +touched the man's feelings and have led him to abandon his monstrous +schemes. + +"You will still be handsome ten years hence," Crevel went on, with his +arms folded; "be kind to me, and Mademoiselle Hulot will marry. Hulot +has given me the right, as I have explained to you, to put the matter +crudely, and he will not be angry. In three years I have saved the +interest on my capital, for my dissipations have been restricted. I +have three hundred thousand francs in the bank over and above my +invested fortune--they are yours----" + +"Go," said Madame Hulot. "Go, monsieur, and never let me see you +again. But for the necessity in which you placed me to learn the +secret of your cowardly conduct with regard to the match I had planned +for Hortense--yes, cowardly!" she repeated, in answer to a gesture +from Crevel. "How can you load a poor girl, a pretty, innocent +creature, with such a weight of enmity? But for the necessity that +goaded me as a mother, you would never have spoken to me again, never +again have come within my doors. Thirty-two years of an honorable and +loyal life shall not be swept away by a blow from Monsieur Crevel----" + +"The retired perfumer, successor to Cesar Birotteau at the _Queen of +the Roses_, Rue Saint-Honore," added Crevel, in mocking tones. +"Deputy-mayor, captain in the National Guard, Chevalier of the Legion +of Honor--exactly what my predecessor was!" + +"Monsieur," said the Baroness, "if, after twenty years of constancy, +Monsieur Hulot is tired of his wife, that is nobody's concern but +mine. As you see, he has kept his infidelity a mystery, for I did not +know that he had succeeded you in the affections of Mademoiselle +Josepha----" + +"Oh, it has cost him a pretty penny, madame. His singing-bird has cost +him more than a hundred thousand francs in these two years. Ah, ha! +you have not seen the end of it!" + +"Have done with all this, Monsieur Crevel. I will not, for your sake, +forego the happiness a mother knows who can embrace her children +without a single pang of remorse in her heart, who sees herself +respected and loved by her family; and I will give up my soul to God +unspotted----" + +"Amen!" exclaimed Crevel, with the diabolical rage that embitters the +face of these pretenders when they fail for the second time in such an +attempt. "You do not yet know the latter end of poverty--shame, +disgrace.--I have tried to warn you; I would have saved you, you and +your daughter. Well, you must study the modern parable of the +_Prodigal Father_ from A to Z. Your tears and your pride move me +deeply," said Crevel, seating himself, "for it is frightful to see the +woman one loves weeping. All I can promise you, dear Adeline, is to do +nothing against your interests or your husband's. Only never send to +me for information. That is all." + +"What is to be done?" cried Madame Hulot. + +Up to now the Baroness had bravely faced the threefold torment which +this explanation inflicted on her; for she was wounded as a woman, as +a mother, and as a wife. In fact, so long as her son's father-in-law +was insolent and offensive, she had found the strength in her +resistance to the aggressive tradesman; but the sort of good-nature he +showed, in spite of his exasperation as a mortified adorer and as a +humiliated National Guardsman, broke down her nerve, strung to the +point of snapping. She wrung her hands, melted into tears, and was in +a state of such helpless dejection, that she allowed Crevel to kneel +at her feet, kissing her hands. + +"Good God! what will become of us!" she went on, wiping away her +tears. "Can a mother sit still and see her child pine away before her +eyes? What is to be the fate of that splendid creature, as strong in +her pure life under her mother's care as she is by every gift of +nature? There are days when she wanders round the garden, out of +spirits without knowing why; I find her with tears in her eyes----" + +"She is one-and-twenty," said Crevel. + +"Must I place her in a convent?" asked the Baroness. "But in such +cases religion is impotent to subdue nature, and the most piously +trained girls lose their head!--Get up, pray, monsieur; do you not +understand that everything is final between us? that I look upon you +with horror? that you have crushed a mother's last hopes----" + +"But if I were to restore them," asked he. + +Madame Hulot looked at Crevel with a frenzied expression that really +touched him. But he drove pity back to the depths of his heart; she +had said, "I look upon you with horror." + +Virtue is always a little too rigid; it overlooks the shades and +instincts by help of which we are able to tack when in a false +position. + +"So handsome a girl as Mademoiselle Hortense does not find a husband +nowadays if she is penniless," Crevel remarked, resuming his +starchiest manner. "Your daughter is one of those beauties who rather +alarm intending husbands; like a thoroughbred horse, which is too +expensive to keep up to find a ready purchaser. If you go out walking +with such a woman on your arm, every one will turn to look at you, and +follow and covet his neighbor's wife. Such success is a source of much +uneasiness to men who do not want to be killing lovers; for, after +all, no man kills more than one. In the position in which you find +yourself there are just three ways of getting your daughter married: +Either by my help--and you will have none of it! That is one.--Or by +finding some old man of sixty, very rich, childless, and anxious to +have children; that is difficult, still such men are to be met with. +Many old men take up with a Josepha, a Jenny Cadine, why should not +one be found who is ready to make a fool of himself under legal +formalities? If it were not for Celestine and our two grandchildren, I +would marry Hortense myself. That is two.--The last way is the +easiest----" + +Madame Hulot raised her head, and looked uneasily at the ex-perfumer. + +"Paris is a town whither every man of energy--and they sprout like +saplings on French soil--comes to meet his kind; talent swarms here +without hearth or home, and energy equal to anything, even to making a +fortune. Well, these youngsters--your humble servant was such a one in +his time, and how many he has known! What had du Tillet or Popinot +twenty years since? They were both pottering round in Daddy +Birotteau's shop, with not a penny of capital but their determination +to get on, which, in my opinion, is the best capital a man can have. +Money may be eaten through, but you don't eat through your +determination. Why, what had I? The will to get on, and plenty of +pluck. At this day du Tillet is a match for the greatest folks; little +Popinot, the richest druggist of the Rue des Lombards, became a +deputy, now he is in office.--Well, one of these free lances, as we +say on the stock market, of the pen, or of the brush, is the only man +in Paris who would marry a penniless beauty, for they have courage +enough for anything. Monsieur Popinot married Mademoiselle Birotteau +without asking for a farthing. Those men are madmen, to be sure! They +trust in love as they trust in good luck and brains!--Find a man of +energy who will fall in love with your daughter, and he will marry +without a thought of money. You must confess that by way of an enemy I +am not ungenerous, for this advice is against my own interests." + +"Oh, Monsieur Crevel, if you would indeed be my friend and give up +your ridiculous notions----" + +"Ridiculous? Madame, do not run yourself down. Look at yourself--I +love you, and you will come to be mine. The day will come when I shall +say to Hulot, 'You took Josepha, I have taken your wife!' + +"It is the old law of tit-for-tat! And I will persevere till I have +attained my end, unless you should become extremely ugly.--I shall +succeed; and I will tell you why," he went on, resuming his attitude, +and looking at Madame Hulot. "You will not meet with such an old man, +or such a young lover," he said after a pause, "because you love your +daughter too well to hand her over to the manoeuvres of an old +libertine, and because you--the Baronne Hulot, sister of the old +Lieutenant-General who commanded the veteran Grenadiers of the Old +Guard--will not condescend to take a man of spirit wherever you may +find him; for he might be a mere craftsman, as many a millionaire of +to-day was ten years ago, a working artisan, or the foreman of a +factory. + +"And then, when you see the girl, urged by her twenty years, capable +of dishonoring you all, you will say to yourself, 'It will be better +that I should fall! If Monsieur Crevel will but keep my secret, I will +earn my daughter's portion--two hundred thousand francs for ten years' +attachment to that old gloveseller--old Crevel!'--I disgust you no +doubt, and what I am saying is horribly immoral, you think? But if you +happened to have been bitten by an overwhelming passion, you would +find a thousand arguments in favor of yielding--as women do when they +are in love.--Yes, and Hortense's interests will suggest to your +feelings such terms of surrendering your conscience----" + +"Hortense has still an uncle." + +"What! Old Fischer? He is winding up his concerns, and that again is +the Baron's fault; his rake is dragged over every till within his +reach." + +"Comte Hulot----" + +"Oh, madame, your husband has already made thin air of the old +General's savings. He spent them in furnishing his singer's rooms. +--Now, come; am I to go without a hope?" + +"Good-bye, monsieur. A man easily gets over a passion for a woman of +my age, and you will fall back on Christian principles. God takes care +of the wretched----" + +The Baroness rose to oblige the captain to retreat, and drove him back +into the drawing-room. + +"Ought the beautiful Madame Hulot to be living amid such squalor?" +said he, and he pointed to an old lamp, a chandelier bereft of its +gilding, the threadbare carpet, the very rags of wealth which made the +large room, with its red, white, and gold, look like a corpse of +Imperial festivities. + +"Monsieur, virtue shines on it all. I have no wish to owe a handsome +abode to having made of the beauty you are pleased to ascribe to me a +_man-trap_ and _a money-box for five-franc pieces_!" + +The captain bit his lips as he recognized the words he had used to +vilify Josepha's avarice. + +"And for whom are you so magnanimous?" said he. By this time the +baroness had got her rejected admirer as far as the door.--"For a +libertine!" said he, with a lofty grimace of virtue and superior +wealth. + +"If you are right, my constancy has some merit, monsieur. That is +all." + +After bowing to the officer as a woman bows to dismiss an importune +visitor, she turned away too quickly to see him once more fold his +arms. She unlocked the doors she had closed, and did not see the +threatening gesture which was Crevel's parting greeting. She walked +with a proud, defiant step, like a martyr to the Coliseum, but her +strength was exhausted; she sank on the sofa in her blue room, as if +she were ready to faint, and sat there with her eyes fixed on the +tumble-down summer-house, where her daughter was gossiping with Cousin +Betty. + + + +From the first days of her married life to the present time the +Baroness had loved her husband, as Josephine in the end had loved +Napoleon, with an admiring, maternal, and cowardly devotion. Though +ignorant of the details given her by Crevel, she knew that for twenty +years past Baron Hulot been anything rather than a faithful husband; +but she had sealed her eyes with lead, she had wept in silence, and no +word of reproach had ever escaped her. In return for this angelic +sweetness, she had won her husband's veneration and something +approaching to worship from all who were about her. + +A wife's affection for her husband and the respect she pays him are +infectious in a family. Hortense believed her father to be a perfect +model of conjugal affection; as to their son, brought up to admire the +Baron, whom everybody regarded as one of the giants who so effectually +backed Napoleon, he knew that he owed his advancement to his father's +name, position, and credit; and besides, the impressions of childhood +exert an enduring influence. He still was afraid of his father; and if +he had suspected the misdeeds revealed by Crevel, as he was too much +overawed by him to find fault, he would have found excuses in the view +every man takes of such matters. + +It now will be necessary to give the reasons for the extraordinary +self-devotion of a good and beautiful woman; and this, in a few words, +is her past history. + + + +Three brothers, simple laboring men, named Fischer, and living in a +village situated on the furthest frontier of Lorraine, were compelled +by the Republican conscription to set out with the so-called army of +the Rhine. + +In 1799 the second brother, Andre, a widower, and Madame Hulot's +father, left his daughter to the care of his elder brother, Pierre +Fischer, disabled from service by a wound received in 1797, and made a +small private venture in the military transport service, an opening he +owed to the favor of Hulot d'Ervy, who was high in the commissariat. +By a very obvious chance Hulot, coming to Strasbourg, saw the Fischer +family. Adeline's father and his younger brother were at that time +contractors for forage in the province of Alsace. + +Adeline, then sixteen years of age, might be compared with the famous +Madame du Barry, like her, a daughter of Lorraine. She was one of +those perfect and striking beauties--a woman like Madame Tallien, +finished with peculiar care by Nature, who bestows on them all her +choicest gifts--distinction, dignity, grace, refinement, elegance, +flesh of a superior texture, and a complexion mingled in the unknown +laboratory where good luck presides. These beautiful creatures all +have something in common: Bianca Capella, whose portrait is one of +Bronzino's masterpieces; Jean Goujon's Venus, painted from the famous +Diane de Poitiers; Signora Olympia, whose picture adorns the Doria +gallery; Ninon, Madame du Barry, Madame Tallien, Mademoiselle Georges, +Madame Recamier.--all these women who preserved their beauty in spite +of years, of passion, and of their life of excess and pleasure, have +in figure, frame, and in the character of their beauty certain +striking resemblances, enough to make one believe that there is in the +ocean of generations an Aphrodisian current whence every such Venus is +born, all daughters of the same salt wave. + +Adeline Fischer, one of the loveliest of this race of goddesses, had +the splendid type, the flowing lines, the exquisite texture of a woman +born a queen. The fair hair that our mother Eve received from the hand +of God, the form of an Empress, an air of grandeur, and an august line +of profile, with her rural modesty, made every man pause in delight as +she passed, like amateurs in front of a Raphael; in short, having once +seen her, the Commissariat officer made Mademoiselle Adeline Fischer +his wife as quickly as the law would permit, to the great astonishment +of the Fischers, who had all been brought up in the fear of their +betters. + +The eldest, a soldier of 1792, severely wounded in the attack on the +lines at Wissembourg, adored the Emperor Napoleon and everything that +had to do with the _Grande Armee_. Andre and Johann spoke with respect +of Commissary Hulot, the Emperor's protege, to whom indeed they owed +their prosperity; for Hulot d'Ervy, finding them intelligent and +honest, had taken them from the army provision wagons to place them in +charge of a government contract needing despatch. The brothers Fischer +had done further service during the campaign of 1804. At the peace +Hulot had secured for them the contract for forage from Alsace, not +knowing that he would presently be sent to Strasbourg to prepare for +the campaign of 1806. + +This marriage was like an Assumption to the young peasant girl. The +beautiful Adeline was translated at once from the mire of her village +to the paradise of the Imperial Court; for the contractor, one of the +most conscientious and hard-working of the Commissariat staff, was +made a Baron, obtained a place near the Emperor, and was attached to +the Imperial Guard. The handsome rustic bravely set to work to educate +herself for love of her husband, for she was simply crazy about him; +and, indeed, the Commissariat office was as a man a perfect match for +Adeline as a woman. He was one of the picked corps of fine men. Tall, +well-built, fair, with beautiful blue eyes full of irresistible fire +and life, his elegant appearance made him remarkable by the side of +d'Orsay, Forbin, Ouvrard; in short, in the battalion of fine men that +surrounded the Emperor. A conquering "buck," and holding the ideas of +the Directoire with regard to women, his career of gallantry was +interrupted for some long time by his conjugal affection. + +To Adeline the Baron was from the first a sort of god who could do no +wrong. To him she owed everything: fortune--she had a carriage, a fine +house, every luxury of the day; happiness--he was devoted to her in +the face of the world; a title, for she was a Baroness; fame, for she +was spoken of as the beautiful Madame Hulot--and in Paris! Finally, +she had the honor of refusing the Emperor's advances, for Napoleon +made her a present of a diamond necklace, and always remembered her, +asking now and again, "And is the beautiful Madame Hulot still a model +of virtue?" in the tone of a man who might have taken his revenge on +one who should have triumphed where he had failed. + +So it needs no great intuition to discern what were the motives in a +simple, guileless, and noble soul for the fanaticism of Madame Hulot's +love. Having fully persuaded herself that her husband could do her no +wrong, she made herself in the depths of her heart the humble, abject, +and blindfold slave of the man who had made her. It must be noted, +too, that she was gifted with great good sense--the good sense of the +people, which made her education sound. In society she spoke little, +and never spoke evil of any one; she did not try to shine; she thought +out many things, listened well, and formed herself on the model of the +best-conducted women of good birth. + +In 1815 Hulot followed the lead of the Prince de Wissembourg, his +intimate friend, and became one of the officers who organized the +improvised troops whose rout brought the Napoleonic cycle to a close +at Waterloo. In 1816 the Baron was one of the men best hated by the +Feltre administration, and was not reinstated in the Commissariat till +1823, when he was needed for the Spanish war. In 1830 he took office +as the fourth wheel of the coach, at the time of the levies, a sort of +conscription made by Louis Philippe on the old Napoleonic soldiery. +From the time when the younger branch ascended the throne, having +taken an active part in bringing that about, he was regarded as an +indispensable authority at the War Office. He had already won his +Marshal's baton, and the King could do no more for him unless by +making him minister or a peer of France. + +From 1818 till 1823, having no official occupation, Baron Hulot had +gone on active service to womankind. Madame Hulot dated her Hector's +first infidelities from the grand _finale_ of the Empire. Thus, for +twelve years the Baroness had filled the part in her household of +_prima donna assoluta_, without a rival. She still could boast of the +old-fashioned, inveterate affection which husbands feel for wives who +are resigned to be gentle and virtuous helpmates; she knew that if she +had a rival, that rival would not subsist for two hours under a word +of reproof from herself; but she shut her eyes, she stopped her ears, +she would know nothing of her husband's proceedings outside his home. +In short, she treated her Hector as a mother treats a spoilt child. + +Three years before the conversation reported above, Hortense, at the +Theatre des Varietes, had recognized her father in a lower tier +stage-box with Jenny Cadine, and had exclaimed: + +"There is papa!" + +"You are mistaken, my darling; he is at the Marshal's," the Baroness +replied. + +She too had seen Jenny Cadine; but instead of feeling a pang when she +saw how pretty she was, she said to herself, "That rascal Hector must +think himself very lucky." + +She suffered nevertheless; she gave herself up in secret to rages of +torment; but as soon as she saw Hector, she always remembered her +twelve years of perfect happiness, and could not find it in her to +utter a word of complaint. She would have been glad if the Baron would +have taken her into his confidence; but she never dared to let him see +that she knew of his kicking over the traces, out of respect for her +husband. Such an excess of delicacy is never met with but in those +grand creatures, daughters of the soil, whose instinct it is to take +blows without ever returning them; the blood of the early martyrs +still lives in their veins. Well-born women, their husbands' equals, +feel the impulse to annoy them, to mark the points of their tolerance, +like points at billiards, by some stinging word, partly in the spirit +of diabolical malice, and to secure the upper hand or the right of +turning the tables. + +The Baroness had an ardent admirer in her brother-in-law, +Lieutenant-General Hulot, the venerable Colonel of the Grenadiers of +the Imperial Infantry Guard, who was to have a Marshal's baton in his +old age. This veteran, after having served from 1830 to 1834 as +Commandant of the military division, including the departments of +Brittany, the scene of his exploits in 1799 and 1800, had come to +settle in Paris near his brother, for whom he had a fatherly affection. + +This old soldier's heart was in sympathy with his sister-in-law; he +admired her as the noblest and saintliest of her sex. He had never +married, because he hoped to find a second Adeline, though he had +vainly sought for her through twenty campaigns in as many lands. To +maintain her place in the esteem of this blameless and spotless old +republican--of whom Napoleon had said, "That brave old Hulot is the +most obstinate republican, but he will never be false to me"--Adeline +would have endured griefs even greater than those that had just come +upon her. But the old soldier, seventy-two years of age, battered by +thirty campaigns, and wounded for the twenty-seventh time at Waterloo, +was Adeline's admirer, and not a "protector." The poor old Count, +among other infirmities, could only hear through a speaking trumpet. + +So long as Baron Hulot d'Ervy was a fine man, his flirtations did not +damage his fortune; but when a man is fifty, the Graces claim payment. +At that age love becomes vice; insensate vanities come into play. +Thus, at about that time, Adeline saw that her husband was incredibly +particular about his dress; he dyed his hair and whiskers, and wore a +belt and stays. He was determined to remain handsome at any cost. This +care of his person, a weakness he had once mercilessly mocked at, was +carried out in the minutest details. + +At last Adeline perceived that the Pactolus poured out before the +Baron's mistresses had its source in her pocket. In eight years he had +dissipated a considerable amount of money; and so effectually, that, +on his son's marriage two years previously, the Baron had been +compelled to explain to his wife that his pay constituted their whole +income. + +"What shall we come to?" asked Adeline. + +"Be quite easy," said the official, "I will leave the whole of my +salary in your hands, and I will make a fortune for Hortense, and some +savings for the future, in business." + +The wife's deep belief in her husband's power and superior talents, in +his capabilities and character, had, in fact, for the moment allayed +her anxiety. + +What the Baroness' reflections and tears were after Crevel's departure +may now be clearly imagined. The poor woman had for two years past +known that she was at the bottom of a pit, but she had fancied herself +alone in it. How her son's marriage had been finally arranged she had +not known; she had known nothing of Hector's connection with the +grasping Jewess; and, above all, she hoped that no one in the world +knew anything of her troubles. Now, if Crevel went about so ready to +talk of the Baron's excesses, Hector's reputation would suffer. She +could see, under the angry ex-perfumer's coarse harangue, the odious +gossip behind the scenes which led to her son's marriage. Two +reprobate hussies had been the priestesses of this union planned at +some orgy amid the degrading familiarities of two tipsy old sinners. + +"And has he forgotten Hortense!" she wondered. + +"But he sees her every day; will he try to find her a husband among +his good-for-nothing sluts?" + +At this moment it was the mother that spoke rather than the wife, for +she saw Hortense laughing with her Cousin Betty--the reckless laughter +of heedless youth; and she knew that such hysterical laughter was +quite as distressing a symptom as the tearful reverie of solitary +walks in the garden. + +Hortense was like her mother, with golden hair that waved naturally, +and was amazingly long and thick. Her skin had the lustre of +mother-of-pearl. She was visibly the offspring of a true marriage, of +a pure and noble love in its prime. There was a passionate vitality in +her countenance, a brilliancy of feature, a full fount of youth, a +fresh vigor and abundance of health, which radiated from her with +electric flashes. Hortense invited the eye. + +When her eye, of deep ultramarine blue, liquid with the moisture of +innocent youth, rested on a passer-by, he was involuntarily thrilled. +Nor did a single freckle mar her skin, such as those with which many a +white and golden maid pays toll for her milky whiteness. Tall, round +without being fat, with a slender dignity as noble as her mother's, +she really deserved the name of goddess, of which old authors were so +lavish. In fact, those who saw Hortense in the street could hardly +restrain the exclamation, "What a beautiful girl!" + +She was so genuinely innocent, that she could say to her mother: + +"What do they mean, mamma, by calling me a beautiful girl when I am +with you? Are not you much handsomer than I am?" + +And, in point of fact, at seven-and-forty the Baroness might have been +preferred to her daughter by amateurs of sunset beauty; for she had +not yet lost any of her charms, by one of those phenomena which are +especially rare in Paris, where Ninon was regarded as scandalous, +simply because she thus seemed to enjoy such an unfair advantage over +the plainer women of the seventeenth century. + +Thinking of her daughter brought her back to the father; she saw him +sinking by degrees, day after day, down to the social mire, and even +dismissed some day from his appointment. The idea of her idol's fall, +with a vague vision of the disasters prophesied by Crevel, was such a +terror to the poor woman, that she became rapt in the contemplation +like an ecstatic. + +Cousin Betty, from time to time, as she chatted with Hortense, looked +round to see when they might return to the drawing-room; but her young +cousin was pelting her with questions, and at the moment when the +Baroness opened the glass door she did not happen to be looking. + + + +Lisbeth Fischer, though the daughter of the eldest of the three +brothers, was five years younger than Madame Hulot; she was far from +being as handsome as her cousin, and had been desperately jealous of +Adeline. Jealousy was the fundamental passion of this character, +marked by eccentricities--a word invented by the English to describe +the craziness not of the asylum, but of respectable households. A +native of the Vosges, a peasant in the fullest sense of the word, +lean, brown, with shining black hair and thick eyebrows joining in a +tuft, with long, strong arms, thick feet, and some moles on her narrow +simian face--such is a brief description of the elderly virgin. + +The family, living all under one roof, had sacrificed the +common-looking girl to the beauty, the bitter fruit to the splendid +flower. Lisbeth worked in the fields, while her cousin was indulged; +and one day, when they were alone together, she had tried to destroy +Adeline's nose, a truly Greek nose, which the old mothers admired. +Though she was beaten for this misdeed, she persisted nevertheless in +tearing the favorite's gowns and crumpling her collars. + +At the time of Adeline's wonderful marriage, Lisbeth had bowed to +fate, as Napoleon's brothers and sisters bowed before the splendor of +the throne and the force of authority. + +Adeline, who was extremely sweet and kind, remembered Lisbeth when she +found herself in Paris, and invited her there in 1809, intending to +rescue her from poverty by finding her a husband. But seeing that it +was impossible to marry the girl out of hand, with her black eyes and +sooty brows, unable, too, to read or write, the Baron began by +apprenticing her to a business; he placed her as a learner with the +embroiderers to the Imperial Court, the well-known Pons Brothers. + +Lisbeth, called Betty for short, having learned to embroider in gold +and silver, and possessing all the energy of a mountain race, had +determination enough to learn to read, write, and keep accounts; for +her cousin the Baron had pointed out the necessity for these +accomplishments if she hoped to set up in business as an embroiderer. + +She was bent on making a fortune; in two years she was another +creature. In 1811 the peasant woman had become a very presentable, +skilled, and intelligent forewoman. + +Her department, that of gold and silver lace-work, as it is called, +included epaulettes, sword-knots, aiguillettes; in short, the immense +mass of glittering ornaments that sparkled on the rich uniforms of the +French army and civil officials. The Emperor, a true Italian in his +love of dress, had overlaid the coats of all his servants with silver +and gold, and the Empire included a hundred and thirty-three +Departments. These ornaments, usually supplied to tailors who were +solvent and wealthy paymasters, were a very secure branch of trade. + +Just when Cousin Betty, the best hand in the house of Pons Brothers, +where she was forewoman of the embroidery department, might have set +up in business on her own account, the Empire collapsed. The +olive-branch of peace held out by the Bourbons did not reassure Lisbeth; +she feared a diminution of this branch of trade, since henceforth there +were to be but eighty-six Departments to plunder, instead of a hundred +and thirty-three, to say nothing of the immense reduction of the army. +Utterly scared by the ups and downs of industry, she refused the +Baron's offers of help, and he thought she must be mad. She confirmed +this opinion by quarreling with Monsieur Rivet, who bought the +business of Pons Brothers, and with whom the Baron wished to place her +in partnership; she would be no more than a workwoman. Thus the +Fischer family had relapsed into the precarious mediocrity from which +Baron Hulot had raised it. + +The three brothers Fischer, who had been ruined by the abdication at +Fontainebleau, in despair joined the irregular troops in 1815. The +eldest, Lisbeth's father, was killed. Adeline's father, sentenced to +death by court-martial, fled to Germany, and died at Treves in 1820. +Johann, the youngest, came to Paris, a petitioner to the queen of the +family, who was said to dine off gold and silver plate, and never to +be seen at a party but with diamonds in her hair as big as hazel-nuts, +given to her by the Emperor. + +Johann Fischer, then aged forty-three, obtained from Baron Hulot a +capital of ten thousand francs with which to start a small business as +forage-dealer at Versailles, under the patronage of the War Office, +through the influence of the friends still in office, of the late +Commissary-General. + +These family catastrophes, Baron Hulot's dismissal, and the knowledge +that he was a mere cipher in that immense stir of men and interests +and things which makes Paris at once a paradise and a hell, quite +quelled Lisbeth Fischer. She gave up all idea of rivalry and +comparison with her cousin after feeling her great superiority; but +envy still lurked in her heart, like a plague-germ that may hatch and +devastate a city if the fatal bale of wool is opened in which it is +concealed. + +Now and again, indeed, she said to herself: + +"Adeline and I are the same flesh and blood, our fathers were brothers +--and she is in a mansion, while I am in a garret." + +But every New Year Lisbeth had presents from the Baron and Baroness; +the Baron, who was always good to her, paid for her firewood in the +winter; old General Hulot had her to dinner once a week; and there was +always a cover laid for her at her cousin's table. They laughed at her +no doubt, but they never were ashamed to own her. In short, they had +made her independent in Paris, where she lived as she pleased. + +The old maid had, in fact, a terror of any kind of tie. Her cousin had +offered her a room in her own house--Lisbeth suspected the halter of +domestic servitude; several times the Baron had found a solution of +the difficult problem of her marriage; but though tempted in the first +instance, she would presently decline, fearing lest she should be +scorned for her want of education, her general ignorance, and her +poverty; finally, when the Baroness suggested that she should live +with their uncle Johann, and keep house for him, instead of the upper +servant, who must cost him dear, Lisbeth replied that that was the +very last way she should think of marrying. + +Lisbeth Fischer had the sort of strangeness in her ideas which is +often noticeable in characters that have developed late, in savages, +who think much and speak little. Her peasant's wit had acquired a good +deal of Parisian asperity from hearing the talk of workshops and +mixing with workmen and workwomen. She, whose character had a marked +resemblance to that of the Corsicans, worked upon without fruition by +the instincts of a strong nature, would have liked to be the +protectress of a weak man; but, as a result of living in the capital, +the capital had altered her superficially. Parisian polish became rust +on this coarsely tempered soul. Gifted with a cunning which had become +unfathomable, as it always does in those whose celibacy is genuine, +with the originality and sharpness with which she clothed her ideas, +in any other position she would have been formidable. Full of spite, +she was capable of bringing discord into the most united family. + +In early days, when she indulged in certain secret hopes which she +confided to none, she took to wearing stays, and dressing in the +fashion, and so shone in splendor for a short time, that the Baron +thought her marriageable. Lisbeth at that stage was the piquante +brunette of old-fashioned novels. Her piercing glance, her olive skin, +her reed-like figure, might invite a half-pay major; but she was +satisfied, she would say laughing, with her own admiration. + +And, indeed, she found her life pleasant enough when she had freed it +from practical anxieties, for she dined out every evening after +working hard from sunrise. Thus she had only her rent and her midday +meal to provide for; she had most of her clothes given her, and a +variety of very acceptable stores, such as coffee, sugar, wine, and so +forth. + +In 1837, after living for twenty-seven years, half maintained by the +Hulots and her Uncle Fischer, Cousin Betty, resigned to being nobody, +allowed herself to be treated so. She herself refused to appear at any +grand dinners, preferring the family party, where she held her own and +was spared all slights to her pride. + +Wherever she went--at General Hulot's, at Crevel's, at the house of +the young Hulots, or at Rivet's (Pons' successor, with whom she made +up her quarrel, and who made much of her), and at the Baroness' table +--she was treated as one of the family; in fact, she managed to make +friends of the servants by making them an occasional small present, +and always gossiping with them for a few minutes before going into the +drawing-room. This familiarity, by which she uncompromisingly put +herself on their level, conciliated their servile good-nature, which +is indispensable to a parasite. "She is a good, steady woman," was +everybody's verdict. + +Her willingness to oblige, which knew no bounds when it was not +demanded of her, was indeed, like her assumed bluntness, a necessity +of her position. She had at length understood what her life must be, +seeing that she was at everybody's mercy; and needing to please +everybody, she would laugh with young people, who liked her for a sort +of wheedling flattery which always wins them; guessing and taking part +with their fancies, she would make herself their spokeswoman, and they +thought her a delightful _confidante_, since she had no right to find +fault with them. + +Her absolute secrecy also won her the confidence of their seniors; +for, like Ninon, she had certain manly qualities. As a rule, our +confidence is given to those below rather than above us. We employ our +inferiors rather than our betters in secret transactions, and they +thus become the recipients of our inmost thoughts, and look on at our +meditations; Richelieu thought he had achieved success when he was +admitted to the Council. This penniless woman was supposed to be so +dependent on every one about her, that she seemed doomed to perfect +silence. She herself called herself the Family Confessional. + +The Baroness only, remembering her ill-usage in childhood by the +cousin who, though younger, was stronger than herself, never wholly +trusted her. Besides, out of sheer modesty, she would never have told +her domestic sorrows to any one but God. + +It may here be well to add that the Baron's house preserved all its +magnificence in the eyes of Lisbeth Fischer, who was not struck, as +the parvenu perfumer had been, with the penury stamped on the shabby +chairs, the dirty hangings, and the ripped silk. The furniture we live +with is in some sort like our own person; seeing ourselves every day, +we end, like the Baron, by thinking ourselves but little altered, and +still youthful, when others see that our head is covered with +chinchilla, our forehead scarred with circumflex accents, our stomach +assuming the rotundity of a pumpkin. So these rooms, always blazing in +Betty's eyes with the Bengal fire of Imperial victory, were to her +perennially splendid. + +As time went on, Lisbeth had contracted some rather strange +old-maidish habits. For instance, instead of following the fashions, +she expected the fashion to accept her ways and yield to her always +out-of-date notions. When the Baroness gave her a pretty new bonnet, or +a gown in the fashion of the day, Betty remade it completely at home, +and spoilt it by producing a dress of the style of the Empire or of +her old Lorraine costume. A thirty-franc bonnet came out a rag, and +the gown a disgrace. On this point, Lisbeth was as obstinate as a +mule; she would please no one but herself and believed herself +charming; whereas this assimilative process--harmonious, no doubt, in +so far as that it stamped her for an old maid from head to foot--made +her so ridiculous, that, with the best will in the world, no one could +admit her on any smart occasion. + +This refractory, capricious, and independent spirit, and the +inexplicable wild shyness of the woman for whom the Baron had four +times found a match--an employe in his office, a retired major, an +army contractor, and a half-pay captain--while she had refused an army +lacemaker, who had since made his fortune, had won her the name of the +Nanny Goat, which the Baron gave her in jest. But this nickname only +met the peculiarities that lay on the surface, the eccentricities +which each of us displays to his neighbors in social life. This woman, +who, if closely studied, would have shown the most savage traits of +the peasant class, was still the girl who had clawed her cousin's +nose, and who, if she had not been trained to reason, would perhaps +have killed her in a fit of jealousy. + +It was only her knowledge of the laws and of the world that enabled +her to control the swift instinct with which country folk, like wild +men, reduce impulse to action. In this alone, perhaps, lies the +difference between natural and civilized man. The savage has only +impulse; the civilized man has impulses and ideas. And in the savage +the brain retains, as we may say, but few impressions, it is wholly at +the mercy of the feeling that rushes in upon it; while in the +civilized man, ideas sink into the heart and change it; he has a +thousand interests and many feelings, where the savage has but one at +a time. This is the cause of the transient ascendency of a child over +its parents, which ceases as soon as it is satisfied; in the man who +is still one with nature, this contrast is constant. Cousin Betty, a +savage of Lorraine, somewhat treacherous too, was of this class of +natures, which are commoner among the lower orders than is supposed, +accounting for the conduct of the populace during revolutions. + + + +At the time when this _Drama_ opens, if Cousin Betty would have +allowed herself to be dressed like other people; if, like the women of +Paris, she had been accustomed to wear each fashion in its turn, she +would have been presentable and acceptable, but she preserved the +stiffness of a stick. Now a woman devoid of all the graces, in Paris +simply does not exist. The fine but hard eyes, the severe features, +the Calabrian fixity of complexion which made Lisbeth like a figure by +Giotto, and of which a true Parisian would have taken advantage, above +all, her strange way of dressing, gave her such an extraordinary +appearance that she sometimes looked like one of those monkeys in +petticoats taken about by little Savoyards. As she was well known in +the houses connected by family which she frequented, and restricted +her social efforts to that little circle, as she liked her own home, +her singularities no longer astonished anybody; and out of doors they +were lost in the immense stir of Paris street-life, where only pretty +women are ever looked at. + +Hortense's laughter was at this moment caused by a victory won over +her Cousin Lisbeth's perversity; she had just wrung from her an avowal +she had been hoping for these three years past. However secretive an +old maid may be, there is one sentiment which will always avail to +make her break her fast from words, and that is her vanity. For the +last three years, Hortense, having become very inquisitive on such +matters, had pestered her cousin with questions, which, however, bore +the stamp of perfect innocence. She wanted to know why her cousin had +never married. Hortense, who knew of the five offers that she had +refused, had constructed her little romance; she supposed that Lisbeth +had had a passionate attachment, and a war of banter was the result. +Hortense would talk of "We young girls!" when speaking of herself and +her cousin. + +Cousin Betty had on several occasions answered in the same tone--"And +who says I have not a lover?" So Cousin Betty's lover, real or +fictitious, became a subject of mild jesting. At last, after two years +of this petty warfare, the last time Lisbeth had come to the house +Hortense's first question had been: + +"And how is your lover?" + +"Pretty well, thank you," was the answer. "He is rather ailing, poor +young man." + +"He has delicate health?" asked the Baroness, laughing. + +"I should think so! He is fair. A sooty thing like me can love none +but a fair man with a color like the moon." + +"But who is he? What does he do?" asked Hortense. "Is he a prince?" + +"A prince of artisans, as I am queen of the bobbin. Is a poor woman +like me likely to find a lover in a man with a fine house and money in +the funds, or in a duke of the realm, or some Prince Charming out of a +fairy tale?" + +"Oh, I should so much like to see him!" cried Hortense, smiling. + +"To see what a man can be like who can love the Nanny Goat?" retorted +Lisbeth. + +"He must be some monster of an old clerk, with a goat's beard!" +Hortense said to her mother. + +"Well, then, you are quite mistaken, mademoiselle." + +"Then you mean that you really have a lover?" Hortense exclaimed in +triumph. + +"As sure as you have not!" retorted Lisbeth, nettled. + +"But if you have a lover, why don't you marry him, Lisbeth?" said the +Baroness, shaking her head at her daughter. "We have been hearing +rumors about him these three years. You have had time to study him; +and if he has been faithful so long, you should not persist in a delay +which must be hard upon him. After all, it is a matter of conscience; +and if he is young, it is time to take a brevet of dignity." + +Cousin Betty had fixed her gaze on Adeline, and seeing that she was +jesting, she replied: + +"It would be marrying hunger and thirst; he is a workman, I am a +workwoman. If we had children, they would be workmen.--No, no; we love +each other spiritually; it is less expensive." + +"Why do you keep him in hiding?" Hortense asked. + +"He wears a round jacket," replied the old maid, laughing. + +"You truly love him?" the Baroness inquired. + +"I believe you! I love him for his own sake, the dear cherub. For four +years his home has been in my heart." + +"Well, then, if you love him for himself," said the Baroness gravely, +"and if he really exists, you are treating him criminally. You do not +know how to love truly." + +"We all know that from our birth," said Lisbeth. + +"No, there are women who love and yet are selfish, and that is your +case." + +Cousin Betty's head fell, and her glance would have made any one +shiver who had seen it; but her eyes were on her reel of thread. + +"If you would introduce your so-called lover to us, Hector might find +him employment, or put him in a position to make money." + +"That is out of the question," said Cousin Betty. + +"And why?" + +"He is a sort of Pole--a refugee----" + +"A conspirator?" cried Hortense. "What luck for you!--Has he had any +adventures?" + +"He has fought for Poland. He was a professor in the school where the +students began the rebellion; and as he had been placed there by the +Grand Duke Constantine, he has no hope of mercy----" + +"A professor of what?" + +"Of fine arts." + +"And he came to Paris when the rebellion was quelled?" + +"In 1833. He came through Germany on foot." + +"Poor young man! And how old is he?" + +"He was just four-and-twenty when the insurrection broke out--he is +twenty-nine now." + +"Fifteen years your junior," said the Baroness. + +"And what does he live on?" asked Hortense. + +"His talent." + +"Oh, he gives lessons?" + +"No," said Cousin Betty; "he gets them, and hard ones too!" + +"And his Christian name--is it a pretty name?" + +"Wenceslas." + +"What a wonderful imagination you old maids have!" exclaimed the +Baroness. "To hear you talk, Lisbeth, one might really believe you." + +"You see, mamma, he is a Pole, and so accustomed to the knout that +Lisbeth reminds him of the joys of his native land." + +They all three laughed, and Hortense sang _Wenceslas! idole de mon +ame!_ instead of _O Mathilde_. + +Then for a few minutes there was a truce. + +"These children," said Cousin Betty, looking at Hortense as she went +up to her, "fancy that no one but themselves can have lovers." + +"Listen," Hortense replied, finding herself alone with her cousin, "if +you prove to me that Wenceslas is not a pure invention, I will give +you my yellow cashmere shawl." + +"He is a Count." + +"Every Pole is a Count!" + +"But he is not a Pole; he comes from Liva--Litha----" + +"Lithuania?" + +"No." + +"Livonia?" + +"Yes, that's it!" + +"But what is his name?" + +"I wonder if you are capable of keeping a secret." + +"Cousin Betty, I will be as mute!----" + +"As a fish?" + +"As a fish." + +"By your life eternal?" + +"By my life eternal!" + +"No, by your happiness in this world?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, then, his name is Wenceslas Steinbock." + +"One of Charles XII.'s Generals was named Steinbock." + +"He was his grand-uncle. His own father settled in Livonia after the +death of the King of Sweden; but he lost all his fortune during the +campaign of 1812, and died, leaving the poor boy at the age of eight +without a penny. The Grand Duke Constantine, for the honor of the name +of Steinbock, took him under his protection and sent him to school." + +"I will not break my word," Hortense replied; "prove his existence, +and you shall have the yellow shawl. The color is most becoming to +dark skins." + +"And you will keep my secret?" + +"And tell you mine." + +"Well, then, the next time I come you shall have the proof." + +"But the proof will be the lover," said Hortense. + +Cousin Betty, who, since her first arrival in Paris, had been bitten +by a mania for shawls, was bewitched by the idea of owning the yellow +cashmere given to his wife by the Baron in 1808, and handed down from +mother to daughter after the manner of some families in 1830. The +shawl had been a good deal worn ten years ago; but the costly object, +now always kept in its sandal-wood box, seemed to the old maid ever +new, like the drawing-room furniture. So she brought in her handbag a +present for the Baroness' birthday, by which she proposed to prove the +existence of her romantic lover. + +This present was a silver seal formed of three little figures back to +back, wreathed with foliage, and supporting the Globe. They +represented Faith, Hope, and Charity; their feet rested on monsters +rending each other, among them the symbolical serpent. In 1846, now +that such immense strides have been made in the art of which Benvenuto +Cellini was the master, by Mademoiselle de Fauveau, Wagner, Jeanest, +Froment-Meurice, and wood-carvers like Lienard, this little +masterpiece would amaze nobody; but at that time a girl who understood +the silversmith's art stood astonished as she held the seal which +Lisbeth put into her hands, saying: + +"There! what do you think of that?" + +In design, attitude, and drapery the figures were of the school of +Raphael; but the execution was in the style of the Florentine metal +workers--the school created by Donatello, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, +Benvenuto Cellini, John of Bologna, and others. The French masters of +the Renaissance had never invented more strangely twining monsters +than these that symbolized the evil passions. The palms, ferns, reeds, +and foliage that wreathed the Virtues showed a style, a taste, a +handling that might have driven a practised craftsman to despair; a +scroll floated above the three figures; and on its surface, between +the heads, were a W, a chamois, and the word _fecit_. + +"Who carved this?" asked Hortense. + +"Well, just my lover," replied Lisbeth. "There are ten months' work in +it; I could earn more at making sword-knots.--He told me that +Steinbock means a rock goat, a chamois, in German. And he intends to +mark all his work in that way.--Ah, ha! I shall have the shawl." + +"What for?" + +"Do you suppose I could buy such a thing, or order it? Impossible! +Well, then, it must have been given to me. And who would make me such +a present? A lover!" + +Hortense, with an artfulness that would have frightened Lisbeth +Fischer if she had detected it, took care not to express all her +admiration, though she was full of the delight which every soul that +is open to a sense of beauty must feel on seeing a faultless piece of +work--perfect and unexpected. + +"On my word," said she, "it is very pretty." + +"Yes, it is pretty," said her cousin; "but I like an orange-colored +shawl better.--Well, child, my lover spends his time in doing such +work as that. Since he came to Paris he has turned out three or four +little trifles in that style, and that is the fruit of four years' +study and toil. He has served as apprentice to founders, +metal-casters, and goldsmiths.--There he has paid away thousands and +hundreds of francs. And my gentleman tells me that in a few months now +he will be famous and rich----" + +"Then you often see him?" + +"Bless me, do you think it is all a fable? I told you truth in jest." + +"And he is in love with you?" asked Hortense eagerly. + +"He adores me," replied Lisbeth very seriously. "You see, child, he +had never seen any women but the washed out, pale things they all are +in the north, and a slender, brown, youthful thing like me warmed his +heart.--But, mum; you promised, you know!" + +"And he will fare like the five others," said the girl ironically, as +she looked at the seal. + +"Six others, miss. I left one in Lorraine, who, to this day, would +fetch the moon down for me." + +"This one does better than that," said Hortense; "he has brought down +the sun." + +"Where can that be turned into money?" asked her cousin. "It takes +wide lands to benefit by the sunshine." + +These witticisms, fired in quick retort, and leading to the sort of +giddy play that may be imagined, had given cause for the laughter +which had added to the Baroness' troubles by making her compare her +daughter's future lot with the present, when she was free to indulge +the light-heartedness of youth. + +"But to give you a gem which cost him six months of work, he must be +under some great obligations to you?" said Hortense, in whom the +silver seal had suggested very serious reflections. + +"Oh, you want to know too much at once!" said her cousin. "But, +listen, I will let you into a little plot." + +"Is your lover in it too?" + +"Oh, ho! you want so much to see him! But, as you may suppose, an old +maid like Cousin Betty, who had managed to keep a lover for five +years, keeps him well hidden.--Now, just let me alone. You see, I have +neither cat nor canary, neither dog nor a parrot, and the old Nanny +Goat wanted something to pet and tease--so I treated myself to a +Polish Count." + +"Has he a moustache?" + +"As long as that," said Lisbeth, holding up her shuttle filled with +gold thread. She always took her lace-work with her, and worked till +dinner was served. + +"If you ask too many questions, you will be told nothing," she went +on. "You are but two-and-twenty, and you chatter more than I do though +I am forty-two--not to say forty-three." + +"I am listening; I am a wooden image," said Hortense. + +"My lover has finished a bronze group ten inches high," Lisbeth went +on. "It represents Samson slaying a lion, and he has kept it buried +till it is so rusty that you might believe it to be as old as Samson +himself. This fine piece is shown at the shop of one of the old +curiosity sellers on the Place du Carrousel, near my lodgings. Now, +your father knows Monsieur Popinot, the Minister of Commerce and +Agriculture, and the Comte de Rastignac, and if he would mention the +group to them as a fine antique he had seen by chance! It seems that +such things take the fancy of your grand folks, who don't care so much +about gold lace, and that my man's fortune would be made if one of +them would buy or even look at the wretched piece of metal. The poor +fellow is sure that it might be mistaken for old work, and that the +rubbish is worth a great deal of money. And then, if one of the +ministers should purchase the group, he would go to pay his respects, +and prove that he was the maker, and be almost carried in triumph! Oh! +he believes he has reached the pinnacle; poor young man, and he is as +proud as two newly-made Counts." + +"Michael Angelo over again; but, for a lover, he has kept his head on +his shoulders!" said Hortense. "And how much does he want for it?" + +"Fifteen hundred francs. The dealer will not let it go for less, since +he must take his commission." + +"Papa is in the King's household just now," said Hortense. "He sees +those two ministers every day at the Chamber, and he will do the thing +--I undertake that. You will be a rich woman, Madame la Comtesse de +Steinbock." + +"No, the boy is too lazy; for whole weeks he sits twiddling with bits +of red wax, and nothing comes of it. Why, he spends all his days at +the Louvre and the Library, looking at prints and sketching things. He +is an idler!" + +The cousins chatted and giggled; Hortense laughing a forced laugh, for +she was invaded by a kind of love which every girl has gone through +--the love of the unknown, love in its vaguest form, when every thought +is accreted round some form which is suggested by a chance word, as +the efflorescence of hoar-frost gathers about a straw that the wind +has blown against the window-sill. + +For the past ten months she had made a reality of her cousin's +imaginary romance, believing, like her mother, that Lisbeth would +never marry; and now, within a week, this visionary being had become +Comte Wenceslas Steinbock, the dream had a certificate of birth, the +wraith had solidified into a young man of thirty. The seal she held in +her hand--a sort of Annunciation in which genius shone like an +immanent light--had the powers of a talisman. Hortense felt such a +surge of happiness, that she almost doubted whether the tale were +true; there was a ferment in her blood, and she laughed wildly to +deceive her cousin. + +"But I think the drawing-room door is open," said Lisbeth; "let us go +and see if Monsieur Crevel is gone." + +"Mamma has been very much out of spirits these two days. I suppose the +marriage under discussion has come to nothing!" + +"Oh, it may come on again. He is--I may tell you so much--a Councillor +of the Supreme Court. How would you like to be Madame la Presidente? +If Monsieur Crevel has a finger in it, he will tell me about it if I +ask him. I shall know by to-morrow if there is any hope." + +"Leave the seal with me," said Hortense; "I will not show it--mamma's +birthday is not for a month yet; I will give it to you that morning." + +"No, no. Give it back to me; it must have a case." + +"But I will let papa see it, that he may know what he is talking about +to the ministers, for men in authority must be careful what they say," +urged the girl. + +"Well, do not show it to your mother--that is all I ask; for if she +believed I had a lover, she would make game of me." + +"I promise." + +The cousins reached the drawing-room just as the Baroness turned +faint. Her daughter's cry of alarm recalled her to herself. Lisbeth +went off to fetch some salts. When she came back, she found the mother +and daughter in each other's arms, the Baroness soothing her +daughter's fears, and saying: + +"It was nothing; a little nervous attack.--There is your father," she +added, recognizing the Baron's way of ringing the bell. "Say not a +word to him." + +Adeline rose and went to meet her husband, intending to take him into +the garden and talk to him till dinner should be served of the +difficulties about the proposed match, getting him to come to some +decision as to the future, and trying to hint at some warning advice. + + + +Baron Hector Hulot came in, in a dress at once lawyer-like and +Napoleonic, for Imperial men--men who had been attached to the Emperor +--were easily distinguishable by their military deportment, their blue +coats with gilt buttons, buttoned to the chin, their black silk stock, +and an authoritative demeanor acquired from a habit of command in +circumstances requiring despotic rapidity. There was nothing of the +old man in the Baron, it must be admitted; his sight was still so +good, that he could read without spectacles; his handsome oval face, +framed in whiskers that were indeed too black, showed a brilliant +complexion, ruddy with the veins that characterize a sanguine +temperament; and his stomach, kept in order by a belt, had not +exceeded the limits of "the majestic," as Brillat-Savarin says. A fine +aristocratic air and great affability served to conceal the libertine +with whom Crevel had had such high times. He was one of those men +whose eyes always light up at the sight of a pretty woman, even of +such as merely pass by, never to be seen again. + +"Have you been speaking, my dear?" asked Adeline, seeing him with an +anxious brow. + +"No," replied Hector, "but I am worn out with hearing others speak for +two hours without coming to a vote. They carry on a war of words, in +which their speeches are like a cavalry charge which has no effect on +the enemy. Talk has taken the place of action, which goes very much +against the grain with men who are accustomed to marching orders, as I +said to the Marshal when I left him. However, I have enough of being +bored on the ministers' bench; here I may play.--How do, la Chevre! +--Good morning, little kid," and he took his daughter round the neck, +kissed her, and made her sit on his knee, resting her head on his +shoulder, that he might feel her soft golden hair against his cheek. + +"He is tired and worried," said his wife to herself. "I shall only +worry him more.--I will wait.--Are you going to be at home this +evening?" she asked him. + +"No, children. After dinner I must go out. If it had not been the day +when Lisbeth and the children and my brother come to dinner, you would +not have seen me at all." + +The Baroness took up the newspaper, looked down the list of theatres, +and laid it down again when she had seen that Robert _le Diable_ was +to be given at the Opera. Josepha, who had left the Italian Opera six +months since for the French Opera, was to take the part of Alice. + +This little pantomime did not escape the Baron, who looked hard at his +wife. Adeline cast down her eyes and went out into the garden; her +husband followed her. + +"Come, what is it, Adeline?" said he, putting his arm round her waist +and pressing her to his side. "Do not you know that I love you more +than----" + +"More than Jenny Cadine or Josepha!" said she, boldly interrupting +him. + +"Who put that into your head?" exclaimed the Baron, releasing his +wife, and starting back a step or two. + +"I got an anonymous letter, which I burnt at once, in which I was +told, my dear, that the reason Hortense's marriage was broken off was +the poverty of our circumstances. Your wife, my dear Hector, would +never have said a word; she knew of your connection with Jenny Cadine, +and did she ever complain?--But as the mother of Hortense, I am bound +to speak the truth." + +Hulot, after a short silence, which was terrible to his wife, whose +heart beat loud enough to be heard, opened his arms, clasped her to +his heart, kissed her forehead, and said with the vehemence of +enthusiasm: + +"Adeline, you are an angel, and I am a wretch----" + +"No, no," cried the Baroness, hastily laying her hand upon his lips to +hinder him from speaking evil of himself. + +"Yes, for I have not at this moment a sou to give to Hortense, and I +am most unhappy. But since you open your heart to me, I may pour into +it the trouble that is crushing me.--Your Uncle Fischer is in +difficulties, and it is I who dragged him there, for he has accepted +bills for me to the amount of twenty-five thousand francs! And all for +a woman who deceives me, who laughs at me behind my back, and calls me +an old dyed Tom. It is frightful! A vice which costs me more than it +would to maintain a family!--And I cannot resist!--I would promise you +here and now never to see that abominable Jewess again; but if she +wrote me two lines, I should go to her, as we marched into fire under +the Emperor." + +"Do not be so distressed," cried the poor woman in despair, but +forgetting her daughter as she saw the tears in her husband's eyes. +"There are my diamonds; whatever happens, save my uncle." + +"Your diamonds are worth scarcely twenty thousand francs nowadays. +That would not be enough for old Fischer, so keep them for Hortense; I +will see the Marshal to-morrow." + +"My poor dear!" said the Baroness, taking her Hector's hands and +kissing them. + +This was all the scolding he got. Adeline sacrificed her jewels, the +father made them a present to Hortense, she regarded this as a sublime +action, and she was helpless. + +"He is the master; he could take everything, and he leaves me my +diamonds; he is divine!" + +This was the current of her thoughts; and indeed the wife had gained +more by her sweetness than another perhaps could have achieved by a +fit of angry jealousy. + +The moralist cannot deny that, as a rule, well-bred though very wicked +men are far more attractive and lovable than virtuous men; having +crimes to atone for, they crave indulgence by anticipation, by being +lenient to the shortcomings of those who judge them, and they are +thought most kind. Though there are no doubt some charming people +among the virtuous, Virtue considers itself fair enough, unadorned, to +be at no pains to please; and then all really virtuous persons, for +the hypocrites do not count, have some slight doubts as to their +position; they believe that they are cheated in the bargain of life on +the whole, and they indulge in acid comments after the fashion of +those who think themselves unappreciated. + +Hence the Baron, who accused himself of ruining his family, displayed +all his charm of wit and his most seductive graces for the benefit of +his wife, for his children, and his Cousin Lisbeth. + +Then, when his son arrived with Celestine, Crevel's daughter, who was +nursing the infant Hulot, he was delightful to his daughter-in-law, +loading her with compliments--a treat to which Celestine's vanity was +little accustomed for no moneyed bride more commonplace or more +utterly insignificant was ever seen. The grandfather took the baby +from her, kissed it, declared it was a beauty and a darling; he spoke +to it in baby language, prophesied that it would grow to be taller +than himself, insinuated compliments for his son's benefit, and +restored the child to the Normandy nurse who had charge of it. +Celestine, on her part, gave the Baroness a look, as much as to say, +"What a delightful man!" and she naturally took her father-in-law's +part against her father. + +After thus playing the charming father-in-law and the indulgent +grandpapa, the Baron took his son into the garden, and laid before him +a variety of observations full of good sense as to the attitude to be +taken up by the Chamber on a certain ticklish question which had that +morning come under discussion. The young lawyer was struck with +admiration for the depth of his father's insight, touched by his +cordiality, and especially by the deferential tone which seemed to +place the two men on a footing of equality. + +Monsieur Hulot _junior_ was in every respect the young Frenchman, as +he has been moulded by the Revolution of 1830; his mind infatuated +with politics, respectful of his own hopes, and concealing them under +an affectation of gravity, very envious of successful men, making +sententiousness do the duty of witty rejoinders--the gems of the +French language--with a high sense of importance, and mistaking +arrogance for dignity. + +Such men are walking coffins, each containing a Frenchman of the past; +now and again the Frenchman wakes up and kicks against his +English-made casing; but ambition stifles him, and he submits to be +smothered. The coffin is always covered with black cloth. + +"Ah, here is my brother!" said Baron Hulot, going to meet the Count at +the drawing-room door. + +Having greeted the probable successor of the late Marshal Montcornet, +he led him forward by the arm with every show of affection and +respect. + +The older man, a member of the Chamber of Peers, but excused from +attendance on account of his deafness, had a handsome head, chilled by +age, but with enough gray hair still to be marked in a circle by the +pressure of his hat. He was short, square, and shrunken, but carried +his hale old age with a free-and-easy air; and as he was full of +excessive activity, which had now no purpose, he divided his time +between reading and taking exercise. In a drawing-room he devoted his +attention to waiting on the wishes of the ladies. + +"You are very merry here," said he, seeing that the Baron shed a +spirit of animation on the little family gathering. "And yet Hortense +is not married," he added, noticing a trace of melancholy on his +sister-in-law's countenance. + +"That will come all in good time," Lisbeth shouted in his ear in a +formidable voice. + +"So there you are, you wretched seedling that could never blossom," +said he, laughing. + +The hero of Forzheim rather liked Cousin Betty, for there were certain +points of resemblance between them. A man of the ranks, without any +education, his courage had been the sole mainspring of his military +promotion, and sound sense had taken the place of brilliancy. Of the +highest honor and clean-handed, he was ending a noble life in full +contentment in the centre of his family, which claimed all his +affections, and without a suspicion of his brother's still +undiscovered misconduct. No one enjoyed more than he the pleasing +sight of this family party, where there never was the smallest +disagreement, for the brothers and sisters were all equally attached, +Celestine having been at once accepted as one of the family. But the +worthy little Count wondered now and then why Monsieur Crevel never +joined the party. "Papa is in the country," Celestine shouted, and it +was explained to him that the ex-perfumer was away from home. + +This perfect union of all her family made Madame Hulot say to herself, +"This, after all, is the best kind of happiness, and who can deprive +us of it?" + +The General, on seeing his favorite Adeline the object of her +husband's attentions, laughed so much about it that the Baron, fearing +to seem ridiculous, transferred his gallantries to his +daughter-in-law, who at these family dinners was always the object of +his flattery and kind care, for he hoped to win Crevel back through +her, and make him forego his resentment. + +Any one seeing this domestic scene would have found it hard to believe +that the father was at his wits' end, the mother in despair, the son +anxious beyond words as to his father's future fate, and the daughter +on the point of robbing her cousin of her lover. + + + +At seven o'clock the Baron, seeing his brother, his son, the Baroness, +and Hortense all engaged at whist, went off to applaud his mistress at +the Opera, taking with him Lisbeth Fischer, who lived in the Rue du +Doyenne, and who always made an excuse of the solitude of that +deserted quarter to take herself off as soon as dinner was over. +Parisians will all admit that the old maid's prudence was but +rational. + +The existence of the maze of houses under the wing of the old Louvre +is one of those protests against obvious good sense which Frenchmen +love, that Europe may reassure itself as to the quantum of brains they +are known to have, and not be too much alarmed. Perhaps without +knowing it, this reveals some profound political idea. + +It will surely not be a work of supererogation to describe this part +of Paris as it is even now, when we could hardly expect its survival; +and our grandsons, who will no doubt see the Louvre finished, may +refuse to believe that such a relic of barbarism should have survived +for six-and-thirty years in the heart of Paris and in the face of the +palace where three dynasties of kings have received, during those +thirty-six years, the elite of France and of Europe. + +Between the little gate leading to the Bridge of the Carrousel and the +Rue du Musee, every one having come to Paris, were it but for a few +days, must have seen a dozen of houses with a decayed frontage where +the dejected owners have attempted no repairs, the remains of an old +block of buildings of which the destruction was begun at the time when +Napoleon determined to complete the Louvre. This street, and the blind +alley known as the Impasse du Doyenne, are the only passages into this +gloomy and forsaken block, inhabited perhaps by ghosts, for there +never is anybody to be seen. The pavement is much below the footway of +the Rue du Musee, on a level with that of the Rue Froidmanteau. Thus, +half sunken by the raising of the soil, these houses are also wrapped +in the perpetual shadow cast by the lofty buildings of the Louvre, +darkened on that side by the northern blast. Darkness, silence, an icy +chill, and the cavernous depth of the soil combine to make these +houses a kind of crypt, tombs of the living. As we drive in a hackney +cab past this dead-alive spot, and chance to look down the little Rue +du Doyenne, a shudder freezes the soul, and we wonder who can lie +there, and what things may be done there at night, at an hour when the +alley is a cut-throat pit, and the vices of Paris run riot there under +the cloak of night. This question, frightful in itself, becomes +appalling when we note that these dwelling-houses are shut in on the +side towards the Rue de Richelieu by marshy ground, by a sea of +tumbled paving-stones between them and the Tuileries, by little +garden-plots and suspicious-looking hovels on the side of the great +galleries, and by a desert of building-stone and old rubbish on the +side towards the old Louvre. Henri III. and his favorites in search of +their trunk-hose, and Marguerite's lovers in search of their heads, +must dance sarabands by moonlight in this wilderness overlooked by the +roof of a chapel still standing there as if to prove that the Catholic +religion--so deeply rooted in France--survives all else. + +For forty years now has the Louvre been crying out by every gap in +these damaged walls, by every yawning window, "Rid me of these warts +upon my face!" This cutthroat lane has no doubt been regarded as +useful, and has been thought necessary as symbolizing in the heart of +Paris the intimate connection between poverty and the splendor that is +characteristic of the queen of cities. And indeed these chill ruins, +among which the Legitimist newspaper contracted the disease it is +dying of--the abominable hovels of the Rue du Musee, and the hoarding +appropriated by the shop stalls that flourish there--will perhaps live +longer and more prosperously than three successive dynasties. + +In 1823 the low rents in these already condemned houses had tempted +Lisbeth Fischer to settle there, notwithstanding the necessity imposed +upon her by the state of the neighborhood to get home before +nightfall. This necessity, however, was in accordance with the country +habits she retained, of rising and going to bed with the sun, an +arrangement which saves country folk considerable sums in lights and +fuel. She lived in one of the houses which, since the demolition of +the famous Hotel Cambaceres, command a view of the square. + +Just as Baron Hulot set his wife's cousin down at the door of this +house, saying, "Good-night, Cousin," an elegant-looking woman, young, +small, slender, pretty, beautifully dressed, and redolent of some +delicate perfume, passed between the wall and the carriage to go in. +This lady, without any premeditation, glanced up at the Baron merely +to see the lodger's cousin, and the libertine at once felt the swift +impression which all Parisians know on meeting a pretty woman, +realizing, as entomologists have it, their _desiderata_; so he waited +to put on one of his gloves with judicious deliberation before getting +into the carriage again, to give himself an excuse for allowing his +eye to follow the young woman, whose skirts were pleasingly set out by +something else than these odious and delusive crinoline bustles. + +"That," said he to himself, "is a nice little person whose happiness I +should like to provide for, as she would certainly secure mine." + +When the unknown fair had gone into the hall at the foot of the stairs +going up to the front rooms, she glanced at the gate out of the corner +of her eye without precisely looking round, and she could see the +Baron riveted to the spot in admiration, consumed by curiosity and +desire. This is to every Parisian woman a sort of flower which she +smells at with delight, if she meets it on her way. Nay, certain +women, though faithful to their duties, pretty, and virtuous, come +home much put out if they have failed to cull such a posy in the +course of their walk. + +The lady ran upstairs, and in a moment a window on the second floor +was thrown open, and she appeared at it, but accompanied by a man +whose baldhead and somewhat scowling looks announced him as her +husband. + +"If they aren't sharp and ingenious, the cunning jades!" thought the +Baron. "She does that to show me where she lives. But this is getting +rather warm, especially for this part of Paris. We must mind what we +are at." + +As he got into the _milord_, he looked up, and the lady and the +husband hastily vanished, as though the Baron's face had affected them +like the mythological head of Medusa. + +"It would seem that they know me," thought the Baron. "That would +account for everything." + +As the carriage went up the Rue du Musee, he leaned forward to see the +lady again, and in fact she was again at the window. Ashamed of being +caught gazing at the hood under which her admirer was sitting, the +unknown started back at once. + +"Nanny shall tell me who it is," said the Baron to himself. + +The sight of the Government official had, as will be seen, made a deep +impression on this couple. + +"Why, it is Baron Hulot, the chief of the department to which my +office belongs!" exclaimed the husband as he left the window. + +"Well, Marneffe, the old maid on the third floor at the back of the +courtyard, who lives with that young man, is his cousin. Is it not odd +that we should never have known that till to-day, and now find it out +by chance?" + +"Mademoiselle Fischer living with a young man?" repeated the husband. +"That is porter's gossip; do not speak so lightly of the cousin of a +Councillor of State who can blow hot and cold in the office as he +pleases. Now, come to dinner; I have been waiting for you since four +o'clock." + +Pretty--very pretty--Madame Marneffe, the natural daughter of Comte +Montcornet, one of Napoleon's most famous officers, had, on the +strength of a marriage portion of twenty thousand francs, found a +husband in an inferior official at the War Office. Through the +interest of the famous lieutenant-general--made marshal of France six +months before his death--this quill-driver had risen to unhoped-for +dignity as head-clerk of his office; but just as he was to be promoted +to be deputy-chief, the marshal's death had cut off Marneffe's +ambitions and his wife's at the root. The very small salary enjoyed by +Sieur Marneffe had compelled the couple to economize in the matter of +rent; for in his hands Mademoiselle Valerie Fortin's fortune had +already melted away--partly in paying his debts, and partly in the +purchase of necessaries for furnishing a house, but chiefly in +gratifying the requirements of a pretty young wife, accustomed in her +mother's house to luxuries she did not choose to dispense with. The +situation of the Rue du Doyenne, within easy distance of the War +Office, and the gay part of Paris, smiled on Monsieur and Madame +Marneffe, and for the last four years they had dwelt under the same +roof as Lisbeth Fischer. + +Monsieur Jean-Paul-Stanislas Marneffe was one of the class of employes +who escape sheer brutishness by the kind of power that comes of +depravity. The small, lean creature, with thin hair and a starved +beard, an unwholesome pasty face, worn rather than wrinkled, with +red-lidded eyes harnessed with spectacles, shuffling in his gait, and +yet meaner in his appearance, realized the type of man that any one +would conceive of as likely to be placed in the dock for an offence +against decency. + +The rooms inhabited by this couple had the illusory appearance of sham +luxury seen in many Paris homes, and typical of a certain class of +household. In the drawing-room, the furniture covered with shabby +cotton velvet, the plaster statuettes pretending to be Florentine +bronze, the clumsy cast chandelier merely lacquered, with cheap glass +saucers, the carpet, whose small cost was accounted for in advancing +life by the quality of cotton used in the manufacture, now visible to +the naked eye,--everything, down to the curtains, which plainly showed +that worsted damask has not three years of prime, proclaimed poverty +as loudly as a beggar in rags at a church door. + +The dining-room, badly kept by a single servant, had the sickening +aspect of a country inn; everything looked greasy and unclean. + +Monsieur's room, very like a schoolboy's, furnished with the bed and +fittings remaining from his bachelor days, as shabby and worn as he +was, dusted perhaps once a week--that horrible room where everything +was in a litter, with old socks hanging over the horsehair-seated +chairs, the pattern outlined in dust, was that of a man to whom home +is a matter of indifference, who lives out of doors, gambling in cafes +or elsewhere. + +Madame's room was an exception to the squalid slovenliness that +disgraced the living rooms, where the curtains were yellow with smoke +and dust, and where the child, evidently left to himself, littered +every spot with his toys. Valerie's room and dressing-room were +situated in the part of the house which, on one side of the courtyard, +joined the front half, looking out on the street, to the wing forming +the inner side of the court backing against the adjoining property. +Handsomely hung with chintz, furnished with rosewood, and thickly +carpeted, they proclaimed themselves as belonging to a pretty woman +--and indeed suggested the kept mistress. A clock in the fashionable +style stood on the velvet-covered mantelpiece. There was a nicely +fitted cabinet, and the Chinese flower-stands were handsomely filled. +The bed, the toilet-table, the wardrobe with its mirror, the little +sofa, and all the lady's frippery bore the stamp of fashion or +caprice. Though everything was quite third-rate as to elegance or +quality, and nothing was absolutely newer than three years old, a +dandy would have had no fault to find but that the taste of all this +luxury was commonplace. Art, and the distinction that comes of the +choice of things that taste assimilates, was entirely wanting. A +doctor of social science would have detected a lover in two or three +specimens of costly trumpery, which could only have come there through +that demi-god--always absent, but always present if the lady is +married. + +The dinner, four hours behind time, to which the husband, wife, and +child sat down, betrayed the financial straits in which the household +found itself, for the table is the surest thermometer for gauging the +income of a Parisian family. Vegetable soup made with the water +haricot beans had been boiled in, a piece of stewed veal and potatoes +sodden with water by way of gravy, a dish of haricot beans, and cheap +cherries, served and eaten in cracked plates and dishes, with the +dull-looking and dull-sounding forks of German silver--was this a +banquet worthy of this pretty young woman? The Baron would have wept +could he have seen it. The dingy decanters could not disguise the vile +hue of wine bought by the pint at the nearest wineshop. The +table-napkins had seen a week's use. In short, everything betrayed +undignified penury, and the equal indifference of the husband and wife +to the decencies of home. The most superficial observer on seeing them +would have said that these two beings had come to the stage when the +necessity of living had prepared them for any kind of dishonor that +might bring luck to them. Valerie's first words to her husband will +explain the delay that had postponed the dinner by the not +disinterested devotion of the cook. + +"Samanon will only take your bills at fifty per cent, and insists on a +lien on your salary as security." + +So poverty, still unconfessed in the house of the superior official, +and hidden under a stipend of twenty-four thousand francs, +irrespective of presents, had reached its lowest stage in that of the +clerk. + +"You have caught on with the chief," said the man, looking at his +wife. + +"I rather think so," replied she, understanding the full meaning of +his slang expression. + +"What is to become of us?" Marneffe went on. "The landlord will be +down on us to-morrow. And to think of your father dying without making +a will! On my honor, those men of the Empire all think themselves as +immortal as their Emperor." + +"Poor father!" said she. "I was his only child, and he was very fond +of me. The Countess probably burned the will. How could he forget me +when he used to give us as much as three or four thousand-franc notes +at once, from time to time?" + +"We owe four quarters' rent, fifteen hundred francs. Is the furniture +worth so much? _That is the question_, as Shakespeare says." + +"Now, good-bye, ducky!" said Valerie, who had only eaten a few +mouthfuls of the veal, from which the maid had extracted all the gravy +for a brave soldier just home from Algiers. "Great evils demand heroic +remedies." + +"Valerie, where are you off to?" cried Marneffe, standing between his +wife and the door. + +"I am going to see the landlord," she replied, arranging her ringlets +under her smart bonnet. "You had better try to make friends with that +old maid, if she really is your chief's cousin." + + + +The ignorance in which the dwellers under one roof can exist as to the +social position of their fellow-lodgers is a permanent fact which, as +much as any other, shows what the rush of Paris life is. Still, it is +easily conceivable that a clerk who goes early every morning to his +office, comes home only to dinner, and spends every evening out, and a +woman swallowed up in a round of pleasures, should know nothing of an +old maid living on the third floor beyond the courtyard of the house +they dwell in, especially when she lives as Mademoiselle Fischer did. + +Up in the morning before any one else, Lisbeth went out to buy her +bread, milk, and live charcoal, never speaking to any one, and she +went to bed with the sun; she never had a letter or a visitor, nor +chatted with her neighbors. Here was one of those anonymous, +entomological existences such as are to be met with in many large +tenements where, at the end of four years, you unexpectedly learn that +up on the fourth floor there is an old man lodging who knew Voltaire, +Pilatre de Rozier, Beaujon, Marcel, Mole, Sophie Arnould, Franklin, +and Robespierre. What Monsieur and Madame Marneffe had just said +concerning Lisbeth Fischer they had come to know, in consequence, +partly, of the loneliness of the neighborhood, and of the alliance, to +which their necessities had led, between them and the doorkeepers, +whose goodwill was too important to them not to have been carefully +encouraged. + +Now, the old maid's pride, silence, and reserve had engendered in the +porter and his wife the exaggerated respect and cold civility which +betray the unconfessed annoyance of an inferior. Also, the porter +thought himself in all essentials the equal of any lodger whose rent +was no more than two hundred and fifty francs. Cousin Betty's +confidences to Hortense were true; and it is evident that the porter's +wife might be very likely to slander Mademoiselle Fischer in her +intimate gossip with the Marneffes, while only intending to tell +tales. + +When Lisbeth had taken her candle from the hands of worthy Madame +Olivier the portress, she looked up to see whether the windows of the +garret over her own rooms were lighted up. At that hour, even in July, +it was so dark within the courtyard that the old maid could not get to +bed without a light. + +"Oh, you may be quite easy, Monsieur Steinbock is in his room. He has +not been out even," said Madame Olivier, with meaning. + +Lisbeth made no reply. She was still a peasant, in so far that she was +indifferent to the gossip of persons unconnected with her. Just as a +peasant sees nothing beyond his village, she cared for nobody's +opinion outside the little circle in which she lived. So she boldly +went up, not to her own room, but to the garret; and this is why. At +dessert she had filled her bag with fruit and sweets for her lover, +and she went to give them to him, exactly as an old lady brings home a +biscuit for her dog. + +She found the hero of Hortense's dreams working by the light of a +small lamp, of which the light was intensified by the use of a bottle +of water as a lens--a pale young man, seated at a workman's bench +covered with a modeler's tools, wax, chisels, rough-hewn stone, and +bronze castings; he wore a blouse, and had in his hand a little group +in red wax, which he gazed at like a poet absorbed in his labors. + +"Here, Wenceslas, see what I have brought you," said she, laying her +handkerchief on a corner of the table; then she carefully took the +sweetmeats and fruit out of her bag. + +"You are very kind, mademoiselle," replied the exile in melancholy +tones. + +"It will do you good, poor boy. You get feverish by working so hard; +you were not born to such a rough life." + +Wenceslas Steinbock looked at her with a bewildered air. + +"Eat--come, eat," said she sharply, "instead of looking at me as you +do at one of your images when you are satisfied with it." + +On being thus smacked with words, the young man seemed less puzzled, +for this, indeed, was the female Mentor whose tender moods were always +a surprise to him, so much more accustomed was he to be scolded. + +Though Steinbock was nine-and-twenty, like many fair men, he looked +five or six years younger; and seeing his youth, though its freshness +had faded under the fatigue and stress of life in exile, by the side +of that dry, hard face, it seemed as though Nature had blundered in +the distribution of sex. He rose and threw himself into a deep chair +of Louis XV. pattern, covered with yellow Utrecht velvet, as if to +rest himself. The old maid took a greengage and offered it to him. + +"Thank you," said he, taking the plum. + +"Are you tired?" said she, giving him another. + +"I am not tired with work, but tired of life," said he. + +"What absurd notions you have!" she exclaimed with some annoyance. +"Have you not had a good genius to keep an eye on you?" she said, +offering him the sweetmeats, and watching him with pleasure as he ate +them all. "You see, I thought of you when dining with my cousin." + +"I know," said he, with a look at Lisbeth that was at once +affectionate and plaintive, "but for you I should long since have +ceased to live. But, my dear lady, artists require relaxation----" + +"Ah! there we come to the point!" cried she, interrupting him, her +hands on her hips, and her flashing eyes fixed on him. "You want to go +wasting your health in the vile resorts of Paris, like so many +artisans, who end by dying in the workhouse. No, no, make a fortune, +and then, when you have money in the funds, you may amuse yourself, +child; then you will have enough to pay for the doctor and for your +pleasure, libertine that you are." + +Wenceslas Steinbock, on receiving this broadside, with an +accompaniment of looks that pierced him like a magnetic flame, bent +his head. The most malignant slanderer on seeing this scene would at +once have understood that the hints thrown out by the Oliviers were +false. Everything in this couple, their tone, manner, and way of +looking at each other, proved the purity of their private live. The +old maid showed the affection of rough but very genuine maternal +feeling; the young man submitted, as a respectful son yields to the +tyranny of a mother. The strange alliance seemed to be the outcome of +a strong will acting constantly on a weak character, on the fluid +nature peculiar to the Slavs, which, while it does not hinder them +from showing heroic courage in battle, gives them an amazing +incoherency of conduct, a moral softness of which physiologists ought +to try to detect the causes, since physiologists are to political life +what entomologists are to agriculture. + +"But if I die before I am rich?" said Wenceslas dolefully. + +"Die!" cried she. "Oh, I will not let you die. I have life enough for +both, and I would have my blood injected into your veins if +necessary." + +Tears rose to Steinbock's eyes as he heard her vehement and artless +speech. + +"Do not be unhappy, my little Wenceslas," said Lisbeth with feeling. +"My cousin Hortense thought your seal quite pretty, I am sure; and I +will manage to sell your bronze group, you will see; you will have +paid me off, you will be able to do as you please, you will soon be +free. Come, smile a little!" + +"I can never repay you, mademoiselle," said the exile. + +"And why not?" asked the peasant woman, taking the Livonian's part +against herself. + +"Because you not only fed me, lodged me, cared for me in my poverty, +but you also gave me strength. You have made me what I am; you have +often been stern, you have made me very unhappy----" + +"I?" said the old maid. "Are you going to pour out all your nonsense +once more about poetry and the arts, and to crack your fingers and +stretch your arms while you spout about the ideal, and beauty, and all +your northern madness?--Beauty is not to compare with solid pudding +--and what am I!--You have ideas in your brain? What is the use of +them? I too have ideas. What is the good of all the fine things you may +have in your soul if you can make no use of them? Those who have ideas +do not get so far as those who have none, if they don't know which way +to go. + +"Instead of thinking over your ideas you must work.--Now, what have +you done while I was out?" + +"What did your pretty cousin say?" + +"Who told you she was pretty?" asked Lisbeth sharply, in a tone hollow +with tiger-like jealousy. + +"Why, you did." + +"That was only to see your face. Do you want to go trotting after +petticoats? You who are so fond of women, well, make them in bronze. +Let us see a cast of your desires, for you will have to do without the +ladies for some little time yet, and certainly without my cousin, my +good fellow. She is not game for your bag; that young lady wants a man +with sixty thousand francs a year--and has found him! + +"Why, your bed is not made!" she exclaimed, looking into the adjoining +room. "Poor dear boy, I quite forgot you!" + +The sturdy woman pulled off her gloves, her cape and bonnet, and +remade the artist's little camp bed as briskly as any housemaid. This +mixture of abruptness, of roughness even, with real kindness, perhaps +accounts for the ascendency Lisbeth had acquired over the man whom she +regarded as her personal property. Is not our attachment to life based +on its alternations of good and evil? + +If the Livonian had happened to meet Madame Marneffe instead of +Lisbeth Fischer, he would have found a protectress whose complaisance +must have led him into some boggy or discreditable path, where he +would have been lost. He would certainly never have worked, nor the +artist have been hatched out. Thus, while he deplored the old maid's +grasping avarice, his reason bid him prefer her iron hand to the life +of idleness and peril led by many of his fellow-countrymen. + + + +This was the incident that had given rise to the coalition of female +energy and masculine feebleness--a contrast in union said not to be +uncommon in Poland. + +In 1833 Mademoiselle Fischer, who sometimes worked into the night when +business was good, at about one o'clock one morning perceived a strong +smell of carbonic acid gas, and heard the groans of a dying man. The +fumes and the gasping came from a garret over the two rooms forming +her dwelling, and she supposed that a young man who had but lately +come to lodge in this attic--which had been vacant for three years +--was committing suicide. She ran upstairs, broke in the door by a +push with her peasant strength, and found the lodger writhing on a +camp-bed in the convulsions of death. She extinguished the brazier; +the door was open, the air rushed in, and the exile was saved. Then, +when Lisbeth had put him to bed like a patient, and he was asleep, +she could detect the motives of his suicide in the destitution of the +rooms, where there was nothing whatever but a wretched table, the +camp-bed, and two chairs. + +On the table lay a document, which she read: + + "I am Count Wenceslas Steinbock, born at Prelia, in Livonia. + + "No one is to be accused of my death; my reasons for killing + myself are, in the words of Kosciusko, _Finis Polonioe_! + + "The grand-nephew of a valiant General under Charles XII. could + not beg. My weakly constitution forbids my taking military + service, and I yesterday saw the last of the hundred thalers which + I had brought with me from Dresden to Paris. I have left + twenty-five francs in the drawer of this table to pay the rent I owe + to the landlord. + + "My parents being dead, my death will affect nobody. I desire that + my countrymen will not blame the French Government. I have never + registered myself as a refugee, and I have asked for nothing; I + have met none of my fellow-exiles; no one in Paris knows of my + existence. + + "I am dying in Christian beliefs. May God forgive the last of the + Steinbocks! + +"WENCESLAS." + + +Mademoiselle Fischer, deeply touched by the dying man's honesty, +opened the drawer and found the five five-franc pieces to pay his +rent. + +"Poor young man!" cried she. "And with no one in the world to care +about him!" + +She went downstairs to fetch her work, and sat stitching in the +garret, watching over the Livonian gentleman. + +When he awoke his astonishment may be imagined on finding a woman +sitting by his bed; it was like the prolongation of a dream. As she +sat there, covering aiguillettes with gold thread, the old maid had +resolved to take charge of the poor youth whom she admired as he lay +sleeping. + +As soon as the young Count was fully awake, Lisbeth talked to give him +courage, and questioned him to find out how he might make a living. +Wenceslas, after telling his story, added that he owed his position to +his acknowledged talent for the fine arts. He had always had a +preference for sculpture; the necessary time for study had, however, +seemed to him too long for a man without money; and at this moment he +was far too weak to do any hard manual labor or undertake an important +work in sculpture. All this was Greek to Lisbeth Fischer. She replied +to the unhappy man that Paris offered so many openings that any man +with will and courage might find a living there. A man of spirit need +never perish if he had a certain stock of endurance. + +"I am but a poor girl myself, a peasant, and I have managed to make +myself independent," said she in conclusion. "If you will work in +earnest, I have saved a little money, and I will lend you, month by +month, enough to live upon; but to live frugally, and not to play +ducks and drakes with or squander in the streets. You can dine in +Paris for twenty-five sous a day, and I will get you your breakfast +with mine every day. I will furnish your rooms and pay for such +teaching as you may think necessary. You shall give me formal +acknowledgment for the money I may lay out for you, and when you are +rich you shall repay me all. But if you do not work, I shall not +regard myself as in any way pledged to you, and I shall leave you to +your fate." + +"Ah!" cried the poor fellow, still smarting from the bitterness of his +first struggle with death, "exiles from every land may well stretch +out their hands to France, as the souls in Purgatory do to Paradise. +In what other country is such help to be found, and generous hearts +even in such a garret as this? You will be everything to me, my +beloved benefactress; I am your slave! Be my sweetheart," he added, +with one of the caressing gestures familiar to the Poles, for which +they are unjustly accused of servility. + +"Oh, no; I am too jealous, I should make you unhappy; but I will +gladly be a sort of comrade," replied Lisbeth. + +"Ah, if only you knew how I longed for some fellow-creature, even a +tyrant, who would have something to say to me when I was struggling in +the vast solitude of Paris!" exclaimed Wenceslas. "I regretted +Siberia, whither I should be sent by the Emperor if I went home.--Be +my Providence!--I will work; I will be a better man than I am, though +I am not such a bad fellow!" + +"Will you do whatever I bid you?" she asked. + +"Yes." + +"Well, then, I will adopt you as my child," said she lightly. "Here I +am with a son risen from the grave. Come! we will begin at once. I +will go out and get what I want; you can dress, and come down to +breakfast with me when I knock on the ceiling with the broomstick." + +That day, Mademoiselle Fischer made some inquiries, at the houses to +which she carried her work home, as to the business of a sculptor. By +dint of many questions she ended by hearing of the studio kept by +Florent and Chanor, a house that made a special business of casting +and finishing decorative bronzes and handsome silver plate. Thither +she went with Steinbock, recommending him as an apprentice in +sculpture, an idea that was regarded as too eccentric. Their business +was to copy the works of the greatest artists, but they did not teach +the craft. The old maid's persistent obstinacy so far succeeded that +Steinbock was taken on to design ornament. He very soon learned to +model ornament, and invented novelties; he had a gift for it. + +Five months after he was out of his apprenticeship as a finisher, he +made acquaintance with Stidmann, the famous head of Florent's studios. +Within twenty months Wenceslas was ahead of his master; but in thirty +months the old maid's savings of sixteen years had melted entirely. +Two thousand five hundred francs in gold!--a sum with which she had +intended to purchase an annuity; and what was there to show for it? A +Pole's receipt! And at this moment Lisbeth was working as hard as in +her young days to supply the needs of her Livonian. + +When she found herself the possessor of a piece of paper instead of +her gold louis, she lost her head, and went to consult Monsieur Rivet, +who for fifteen years had been his clever head-worker's friend and +counselor. On hearing her story, Monsieur and Madame Rivet scolded +Lisbeth, told her she was crazy, abused all refugees whose plots for +reconstructing their nation compromised the prosperity of the country +and the maintenance of peace; and they urged Lisbeth to find what in +trade is called security. + +"The only hold you have over this fellow is on his liberty," observed +Monsieur Rivet. + +Monsieur Achille Rivet was assessor at the Tribunal of Commerce. + +"Imprisonment is no joke for a foreigner," said he. "A Frenchman +remains five years in prison and comes out, free of his debts to be +sure, for he is thenceforth bound only by his conscience, and that +never troubles him; but a foreigner never comes out.--Give me your +promissory note; my bookkeeper will take it up; he will get it +protested; you will both be prosecuted and both be condemned to +imprisonment in default of payment; then, when everything is in due +form, you must sign a declaration. By doing this your interest will be +accumulating, and you will have a pistol always primed to fire at your +Pole!" + +The old maid allowed these legal steps to be taken, telling her +protege not to be uneasy, as the proceedings were merely to afford a +guarantee to a money-lender who agreed to advance them certain sums. +This subterfuge was due to the inventive genius of Monsieur Rivet. The +guileless artist, blindly trusting to his benefactress, lighted his +pipe with the stamped paper, for he smoked as all men do who have +sorrows or energies that need soothing. + +One fine day Monsieur Rivet showed Mademoiselle Fischer a schedule, +and said to her: + +"Here you have Wenceslas Steinbock bound hand and foot, and so +effectually, that within twenty-four hours you can have him snug in +Clichy for the rest of his days." + +This worthy and honest judge at the Chamber of Commerce experienced +that day the satisfaction that must come of having done a malignant +good action. Beneficence has so many aspects in Paris that this +contradictory expression really represents one of them. The Livonian +being fairly entangled in the toils of commercial procedure, the point +was to obtain payment; for the illustrious tradesman looked on +Wenceslas as a swindler. Feeling, sincerity, poetry, were in his eyes +mere folly in business matters. + +So Rivet went off to see, in behalf of that poor Mademoiselle Fischer, +who, as he said, had been "done" by the Pole, the rich manufacturers +for whom Steinbock had worked. It happened that Stidmann--who, with +the help of these distinguished masters of the goldsmiths' art, was +raising French work to the perfection it has now reached, allowing it +to hold its own against Florence and the Renaissance--Stidmann was in +Chanor's private room when the army lace manufacturer called to make +inquiries as to "One Steinbock, a Polish refugee." + +"Whom do you call 'One Steinbock'? Do you mean a young Livonian who +was a pupil of mine?" cried Stidmann ironically. "I may tell you, +monsieur, that he is a very great artist. It is said of me that I +believe myself to be the Devil. Well, that poor fellow does not know +that he is capable of becoming a god." + +"Indeed," said Rivet, well pleased. And then he added, "Though you +take a rather cavalier tone with a man who has the honor to be an +Assessor on the Tribunal of Commerce of the Department of the Seine." + +"Your pardon, Consul!" said Stidmann, with a military salute. + +"I am delighted," the Assessor went on, "to hear what you say. The man +may make money then?" + +"Certainly," said Chanor; "but he must work. He would have a tidy sum +by now if he had stayed with us. What is to be done? Artists have a +horror of not being free." + +"They have a proper sense of their value and dignity," replied +Stidmann. "I do not blame Wenceslas for walking alone, trying to make +a name, and to become a great man; he had a right to do so! But he was +a great loss to me when he left." + +"That, you see," exclaimed Rivet, "is what all young students aim at +as soon as they are hatched out of the school-egg. Begin by saving +money, I say, and seek glory afterwards." + +"It spoils your touch to be picking up coin," said Stidmann. "It is +Glory's business to bring us wealth." + +"And, after all," said Chanor to Rivet, "you cannot tether them." + +"They would eat the halter," replied Stidmann. + +"All these gentlemen have as much caprice as talent," said Chanor, +looking at Stidmann. "They spend no end of money; they keep their +girls, they throw coin out of window, and then they have no time to +work. They neglect their orders; we have to employ workmen who are +very inferior, but who grow rich; and then they complain of the hard +times, while, if they were but steady, they might have piles of gold." + +"You old Lumignon," said Stidmann, "you remind me of the publisher +before the Revolution who said--'If only I could keep Montesquieu, +Voltaire, and Rousseau very poor in my backshed, and lock up their +breeches in a cupboard, what a lot of nice little books they would +write to make my fortune.'--If works of art could be hammered out like +nails, workmen would make them.--Give me a thousand francs, and don't +talk nonsense." + +Worthy Monsieur Rivet went home, delighted for poor Mademoiselle +Fischer, who dined with him every Monday, and whom he found waiting +for him. + +"If you can only make him work," said he, "you will have more luck +than wisdom; you will be repaid, interest, capital, and costs. This +Pole has talent, he can make a living; but lock up his trousers and +his shoes, do not let him go to the _Chaumiere_ or the parish of +Notre-Dame de Lorette, keep him in leading-strings. If you do not take +such precautions, your artist will take to loafing, and if you only +knew what these artists mean by loafing! Shocking! Why, I have just +heard that they will spend a thousand-franc note in a day!" + +This episode had a fatal influence on the home-life of Wenceslas and +Lisbeth. The benefactress flavored the exile's bread with the wormwood +of reproof, now that she saw her money in danger, and often believed +it to be lost. From a kind mother she became a stepmother; she took +the poor boy to task, she nagged him, scolded him for working too +slowly, and blamed him for having chosen so difficult a profession. +She could not believe that those models in red wax--little figures and +sketches for ornamental work--could be of any value. Before long, +vexed with herself for her severity, she would try to efface the tears +by her care and attention. + +Then the poor young man, after groaning to think that he was dependent +on this shrew and under the thumb of a peasant of the Vosges, was +bewitched by her coaxing ways and by a maternal affection that +attached itself solely to the physical and material side of life. He +was like a woman who forgives a week of ill-usage for the sake of a +kiss and a brief reconciliation. + +Thus Mademoiselle Fischer obtained complete power over his mind. The +love of dominion that lay as a germ in the old maid's heart developed +rapidly. She could now satisfy her pride and her craving for action; +had she not a creature belonging to her, to be schooled, scolded, +flattered, and made happy, without any fear of a rival? Thus the good +and bad sides of her nature alike found play. If she sometimes +victimized the poor artist, she had, on the other hand, delicate +impulses like the grace of wild flowers; it was a joy to her to +provide for all his wants; she would have given her life for him, and +Wenceslas knew it. Like every noble soul, the poor fellow forgot the +bad points, the defects of the woman who had told him the story of her +life as an excuse for her rough ways, and he remembered only the +benefits she had done him. + +One day, exasperated with Wenceslas for having gone out walking +instead of sitting at work, she made a great scene. + +"You belong to me," said she. "If you were an honest man, you would +try to repay me the money you owe as soon as possible." + +The gentleman, in whose veins the blood of the Steinbocks was fired, +turned pale. + +"Bless me," she went on, "we soon shall have nothing to live on but +the thirty sous I earn--a poor work-woman!" + +The two penniless creatures, worked up by their own war of words, grew +vehement; and for the first time the unhappy artist reproached his +benefactress for having rescued him from death only to make him lead +the life of a galley slave, worse than the bottomless void, where at +least, said he, he would have found rest. And he talked of flight. + +"Flight!" cried Lisbeth. "Ah, Monsieur Rivet was right." + +And she clearly explained to the Pole that within twenty-four hours he +might be clapped into prison for the rest of his days. It was a +crushing blow. Steinbock sank into deep melancholy and total silence. + +In the course of the following night, Lisbeth hearing overhead some +preparations for suicide, went up to her pensioner's room, and gave +him the schedule and a formal release. + +"Here, dear child, forgive me," she said with tears in her eyes. "Be +happy; leave me! I am too cruel to you; only tell me that you will +sometimes remember the poor girl who has enabled you to make a living. +--What can I say? You are the cause of my ill-humor. I might die; +where would you be without me? That is the reason of my being +impatient to see you do some salable work. I do not want my money back +for myself, I assure you! I am only frightened at your idleness, which +you call meditation; at your ideas, which take up so many hours when +you sit gazing at the sky; I want you to get into habits of industry." + +All this was said with an emphasis, a look, and tears that moved the +high-minded artist; he clasped his benefactress to his heart and +kissed her forehead. + +"Keep these pieces," said he with a sort of cheerfulness. "Why should +you send me to Clichy? Am I not a prisoner here out of gratitude?" + +This episode of their secret domestic life had occurred six months +previously, and had led to Steinbock's producing three finished works: +the seal in Hortense's possession, the group he had placed with the +curiosity dealer, and a beautiful clock to which he was putting the +last touches, screwing in the last rivets. + +This clock represented the twelve Hours, charmingly personified by +twelve female figures whirling round in so mad and swift a dance that +three little Loves perched on a pile of fruit and flowers could not +stop one of them; only the torn skirts of Midnight remained in the +hand of the most daring cherub. The group stood on an admirably +treated base, ornamented with grotesque beasts. The hours were told by +a monstrous mouth that opened to yawn, and each Hour bore some +ingeniously appropriate symbol characteristic of the various +occupations of the day. + +It is now easy to understand the extraordinary attachment of +Mademoiselle Fischer for her Livonian; she wanted him to be happy, and +she saw him pining, fading away in his attic. The causes of this +wretched state of affairs may be easily imagined. The peasant woman +watched this son of the North with the affection of a mother, with the +jealousy of a wife, and the spirit of a dragon; hence she managed to +put every kind of folly or dissipation out of his power by leaving him +destitute of money. She longed to keep her victim and companion for +herself alone, well conducted perforce, and she had no conception of +the cruelty of this senseless wish, since she, for her own part, was +accustomed to every privation. She loved Steinbock well enough not to +marry him, and too much to give him up to any other woman; she could +not resign herself to be no more than a mother to him, though she saw +that she was mad to think of playing the other part. + +These contradictions, this ferocious jealousy, and the joy of having a +man to herself, all agitated her old maid's heart beyond measure. +Really in love as she had been for four years, she cherished the +foolish hope of prolonging this impossible and aimless way of life in +which her persistence would only be the ruin of the man she thought of +as her child. This contest between her instincts and her reason made +her unjust and tyrannical. She wreaked on the young man her vengeance +for her own lot in being neither young, rich, nor handsome; then, +after each fit of rage, recognizing herself wrong, she stooped to +unlimited humility, infinite tenderness. She never could sacrifice to +her idol till she had asserted her power by blows of the axe. In fact, +it was the converse of Shakespeare's _Tempest_--Caliban ruling Ariel +and Prospero. + +As to the poor youth himself, high-minded, meditative, and inclined to +be lazy, the desert that his protectress made in his soul might be +seen in his eyes, as in those of a caged lion. The penal servitude +forced on him by Lisbeth did not fulfil the cravings of his heart. His +weariness became a physical malady, and he was dying without daring to +ask, or knowing where to procure, the price of some little necessary +dissipation. On some days of special energy, when a feeling of utter +ill-luck added to his exasperation, he would look at Lisbeth as a +thirsty traveler on a sandy shore must look at the bitter sea-water. + +These harsh fruits of indigence, and this isolation in the midst of +Paris, Lisbeth relished with delight. And besides, she foresaw that +the first passion would rob her of her slave. Sometimes she even +blamed herself because her own tyranny and reproaches had compelled +the poetic youth to become so great an artist of delicate work, and +she had thus given him the means of casting her off. + + + +On the day after, these three lives, so differently but so utterly +wretched--that of a mother in despair, that of the Marneffe household, +and that of the unhappy exile--were all to be influenced by Hortense's +guileless passion, and by the strange outcome of the Baron's luckless +passion for Josepha. + +Just as Hulot was going into the opera-house, he was stopped by the +darkened appearance of the building and of the Rue le Peletier, where +there were no gendarmes, no lights, no theatre-servants, no barrier to +regulate the crowd. He looked up at the announcement-board, and beheld +a strip of white paper, on which was printed the solemn notice: + +"CLOSED ON ACCOUNT OF ILLNESS." + +He rushed off to Josepha's lodgings in the Rue Chauchat; for, like all +the singers, she lived close at hand. + +"Whom do you want, sir?" asked the porter, to the Baron's great +astonishment. + +"Have you forgotten me?" said Hulot, much puzzled. + +"On the contrary, sir, it is because I have the honor to remember you +that I ask you, Where are you going?" + +A mortal chill fell upon the Baron. + +"What has happened?" he asked. + +"If you go up to Mademoiselle Mirah's rooms, Monsieur le Baron, you +will find Mademoiselle Heloise Brisetout there--and Monsieur Bixiou, +Monsieur Leon de Lora, Monsieur Lousteau, Monsieur de Vernisset, +Monsieur Stidmann; and ladies smelling of patchouli--holding a +housewarming." + +"Then, where--where is----?" + +"Mademoiselle Mirah?--I don't know that I ought to tell you." + +The Baron slipped two five-franc pieces into the porter's hand. + +"Well, she is now in the Rue de la Ville l'Eveque, in a fine house, +given to her, they say, by the Duc d'Herouville," replied the man in a +whisper. + +Having ascertained the number of the house, Monsieur Hulot called a +_milord_ and drove to one of those pretty modern houses with double +doors, where everything, from the gaslight at the entrance, proclaims +luxury. + +The Baron, in his blue cloth coat, white neckcloth, nankeen trousers, +patent leather boots, and stiffly starched shirt-frill, was supposed +to be a guest, though a late arrival, by the janitor of this new Eden. +His alacrity of manner and quick step justified this opinion. + +The porter rang a bell, and a footman appeared in the hall. This man, +as new as the house, admitted the visitor, who said to him in an +imperious tone, and with a lordly gesture: + +"Take in this card to Mademoiselle Josepha." + +The victim mechanically looked round the room in which he found +himself--an anteroom full of choice flowers and of furniture that must +have cost twenty thousand francs. The servant, on his return, begged +monsieur to wait in the drawing-room till the company came to their +coffee. + +Though the Baron had been familiar with Imperial luxury, which was +undoubtedly prodigious, while its productions, though not durable in +kind, had nevertheless cost enormous sums, he stood dazzled, +dumfounded, in this drawing-room with three windows looking out on a +garden like fairyland, one of those gardens that are created in a +month with a made soil and transplanted shrubs, while the grass seems +as if it must be made to grow by some chemical process. He admired not +only the decoration, the gilding, the carving, in the most expensive +Pompadour style, as it is called, and the magnificent brocades, all of +which any enriched tradesman could have procured for money; but he +also noted such treasures as only princes can select and find, can pay +for and give away; two pictures by Greuze, two by Watteau, two heads +by Vandyck, two landscapes by Ruysdael, and two by le Guaspre, a +Rembrandt, a Holbein, a Murillo, and a Titian, two paintings, by +Teniers, and a pair by Metzu, a Van Huysum, and an Abraham Mignon--in +short, two hundred thousand francs' worth of pictures superbly framed. +The gilding was worth almost as much as the paintings. + +"Ah, ha! Now you understand, my good man?" said Josepha. + +She had stolen in on tiptoe through a noiseless door, over Persian +carpets, and came upon her adorer, standing lost in amazement--in the +stupid amazement when a man's ears tingle so loudly that he hears +nothing but that fatal knell. + +The words "my good man," spoken to an official of such high +importance, so perfectly exemplified the audacity with which these +creatures pour contempt on the loftiest, that the Baron was nailed to +the spot. Josepha, in white and yellow, was so beautifully dressed for +the banquet, that amid all this lavish magnificence she still shone +like a rare jewel. + +"Isn't this really fine?" said she. "The Duke has spent all the money +on it that he got out of floating a company, of which the shares all +sold at a premium. He is no fool, is my little Duke. There is nothing +like a man who has been a grandee in his time for turning coals into +gold. Just before dinner the notary brought me the title-deeds to sign +and the bills receipted!--They are all a first-class set in there +--d'Esgrignon, Rastignac, Maxime, Lenoncourt, Verneuil, Laginski, +Rochefide, la Palferine, and from among the bankers Nucingen and du +Tillet, with Antonia, Malaga, Carabine, and la Schontz; and they all +feel for you deeply.--Yes, old boy, and they hope you will join them, +but on condition that you forthwith drink up to two bottles full of +Hungarian wine, Champagne, or Cape, just to bring you up to their +mark.--My dear fellow, we are all so much _on_ here, that it was +necessary to close the Opera. The manager is as drunk as a +cornet-a-piston; he is hiccuping already." + +"Oh, Josepha!----" cried the Baron. + +"Now, can anything be more absurd than explanations?" she broke in +with a smile. "Look here; can you stand six hundred thousand francs +which this house and furniture cost? Can you give me a bond to the +tune of thirty thousand francs a year, which is what the Duke has just +given me in a packet of common sugared almonds from the grocer's?--a +pretty notion that----" + +"What an atrocity!" cried Hulot, who in his fury would have given his +wife's diamonds to stand in the Duc d'Herouville's shoes for +twenty-four hours. + +"Atrocity is my trade," said she. "So that is how you take it? Well, +why don't you float a company? Goodness me! my poor dyed Tom, you +ought to be grateful to me; I have thrown you over just when you would +have spent on me your widow's fortune, your daughter's portion.--What, +tears! The Empire is a thing of the past--I hail the coming Empire!" + +She struck a tragic attitude, and exclaimed: + + "They call you Hulot! Nay, I know you not--" + +And she went into the other room. + +Through the door, left ajar, there came, like a lightning-flash, a +streak of light with an accompaniment of the crescendo of the orgy and +the fragrance of a banquet of the choicest description. + +The singer peeped through the partly open door, and seeing Hulot +transfixed as if he had been a bronze image, she came one step forward +into the room. + +"Monsieur," said she, "I have handed over the rubbish in the Rue +Chauchat to Bixiou's little Heloise Brisetout. If you wish to claim +your cotton nightcap, your bootjack, your belt, and your wax dye, I +have stipulated for their return." + +This insolent banter made the Baron leave the room as precipitately as +Lot departed from Gomorrah, but he did not look back like Mrs. Lot. + +Hulot went home, striding along in a fury, and talking to himself; he +found his family still playing the game of whist at two sous a point, +at which he left them. On seeing her husband return, poor Adeline +imagined something dreadful, some dishonor; she gave her cards to +Hortense, and led Hector away into the very room where, only five +hours since, Crevel had foretold her the utmost disgrace of poverty. + +"What is the matter?" she said, terrified. + +"Oh, forgive me--but let me tell you all these horrors." And for ten +minutes he poured out his wrath. + +"But, my dear," said the unhappy woman, with heroic courage, "these +creatures do not know what love means--such pure and devoted love as +you deserve. How could you, so clear-sighted as you are, dream of +competing with millions?" + +"Dearest Adeline!" cried the Baron, clasping her to his heart. + +The Baroness' words had shed balm on the bleeding wounds to his +vanity. + +"To be sure, take away the Duc d'Herouville's fortune, and she could +not hesitate between us!" said the Baron. + +"My dear," said Adeline with a final effort, "if you positively must +have mistresses, why do you not seek them, like Crevel, among women +who are less extravagant, and of a class that can for a time be +content with little? We should all gain by that arrangement.--I +understand your need--but I do not understand that vanity----" + +"Oh, what a kind and perfect wife you are!" cried he. "I am an old +lunatic, I do not deserve to have such a wife!" + +"I am simply the Josephine of my Napoleon," she replied, with a touch +of melancholy. + +"Josephine was not to compare with you!" said he. "Come; I will play a +game of whist with my brother and the children. I must try my hand at +the business of a family man; I must get Hortense a husband, and bury +the libertine." + +His frankness so greatly touched poor Adeline, that she said: + +"The creature has no taste to prefer any man in the world to my +Hector. Oh, I would not give you up for all the gold on earth. How can +any woman throw you over who is so happy as to be loved by you?" + +The look with which the Baron rewarded his wife's fanaticism confirmed +her in her opinion that gentleness and docility were a woman's +strongest weapons. + +But in this she was mistaken. The noblest sentiments, carried to an +excess, can produce mischief as great as do the worst vices. Bonaparte +was made Emperor for having fired on the people, at a stone's throw +from the spot where Louis XVI. lost his throne and his head because he +would not allow a certain Monsieur Sauce to be hurt. + + + +On the following morning, Hortense, who had slept with the seal under +her pillow, so as to have it close to her all night, dressed very +early, and sent to beg her father to join her in the garden as soon as +he should be down. + +By about half-past nine, the father, acceding to his daughter's +petition, gave her his arm for a walk, and they went along the quays +by the Pont Royal to the Place du Carrousel. + +"Let us look into the shop windows, papa," said Hortense, as they went +through the little gate to cross the wide square. + +"What--here?" said her father, laughing at her. + +"We are supposed to have come to see the pictures, and over there" +--and she pointed to the stalls in front of the houses at a right +angle to the Rue du Doyenne--"look! there are dealers in curiosities +and pictures----" + +"Your cousin lives there." + +"I know it, but she must not see us." + +"And what do you want to do?" said the Baron, who, finding himself +within thirty yards of Madame Marneffe's windows, suddenly remembered +her. + +Hortense had dragged her father in front of one of the shops forming +the angle of a block of houses built along the front of the Old +Louvre, and facing the Hotel de Nantes. She went into this shop; her +father stood outside, absorbed in gazing at the windows of the pretty +little lady, who, the evening before, had left her image stamped on +the old beau's heart, as if to alleviate the wound he was so soon to +receive; and he could not help putting his wife's sage advice into +practice. + +"I will fall back on a simple little citizen's wife," said he to +himself, recalling Madame Marneffe's adorable graces. "Such a woman as +that will soon make me forget that grasping Josepha." + +Now, this was what was happening at the same moment outside and inside +the curiosity shop. + +As he fixed his eyes on the windows of his new _belle_, the Baron saw +the husband, who, while brushing his coat with his own hands, was +apparently on the lookout, expecting to see some one on the square. +Fearing lest he should be seen, and subsequently recognized, the +amorous Baron turned his back on the Rue du Doyenne, or rather stood +at three-quarters' face, as it were, so as to be able to glance round +from time to time. This manoeuvre brought him face to face with Madame +Marneffe, who, coming up from the quay, was doubling the promontory of +houses to go home. + +Valerie was evidently startled as she met the Baron's astonished eye, +and she responded with a prudish dropping of her eyelids. + +"A pretty woman," exclaimed he, "for whom a man would do many foolish +things." + +"Indeed, monsieur?" said she, turning suddenly, like a woman who has +just come to some vehement decision, "you are Monsieur le Baron Hulot, +I believe?" + +The Baron, more and more bewildered, bowed assent. + +"Then, as chance has twice made our eyes meet, and I am so fortunate +as to have interested or puzzled you, I may tell you that, instead of +doing anything foolish, you ought to do justice.--My husband's fate +rests with you." + +"And how may that be?" asked the gallant Baron. + +"He is employed in your department in the War Office, under Monsieur +Lebrun, in Monsieur Coquet's room," said she with a smile. + +"I am quite disposed, Madame--Madame----?" + +"Madame Marneffe." + +"Dear little Madame Marneffe, to do injustice for your sake.--I have a +cousin living in your house; I will go to see her one day soon--as +soon as possible; bring your petition to me in her rooms." + +"Pardon my boldness, Monsieur le Baron; you must understand that if I +dare to address you thus, it is because I have no friend to protect +me----" + +"Ah, ha!" + +"Monsieur, you misunderstand me," said she, lowering her eyelids. + +Hulot felt as if the sun had disappeared. + +"I am at my wits' end, but I am an honest woman!" she went on. "About +six months ago my only protector died, Marshal Montcornet--" + +"Ah! You are his daughter?" + +"Yes, monsieur; but he never acknowledged me." + +"That was that he might leave you part of his fortune." + +"He left me nothing; he made no will." + +"Indeed! Poor little woman! The Marshal died suddenly of apoplexy. +But, come, madame, hope for the best. The State must do something for +the daughter of one of the Chevalier Bayards of the Empire." + +Madame Marneffe bowed gracefully and went off, as proud of her success +as the Baron was of his. + +"Where the devil has she been so early?" thought he watching the flow +of her skirts, to which she contrived to impart a somewhat exaggerated +grace. "She looks too tired to have just come from a bath, and her +husband is waiting for her. It is strange, and puzzles me altogether." + +Madame Marneffe having vanished within, the Baron wondered what his +daughter was doing in the shop. As he went in, still staring at Madame +Marneffe's windows, he ran against a young man with a pale brow and +sparkling gray eyes, wearing a summer coat of black merino, coarse +drill trousers, and tan shoes, with gaiters, rushing away headlong; he +saw him run to the house in the Rue du Doyenne, into which he went. + +Hortense, on going into the shop, had at once recognized the famous +group, conspicuously placed on a table in the middle and in front of +the door. Even without the circumstances to which she owed her +knowledge of this masterpiece, it would probably have struck her by +the peculiar power which we must call the _brio_--the _go_--of great +works; and the girl herself might in Italy have been taken as a model +for the personification of _Brio_. + +Not every work by a man of genius has in the same degree that +brilliancy, that glory which is at once patent even to the most +ignoble beholder. Thus, certain pictures by Raphael, such as the +famous _Transfiguration_, the _Madonna di Foligno_, and the frescoes +of the _Stanze_ in the Vatican, do not at first captivate our +admiration, as do the _Violin-player_ in the Sciarra Palace, the +portraits of the Doria family, and the _Vision of Ezekiel_ in the +Pitti Gallery, the _Christ bearing His Cross_ in the Borghese +collection, and the _Marriage of the Virgin_ in the Brera at Milan. +The _Saint John the Baptist_ of the Tribuna, and _Saint Luke painting +the Virgin's portrait_ in the Accademia at Rome, have not the charm of +the _Portrait of Leo X._, and of the _Virgin_ at Dresden. + +And yet they are all of equal merit. Nay, more. The _Stanze_, the +_Transfiguration_, the panels, and the three easel pictures in the +Vatican are in the highest degree perfect and sublime. But they demand +a stress of attention, even from the most accomplished beholder, and +serious study, to be fully understood; while the _Violin-player_, the +_Marriage of the Virgin_, and the _Vision of Ezekiel_ go straight to +the heart through the portal of sight, and make their home there. It +is a pleasure to receive them thus without an effort; if it is not the +highest phase of art, it is the happiest. This fact proves that, in +the begetting of works of art, there is as much chance in the +character of the offspring as there is in a family of children; that +some will be happily graced, born beautiful, and costing their mothers +little suffering, creatures on whom everything smiles, and with whom +everything succeeds; in short, genius, like love, has its fairer +blossoms. + +This _brio_, an Italian word which the French have begun to use, is +characteristic of youthful work. It is the fruit of an impetus and +fire of early talent--an impetus which is met with again later in some +happy hours; but this particular _brio_ no longer comes from the +artist's heart; instead of his flinging it into his work as a volcano +flings up its fires, it comes to him from outside, inspired by +circumstances, by love, or rivalry, often by hatred, and more often +still by the imperious need of glory to be lived up to. + +This group by Wenceslas was to his later works what the _Marriage of +the Virgin_ is to the great mass of Raphael's, the first step of a +gifted artist taken with the inimitable grace, the eagerness, and +delightful overflowingness of a child, whose strength is concealed +under the pink-and-white flesh full of dimples which seem to echo to a +mother's laughter. Prince Eugene is said to have paid four hundred +thousand francs for this picture, which would be worth a million to +any nation that owned no picture by Raphael, but no one would give +that sum for the finest of the frescoes, though their value is far +greater as works of art. + +Hortense restrained her admiration, for she reflected on the amount of +her girlish savings; she assumed an air of indifference, and said to +the dealer: + +"What is the price of that?" + +"Fifteen hundred francs," replied the man, sending a glance of +intelligence to a young man seated on a stool in the corner. + +The young man himself gazed in a stupefaction at Monsieur Hulot's +living masterpiece. Hortense, forewarned, at once identified him as +the artist, from the color that flushed a face pale with endurance; +she saw the spark lighted up in his gray eyes by her question; she +looked on the thin, drawn features, like those of a monk consumed by +asceticism; she loved the red, well-formed mouth, the delicate chin, +and the Pole's silky chestnut hair. + +"If it were twelve hundred," said she, "I would beg you to send it to +me." + +"It is antique, mademoiselle," the dealer remarked, thinking, like all +his fraternity, that, having uttered this _ne plus ultra_ of +bric-a-brac, there was no more to be said. + +"Excuse me, monsieur," she replied very quietly, "it was made this +year; I came expressly to beg you, if my price is accepted, to send +the artist to see us, as it might be possible to procure him some +important commissions." + +"And if he is to have the twelve hundred francs, what am I to +get? I am the dealer," said the man, with candid good-humor. + +"To be sure!" replied the girl, with a slight curl of disdain. + +"Oh! mademoiselle, take it; I will make terms with the dealer," +cried the Livonian, beside himself. + +Fascinated by Hortense's wonderful beauty and the love of art she +displayed, he added: + +"I am the sculptor of the group, and for ten days I have come here +three times a day to see if anybody would recognize its merit and +bargain for it. You are my first admirer--take it!" + +"Come, then, monsieur, with the dealer, an hour hence.--Here is my +father's card," replied Hortense. + +Then, seeing the shopkeeper go into a back room to wrap the group in a +piece of linen rag, she added in a low voice, to the great +astonishment of the artist, who thought he must be dreaming: + +"For the benefit of your future prospects, Monsieur Wenceslas, do not +mention the name of the purchaser to Mademoiselle Fischer, for she is +our cousin." + +The word cousin dazzled the artist's mind; he had a glimpse of +Paradise whence this daughter of Eve had come to him. He had dreamed +of the beautiful girl of whom Lisbeth had told him, as Hortense had +dreamed of her cousin's lover; and, as she had entered the shop-- + +"Ah!" thought he, "if she could but be like this!" + +The look that passed between the lovers may be imagined; it was a +flame, for virtuous lovers have no hypocrisies. + +"Well, what the deuce are you doing here?" her father asked her. + +"I have been spending twelve hundred francs that I had saved. Come." +And she took her father's arm. + +"Twelve hundred francs?" he repeated. + +"To be exact, thirteen hundred; you will lend me the odd hundred?" + +"And on what, in such a place, could you spend so much?" + +"Ah! that is the question!" replied the happy girl. "If I have got a +husband, he is not dear at the money." + +"A husband! In that shop, my child?" + +"Listen, dear little father; would you forbid my marrying a great +artist?" + +"No, my dear. A great artist in these days is a prince without a title +--he has glory and fortune, the two chief social advantages--next to +virtue," he added, in a smug tone. + +"Oh, of course!" said Hortense. "And what do you think of sculpture?" + +"It is very poor business," replied Hulot, shaking his head. "It needs +high patronage as well as great talent, for Government is the only +purchaser. It is an art with no demand nowadays, where there are no +princely houses, no great fortunes, no entailed mansions, no +hereditary estates. Only small pictures and small figures can find a +place; the arts are endangered by this need of small things." + +"But if a great artist could find a demand?" said Hortense. + +"That indeed would solve the problem." + +"Or had some one to back him?" + +"That would be even better." + +"If he were of noble birth?" + +"Pooh!" + +"A Count." + +"And a sculptor?" + +"He has no money." + +"And so he counts on that of Mademoiselle Hortense Hulot?" said the +Baron ironically, with an inquisitorial look into his daughter's eyes. + +"This great artist, a Count and a sculptor, has just seen your +daughter for the first time in his life, and for the space of five +minutes, Monsieur le Baron," Hortense calmly replied. "Yesterday, you +must know, dear little father, while you were at the Chamber, mamma +had a fainting fit. This, which she ascribed to a nervous attack, was +the result of some worry that had to do with the failure of my +marriage, for she told me that to get rid of me---" + +"She is too fond of you to have used an expression----" + +"So unparliamentary!" Hortense put in with a laugh. "No, she did not +use those words; but I know that a girl old enough to marry and who +does not find a husband is a heavy cross for respectable parents to +bear.--Well, she thinks that if a man of energy and talent could be +found, who would be satisfied with thirty thousand francs for my +marriage portion, we might all be happy. In fact, she thought it +advisable to prepare me for the modesty of my future lot, and to +hinder me from indulging in too fervid dreams.--Which evidently meant +an end to the intended marriage, and no settlements for me!" + +"Your mother is a very good woman, noble, admirable!" replied the +father, deeply humiliated, though not sorry to hear this confession. + +"She told me yesterday that she had your permission to sell her +diamonds so as to give me something to marry on; but I should like her +to keep her jewels, and to find a husband myself. I think I have found +the man, the possible husband, answering to mamma's prospectus----" + +"There?--in the Place du Carrousel?--and in one morning?" + +"Oh, papa, the mischief lies deeper!" said she archly. + +"Well, come, my child, tell the whole story to your good old father," +said he persuasively, and concealing his uneasiness. + +Under promise of absolute secrecy, Hortense repeated the upshot of her +various conversations with her Cousin Betty. Then, when they got home, +she showed the much-talked-of-seal to her father in evidence of the +sagacity of her views. The father, in the depth of his heart, wondered +at the skill and acumen of girls who act on instinct, discerning the +simplicity of the scheme which her idealized love had suggested in the +course of a single night to his guileless daughter. + +"You will see the masterpiece I have just bought; it is to be brought +home, and that dear Wenceslas is to come with the dealer.--The man who +made that group ought to make a fortune; only use your influence to +get him an order for a statue, and rooms at the Institut----" + +"How you run on!" cried her father. "Why, if you had your own way, you +would be man and wife within the legal period--in eleven days----" + +"Must we wait so long?" said she, laughing. "But I fell in love with +him in five minutes, as you fell in love with mamma at first sight. +And he loves me as if we had known each other for two years. Yes," she +said in reply to her father's look, "I read ten volumes of love in his +eyes. And will not you and mamma accept him as my husband when you see +that he is a man of genius? Sculpture is the greatest of the Arts," +she cried, clapping her hands and jumping. "I will tell you +everything----" + +"What, is there more to come?" asked her father, smiling. + +The child's complete and effervescent innocence had restored her +father's peace of mind. + +"A confession of the first importance," said she. "I loved him without +knowing him; and, for the last hour, since seeing him, I am crazy +about him." + +"A little too crazy!" said the Baron, who was enjoying the sight of +this guileless passion. + +"Do not punish me for confiding in you," replied she. "It is so +delightful to say to my father's heart, 'I love him! I am so happy in +loving him!'--You will see my Wenceslas! His brow is so sad. The sun +of genius shines in his gray eyes--and what an air he has! What do you +think of Livonia? Is it a fine country?--The idea of Cousin Betty's +marrying that young fellow! She might be his mother. It would be +murder! I am quite jealous of all she has ever done for him. But I +don't think my marriage will please her." + +"See, my darling, we must hide nothing from your mother." + +"I should have to show her the seal, and I promised not to betray +Cousin Lisbeth, who is afraid, she says, of mamma's laughing at her," +said Hortense. + +"You have scruples about the seal, and none about robbing your cousin +of her lover." + +"I promised about the seal--I made no promise about the sculptor." + +This adventure, patriarchal in its simplicity, came admirably _a +propos_ to the unconfessed poverty of the family; the Baron, while +praising his daughter for her candor, explained to her that she must +now leave matters to the discretion of her parents. + +"You understand, my child, that it is not your part to ascertain +whether your cousin's lover is a Count, if he has all his papers +properly certified, and if his conduct is a guarantee for his +respectability.--As for your cousin, she refused five offers when she +was twenty years younger; that will prove no obstacle, I undertake to +say." + +"Listen to me, papa; if you really wish to see me married, never say a +word to Lisbeth about it till just before the contract is signed. I +have been catechizing her about this business for the last six months! +Well, there is something about her quite inexplicable----" + +"What?" said her father, puzzled. + +"Well, she looks evil when I say too much, even in joke, about her +lover. Make inquiries, but leave me to row my own boat. My confidence +ought to reassure you." + +"The Lord said, 'Suffer little children to come unto Me.' You are one +of those who have come back again," replied the Baron with a touch of +irony. + +After breakfast the dealer was announced, and the artist with his +group. The sudden flush that reddened her daughter's face at once made +the Baroness suspicious and then watchful, and the girl's confusion +and the light in her eyes soon betrayed the mystery so badly guarded +in her simple heart. + +Count Steinbock, dressed in black, struck the Baron as a very +gentlemanly young man. + +"Would you undertake a bronze statue?" he asked, as he held up the +group. + +After admiring it on trust, he passed it on to his wife, who knew +nothing about sculpture. + +"It is beautiful, isn't it, mamma?" said Hortense in her mother' ear. + +"A statue! Monsieur, it is less difficult to execute a statue than to +make a clock like this, which my friend here has been kind enough to +bring," said the artist in reply. + +The dealer was placing on the dining-room sideboard the wax model of +the twelve Hours that the Loves were trying to delay. + +"Leave the clock with me," said the Baron, astounded at the beauty of +the sketch. "I should like to show it to the Ministers of the Interior +and of Commerce." + +"Who is the young man in whom you take so much interest?" the Baroness +asked her daughter. + +"An artist who could afford to execute this model could get a hundred +thousand francs for it," said the curiosity-dealer, putting on a +knowing and mysterious look as he saw that the artist and the girl +were interchanging glances. "He would only need to sell twenty copies +at eight thousand francs each--for the materials would cost about a +thousand crowns for each example. But if each copy were numbered and +the mould destroyed, it would certainly be possible to meet with +twenty amateurs only too glad to possess a replica of such a work." + +"A hundred thousand francs!" cried Steinbock, looking from the dealer +to Hortense, the Baron, and the Baroness. + +"Yes, a hundred thousand francs," repeated the dealer. "If I were rich +enough, I would buy it of you myself for twenty thousand francs; for +by destroying the mould it would become a valuable property. But one +of the princes ought to pay thirty or forty thousand francs for such a +work to ornament his drawing-room. No man has ever succeeded in making +a clock satisfactory alike to the vulgar and to the connoisseur, and +this one, sir, solves the difficulty." + +"This is for yourself, monsieur," said Hortense, giving six gold +pieces to the dealer. + +"Never breath a word of this visit to any one living," said the artist +to his friend, at the door. "If you should be asked where we sold the +group, mention the Duc d'Herouville, the famous collector in the Rue +de Varenne." + +The dealer nodded assent. + +"And your name?" said Hulot to the artist when he came back. + +"Count Steinbock." + +"Have you the papers that prove your identity?" + +"Yes, Monsieur le Baron. They are in Russian and in German, but not +legalized." + +"Do you feel equal to undertaking a statue nine feet high?" + +"Yes, monsieur." + +"Well, then, if the persons whom I shall consult are satisfied with +your work, I can secure you the commission for the statue of Marshal +Montcornet, which is to be erected on his monument at Pere-Lachaise. +The Minister of War and the old officers of the Imperial Guard have +subscribed a sum large enough to enable us to select our artist." + +"Oh, monsieur, it will make my fortune!" exclaimed Steinbock, +overpowered by so much happiness at once. + +"Be easy," replied the Baron graciously. "If the two ministers to whom +I propose to show your group and this sketch in wax are delighted with +these two pieces, your prospects of a fortune are good." + +Hortense hugged her father's arm so tightly as to hurt him. + +"Bring me your papers, and say nothing of your hopes to anybody, not +even to our old Cousin Betty." + +"Lisbeth?" said Madame Hulot, at last understanding the end of all +this, though unable to guess the means. + +"I could give proof of my skill by making a bust of the Baroness," +added Wenceslas. + +The artist, struck by Madame Hulot's beauty, was comparing the mother +and daughter. + +"Indeed, monsieur, life may smile upon you," said the Baron, quite +charmed by Count Steinbock's refined and elegant manner. "You will +find out that in Paris no man is clever for nothing, and that +persevering toil always finds its reward here." + +Hortense, with a blush, held out to the young man a pretty Algerine +purse containing sixty gold pieces. The artist, with something still +of a gentleman's pride, responded with a mounting color easy enough to +interpret. + +"This, perhaps, is the first money your works have brought you?" said +Adeline. + +"Yes, madame--my works of art. It is not the first-fruits of my labor, +for I have been a workman." + +"Well, we must hope my daughter's money will bring you good luck," +said she. + +"And take it without scruple," added the Baron, seeing that Wenceslas +held the purse in his hand instead of pocketing it. "The sum will be +repaid by some rich man, a prince perhaps, who will offer it with +interest to possess so fine a work." + +"Oh, I want it too much myself, papa, to give it up to anybody in the +world, even a royal prince!" + +"I can make a far prettier thing than that for you, mademoiselle." + +"But it would not be this one," replied she; and then, as if ashamed +of having said too much, she ran out into the garden. + +"Then I shall break the mould and the model as soon as I go home," +said Steinbock. + +"Fetch me your papers, and you will hear of me before long, if you are +equal to what I expect of you, monsieur." + +The artist on this could but take leave. After bowing to Madame Hulot +and Hortense, who came in from the garden on purpose, he went off to +walk in the Tuileries, not bearing--not daring--to return to his +attic, where his tyrant would pelt him with questions and wring his +secret from him. + +Hortense's adorer conceived of groups and statues by the hundred; he +felt strong enough to hew the marble himself, like Canova, who was +also a feeble man, and nearly died of it. He was transfigured by +Hortense, who was to him inspiration made visible. + +"Now then," said the Baroness to her daughter, "what does all this +mean?" + +"Well, dear mamma, you have just seen Cousin Lisbeth's lover, who now, +I hope, is mine. But shut your eyes, know nothing. Good Heavens! I was +to keep it all from you, and I cannot help telling you everything----" + +"Good-bye, children!" said the Baron, kissing his wife and daughter; +"I shall perhaps go to call on the Nanny, and from her I shall hear a +great deal about our young man." + +"Papa, be cautious!" said Hortense. + +"Oh! little girl!" cried the Baroness when Hortense had poured out her +poem, of which the morning's adventure was the last canto, "dear +little girl, Artlessness will always be the artfulest puss on earth!" + +Genuine passions have an unerring instinct. Set a greedy man before a +dish of fruit and he will make no mistake, but take the choicest even +without seeing it. In the same way, if you allow a girl who is well +brought up to choose a husband for herself, if she is in a position to +meet the man of her heart, rarely will she blunder. The act of nature +in such cases is known as love at first sight; and in love, first +sight is practically second sight. + +The Baroness' satisfaction, though disguised under maternal dignity, +was as great as her daughter's; for, of the three ways of marrying +Hortense of which Crevel had spoken, the best, as she opined, was +about to be realized. And she regarded this little drama as an answer +by Providence to her fervent prayers. + + + +Mademoiselle Fischer's galley slave, obliged at last to go home, +thought he might hide his joy as a lover under his glee as an artist +rejoicing over his first success. + +"Victory! my group is sold to the Duc d'Herouville, who is going to +give me some commissions," cried he, throwing the twelve hundred +francs in gold on the table before the old maid. + +He had, as may be supposed concealed Hortense's purse; it lay next to +his heart. + +"And a very good thing too," said Lisbeth. "I was working myself to +death. You see, child, money comes in slowly in the business you have +taken up, for this is the first you have earned, and you have been +grinding at it for near on five years now. That money barely repays me +for what you have cost me since I took your promissory note; that is +all I have got by my savings. But be sure of one thing," she said, +after counting the gold, "this money will all be spent on you. There +is enough there to keep us going for a year. In a year you may now be +able to pay your debt and have a snug little sum of your own, if you +go on in the same way." + +Wenceslas, finding his trick successful, expatiated on the Duc +d'Herouville. + +"I will fit you out in a black suit, and get you some new linen," said +Lisbeth, "for you must appear presentably before your patrons; and +then you must have a larger and better apartment than your horrible +garret, and furnish it property.--You look so bright, you are not like +the same creature," she added, gazing at Wenceslas. + +"But my work is pronounced a masterpiece." + +"Well, so much the better! Do some more," said the arid creature, who +was nothing but practical, and incapable of understanding the joy of +triumph or of beauty in Art. "Trouble your head no further about what +you have sold; make something else to sell. You have spent two hundred +francs in money, to say nothing of your time and your labor, on that +devil of a _Samson_. Your clock will cost you more than two thousand +francs to execute. I tell you what, if you will listen to me, you will +finish the two little boys crowning the little girl with cornflowers; +that would just suit the Parisians.--I will go round to Monsieur Graff +the tailor before going to Monsieur Crevel.--Go up now and leave me to +dress." + +Next day the Baron, perfectly crazy about Madame Marneffe, went to see +Cousin Betty, who was considerably amazed on opening the door to see +who her visitor was, for he had never called on her before. She at +once said to herself, "Can it be that Hortense wants my lover?"--for +she had heard the evening before, at Monsieur Crevel's, that the +marriage with the Councillor of the Supreme Court was broken off. + +"What, Cousin! you here? This is the first time you have ever been to +see me, and it is certainly not for love of my fine eyes that you have +come now." + +"Fine eyes is the truth," said the Baron; "you have as fine eyes as I +have ever seen----" + +"Come, what are you here for? I really am ashamed to receive you in +such a kennel." + +The outer room of the two inhabited by Lisbeth served her as +sitting-room, dining-room, kitchen, and workroom. The furniture was such +as beseemed a well-to-do artisan--walnut-wood chairs with straw seats, a +small walnut-wood dining table, a work table, some colored prints in +black wooden frames, short muslin curtains to the windows, the floor +well polished and shining with cleanliness, not a speck of dust +anywhere, but all cold and dingy, like a picture by Terburg in every +particular, even to the gray tone given by a wall paper once blue and +now faded to gray. As to the bedroom, no human being had ever +penetrated its secrets. + +The Baron took it all in at a glance, saw the sign-manual of +commonness on every detail, from the cast-iron stove to the household +utensils, and his gorge rose as he said to himself, "And _this_ is +virtue!--What am I here for?" said he aloud. "You are far too cunning +not to guess, and I had better tell you plainly," cried he, sitting +down and looking out across the courtyard through an opening he made +in the puckered curtain. "There is a very pretty woman in the +house----" + +"Madame Marneffe! Now I understand!" she exclaimed, seeing it all. +"But Josepha?" + +"Alas, Cousin, Josepha is no more. I was turned out of doors like a +discarded footman." + +"And you would like . . .?" said Lisbeth, looking at the Baron with +the dignity of a prude on her guard a quarter of an hour too soon. + +"As Madame Marneffe is very much the lady, and the wife of an employe, +you can meet her without compromising yourself," the Baron went on, +"and I should like to see you neighborly. Oh! you need not be alarmed; +she will have the greatest consideration for the cousin of her +husband's chief." + +At this moment the rustle of a gown was heard on the stairs and the +footstep of a woman wearing the thinnest boots. The sound ceased on +the landing. There was a tap at the door, and Madame Marneffe came in. + +"Pray excuse me, mademoiselle, for thus intruding upon you, but I +failed to find you yesterday when I came to call; we are near +neighbors; and if I had known that you were related to Monsieur le +Baron, I should long since have craved your kind interest with him. I +saw him come in, so I took the liberty of coming across; for my +husband, Monsieur le Baron, spoke to me of a report on the office +clerks which is to be laid before the minister to-morrow." + +She seemed quite agitated and nervous--but she had only run upstairs. + +"You have no need to play the petitioner, fair lady," replied the +Baron. "It is I who should ask the favor of seeing you." + +"Very well, if mademoiselle allows it, pray come!" said Madame +Marneffe. + +"Yes--go, Cousin, I will join you," said Lisbeth judiciously. + +The Parisienne had so confidently counted on the chief's visit and +intelligence, that not only had she dressed herself for so important +an interview--she had dressed her room. Early in the day it had been +furnished with flowers purchased on credit. Marneffe had helped his +wife to polish the furniture, down to the smallest objects, washing, +brushing, and dusting everything. Valerie wished to be found in an +atmosphere of sweetness, to attract the chief and to please him enough +to have a right to be cruel; to tantalize him as a child would, with +all the tricks of fashionable tactics. She had gauged Hulot. Give a +Paris woman at bay four-and-twenty hours, and she will overthrow a +ministry. + +The man of the Empire, accustomed to the ways to the Empire, was no +doubt quite ignorant of the ways of modern love-making, of the +scruples in vogue and the various styles of conversation invented +since 1830, which led to the poor weak woman being regarded as the +victim of her lover's desires--a Sister of Charity salving a wound, an +angel sacrificing herself. + +This modern art of love uses a vast amount of evangelical phrases in +the service of the Devil. Passion is martyrdom. Both parties aspire to +the Ideal, to the Infinite; love is to make them so much better. All +these fine words are but a pretext for putting increased ardor into +the practical side of it, more frenzy into a fall than of old. This +hypocrisy, a characteristic of the times, is a gangrene in gallantry. +The lovers are both angels, and they behave, if they can, like two +devils. + +Love had no time for such subtle analysis between two campaigns, and +in 1809 its successes were as rapid as those of the Empire. So, under +the Restoration, the handsome Baron, a lady's man once more, had begun +by consoling some old friends now fallen from the political firmament, +like extinguished stars, and then, as he grew old, was captured by +Jenny Cadine and Josepha. + +Madame Marneffe had placed her batteries after due study of the +Baron's past life, which her husband had narrated in much detail, +after picking up some information in the offices. The comedy of modern +sentiment might have the charm of novelty to the Baron; Valerie had +made up her mind as to her scheme; and we may say the trial of her +power that she made this morning answered her highest expectations. +Thanks to her manoeuvres, sentimental, high-flown, and romantic, +Valerie, without committing herself to any promises, obtained for her +husband the appointment as deputy head of the office and the Cross of +the Legion of Honor. + +The campaign was not carried out without little dinners at the _Rocher +de Cancale_, parties to the play, and gifts in the form of lace, +scarves, gowns, and jewelry. The apartment in the Rue du Doyenne was +not satisfactory; the Baron proposed to furnish another magnificently +in a charming new house in the Rue Vanneau. + +Monsieur Marneffe got a fortnight's leave, to be taken a month hence +for urgent private affairs in the country, and a present in money; he +promised himself that he would spend both in a little town in +Switzerland, studying the fair sex. + +While Monsieur Hulot thus devoted himself to the lady he was +"protecting," he did not forget the young artist. Comte Popinot, +Minister of Commerce, was a patron of Art; he paid two thousand francs +for a copy of the _Samson_ on condition that the mould should be +broken, and that there should be no _Samson_ but his and Mademoiselle +Hulot's. The group was admired by a Prince, to whom the model sketch +for the clock was also shown, and who ordered it; but that again was +to be unique, and he offered thirty thousand francs for it. + +Artists who were consulted, and among them Stidmann, were of opinion +that the man who had sketched those two models was capable of +achieving a statue. The Marshal Prince de Wissembourg, Minister of +War, and President of the Committee for the subscriptions to the +monument of Marshal Montcornet, called a meeting, at which it was +decided that the execution of the work should be placed in Steinbock's +hands. The Comte de Rastignac, at that time Under-secretary of State, +wished to possess a work by the artist, whose glory was waxing amid +the acclamations of his rivals. Steinbock sold to him the charming +group of two little boys crowning a little girl, and he promised to +secure for the sculptor a studio attached to the Government +marble-quarries, situated, as all the world knows, at Le Gros-Caillou. + +This was a success, such success as is won in Paris, that is to say, +stupendous success, that crushes those whose shoulders and loins are +not strong enough to bear it--as, be it said, not unfrequently is the +case. Count Wenceslas Steinbock was written about in all the +newspapers and reviews without his having the least suspicion of it, +any more than had Mademoiselle Fischer. Every day, as soon as Lisbeth +had gone out to dinner, Wenceslas went to the Baroness' and spent an +hour or two there, excepting on the evenings when Lisbeth dined with +the Hulots. + + + +This state of things lasted for several days. + +The Baron, assured of Count Steinbock's titles and position; the +Baroness, pleased with his character and habits; Hortense, proud of +her permitted love and of her suitor's fame, none of them hesitated to +speak of the marriage; in short, the artist was in the seventh heaven, +when an indiscretion on Madame Marneffe's part spoilt all. + +And this was how. + +Lisbeth, whom the Baron wished to see intimate with Madame Marneffe, +that she might keep an eye on the couple, had already dined with +Valerie; and she, on her part, anxious to have an ear in the Hulot +house, made much of the old maid. It occurred to Valerie to invite +Mademoiselle Fischer to a house-warming in the new apartments she was +about to move into. Lisbeth, glad to have found another house to dine +in, and bewitched by Madame Marneffe, had taken a great fancy to +Valerie. Of all the persons she had made acquaintance with, no one had +taken so much pains to please her. In fact, Madame Marneffe, full of +attentions for Mademoiselle Fischer, found herself in the position +towards Lisbeth that Lisbeth held towards the Baroness, Monsieur +Rivet, Crevel, and the others who invited her to dinner. + +The Marneffes had excited Lisbeth's compassion by allowing her to see +the extreme poverty of the house, while varnishing it as usual with +the fairest colors; their friends were under obligations to them and +ungrateful; they had had much illness; Madame Fortin, her mother, had +never known of their distress, and had died believing herself wealthy +to the end, thanks to their superhuman efforts--and so forth. + +"Poor people!" said she to her Cousin Hulot, "you are right to do what +you can for them; they are so brave and so kind! They can hardly live +on the thousand crowns he gets as deputy-head of the office, for they +have got into debt since Marshal Montcornet's death. It is barbarity +on the part of the Government to suppose that a clerk with a wife and +family can live in Paris on two thousand four hundred francs a year." + +And so, within a very short time, a young woman who affected regard +for her, who told her everything, and consulted her, who flattered +her, and seemed ready to yield to her guidance, had become dearer to +the eccentric Cousin Lisbeth than all her relations. + +The Baron, on his part, admiring in Madame Marneffe such propriety, +education, and breeding as neither Jenny Cadine nor Josepha, nor any +friend of theirs had to show, had fallen in love with her in a month, +developing a senile passion, a senseless passion, which had an +appearance of reason. In fact, he found here neither the banter, nor +the orgies, nor the reckless expenditure, nor the depravity, nor the +scorn of social decencies, nor the insolent independence which had +brought him to grief alike with the actress and the singer. He was +spared, too, the rapacity of the courtesan, like unto the thirst of +dry sand. + +Madame Marneffe, of whom he had made a friend and confidante, made the +greatest difficulties over accepting any gift from him. + +"Appointments, official presents, anything you can extract from the +Government; but do not begin by insulting a woman whom you profess to +love," said Valerie. "If you do, I shall cease to believe you--and I +like to believe you," she added, with a glance like Saint Theresa +leering at heaven. + +Every time he made her a present there was a fortress to be stormed, a +conscience to be over-persuaded. The hapless Baron laid deep +stratagems to offer her some trifle--costly, nevertheless--proud of +having at last met with virtue and the realization of his dreams. In +this primitive household, as he assured himself, he was the god as +much as in his own. And Monsieur Marneffe seemed at a thousand leagues +from suspecting that the Jupiter of his office intended to descend on +his wife in a shower of gold; he was his august chief's humblest +slave. + +Madame Marneffe, twenty-three years of age, a pure and bashful +middle-class wife, a blossom hidden in the Rue du Doyenne, could know +nothing of the depravity and demoralizing harlotry which the Baron +could no longer think of without disgust, for he had never known the +charm of recalcitrant virtue, and the coy Valerie made him enjoy it to +the utmost--all along the line, as the saying goes. + +The question having come to this point between Hector and Valerie, it +is not astonishing that Valerie should have heard from Hector the +secret of the intended marriage between the great sculptor Steinbock +and Hortense Hulot. Between a lover on his promotion and a lady who +hesitates long before becoming his mistress, there are contests, +uttered or unexpressed, in which a word often betrays a thought; as, +in fencing, the foils fly as briskly as the swords in duel. Then a +prudent man follows the example of Monsieur de Turenne. Thus the Baron +had hinted at the greater freedom his daughter's marriage would allow +him, in reply to the tender Valerie, who more than once had exclaimed: + +"I cannot imagine how a woman can go wrong for a man who is not wholly +hers." + +And a thousand times already the Baron had declared that for +five-and-twenty years all had been at an end between Madame Hulot and +himself. + +"And they say she is so handsome!" replied Madame Marneffe. "I want +proof." + +"You shall have it," said the Baron, made happy by this demand, by +which his Valerie committed herself. + +Hector had then been compelled to reveal his plans, already being +carried into effect in the Rue Vanneau, to prove to Valerie that he +intended to devote to her that half of his life which belonged to his +lawful wife, supposing that day and night equally divide the existence +of civilized humanity. He spoke of decently deserting his wife, +leaving her to herself as soon as Hortense should be married. The +Baroness would then spend all her time with Hortense or the young +Hulot couple; he was sure of her submission. + +"And then, my angel, my true life, my real home will be in the Rue +Vanneau." + +"Bless me, how you dispose of me!" said Madame Marneffe. "And my +husband----" + +"That rag!" + +"To be sure, as compared with you so he is!" said she with a laugh. + +Madame Marneffe, having heard Steinbock's history, was frantically +eager to see the young Count; perhaps she wished to have some trifle +of his work while they still lived under the same roof. This curiosity +so seriously annoyed the Baron that Valerie swore to him that she +would never even look at Wenceslas. But though she obtained, as the +reward of her surrender of this wish, a little tea-service of old +Sevres _pate tendre_, she kept her wish at the bottom of her heart, as +if written on tablets. + +So one day when she had begged "_my_ Cousin Betty" to come to take +coffee with her in her room, she opened on the subject of her lover, +to know how she might see him without risk. + +"My dear child," said she, for they called each my dear, "why have you +never introduced your lover to me? Do you know that within a short +time he has become famous?" + +"He famous?" + +"He is the one subject of conversation." + +"Pooh!" cried Lisbeth. + +"He is going to execute the statue of my father, and I could be of +great use to him and help him to succeed in the work; for Madame +Montcornet cannot lend him, as I can, a miniature by Sain, a beautiful +thing done in 1809, before the Wagram Campaign, and given to my poor +mother--Montcornet when he was young and handsome." + +Sain and Augustin between them held the sceptre of miniature painting +under the Empire. + +"He is going to make a statue, my dear, did you say?" + +"Nine feet high--by the orders of the Minister of War. Why, where have +you dropped from that I should tell you the news? Why, the Government +is going to give Count Steinbock rooms and a studio at Le +Gros-Caillou, the depot for marble; your Pole will be made the Director, +I should not wonder, with two thousand francs a year and a ring on his +finger." + +"How do you know all this when I have heard nothing about it?" said +Lisbeth at last, shaking off her amazement. + +"Now, my dear little Cousin Betty," said Madame Marneffe, in an +insinuating voice, "are you capable of devoted friendship, put to any +test? Shall we henceforth be sisters? Will you swear to me never to +have a secret from me any more than I from you--to act as my spy, as I +will be yours?--Above all, will you pledge yourself never to betray me +either to my husband or to Monsieur Hulot, and never reveal that it +was I who told you----?" + +Madame Marneffe broke off in this spurring harangue; Lisbeth +frightened her. The peasant-woman's face was terrible; her piercing +black eyes had the glare of the tiger's; her face was like that we +ascribe to a pythoness; she set her teeth to keep them from +chattering, and her whole frame quivered convulsively. She had pushed +her clenched fingers under her cap to clutch her hair and support her +head, which felt too heavy; she was on fire. The smoke of the flame +that scorched her seemed to emanate from her wrinkles as from the +crevasses rent by a volcanic eruption. It was a startling spectacle. + +"Well, why do you stop?" she asked in a hollow voice. "I will be all +to you that I have been to him.--Oh, I would have given him my +life-blood!" + +"You loved him then?" + +"Like a child of my own!" + +"Well, then," said Madame Marneffe, with a breath of relief, "if you +only love him in that way, you will be very happy--for you wish him to +be happy?" + +Lisbeth replied by a nod as hasty as a madwoman's. + +"He is to marry your Cousin Hortense in a month's time." + +"Hortense!" shrieked the old maid, striking her forehead, and starting +to her feet. + +"Well, but then you were really in love with this young man?" asked +Valerie. + +"My dear, we are bound for life and death, you and I," said +Mademoiselle Fischer. "Yes, if you have any love affairs, to me they +are sacred. Your vices will be virtues in my eyes.--For I shall need +your vices!" + +"Then did you live with him?" asked Valerie. + +"No; I meant to be a mother to him." + +"I give it up. I cannot understand," said Valerie. "In that case you +are neither betrayed nor cheated, and you ought to be very happy to +see him so well married; he is now fairly afloat. And, at any rate, +your day is over. Our artist goes to Madame Hulot's every evening as +soon as you go out to dinner." + +"Adeline!" muttered Lisbeth. "Oh, Adeline, you shall pay for this! I +will make you uglier than I am." + +"You are as pale as death!" exclaimed Valerie. "There is something +wrong?--Oh, what a fool I am! The mother and daughter must have +suspected that you would raise some obstacles in the way of this +affair since they have kept it from you," said Madame Marneffe. "But +if you did not live with the young man, my dear, all this is a greater +puzzle to me than my husband's feelings----" + +"Ah, you don't know," said Lisbeth; "you have no idea of all their +tricks. It is the last blow that kills. And how many such blows have I +had to bruise my soul! You don't know that from the time when I could +first feel, I have been victimized for Adeline. I was beaten, and she +was petted; I was dressed like a scullion, and she had clothes like a +lady's; I dug in the garden and cleaned the vegetables, and she--she +never lifted a finger for anything but to make up some finery!--She +married the Baron, she came to shine at the Emperor's Court, while I +stayed in our village till 1809, waiting for four years for a suitable +match; they brought me away, to be sure, but only to make me a +work-woman, and to offer me clerks or captains like coalheavers for a +husband! I have had their leavings for twenty-six years!--And now like +the story in the Old Testament, the poor relation has one ewe-lamb +which is all her joy, and the rich man who has flocks covets the +ewe-lamb and steals it--without warning, without asking. Adeline has +meanly robbed me of my happiness!--Adeline! Adeline! I will see you in +the mire, and sunk lower than myself!--And Hortense--I loved her, and +she has cheated me. The Baron.--No, it is impossible. Tell me again +what is really true of all this." + +"Be calm, my dear child." + +"Valerie, my darling, I will be calm," said the strange creature, +sitting down again. "One thing only can restore me to reason; give me +proofs." + +"Your Cousin Hortense has the _Samson_ group--here is a lithograph +from it published in a review. She paid for it out of her +pocket-money, and it is the Baron who, to benefit his future +son-in-law, is pushing him, getting everything for him." + +"Water!--water!" said Lisbeth, after glancing at the print, below +which she read, "A group belonging to Mademoiselle Hulot d'Ervy." +"Water! my head is burning, I am going mad!" + +Madame Marneffe fetched some water. Lisbeth took off her cap, +unfastened her black hair, and plunged her head into the basin her new +friend held for her. She dipped her forehead into it several times, +and checked the incipient inflammation. After this douche she +completely recovered her self-command. + +"Not a word," said she to Madame Marneffe as she wiped her face--"not +a word of all this.--You see, I am quite calm; everything is +forgotten. I am thinking of something very different." + +"She will be in Charenton to-morrow, that is very certain," thought +Madame Marneffe, looking at the old maid. + +"What is to be done?" Lisbeth went on. "You see, my angel, there is +nothing for it but to hold my tongue, bow my head, and drift to the +grave, as all water runs to the river. What could I try to do? I +should like to grind them all--Adeline, her daughter, and the Baron +--all to dust! But what can a poor relation do against a rich family? +It would be the story of the earthen pot and the iron pot." + +"Yes; you are right," said Valerie. "You can only pull as much hay as +you can to your side of the manger. That is all the upshot of life in +Paris." + +"Besides," said Lisbeth, "I shall soon die, I can tell you, if I lose +that boy to whom I fancied I could always be a mother, and with whom I +counted on living all my days----" + +There were tears in her eyes, and she paused. Such emotion in this +woman made of sulphur and flame, made Valerie shudder. + +"Well, at any rate, I have found you," said Lisbeth, taking Valerie's +hand, "that is some consolation in this dreadful trouble.--We shall be +true friends; and why should we ever part? I shall never cross your +track. No one will ever be in love with me!--Those who would have +married me, would only have done it to secure my Cousin Hulot's +interest. With energy enough to scale Paradise, to have to devote it +to procuring bread and water, a few rags, and a garret!--That is +martyrdom, my dear, and I have withered under it." + +She broke off suddenly, and shot a black flash into Madame Marneffe's +blue eyes, a glance that pierced the pretty woman's soul, as the point +of a dagger might have pierced her heart. + +"And what is the use of talking?" she exclaimed in reproof to herself. +"I never said so much before, believe me! The tables will be turned +yet!" she added after a pause. "As you so wisely say, let us sharpen +our teeth, and pull down all the hay we can get." + +"You are very wise," said Madame Marneffe, who had been frightened by +this scene, and had no remembrance of having uttered this maxim. "I am +sure you are right, my dear child. Life is not so long after all, and +we must make the best of it, and make use of others to contribute to +our enjoyment. Even I have learned that, young as I am. I was brought +up a spoilt child, my father married ambitiously, and almost forgot +me, after making me his idol and bringing me up like a queen's +daughter! My poor mother, who filled my head with splendid visions, +died of grief at seeing me married to an office clerk with twelve +hundred francs a year, at nine-and-thirty an aged and hardened +libertine, as corrupt as the hulks, looking on me, as others looked on +you, as a means of fortune!--Well, in that wretched man, I have found +the best of husbands. He prefers the squalid sluts he picks up at the +street corners, and leaves me free. Though he keeps all his salary to +himself, he never asks me where I get money to live on----" + +And she in her turn stopped short, as a woman does who feels herself +carried away by the torrent of her confessions; struck, too, by +Lisbeth's eager attention, she thought well to make sure of Lisbeth +before revealing her last secrets. + +"You see, dear child, how entire is my confidence in you!" she +presently added, to which Lisbeth replied by a most comforting nod. + +An oath may be taken by a look and a nod more solemnly than in a court +of justice. + +"I keep up every appearance of respectability," Valerie went on, +laying her hand on Lisbeth's as if to accept her pledge. "I am a +married woman, and my own mistress, to such a degree, that in the +morning, when Marneffe sets out for the office, if he takes it into +his head to say good-bye and finds my door locked, he goes off without +a word. He cares less for his boy than I care for one of the marble +children that play at the feet of one of the river-gods in the +Tuileries. If I do not come home to dinner, he dines quite contentedly +with the maid, for the maid is devoted to monsieur; and he goes out +every evening after dinner, and does not come in till twelve or one +o'clock. Unfortunately, for a year past, I have had no ladies' maid, +which is as much as to say that I am a widow! + +"I have had one passion, once have been happy--a rich Brazilian--who +went away a year ago--my only lapse!--He went away to sell his +estates, to realize his land, and come back to live in France. What +will he find left of his Valerie? A dunghill. Well! it is his fault +and not mine; why does he delay coming so long? Perhaps he has been +wrecked--like my virtue." + +"Good-bye, my dear," said Lisbeth abruptly; "we are friends for ever. +I love you, I esteem you, I am wholly yours! My cousin is tormenting +me to go and live in the house you are moving to, in the Rue Vanneau; +but I would not go, for I saw at once the reasons for this fresh piece +of kindness----" + +"Yes; you would have kept an eye on me, I know!" said Madame Marneffe. + +"That was, no doubt, the motive of his generosity," replied Lisbeth. +"In Paris, most beneficence is a speculation, as most acts of +ingratitude are revenge! To a poor relation you behave as you do to +rats to whom you offer a bit of bacon. Now, I will accept the Baron's +offer, for this house has grown intolerable to me. You and I have wit +enough to hold our tongues about everything that would damage us, and +tell all that needs telling. So, no blabbing--and we are friends." + +"Through thick and thin!" cried Madame Marneffe, delighted to have a +sheep-dog, a confidante, a sort of respectable aunt. "Listen to me; +the Baron is doing a great deal in the Rue Vanneau----" + +"I believe you!" interrupted Lisbeth. "He has spent thirty thousand +francs! Where he got the money, I am sure I don't know, for Josepha +the singer bled him dry.--Oh! you are in luck," she went on. "The +Baron would steal for a woman who held his heart in two little white +satin hands like yours!" + +"Well, then," said Madame Marneffe, with the liberality of such +creatures, which is mere recklessness, "look here, my dear child; take +away from here everything that may serve your turn in your new +quarters--that chest of drawers, that wardrobe and mirror, the carpet, +the curtains----" + +Lisbeth's eyes dilated with excessive joy; she was incredulous of such +a gift. + +"You are doing more for me in a breath than my rich relations have +done in thirty years!" she exclaimed. "They have never even asked +themselves whether I had any furniture at all. On his first visit, a +few weeks ago, the Baron made a rich man's face on seeing how poor I +was.--Thank you, my dear; and I will give you your money's worth, you +will see how by and by." + +Valerie went out on the landing with _her_ Cousin Betty, and the two +women embraced. + +"Pouh! How she stinks of hard work!" said the pretty little woman to +herself when she was alone. "I shall not embrace you often, my dear +cousin! At the same time, I must look sharp. She must be skilfully +managed, for she can be of use, and help me to make my fortune." + + + +Like the true Creole of Paris, Madame Marneffe abhorred trouble; she +had the calm indifference of a cat, which never jumps or runs but when +urged by necessity. To her, life must be all pleasure; and the +pleasure without difficulties. She loved flowers, provided they were +brought to her. She could not imagine going to the play but to a good +box, at her own command, and in a carriage to take her there. Valerie +inherited these courtesan tastes from her mother, on whom General +Montcornet had lavished luxury when he was in Paris, and who for +twenty years had seen all the world at her feet; who had been wasteful +and prodigal, squandering her all in the luxurious living of which the +programme has been lost since the fall of Napoleon. + +The grandees of the Empire were a match in their follies for the great +nobles of the last century. Under the Restoration the nobility cannot +forget that it has been beaten and robbed, and so, with two or three +exceptions, it has become thrifty, prudent, and stay-at-home, in +short, bourgeois and penurious. Since then, 1830 has crowned the work +of 1793. In France, henceforth, there will be great names, but no +great houses, unless there should be political changes which we can +hardly foresee. Everything takes the stamp of individuality. The +wisest invest in annuities. Family pride is destroyed. + +The bitter pressure of poverty which had stung Valerie to the quick on +the day when, to use Marneffe's expression, she had "caught on" with +Hulot, had brought the young woman to the conclusion that she would +make a fortune by means of her good looks. So, for some days, she had +been feeling the need of having a friend about her to take the place +of a mother--a devoted friend, to whom such things may be told as must +be hidden from a waiting-maid, and who could act, come and go, and +think for her, a beast of burden resigned to an unequal share of life. +Now, she, quite as keenly as Lisbeth, had understood the Baron's +motives for fostering the intimacy between his cousin and herself. + +Prompted by the formidable perspicacity of the Parisian half-breed, +who spends her days stretched on a sofa, turning the lantern of her +detective spirit on the obscurest depths of souls, sentiments, and +intrigues, she had decided on making an ally of the spy. This +supremely rash step was, perhaps premeditated; she had discerned the +true nature of this ardent creature, burning with wasted passion, and +meant to attach her to herself. Thus, their conversation was like the +stone a traveler casts into an abyss to demonstrate its depth. And +Madame Marneffe had been terrified to find this old maid a combination +of Iago and Richard III., so feeble as she seemed, so humble, and so +little to be feared. + +For that instant, Lisbeth Fischer had been her real self; that +Corsican and savage temperament, bursting the slender bonds that held +it under, had sprung up to its terrible height, as the branch of a +tree flies up from the hand of a child that has bent it down to gather +the green fruit. + +To those who study the social world, it must always be a matter of +astonishment to see the fulness, the perfection, and the rapidity with +which an idea develops in a virgin nature. + +Virginity, like every other monstrosity, has its special richness, its +absorbing greatness. Life, whose forces are always economized, assumes +in the virgin creature an incalculable power of resistance and +endurance. The brain is reinforced in the sum-total of its reserved +energy. When really chaste natures need to call on the resources of +body or soul, and are required to act or to think, they have muscles +of steel, or intuitive knowledge in their intelligence--diabolical +strength, or the black magic of the Will. + +From this point of view the Virgin Mary, even if we regard her only as +a symbol, is supremely great above every other type, whether Hindoo, +Egyptian, or Greek. Virginity, the mother of great things, _magna +parens rerum_, holds in her fair white hands the keys of the upper +worlds. In short, that grand and terrible exception deserves all the +honors decreed to her by the Catholic Church. + +Thus, in one moment, Lisbeth Fischer had become the Mohican whose +snares none can escape, whose dissimulation is inscrutable, whose +swift decisiveness is the outcome of the incredible perfection of +every organ of sense. She was Hatred and Revenge, as implacable as +they are in Italy, Spain, and the East. These two feelings, the +obverse of friendship and love carried to the utmost, are known only +in lands scorched by the sun. But Lisbeth was also a daughter of +Lorraine, bent on deceit. + +She accepted this detail of her part against her will; she began by +making a curious attempt, due to her ignorance. She fancied, as +children do, that being imprisoned meant the same thing as solitary +confinement. But this is the superlative degree of imprisonment, and +that superlative is the privilege of the Criminal Bench. + +As soon as she left Madame Marneffe, Lisbeth hurried off to Monsieur +Rivet, and found him in his office. + +"Well, my dear Monsieur Rivet," she began, when she had bolted the +door of the room. "You were quite right. Those Poles! They are low +villains--all alike, men who know neither law nor fidelity." + +"And who want to set Europe on fire," said the peaceable Rivet, "to +ruin every trade and every trader for the sake of a country that is +all bog-land, they say, and full of horrible Jews, to say nothing of +the Cossacks and the peasants--a sort of wild beasts classed by +mistake with human beings. Your Poles do not understand the times we +live in; we are no longer barbarians. War is coming to an end, my dear +mademoiselle; it went out with the Monarchy. This is the age of +triumph for commerce, and industry, and middle-class prudence, such as +were the making of Holland. + +"Yes," he went on with animation, "we live in a period when nations +must obtain all they need by the legal extension of their liberties +and by the pacific action of Constitutional Institutions; that is what +the Poles do not see, and I hope---- + +"You were saying, my dear?--" he added, interrupting himself when he +saw from his work-woman's face that high politics were beyond her +comprehension. + +"Here is the schedule," said Lisbeth. "If I don't want to lose my +three thousand two hundred and ten francs, I must clap this rogue into +prison." + +"Didn't I tell you so?" cried the oracle of the Saint-Denis quarter. + +The Rivets, successor to Pons Brothers, had kept their shop still in +the Rue des Mauvaises-Paroles, in the ancient Hotel Langeais, built by +that illustrious family at the time when the nobility still gathered +round the Louvre. + +"Yes, and I blessed you on my way here," replied Lisbeth. + +"If he suspects nothing, he can be safe in prison by eight o'clock in +the morning," said Rivet, consulting the almanac to ascertain the hour +of sunrise; "but not till the day after to-morrow, for he cannot be +imprisoned till he has had notice that he is to be arrested by writ, +with the option of payment or imprisonment. And so----" + +"What an idiotic law!" exclaimed Lisbeth. "Of course the debtor +escapes." + +"He has every right to do so," said the Assessor, smiling. "So this is +the way----" + +"As to that," said Lisbeth, interrupting him, "I will take the paper +and hand it to him, saying that I have been obliged to raise the +money, and that the lender insists on this formality. I know my +gentleman. He will not even look at the paper; he will light his pipe +with it." + +"Not a bad idea, not bad, Mademoiselle Fischer! Well, make your mind +easy; the job shall be done.--But stop a minute; to put your man in +prison is not the only point to be considered; you only want to +indulge in that legal luxury in order to get your money. Who is to pay +you?" + +"Those who give him money." + +"To be sure; I forgot that the Minister of War had commissioned him to +erect a monument to one of our late customers. Ah! the house has +supplied many an uniform to General Montcornet; he soon blackened them +with the smoke of cannon. A brave man, he was! and he paid on the +nail." + +A marshal of France may have saved the Emperor or his country; "He +paid on the nail" will always be the highest praise he can have from a +tradesman. + +"Very well. And on Saturday, Monsieur Rivet, you shall have the flat +tassels.--By the way, I am moving from the Rue du Doyenne; I am going +to live in the Rue Vanneau." + +"You are very right. I could not bear to see you in that hole which, +in spite of my aversion to the Opposition, I must say is a disgrace; I +repeat it, yes! is a disgrace to the Louvre and the Place du +Carrousel. I am devoted to Louis-Philippe, he is my idol; he is the +august and exact representative of the class on whom he founded his +dynasty, and I can never forget what he did for the trimming-makers by +restoring the National Guard----" + +"When I hear you speak so, Monsieur Rivet, I cannot help wondering why +you are not made a deputy." + +"They are afraid of my attachment to the dynasty," replied Rivet. "My +political enemies are the King's. He has a noble character! They are a +fine family; in short," said he, returning to the charge, "he is our +ideal: morality, economy, everything. But the completion of the Louvre +is one of the conditions on which we gave him the crown, and the civil +list, which, I admit, had no limits set to it, leaves the heart of +Paris in a most melancholy state.--It is because I am so strongly in +favor of the middle course that I should like to see the middle of +Paris in a better condition. Your part of the town is positively +terrifying. You would have been murdered there one fine day.--And so +your Monsieur Crevel has been made Major of his division! He will come +to us, I hope, for his big epaulette." + +"I am dining with him to-night, and will send him to you." + +Lisbeth believed that she had secured her Livonian to herself by +cutting him off from all communication with the outer world. If he +could no longer work, the artist would be forgotten as completely as a +man buried in a cellar, where she alone would go to see him. Thus she +had two happy days, for she hoped to deal a mortal blow at the +Baroness and her daughter. + +To go to Crevel's house, in the Rue des Saussayes, she crossed the +Pont du Carrousel, went along the Quai Voltaire, the Quai d'Orsay, the +Rue Bellechasse, Rue de l'Universite, the Pont de la Concorde, and the +Avenue de Marigny. This illogical route was traced by the logic of +passion, always the foe of the legs. + +Cousin Betty, as long as she followed the line of the quays, kept +watch on the opposite shore of the Seine, walking very slowly. She had +guessed rightly. She had left Wenceslas dressing; she at once +understood that, as soon as he should be rid of her, the lover would +go off to the Baroness' by the shortest road. And, in fact, as she +wandered along by the parapet of the Quai Voltaire, in fancy +suppressing the river and walking along the opposite bank, she +recognized the artist as he came out of the Tuileries to cross the +Pont Royal. She there came up with the faithless one, and could follow +him unseen, for lovers rarely look behind them. She escorted him as +far as Madame Hulot's house, where he went in like an accustomed +visitor. + +This crowning proof, confirming Madame Marneffe's revelations, put +Lisbeth quite beside herself. + +She arrived at the newly promoted Major's door in the state of mental +irritation which prompts men to commit murder, and found Monsieur +Crevel _senior_ in his drawing-room awaiting his children, Monsieur +and Madame Hulot _junior_. + +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. It is impossible to guess how long an extinct reputation +may survive, supported by such stale admiration. + +So Grindot, for the thousandth time had displayed his white-and-gold +drawing-room paneled with crimson damask. The furniture, of rosewood, +clumsily carved, as such work is done for the trade, had in the +country been the source of just pride in Paris workmanship on the +occasion of an industrial exhibition. The candelabra, the fire-dogs, +the fender, the chandelier, the clock, were all in the most unmeaning +style of scroll-work; the round table, a fixture in the middle of the +room, was a mosaic of fragments of Italian and antique marbles, +brought from Rome, where these dissected maps are made of +mineralogical specimens--for all the world like tailors' patterns--an +object of perennial admiration to Crevel's citizen friends. The +portraits of the late lamented Madame Crevel, of Crevel himself, of +his daughter and his son-in-law, hung on the walls, two and two; they +were the work of Pierre Grassou, the favored painter of the +bourgeoisie, to whom Crevel owed his ridiculous Byronic attitude. The +frames, costing a thousand francs each, were quite in harmony with +this coffee-house magnificence, which would have made any true artist +shrug his shoulders. + +Money never yet missed the smallest opportunity of being stupid. We +should have in Paris ten Venices if our retired merchants had had the +instinct for fine things characteristic of the Italians. Even in our +own day a Milanese merchant could leave five hundred thousand francs +to the Duomo, to regild the colossal statue of the Virgin that crowns +the edifice. Canova, in his will, desired his brother to build a +church costing four million francs, and that brother adds something on +his own account. Would a citizen of Paris--and they all, like Rivet, +love their Paris in their heart--ever dream of building the spires +that are lacking to the towers of Notre-Dame? And only think of the +sums that revert to the State in property for which no heirs are +found. + +All the improvements of Paris might have been completed with the money +spent on stucco castings, gilt mouldings, and sham sculpture during +the last fifteen years by individuals of the Crevel stamp. + +Beyond this drawing-room was a splendid boudoir furnished with tables +and cabinets in imitation of Boulle. + +The bedroom, smart with chintz, also opened out of the drawing-room. +Mahogany in all its glory infested the dining-room, and Swiss views, +gorgeously framed, graced the panels. Crevel, who hoped to travel in +Switzerland, had set his heart on possessing the scenery in painting +till the time should come when he might see it in reality. + +So, as will have been seen, Crevel, the Mayor's deputy, of the Legion +of Honor and of the National Guard, had faithfully reproduced all the +magnificence, even as to furniture, of his luckless predecessor. Under +the Restoration, where one had sunk, this other, quite overlooked, had +come to the top--not by any strange stroke of fortune, but by the +force of circumstance. In revolutions, as in storms at sea, solid +treasure goes to the bottom, and light trifles are floated to the +surface. Cesar Birotteau, a Royalist, in favor and envied, had been +made the mark of bourgeois hostility, while bourgeoisie triumphant +found its incarnation in Crevel. + +This apartment, at a rent of a thousand crowns, crammed with all the +vulgar magnificence that money can buy, occupied the first floor of a +fine old house between a courtyard and a garden. Everything was as +spick-and-span as the beetles in an entomological case, for Crevel +lived very little at home. + +This gorgeous residence was the ambitious citizen's legal domicile. +His establishment consisted of a woman-cook and a valet; he hired two +extra men, and had a dinner sent in by Chevet, whenever he gave a +banquet to his political friends, to men he wanted to dazzle or to a +family party. + +The seat of Crevel's real domesticity, formerly in the Rue Notre-Dame +de Lorette, with Mademoiselle Heloise Brisetout, had lately been +transferred, as we have seen, to the Rue Chauchat. Every morning the +retired merchant--every ex-tradesman is a retired merchant--spent two +hours in the Rue des Saussayes to attend to business, and gave the +rest of his time to Mademoiselle Zaire, which annoyed Zaire very much. +Orosmanes-Crevel had a fixed bargain with Mademoiselle Heloise; she +owed him five hundred francs worth of enjoyment every month, and no +"bills delivered." He paid separately for his dinner and all extras. +This agreement, with certain bonuses, for he made her a good many +presents, seemed cheap to the ex-attache of the great singer; and he +would say to widowers who were fond of their daughters, that it paid +better to job your horses than to have a stable of your own. At the +same time, if the reader remembers the speech made to the Baron by the +porter at the Rue Chauchat, Crevel did not escape the coachman and the +groom. + +Crevel, as may be seen, had turned his passionate affection for his +daughter to the advantage of his self-indulgence. The immoral aspect +of the situation was justified by the highest morality. And then the +ex-perfumer derived from this style of living--it was the inevitable, +a free-and-easy life, _Regence, Pompadour, Marechal de Richelieu_, +what not--a certain veneer of superiority. Crevel set up for being a +man of broad views, a fine gentleman with an air and grace, a liberal +man with nothing narrow in his ideas--and all for the small sum of +about twelve to fifteen hundred francs a month. This was the result +not of hypocritical policy, but of middle-class vanity, though it came +to the same in the end. + +On the Bourse Crevel was regarded as a man superior to his time, and +especially as a man of pleasure, a _bon vivant_. In this particular +Crevel flattered himself that he had overtopped his worthy friend +Birotteau by a hundred cubits. + +"And is it you?" cried Crevel, flying into a rage as he saw Lisbeth +enter the room, "who have plotted this marriage between Mademoiselle +Hulot and your young Count, whom you have been bringing up by hand for +her?" + +"You don't seem best pleased at it?" said Lisbeth, fixing a piercing +eye on Crevel. "What interest can you have in hindering my cousin's +marriage? For it was you, I am told, who hindered her marrying +Monsieur Lebas' son." + +"You are a good soul and to be trusted," said Crevel. "Well, then, do +you suppose that I will ever forgive Monsieur Hulot for the crime of +having robbed me of Josepha--especially when he turned a decent girl, +whom I should have married in my old age, into a good-for-nothing +slut, a mountebank, an opera singer!--No, no. Never!" + +"He is a very good fellow, too, is Monsieur Hulot," said Cousin Betty. + +"Amiable, very amiable--too amiable," replied Crevel. "I wish him no +harm; but I do wish to have my revenge, and I will have it. It is my +one idea." + +"And is that desire the reason why you no longer visit Madame Hulot?" + +"Possibly." + +"Ah, ha! then you were courting my fair cousin?" said Lisbeth, with a +smile. "I thought as much." + +"And she treated me like a dog!--worse, like a footman; nay, I might +say like a political prisoner.--But I will succeed yet," said he, +striking his brow with his clenched fist. + +"Poor man! It would be dreadful to catch his wife deceiving him after +being packed off by his mistress." + +"Josepha?" cried Crevel. "Has Josepha thrown him over, packed him off, +turned him out neck and crop? Bravo, Josepha, you have avenged me! I +will send you a pair of pearls to hang in your ears, my ex-sweetheart! +--I knew nothing of it; for after I had seen you, on the day after +that when the fair Adeline had shown me the door, I went back to visit +the Lebas, at Corbeil, and have but just come back. Heloise played the +very devil to get me into the country, and I have found out the +purpose of her game; she wanted me out of the way while she gave a +house-warming in the Rue Chauchat, with some artists, and players, and +writers.--She took me in! But I can forgive her, for Heloise amuses +me. She is a Dejazet under a bushel. What a character the hussy is! +There is the note I found last evening: + + "'DEAR OLD CHAP,--I have pitched my tent in the Rue Chauchat. I + have taken the precaution of getting a few friends to clean up the + paint. All is well. Come when you please, monsieur; Hagar awaits + her Abraham.' + +"Heloise will have some news for me, for she has her bohemia at her +fingers' end." + +"But Monsieur Hulot took the disaster very calmly," said Lisbeth. + +"Impossible!" cried Crevel, stopping in a parade as regular as the +swing of a pendulum. + +"Monsieur Hulot is not as young as he was," Lisbeth remarked +significantly. + +"I know that," said Crevel, "but in one point we are alike: Hulot +cannot do without an attachment. He is capable of going back to his +wife. It would be a novelty for him, but an end to my vengeance. You +smile, Mademoiselle Fischer--ah! perhaps you know something?" + +"I am smiling at your notions," replied Lisbeth. "Yes, my cousin is +still handsome enough to inspire a passion. I should certainly fall in +love with her if I were a man." + +"Cut and come again!" exclaimed Crevel. "You are laughing at me.--The +Baron has already found consolation?" + +Lisbeth bowed affirmatively. + +"He is a lucky man if he can find a second Josepha within twenty-four +hours!" said Crevel. "But I am not altogether surprised, for he told +me one evening at supper that when he was a young man he always had +three mistresses on hand that he might not be left high and dry--the +one he was giving over, the one in possession, and the one he was +courting for a future emergency. He had some smart little work-woman +in reserve, no doubt--in his fish-pond--his _Parc-aux-cerfs_! He is +very Louis XV., is my gentleman. He is in luck to be so handsome! +--However, he is ageing; his face shows it.--He has taken up with +some little milliner?" + +"Dear me, no," replied Lisbeth. + +"Oh!" cried Crevel, "what would I not do to hinder him from hanging up +his hat! I could not win back Josepha; women of that kind never come +back to their first love.--Besides, it is truly said, such a return is +not love.--But, Cousin Betty, I would pay down fifty thousand francs +--that is to say, I would spend it--to rob that great good-looking +fellow of his mistress, and to show him that a Major with a portly +stomach and a brain made to become Mayor of Paris, though he is a +grandfather, is not to have his mistress tickled away by a poacher +without turning the tables." + +"My position," said Lisbeth, "compels me to hear everything and know +nothing. You may talk to me without fear; I never repeat a word of +what any one may choose to tell me. How can you suppose I should ever +break that rule of conduct? No one would ever trust me again." + +"I know," said Crevel; "you are the very jewel of old maids. Still, +come, there are exceptions. Look here, the family have never settled +an allowance on you?" + +"But I have my pride," said Lisbeth. "I do not choose to be an expense +to anybody." + +"If you will but help me to my revenge," the tradesman went on, "I +will sink ten thousand francs in an annuity for you. Tell me, my fair +cousin, tell me who has stepped into Josepha's shoes, and you will +have money to pay your rent, your little breakfast in the morning, the +good coffee you love so well--you might allow yourself pure Mocha, +heh! And a very good thing is pure Mocha!" + +"I do not care so much for the ten thousand francs in an annuity, +which would bring me nearly five hundred francs a year, as for +absolute secrecy," said Lisbeth. "For, you see, my dear Monsieur +Crevel, the Baron is very good to me; he is to pay my rent----" + +"Oh yes, long may that last! I advise you to trust him," cried Crevel. +"Where will he find the money?" + +"Ah, that I don't know. At the same time, he is spending more than +thirty thousand francs on the rooms he is furnishing for this little +lady." + +"A lady! What, a woman in society; the rascal, what luck he has! He is +the only favorite!" + +"A married woman, and quite the lady," Lisbeth affirmed. + +"Really and truly?" cried Crevel, opening wide eyes flashing with +envy, quite as much as at the magic words _quite the lady_. + +"Yes, really," said Lisbeth. "Clever, a musician, three-and-twenty, a +pretty, innocent face, a dazzling white skin, teeth like a puppy's, +eyes like stars, a beautiful forehead--and tiny feet, I never saw the +like, they are not wider than her stay-busk." + +"And ears?" asked Crevel, keenly alive to this catalogue of charms. + +"Ears for a model," she replied. + +"And small hands?" + +"I tell you, in few words, a gem of a woman--and high-minded, and +modest, and refined! A beautiful soul, an angel--and with every +distinction, for her father was a Marshal of France----" + +"A Marshal of France!" shrieked Crevel, positively bounding with +excitement. "Good Heavens! by the Holy Piper! By all the joys in +Paradise!--The rascal!--I beg your pardon, Cousin, I am going crazy! +--I think I would give a hundred thousand francs----" + +"I dare say you would, and, I tell you, she is a respectable woman--a +woman of virtue. The Baron has forked out handsomely." + +"He has not a sou, I tell you." + +"There is a husband he has pushed----" + +"Where did he push him?" asked Crevel, with a bitter laugh. + +"He is promoted to be second in his office--this husband who will +oblige, no doubt;--and his name is down for the Cross of the Legion of +Honor." + +"The Government ought to be judicious and respect those who have the +Cross by not flinging it broadcast," said Crevel, with the look of an +aggrieved politician. "But what is there about the man--that old +bulldog of a Baron?" he went on. "It seems to me that I am quite a +match for him," and he struck an attitude as he looked at himself in +the glass. "Heloise has told me many a time, at moments when a woman +speaks the truth, that I was wonderful." + +"Oh," said Lisbeth, "women like big men; they are almost always +good-natured; and if I had to decide between you and the Baron, I +should choose you. Monsieur Hulot is amusing, handsome, and has a +figure; but you, you are substantial, and then--you see--you look an +even greater scamp than he does." + +"It is incredible how all women, even pious women, take to men who +have that about them!" exclaimed Crevel, putting his arm round +Lisbeth's waist, he was so jubilant. + +"The difficulty does not lie there," said Betty. "You must see that a +woman who is getting so many advantages will not be unfaithful to her +patron for nothing; and it would cost you more than a hundred odd +thousand francs, for our little friend can look forward to seeing her +husband at the head of his office within two years' time.--It is +poverty that is dragging the poor little angel into that pit." + +Crevel was striding up and down the drawing-room in a state of frenzy. + +"He must be uncommonly fond of the woman?" he inquired after a pause, +while his desires, thus goaded by Lisbeth, rose to a sort of madness. + +"You may judge for yourself," replied Lisbeth. "I don't believe he has +had _that_ of her," said she, snapping her thumbnail against one of +her enormous white teeth, "and he has given her ten thousand francs' +worth of presents already." + +"What a good joke it would be!" cried Crevel, "if I got to the winning +post first!" + +"Good heavens! It is too bad of me to be telling you all this +tittle-tattle," said Lisbeth, with an air of compunction. + +"No.--I mean to put your relations to the blush. To-morrow I shall +invest in your name such a sum in five-per-cents as will give you six +hundred francs a year; but then you must tell me everything--his +Dulcinea's name and residence. To you I will make a clean breast of +it.--I never have had a real lady for a mistress, and it is the height +of my ambition. Mahomet's houris are nothing in comparison with what I +fancy a woman of fashion must be. In short, it is my dream, my mania, +and to such a point, that I declare to you the Baroness Hulot to me +will never be fifty," said he, unconsciously plagiarizing one of the +greatest wits of the last century. "I assure you, my good Lisbeth, I +am prepared to sacrifice a hundred, two hundred--Hush! Here are the +young people, I see them crossing the courtyard. I shall never have +learned anything through you, I give you my word of honor; for I do +not want you to lose the Baron's confidence, quite the contrary. He +must be amazingly fond of this woman--that old boy." + +"He is crazy about her," said Lisbeth. "He could not find forty +thousand francs to marry his daughter off, but he has got them somehow +for his new passion." + +"And do you think that she loves him?" + +"At his age!" said the old maid. + +"Oh, what an owl I am!" cried Crevel, "when I myself allowed Heloise +to keep her artist exactly as Henri IX. allowed Gabrielle her +Bellegrade. Alas! old age, old age!--Good-morning, Celestine. How do, +my jewel!--And the brat? Ah! here he comes; on my honor, he is +beginning to be like me!--Good-day, Hulot--quite well? We shall soon +be having another wedding in the family." + +Celestine and her husband, as a hint to their father, glanced at the +old maid, who audaciously asked, in reply to Crevel: + +"Indeed--whose?" + +Crevel put on an air of reserve which was meant to convey that he +would make up for her indiscretions. + +"That of Hortense," he replied; "but it is not yet quite settled. I +have just come from the Lebas', and they were talking of Mademoiselle +Popinot as a suitable match for their son, the young councillor, for +he would like to get the presidency of a provincial court.--Now, come +to dinner." + + + +By seven o'clock Lisbeth had returned home in an omnibus, for she was +eager to see Wenceslas, whose dupe she had been for three weeks, and +to whom she was carrying a basket filled with fruit by the hands of +Crevel himself, whose attentions were doubled towards _his_ Cousin +Betty. + +She flew up to the attic at a pace that took her breath away, and +found the artist finishing the ornamentation of a box to be presented +to the adored Hortense. The framework of the lid represented +hydrangeas--in French called _Hortensias_--among which little Loves +were playing. The poor lover, to enable him to pay for the materials +of the box, of which the panels were of malachite, had designed two +candlesticks for Florent and Chanor, and sold them the copyright--two +admirable pieces of work. + +"You have been working too hard these last few days, my dear fellow," +said Lisbeth, wiping the perspiration from his brow, and giving him a +kiss. "Such laborious diligence is really dangerous in the month of +August. Seriously, you may injure your health. Look, here are some +peaches and plums from Monsieur Crevel.--Now, do not worry yourself so +much; I have borrowed two thousand francs, and, short of some +disaster, we can repay them when you sell your clock. At the same +time, the lender seems to me suspicious, for he has just sent in this +document." + +She laid the writ under the model sketch of the statue of General +Montcornet. + +"For whom are you making this pretty thing?" said she, taking up the +model sprays of hydrangea in red wax which Wenceslas had laid down +while eating the fruit. + +"For a jeweler." + +"For what jeweler?" + +"I do not know. Stidmann asked me to make something out of them, as he +is very busy." + +"But these," she said in a deep voice, "are _Hortensias_. How is it +that you have never made anything in wax for me? Is it so difficult to +design a pin, a little box--what not, as a keepsake?" and she shot a +fearful glance at the artist, whose eyes were happily lowered. "And +yet you say you love me?" + +"Can you doubt it, mademoiselle?" + +"That is indeed an ardent _mademoiselle_!--Why, you have been my only +thought since I found you dying--just there. When I saved you, you +vowed you were mine, I mean to hold you to that pledge; but I made a +vow to myself! I said to myself, 'Since the boy says he is mine, I +mean to make him rich and happy!' Well, and I can make your fortune." + +"How?" said the hapless artist, at the height of joy, and too artless +to dream of a snare. + +"Why, thus," said she. + +Lisbeth could not deprive herself of the savage pleasure of gazing at +Wenceslas, who looked up at her with filial affection, the expression +really of his love for Hortense, which deluded the old maid. Seeing in +a man's eyes, for the first time in her life, the blazing torch of +passion, she fancied it was for her that it was lighted. + +"Monsieur Crevel will back us to the extent of a hundred thousand +francs to start in business, if, as he says, you will marry me. He has +queer ideas, has the worthy man.--Well, what do you say to it?" she +added. + +The artist, as pale as the dead, looked at his benefactress with a +lustreless eye, which plainly spoke his thoughts. He stood stupefied +and open-mouthed. + +"I never before was so distinctly told that I am hideous," said she, +with a bitter laugh. + +"Mademoiselle," said Steinbock, "my benefactress can never be ugly in +my eyes; I have the greatest affection for you. But I am not yet +thirty, and----" + +"I am forty-three," said Lisbeth. "My cousin Adeline is forty-eight, +and men are still madly in love with her; but then she is handsome +--she is!" + +"Fifteen years between us, mademoiselle! How could we get on together! +For both our sakes I think we should be wise to think it over. My +gratitude shall be fully equal to your great kindness.--And your money +shall be repaid in a few days." + +"My money!" cried she. "You treat me as if I were nothing but an +unfeeling usurer." + +"Forgive me," said Wenceslas, "but you remind me of it so often. +--Well, it is you who have made me; do not crush me." + +"You mean to be rid of me, I can see," said she, shaking her head. +"Who has endowed you with this strength of ingratitude--you who are a +man of papier-mache? Have you ceased to trust me--your good genius? +--me, when I have spent so many nights working for you--when I have +given you every franc I have saved in my lifetime--when for four years +I have shared my bread with you, the bread of a hard-worked woman, and +given you all I had, to my very courage." + +"Mademoiselle--no more, no more!" he cried, kneeling before her with +uplifted hands. "Say not another word! In three days I will tell you, +you shall know all.--Let me, let me be happy," and he kissed her +hands. "I love--and I am loved." + +"Well, well, my child, be happy," she said, lifting him up. And she +kissed his forehead and hair with the eagerness that a man condemned +to death must feel as he lives through the last morning. + +"Ah! you are of all creatures the noblest and best! You are a match +for the woman I love," said the poor artist. + +"I love you well enough to tremble for your future fate," said she +gloomily. "Judas hanged himself--the ungrateful always come to a bad +end! You are deserting me, and you will never again do any good work. +Consider whether, without being married--for I know I am an old maid, +and I do not want to smother the blossom of your youth, your poetry, +as you call it, in my arms, that are like vine-stocks--but whether, +without being married, we could not get on together? Listen; I have +the commercial spirit; I could save you a fortune in the course of ten +years' work, for Economy is my name!--while, with a young wife, who +would be sheer Expenditure, you would squander everything; you would +work only to indulge her. But happiness creates nothing but memories. +Even I, when I am thinking of you, sit for hours with my hands in my +lap---- + +"Come, Wenceslas, stay with me.--Look here, I understand all about it; +you shall have your mistresses; pretty ones too, like that little +Marneffe woman who wants to see you, and who will give you happiness +you could never find with me. Then, when I have saved you thirty +thousand francs a year in the funds----" + +"Mademoiselle, you are an angel, and I shall never forget this hour," +said Wenceslas, wiping away his tears. + +"That is how I like to see you, my child," said she, gazing at him +with rapture. + +Vanity is so strong a power in us all that Lisbeth believed in her +triumph. She had conceded so much when offering him Madame Marneffe. +It was the crowning emotion of her life; for the first time she felt +the full tide of joy rising in her heart. To go through such an +experience again she would have sold her soul to the Devil. + +"I am engaged to be married," Steinbock replied, "and I love a woman +with whom no other can compete or compare.--But you are, and always +will be, to me the mother I have lost." + +The words fell like an avalanche of snow on a burning crater. Lisbeth +sat down. She gazed with despondent eyes on the youth before her, on +his aristocratic beauty--the artist's brow, the splendid hair, +everything that appealed to her suppressed feminine instincts, and +tiny tears moistened her eyes for an instant and immediately dried up. +She looked like one of those meagre statues which the sculptors of the +Middle Ages carved on monuments. + +"I cannot curse you," said she, suddenly rising. "You--you are but a +boy. God preserve you!" + +She went downstairs and shut herself into her own room. + +"She is in love with me, poor creature!" said Wenceslas to himself. +"And how fervently eloquent! She is crazy." + +This last effort on the part of an arid and narrow nature to keep hold +on an embodiment of beauty and poetry was, in truth, so violent that +it can only be compared to the frenzied vehemence of a shipwrecked +creature making the last struggle to reach shore. + +On the next day but one, at half-past four in the morning, when Count +Steinbock was sunk in the deepest sleep, he heard a knock at the door +of his attic; he rose to open it, and saw two men in shabby clothing, +and a third, whose dress proclaimed him a bailiff down on his luck. + +"You are Monsieur Wenceslas, Count Steinbock?" said this man. + +"Yes, monsieur." + +"My name is Grasset, sir, successor to Louchard, sheriff's +officer----" + +"What then?" + +"You are under arrest, sir. You must come with us to prison--to +Clichy.--Please to get dressed.--We have done the civil, as you see; I +have brought no police, and there is a hackney cab below." + +"You are safely nabbed, you see," said one of the bailiffs; "and we +look to you to be liberal." + +Steinbock dressed and went downstairs, a man holding each arm; when he +was in the cab, the driver started without orders, as knowing where he +was to go, and within half an hour the unhappy foreigner found himself +safely under bolt and bar without even a remonstrance, so utterly +amazed was he. + +At ten o'clock he was sent for to the prison-office, where he found +Lisbeth, who, in tears, gave him some money to feed himself adequately +and to pay for a room large enough to work in. + +"My dear boy," said she, "never say a word of your arrest to anybody, +do not write to a living soul; it would ruin you for life; we must +hide this blot on your character. I will soon have you out. I will +collect the money--be quite easy. Write down what you want for your +work. You shall soon be free, or I will die for it." + +"Oh, I shall owe you my life a second time!" cried he, "for I should +lose more than my life if I were thought a bad fellow." + +Lisbeth went off in great glee; she hoped, by keeping her artist under +lock and key, to put a stop to his marriage by announcing that he was +a married man, pardoned by the efforts of his wife, and gone off to +Russia. + +To carry out this plan, at about three o'clock she went to the +Baroness, though it was not the day when she was due to dine with her; +but she wished to enjoy the anguish which Hortense must endure at the +hour when Wenceslas was in the habit of making his appearance. + +"Have you come to dinner?" asked the Baroness, concealing her +disappointment. + +"Well, yes." + +"That's well," replied Hortense. "I will go and tell them to be +punctual, for you do not like to be kept waiting." + +Hortense nodded reassuringly to her mother, for she intended to tell +the man-servant to send away Monsieur Steinbock if he should call; the +man, however, happened to be out, so Hortense was obliged to give her +orders to the maid, and the girl went upstairs to fetch her needlework +and sit in the ante-room. + +"And about my lover?" said Cousin Betty to Hortense, when the girl +came back. "You never ask about him now?" + +"To be sure, what is he doing?" said Hortense. "He has become famous. +You ought to be very happy," she added in an undertone to Lisbeth. +"Everybody is talking of Monsieur Wenceslas Steinbock." + +"A great deal too much," replied she in her clear tones. "Monsieur is +departing.--If it were only a matter of charming him so far as to defy +the attractions of Paris, I know my power; but they say that in order +to secure the services of such an artist, the Emperor Nichols has +pardoned him----" + +"Nonsense!" said the Baroness. + +"When did you hear that?" asked Hortense, who felt as if her heart had +the cramp. + +"Well," said the villainous Lisbeth, "a person to whom he is bound by +the most sacred ties--his wife--wrote yesterday to tell him so. He +wants to be off. Oh, he will be a great fool to give up France to go +to Russia!--" + +Hortense looked at her mother, but her head sank on one side; the +Baroness was only just in time to support her daughter, who dropped +fainting, and as white as her lace kerchief. + +"Lisbeth! you have killed my child!" cried the Baroness. "You were +born to be our curse!" + +"Bless me! what fault of mine is this, Adeline?" replied Lisbeth, as +she rose with a menacing aspect, of which the Baroness, in her alarm, +took no notice. + +"I was wrong," said Adeline, supporting the girl. "Ring." + +At this instant the door opened, the women both looked round, and saw +Wenceslas Steinbock, who had been admitted by the cook in the maid's +absence. + +"Hortense!" cried the artist, with one spring to the group of women. +And he kissed his betrothed before her mother's eyes, on the forehead, +and so reverently, that the Baroness could not be angry. It was a +better restorative than any smelling salts. Hortense opened her eyes, +saw Wenceslas, and her color came back. In a few minutes she had quite +recovered. + +"So this was your secret?" said Lisbeth, smiling at Wenceslas, and +affecting to guess the facts from her two cousins' confusion. + +"But how did you steal away my lover?" said she, leading Hortense into +the garden. + +Hortense artlessly told the romance of her love. Her father and +mother, she said, being convinced that Lisbeth would never marry, had +authorized the Count's visits. Only Hortense, like a full-blown Agnes, +attributed to chance her purchase of the group and the introduction of +the artist, who, by her account, had insisted on knowing the name of +his first purchaser. + +Presently Steinbock came out to join the cousins, and thanked the old +maid effusively for his prompt release. Lisbeth replied Jesuitically +that the creditor having given very vague promises, she had not hoped +to be able to get him out before the morrow, and that the person who +had lent her the money, ashamed, perhaps, of such mean conduct, had +been beforehand with her. The old maid appeared to be perfectly +content, and congratulated Wenceslas on his happiness. + +"You bad boy!" said she, before Hortense and her mother, "if you had +only told me the evening before last that you loved my cousin +Hortense, and that she loved you, you would have spared me many tears. +I thought that you were deserting your old friend, your governess; +while, on the contrary, you are to become my cousin; henceforth, you +will be connected with me, remotely, it is true, but by ties that +amply justify the feelings I have for you." And she kissed Wenceslas +on the forehead. + +Hortense threw herself into Lisbeth's arms and melted into tears. + +"I owe my happiness to you," said she, "and I will never forget it." + +"Cousin Betty," said the Baroness, embracing Lisbeth in her excitement +at seeing matters so happily settled, "the Baron and I owe you a debt +of gratitude, and we will pay it. Come and talk things over with me," +she added, leading her away. + +So Lisbeth, to all appearances, was playing the part of a good angel +to the whole family; she was adored by Crevel and Hulot, by Adeline +and Hortense. + +"We wish you to give up working," said the Baroness. "If you earn +forty sous a day, Sundays excepted, that makes six hundred francs a +year. Well, then, how much have you saved?" + +"Four thousand five hundred francs." + +"Poor Betty!" said her cousin. + +She raised her eyes to heaven, so deeply was she moved at the thought +of all the labor and privation such a sum must represent accumulated +during thirty years. + +Lisbeth, misunderstanding the meaning of the exclamation, took it as +the ironical pity of the successful woman, and her hatred was +strengthened by a large infusion of venom at the very moment when her +cousin had cast off her last shred of distrust of the tyrant of her +childhood. + +"We will add ten thousand five hundred francs to that sum," said +Adeline, "and put it in trust so that you shall draw the interest for +life with reversion to Hortense. Thus, you will have six hundred +francs a year." + +Lisbeth feigned the utmost satisfaction. When she went in, her +handkerchief to her eyes, wiping away tears of joy, Hortense told her +of all the favors being showered on Wenceslas, beloved of the family. + +So when the Baron came home, he found his family all present; for the +Baroness had formally accepted Wenceslas by the title of Son, and the +wedding was fixed, if her husband should approve, for a day a +fortnight hence. The moment he came into the drawing-room, Hulot was +rushed at by his wife and daughter, who ran to meet him, Adeline to +speak to him privately, and Hortense to kiss him. + +"You have gone too far in pledging me to this, madame," said the Baron +sternly. "You are not married yet," he added with a look at Steinbock, +who turned pale. + +"He has heard of my imprisonment," said the luckless artist to +himself. + +"Come, children," said he, leading his daughter and the young man into +the garden; they all sat down on the moss-eaten seat in the +summer-house. + +"Monsieur le Comte, do you love my daughter as well as I loved her +mother?" he asked. + +"More, monsieur," said the sculptor. + +"Her mother was a peasant's daughter, and had not a farthing of her +own." + +"Only give me Mademoiselle Hortense just as she is, without a +trousseau even----" + +"So I should think!" said the Baron, smiling. "Hortense is the +daughter of the Baron Hulot d'Ervy, Councillor of State, high up in +the War Office, Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor, and the +brother to Count Hulot, whose glory is immortal, and who will ere long +be Marshal of France! And--she has a marriage portion. + +"It is true," said the impassioned artist. "I must seem very +ambitious. But if my dear Hortense were a laborer's daughter, I would +marry her----" + +"That is just what I wanted to know," replied the Baron. "Run away, +Hortense, and leave me to talk business with Monsieur le Comte.--He +really loves you, you see!" + +"Oh, papa, I was sure you were only in jest," said the happy girl. + +"My dear Steinbock," said the Baron, with elaborate grace of diction +and the most perfect manners, as soon as he and the artist were alone, +"I promised my son a fortune of two hundred thousand francs, of which +the poor boy has never had a sou; and he never will get any of it. My +daughter's fortune will also be two hundred thousand francs, for which +you will give a receipt----" + +"Yes, Monsieur le Baron." + +"You go too fast," said Hulot. "Have the goodness to hear me out. I +cannot expect from a son-in-law such devotion as I look for from my +son. My son knew exactly all I could and would do for his future +promotion: he will be a Minister, and will easily make good his two +hundred thousand francs. But with you, young man, matters are +different. I shall give you a bond for sixty thousand francs in State +funds at five per cent, in your wife's name. This income will be +diminished by a small charge in the form of an annuity to Lisbeth; but +she will not live long; she is consumptive, I know. Tell no one; it is +a secret; let the poor soul die in peace.--My daughter will have a +trousseau worth twenty thousand francs; her mother will give her six +thousand francs worth of diamonds. + +"Monsieur, you overpower me!" said Steinbock, quite bewildered. + +"As to the remaining hundred and twenty thousand francs----" + +"Say no more, monsieur," said Wenceslas. "I ask only for my beloved +Hortense----" + +"Will you listen to me, effervescent youth!--As to the remaining +hundred and twenty thousand francs, I have not got them; but you will +have them--" + +"Monsieur?" + +"You will get them from the Government, in payment for commissions +which I will secure for you, I pledge you my word of honor. You are to +have a studio, you see, at the Government depot. Exhibit a few fine +statues, and I will get you received at the Institute. The highest +personages have a regard for my brother and for me, and I hope to +succeed in securing for you a commission for sculpture at Versailles +up to a quarter of the whole sum. You will have orders from the City +of Paris and from the Chamber of Peers; in short, my dear fellow, you +will have so many that you will be obliged to get assistants. In that +way I shall pay off my debt to you. You must say whether this way of +giving a portion will suit you; whether you are equal to it." + +"I am equal to making a fortune for my wife single-handed if all else +failed!" cried the artist-nobleman. + +"That is what I admire!" cried the Baron. "High-minded youth that +fears nothing. Come," he added, clasping hands with the young sculptor +to conclude the bargain, "you have my consent. We will sign the +contract on Sunday next, and the wedding shall be on the following +Saturday, my wife's fete-day." + +"It is alright," said the Baroness to her daughter, who stood glued to +the window. "Your suitor and your father are embracing each other." + +On going home in the evening, Wenceslas found the solution of the +mystery of his release. The porter handed him a thick sealed packet, +containing the schedule of his debts, with a signed receipt affixed at +the bottom of the writ, and accompanied by this letter:-- + + "MY DEAR WENCESLAS,--I went to fetch you at ten o'clock this + morning to introduce you to a Royal Highness who wishes to see + you. There I learned that the duns had had you conveyed to a + certain little domain--chief town, _Clichy Castle_. + + "So off I went to Leon de Lora, and told him, for a joke, that you + could not leave your country quarters for lack of four thousand + francs, and that you would spoil your future prospects if you did + not make your bow to your royal patron. Happily, Bridau was there + --a man of genius, who has known what it is to be poor, and has + heard your story. My boy, between them they have found the money, + and I went off to pay the Turk who committed treason against + genius by putting you in quod. As I had to be at the Tuileries at + noon, I could not wait to see you sniffing the outer air. I know + you to be a gentleman, and I answered for you to my two friends + --but look them up to-morrow. + + "Leon and Bridau do not want your cash; they will ask you to do + them each a group--and they are right. At least, so thinks the man + who wishes he could sign himself your rival, but is only your + faithful ally, + +"STIDMANN. + + "P. S.--I told the Prince you were away, and would not return till + to-morrow, so he said, 'Very good--to-morrow.'" + + +Count Wenceslas went to bed in sheets of purple, without a rose-leaf +to wrinkle them, that Favor can make for us--Favor, the halting +divinity who moves more slowly for men of genius than either Justice +or Fortune, because Jove has not chosen to bandage her eyes. Hence, +lightly deceived by the display of impostors, and attracted by their +frippery and trumpets, she spends the time in seeing them and the +money in paying them which she ought to devote to seeking out men of +merit in the nooks where they hide. + +It will now be necessary to explain how Monsieur le Baron Hulot had +contrived to count up his expenditure on Hortense's wedding portion, +and at the same time to defray the frightful cost of the charming +rooms where Madame Marneffe was to make her home. His financial scheme +bore that stamp of talent which leads prodigals and men in love into +the quagmires where so many disasters await them. Nothing can +demonstrate more completely the strange capacity communicated by vice, +to which we owe the strokes of skill which ambitious or voluptuous men +can occasionally achieve--or, in short, any of the Devil's pupils. + +On the day before, old Johann Fischer, unable to pay thirty thousand +francs drawn for on him by his nephew, had found himself under the +necessity of stopping payment unless the Baron could remit the sum. + +This ancient worthy, with the white hairs of seventy years, had such +blind confidence in Hulot--who, to the old Bonapartist, was an +emanation from the Napoleonic sun--that he was calmly pacing his +anteroom with the bank clerk, in the little ground-floor apartment +that he rented for eight hundred francs a year as the headquarters of +his extensive dealings in corn and forage. + +"Marguerite is gone to fetch the money from close by," said he. + +The official, in his gray uniform braided with silver, was so +convinced of the old Alsatian's honesty, that he was prepared to leave +the thirty thousand francs' worth of bills in his hands; but the old +man would not let him go, observing that the clock had not yet struck +eight. A cab drew up, the old man rushed into the street, and held out +his hand to the Baron with sublime confidence--Hulot handed him out +thirty thousand-franc notes. + +"Go on three doors further, and I will tell you why," said Fischer. + +"Here, young man," he said, returning to count out the money to the +bank emissary, whom he then saw to the door. + +When the clerk was out of sight, Fischer called back the cab +containing his august nephew, Napoleon's right hand, and said, as he +led him into the house: + +"You do not want them to know at the Bank of France that you paid me +the thirty thousand francs, after endorsing the bills?--It was bad +enough to see them signed by such a man as you!--" + +"Come to the bottom of your little garden, Father Fischer," said the +important man. "You are hearty?" he went on, sitting down under a vine +arbor and scanning the old man from head to foot, as a dealer in human +flesh scans a substitute for the conscription. + +"Ay, hearty enough for a tontine," said the lean little old man; his +sinews were wiry, and his eye bright. + +"Does heat disagree with you?" + +"Quite the contrary." + +"What do you say to Africa?" + +"A very nice country!--The French went there with the little Corporal" +(Napoleon). + +"To get us all out of the present scrape, you must go to Algiers," +said the Baron. + +"And how about my business?" + +"An official in the War Office, who has to retire, and has not enough +to live on with his pension, will buy your business." + +"And what am I to do in Algiers?" + +"Supply the Commissariat with victuals, corn, and forage; I have your +commission ready filled in and signed. You can collect supplies in the +country at seventy per cent below the prices at which you can credit +us." + +"How shall we get them?" + +"Oh, by raids, by taxes in kind, and the Khaliphat.--The country is +little known, though we settled there eight years ago; Algeria +produces vast quantities of corn and forage. When this produce belongs +to Arabs, we take it from them under various pretences; when it +belongs to us, the Arabs try to get it back again. There is a great +deal of fighting over the corn, and no one ever knows exactly how much +each party has stolen from the other. There is not time in the open +field to measure the corn as we do in the Paris market, or the hay as +it is sold in the Rue d'Enfer. The Arab chiefs, like our Spahis, +prefer hard cash, and sell the plunder at a very low price. The +Commissariat needs a fixed quantity and must have it. It winks at +exorbitant prices calculated on the difficulty of procuring food, and +the dangers to which every form of transport is exposed. That is +Algiers from the army contractor's point of view. + +"It is a muddle tempered by the ink-bottle, like every incipient +government. We shall not see our way through it for another ten years +--we who have to do the governing; but private enterprise has sharp +eyes.--So I am sending you there to make a fortune; I give you the +job, as Napoleon put an impoverished Marshal at the head of a kingdom +where smuggling might be secretly encouraged. + +"I am ruined, my dear Fischer; I must have a hundred thousand francs +within a year." + +"I see no harm in getting it out of the Bedouins," said the Alsatian +calmly. "It was always done under the Empire----" + +"The man who wants to buy your business will be here this morning, and +pay you ten thousand francs down," the Baron went on. "That will be +enough, I suppose, to take you to Africa?" + +The old man nodded assent. + +"As to capital out there, be quite easy. I will draw the remainder of +the money due if I find it necessary." + +"All I have is yours--my very blood," said old Fischer. + +"Oh, do not be uneasy," said Hulot, fancying that his uncle saw more +clearly than was the fact. "As to our excise dealings, your character +will not be impugned. Everything depends on the authority at your +back; now I myself appointed the authorities out there; I am sure of +them. This, Uncle Fischer, is a dead secret between us. I know you +well, and I have spoken out without concealment or circumlocution." + +"It shall be done," said the old man. "And it will go on----?" + +"For two years, You will have made a hundred thousand francs of your +own to live happy on in the Vosges." + +"I will do as you wish; my honor is yours," said the little old man +quietly. + +"That is the sort of man I like.--However, you must not go till you +have seen your grand-niece happily married. She is to be a Countess." + +But even taxes and raids and the money paid by the War Office clerk +for Fischer's business could not forthwith provide sixty thousand +francs to give Hortense, to say nothing of her trousseau, which was to +cost about five thousand, and the forty thousand spent--or to be spent +--on Madame Marneffe. + +Where, then had the Baron found the thirty thousand francs he had just +produced? This was the history. + +A few days previously Hulot had insured his life for the sum of a +hundred and fifty thousand francs, for three years, in two separate +companies. Armed with the policies, of which he paid the premium, he +had spoken as follows to the Baron de Nucingen, a peer of the Chamber, +in whose carriage he found himself after a sitting, driving home, in +fact, to dine with him:-- + +"Baron, I want seventy thousand francs, and I apply to you. You must +find some one to lend his name, to whom I will make over the right to +draw my pay for three years; it amounts to twenty-five thousand francs +a year--that is, seventy-five thousand francs.--You will say, 'But you +may die'"--the banker signified his assent--"Here, then, is a policy +of insurance for a hundred and fifty thousand francs, which I will +deposit with you till you have drawn up the eighty thousand francs," +said Hulot, producing the document form his pocket. + +"But if you should lose your place?" said the millionaire Baron, +laughing. + +The other Baron--not a millionaire--looked grave. + +"Be quite easy; I only raised the question to show you that I was not +devoid of merit in handing you the sum. Are you so short of cash? for +the Bank will take your signature." + +"My daughter is to be married," said Baron Hulot, "and I have no +fortune--like every one else who remains in office in these thankless +times, when five hundred ordinary men seated on benches will never +reward the men who devote themselves to the service as handsomely as +the Emperor did." + +"Well, well; but you had Josepha on your hands!" replied Nucingen, +"and that accounts for everything. Between ourselves, the Duc +d'Herouville has done you a very good turn by removing that leech from +sucking your purse dry. 'I have known what that is, and can pity your +case,'" he quoted. "Take a friend's advice: Shut up shop, or you will +be done for." + +This dirty business was carried out in the name of one Vauvinet, a +small money-lender; one of those jobbers who stand forward to screen +great banking houses, like the little fish that is said to attend the +shark. This stock-jobber's apprentice was so anxious to gain the +patronage of Monsieur le Baron Hulot, that he promised the great man +to negotiate bills of exchange for thirty thousand francs at eighty +days, and pledged himself to renew them four times, and never pass +them out of his hands. + +Fischer's successor was to pay forty thousand francs for the house and +the business, with the promise that he should supply forage to a +department close to Paris. + +This was the desperate maze of affairs into which a man who had +hitherto been absolutely honest was led by his passions--one of the +best administrative officials under Napoleon--peculation to pay the +money-lenders, and borrowing of the money-lenders to gratify his +passions and provide for his daughter. All the efforts of this +elaborate prodigality were directed at making a display before Madame +Marneffe, and to playing Jupiter to this middle-class Danae. A man +could not expend more activity, intelligence, and presence of mind in +the honest acquisition of a fortune than the Baron displayed in +shoving his head into a wasp's nest: He did all the business of his +department, he hurried on the upholsterers, he talked to the workmen, +he kept a sharp lookout on the smallest details of the house in the +Rue Vanneau. Wholly devoted to Madame Marneffe, he nevertheless +attended the sittings of the Chambers; he was everywhere at once, and +neither his family nor anybody else discovered where his thoughts +were. + +Adeline, quite amazed to hear that her uncle was rescued, and to see a +handsome sum figure in the marriage-contract, was not altogether easy, +in spite of her joy at seeing her daughter married under such +creditable circumstances. But, on the day before the wedding, fixed by +the Baron to coincide with Madame Marneffe's removal to her new +apartment, Hector allayed his wife's astonishment by this ministerial +communication:-- + +"Now, Adeline, our girl is married; all our anxieties on the subject +are at an end. The time is come for us to retire from the world: I +shall not remain in office more than three years longer--only the time +necessary to secure my pension. Why, henceforth, should we be at any +unnecessary expense? Our apartment costs us six thousand francs a year +in rent, we have four servants, we eat thirty thousand francs' worth +of food in a year. If you want me to pay off my bills--for I have +pledged my salary for the sums I needed to give Hortense her little +money, and pay off your uncle----" + +"You did very right!" said she, interrupting her husband, and kissing +his hands. + +This explanation relieved Adeline of all her fears. + +"I shall have to ask some little sacrifices of you," he went on, +disengaging his hands and kissing his wife's brow. "I have found in +the Rue Plumet a very good flat on the first floor, handsome, +splendidly paneled, at only fifteen hundred francs a year, where you +would only need one woman to wait on you, and I could be quite content +with a boy." + +"Yes, my dear." + +"If we keep house in a quiet way, keeping up a proper appearance of +course, we should not spend more than six thousand francs a year, +excepting my private account, which I will provide for." + +The generous-hearted woman threw her arms round her husband's neck in +her joy. + +"How happy I shall be, beginning again to show you how truly I love +you!" she exclaimed. "And what a capital manager you are!" + +"We will have the children to dine with us once a week. I, as you +know, rarely dine at home. You can very well dine twice a week with +Victorin and twice a week with Hortense. And, as I believe, I may +succeed in making matters up completely between Crevel and us; we can +dine once a week with him. These five dinners and our own at home will +fill up the week all but one day, supposing that we may occasionally +be invited to dine elsewhere." + +"I shall save a great deal for you," said Adeline. + +"Oh!" he cried, "you are the pearl of women!" + +"My kind, divine Hector, I shall bless you with my latest breath," +said she, "for you have done well for my dear Hortense." + +This was the beginning of the end of the beautiful Madame Hulot's +home; and, it may be added, of her being totally neglected, as Hulot +had solemnly promised Madame Marneffe. + +Crevel, the important and burly, being invited as a matter of course +to the party given for the signing of the marriage-contract, behaved +as though the scene with which this drama opened had never taken +place, as though he had no grievance against the Baron. Celestin +Crevel was quite amiable; he was perhaps rather too much the +ex-perfumer, but as a Major he was beginning to acquire majestic +dignity. He talked of dancing at the wedding. + +"Fair lady," said he politely to the Baroness, "people like us know +how to forget. Do not banish me from your home; honor me, pray, by +gracing my house with your presence now and then to meet your +children. Be quite easy; I will never say anything of what lies buried +at the bottom of my heart. I behaved, indeed, like an idiot, for I +should lose too much by cutting myself off from seeing you." + +"Monsieur, an honest woman has no ears for such speeches as those you +refer to. If you keep your word, you need not doubt that it will give +me pleasure to see the end of a coolness which must always be painful +in a family." + +"Well, you sulky old fellow," said Hulot, dragging Crevel out into the +garden, "you avoid me everywhere, even in my own house. Are two +admirers of the fair sex to quarrel for ever over a petticoat? Come; +this is really too plebeian!" + +"I, monsieur, am not such a fine man as you are, and my small +attractions hinder me from repairing my losses so easily as you +can----" + +"Sarcastic!" said the Baron. + +"Irony is allowable from the vanquished to the conquerer." + +The conversation, begun in this strain, ended in a complete +reconciliation; still Crevel maintained his right to take his revenge. + + + +Madame Marneffe particularly wished to be invited to Mademoiselle +Hulot's wedding. To enable him to receive his future mistress in his +drawing-room, the great official was obliged to invite all the clerks +of his division down to the deputy head-clerks inclusive. Thus a grand +ball was a necessity. The Baroness, as a prudent housewife, calculated +that an evening party would cost less than a dinner, and allow of a +larger number of invitations; so Hortense's wedding was much talked +about. + +Marshal Prince Wissembourg and the Baron de Nucingen signed in behalf +of the bride, the Comtes de Rastignac and Popinot in behalf of +Steinbock. Then, as the highest nobility among the Polish emigrants +had been civil to Count Steinbock since he had become famous, the +artist thought himself bound to invite them. The State Council, and +the War Office to which the Baron belonged, and the army, anxious to +do honor to the Comte de Forzheim, were all represented by their +magnates. There were nearly two hundred indispensable invitations. How +natural, then, that little Madame Marneffe was bent on figuring in all +her glory amid such an assembly. The Baroness had, a month since, sold +her diamonds to set up her daughter's house, while keeping the finest +for the trousseau. The sale realized fifteen thousand francs, of which +five thousand were sunk in Hortense's clothes. And what was ten +thousand francs for the furniture of the young folks' apartment, +considering the demands of modern luxury? However, young Monsieur and +Madame Hulot, old Crevel, and the Comte de Forzheim made very handsome +presents, for the old soldier had set aside a sum for the purchase of +plate. Thanks to these contributions, even an exacting Parisian would +have been pleased with the rooms the young couple had taken in the Rue +Saint-Dominique, near the Invalides. Everything seemed in harmony with +their love, pure, honest, and sincere. + +At last the great day dawned--for it was to be a great day not only +for Wenceslas and Hortense, but for old Hulot too. Madame Marneffe was +to give a house-warming in her new apartment the day after becoming +Hulot's mistress _en titre_, and after the marriage of the lovers. + +Who but has once in his life been a guest at a wedding-ball? Every +reader can refer to his reminiscences, and will probably smile as he +calls up the images of all that company in their Sunday-best faces as +well as their finest frippery. + +If any social event can prove the influence of environment, is it not +this? In fact, the Sunday-best mood of some reacts so effectually on +the rest that the men who are most accustomed to wearing full dress +look just like those to whom the party is a high festival, unique in +their life. And think too of the serious old men to whom such things +are so completely a matter of indifference, that they are wearing +their everyday black coats; the long-married men, whose faces betray +their sad experience of the life the young pair are but just entering +on; and the lighter elements, present as carbonic-acid gas is in +champagne; and the envious girls, the women absorbed in wondering if +their dress is a success, the poor relations whose parsimonious +"get-up" contrasts with that of the officials in uniform; and the +greedy ones, thinking only of the supper; and the gamblers, thinking +only of cards. + +There are some of every sort, rich and poor, envious and envied, +philosophers and dreamers, all grouped like the plants in a flower-bed +round the rare, choice blossom, the bride. A wedding-ball is an +epitome of the world. + +At the liveliest moment of the evening Crevel led the Baron aside, and +said in a whisper, with the most natural manner possible: + +"By Jove! that's a pretty woman--the little lady in pink who has +opened a racking fire on you from her eyes." + +"Which?" + +"The wife of that clerk you are promoting, heaven knows how!--Madame +Marneffe." + +"What do you know about it?" + +"Listen, Hulot; I will try to forgive you the ill you have done me if +only you will introduce me to her--I will take you to Heloise. +Everybody is asking who is that charming creature. Are you sure that +it will strike no one how and why her husband's appointment got itself +signed?--You happy rascal, she is worth a whole office.--I would serve +in her office only too gladly.--Come, cinna, let us be friends." + +"Better friends than ever," said the Baron to the perfumer, "and I +promise you I will be a good fellow. Within a month you shall dine +with that little angel.--For it is an angel this time, old boy. And I +advise you, like me, to have done with the devils." + +Cousin Betty, who had moved to the Rue Vanneau, into a nice little +apartment on the third floor, left the ball at ten o'clock, but came +back to see with her own eyes the two bonds bearing twelve hundred +francs interest; one of them was the property of the Countess +Steinbock, the other was in the name of Madame Hulot. + +It is thus intelligible that Monsieur Crevel should have spoken to +Hulot about Madame Marneffe, as knowing what was a secret to the rest +of the world; for, as Monsieur Marneffe was away, no one but Lisbeth +Fischer, besides the Baron and Valerie, was initiated into the +mystery. + +The Baron had made a blunder in giving Madame Marneffe a dress far too +magnificent for the wife of a subordinate official; other women were +jealous alike of her beauty and of her gown. There was much whispering +behind fans, for the poverty of the Marneffes was known to every one +in the office; the husband had been petitioning for help at the very +moment when the Baron had been so smitten with madame. Also, Hector +could not conceal his exultation at seeing Valerie's success; and she, +severely proper, very lady-like, and greatly envied, was the object of +that strict examination which women so greatly fear when they appear +for the first time in a new circle of society. + +After seeing his wife into a carriage with his daughter and his +son-in-law, Hulot managed to escape unperceived, leaving his son and +Celestine to do the honors of the house. He got into Madame Marneffe's +carriage to see her home, but he found her silent and pensive, almost +melancholy. + +"My happiness makes you very sad, Valerie," said he, putting his arm +round her and drawing her to him. + +"Can you wonder, my dear," said she, "that a hapless woman should be a +little depressed at the thought of her first fall from virtue, even +when her husband's atrocities have set her free? Do you suppose that I +have no soul, no beliefs, no religion? Your glee this evening has been +really too barefaced; you have paraded me odiously. Really, a +schoolboy would have been less of a coxcomb. And the ladies have +dissected me with their side-glances and their satirical remarks. +Every woman has some care for her reputation, and you have wrecked +mine. + +"Oh, I am yours and no mistake! And I have not an excuse left but that +of being faithful to you.--Monster that you are!" she added, laughing, +and allowing him to kiss her, "you knew very well what you were doing! +Madame Coquet, our chief clerk's wife, came to sit down by me, and +admired my lace. 'English point!' said she. 'Was it very expensive, +madame?'--'I do not know. This lace was my mother's. I am not rich +enough to buy the like,' said I." + +Madame Marneffe, in short, had so bewitched the old beau, that he +really believed she was sinning for the first time for his sake, and +that he had inspired such a passion as had led her to this breach of +duty. She told him that the wretch Marneffe had neglected her after +they had been three days married, and for the most odious reasons. +Since then she had lived as innocently as a girl; marriage had seemed +to her so horrible. This was the cause of her present melancholy. + +"If love should prove to be like marriage----" said she in tears. + +These insinuating lies, with which almost every woman in Valerie's +predicament is ready, gave the Baron distant visions of the roses of +the seventh heaven. And so Valerie coquetted with her lover, while the +artist and Hortense were impatiently awaiting the moment when the +Baroness should have given the girl her last kiss and blessing. + +At seven in the morning the Baron, perfectly happy--for his Valerie +was at once the most guileless of girls and the most consummate of +demons--went back to release his son and Celestine from their duties. +All the dancers, for the most part strangers, had taken possession of +the territory, as they do at every wedding-ball, and were keeping up +the endless figures of the cotillions, while the gamblers were still +crowding round the _bouillotte_ tables, and old Crevel had won six +thousand francs. + +The morning papers, carried round the town, contained this paragraph +in the Paris article:-- + + "The marriage was celebrated this morning, at the Church of + Saint-Thomas d'Aquin, between Monsieur le Comte Steinbock and + Mademoiselle Hortense Hulot, daughter of Baron Hulot d'Ervy, + Councillor of State, and a Director at the War Office; niece of + the famous General Comte de Forzheim. The ceremony attracted a + large gathering. There were present some of the most distinguished + artists of the day: Leon de Lora, Joseph Bridau, Stidmann, and + Bixiou; the magnates of the War Office, of the Council of State, + and many members of the two Chambers; also the most distinguished + of the Polish exiles living in Paris: Counts Paz, Laginski, and + others. + + "Monsieur le Comte Wenceslas Steinbock is grandnephew to the + famous general who served under Charles XII., King of Sweden. The + young Count, having taken part in the Polish rebellion, found a + refuge in France, where his well-earned fame as a sculptor has + procured him a patent of naturalization." + +And so, in spite of the Baron's cruel lack of money, nothing was +lacking that public opinion could require, not even the trumpeting of +the newspapers over his daughter's marriage, which was solemnized in +the same way, in every particular, as his son's had been to +Mademoiselle Crevel. This display moderated the reports current as to +the Baron's financial position, while the fortune assigned to his +daughter explained the need for having borrowed money. + +Here ends what is, in a way, the introduction to this story. It is to +the drama that follows that the premise is to a syllogism, what the +prologue is to a classical tragedy. + + + +In Paris, when a woman determines to make a business, a trade, of her +beauty, it does not follow that she will make a fortune. Lovely +creatures may be found there, and full of wit, who are in wretched +circumstances, ending in misery a life begun in pleasure. And this is +why. It is not enough merely to accept the shameful life of a +courtesan with a view to earning its profits, and at the same time to +bear the simple garb of a respectable middle-class wife. Vice does not +triumph so easily; it resembles genius in so far that they both need a +concurrence of favorable conditions to develop the coalition of +fortune and gifts. Eliminate the strange prologue of the Revolution, +and the Emperor would never have existed; he would have been no more +than a second edition of Fabert. Venal beauty, if it finds no +amateurs, no celebrity, no cross of dishonor earned by squandering +men's fortunes, is Correggio in a hay-loft, is genius starving in a +garret. Lais, in Paris, must first and foremost find a rich man mad +enough to pay her price. She must keep up a very elegant style, for +this is her shop-sign; she must be sufficiently well bred to flatter +the vanity of her lovers; she must have the brilliant wit of a Sophie +Arnould, which diverts the apathy of rich men; finally, she must +arouse the passions of libertines by appearing to be mistress to one +man only who is envied by the rest. + +These conditions, which a woman of that class calls being in luck, are +difficult to combine in Paris, although it is a city of millionaires, +of idlers, of used-up and capricious men. + +Providence has, no doubt, vouchsafed protection to clerks and +middle-class citizens, for whom obstacles of this kind are at least +double in the sphere in which they move. At the same time, there are +enough Madame Marneffes in Paris to allow of our taking Valerie to +figure as a type in this picture of manners. Some of these women yield +to the double pressure of a genuine passion and of hard necessity, like +Madame Colleville, who was for long attached to one of the famous +orators of the left, Keller the banker. Others are spurred by vanity, +like Madame de la Baudraye, who remained almost respectable in spite +of her elopement with Lousteau. Some, again, are led astray by the +love of fine clothes, and some by the impossibility of keeping a house +going on obviously too narrow means. The stinginess of the State--or +of Parliament--leads to many disasters and to much corruption. + +At the present moment the laboring classes are the fashionable object +of compassion; they are being murdered--it is said--by the +manufacturing capitalist; but the Government is a hundred times harder +than the meanest tradesman, it carries its economy in the article of +salaries to absolute folly. If you work harder, the merchant will pay +you more in proportion; but what does the State do for its crowd of +obscure and devoted toilers? + +In a married woman it is an inexcusable crime when she wanders from +the path of honor; still, there are degrees even in such a case. Some +women, far from being depraved, conceal their fall and remain to all +appearances quite respectable, like those two just referred to, while +others add to their fault the disgrace of speculation. Thus Madame +Marneffe is, as it were, the type of those ambitious married +courtesans who from the first accept depravity with all its +consequences, and determine to make a fortune while taking their +pleasure, perfectly unscrupulous as to the means. But almost always a +woman like Madame Marneffe has a husband who is her confederate and +accomplice. These Machiavellis in petticoats are the most dangerous of +the sisterhood; of every evil class of Parisian woman, they are the +worst. + +A mere courtesan--a Josepha, a Malaga, a Madame Schontz, a Jenny +Cadine--carries in her frank dishonor a warning signal as conspicuous +as the red lamp of a house of ill-fame or the flaring lights of a +gambling hell. A man knows that they light him to his ruin. + +But mealy-mouthed propriety, the semblance of virtue, the hypocritical +ways of a married woman who never allows anything to be seen but the +vulgar needs of the household, and affects to refuse every kind of +extravagance, leads to silent ruin, dumb disaster, which is all the +more startling because, though condoned, it remains unaccounted for. +It is the ignoble bill of daily expenses and not gay dissipation that +devours the largest fortune. The father of a family ruins himself +ingloriously, and the great consolation of gratified vanity is wanting +in his misery. + +This little sermon will go like a javelin to the heart of many a home. +Madame Marneffes are to be seen in every sphere of social life, even +at Court; for Valerie is a melancholy fact, modeled from the life in +the smallest details. And, alas! the portrait will not cure any man of +the folly of loving these sweetly-smiling angels, with pensive looks +and candid faces, whose heart is a cash-box. + + + +About three years after Hortense's marriage, in 1841, Baron Hulot +d'Ervy was supposed to have sown his wild oats, to have "put up his +horses," to quote the expression used by Louis XV.'s head surgeon, and +yet Madame Marneffe was costing him twice as much as Josepha had ever +cost him. Still, Valerie, though always nicely dressed, affected the +simplicity of a subordinate official's wife; she kept her luxury for +her dressing-gowns, her home wear. She thus sacrificed her Parisian +vanity to her dear Hector. At the theatre, however, she always +appeared in a pretty bonnet and a dress of extreme elegance; and the +Baron took her in a carriage to a private box. + +Her rooms, the whole of the second floor of a modern house in the Rue +Vanneau, between a fore-court and a garden, was redolent of +respectability. All its luxury was in good chintz hangings and +handsome convenient furniture. + +Her bedroom, indeed, was the exception, and rich with such profusion +as Jenny Cadine or Madame Schontz might have displayed. There were +lace curtains, cashmere hangings, brocade portieres, a set of chimney +ornaments modeled by Stidmann, a glass cabinet filled with dainty +nicknacks. Hulot could not bear to see his Valerie in a bower of +inferior magnificence to the dunghill of gold and pearls owned by a +Josepha. The drawing-room was furnished with red damask, and the +dining-room had carved oak panels. But the Baron, carried away by his +wish to have everything in keeping, had at the end of six months, +added solid luxury to mere fashion, and had given her handsome +portable property, as, for instance, a service of plate that was to +cost more than twenty-four thousand francs. + +Madame Marneffe's house had in a couple of years achieved a reputation +for being a very pleasant one. Gambling went on there. Valerie herself +was soon spoken of as an agreeable and witty woman. To account for her +change of style, a rumor was set going of an immense legacy bequeathed +to her by her "natural father," Marshal Montcornet, and left in trust. + +With an eye to the future, Valerie had added religious to social +hypocrisy. Punctual at the Sunday services, she enjoyed all the honors +due to the pious. She carried the bag for the offertory, she was a +member of a charitable association, presented bread for the sacrament, +and did some good among the poor, all at Hector's expense. Thus +everything about the house was extremely seemly. And a great many +persons maintained that her friendship with the Baron was entirely +innocent, supporting the view by the gentleman's mature age, and +ascribing to him a Platonic liking for Madame Marneffe's pleasant wit, +charming manners, and conversation--such a liking as that of the late +lamented Louis XVIII. for a well-turned note. + +The Baron always withdrew with the other company at about midnight, +and came back a quarter of an hour later. + +The secret of this secrecy was as follows. The lodge-keepers of the +house were a Monsieur and Madame Olivier, who, under the Baron's +patronage, had been promoted from their humble and not very lucrative +post in the Rue du Doyenne to the highly-paid and handsome one in the +Rue Vanneau. Now, Madame Olivier, formerly a needlewoman in the +household of Charles X., who had fallen in the world with the +legitimate branch, had three children. The eldest, an under-clerk in a +notary's office, was object of his parents' adoration. This Benjamin, +for six years in danger of being drawn for the army, was on the point +of being interrupted in his legal career, when Madame Marneffe +contrived to have him declared exempt for one of those little +malformations which the Examining Board can always discern when +requested in a whisper by some power in the ministry. So Olivier, +formerly a huntsman to the King, and his wife would have crucified the +Lord again for the Baron or for Madame Marneffe. + +What could the world have to say? It knew nothing of the former +episode of the Brazilian, Monsieur Montes de Montejanos--it could say +nothing. Besides, the world is very indulgent to the mistress of a +house where amusement is to be found. + +And then to all her charms Valerie added the highly-prized advantage +of being an occult power. Claude Vignon, now secretary to Marshal the +Prince de Wissembourg, and dreaming of promotion to the Council of +State as a Master of Appeals, was constantly seen in her rooms, to +which came also some Deputies--good fellows and gamblers. Madame +Marneffe had got her circle together with prudent deliberation; only +men whose opinions and habits agreed foregathered there, men whose +interest it was to hold together and to proclaim the many merits of +the lady of the house. Scandal is the true Holy Alliance in Paris. +Take that as an axiom. Interests invariably fall asunder in the end; +vicious natures can always agree. + +Within three months of settling in the Rue Vanneau, Madame Marneffe +had entertained Monsieur Crevel, who by that time was Mayor of his +_arrondissement_ and Officer of the Legion of Honor. Crevel had +hesitated; he would have to give up the famous uniform of the National +Guard in which he strutted at the Tuileries, believing himself quite +as much a soldier as the Emperor himself; but ambition, urged by +Madame Marneffe, had proved stronger than vanity. Then Monsieur le +Maire had considered his connection with Mademoiselle Heloise +Brisetout as quite incompatible with his political position. + +Indeed, long before his accession to the civic chair of the Mayoralty, +his gallant intimacies had been wrapped in the deepest mystery. But, +as the reader may have guessed, Crevel had soon purchased the right of +taking his revenge, as often as circumstances allowed, for having been +bereft of Josepha, at the cost of a bond bearing six thousand francs +of interest in the name of Valerie Fortin, wife of Sieur Marneffe, for +her sole and separate use. Valerie, inheriting perhaps from her mother +the special acumen of the kept woman, read the character of her +grotesque adorer at a glance. The phrase "I never had a lady for a +mistress," spoken by Crevel to Lisbeth, and repeated by Lisbeth to her +dear Valerie, had been handsomely discounted in the bargain by which +she got her six thousand francs a year in five per cents. And since +then she had never allowed her prestige to grow less in the eyes of +Cesar Birotteau's erewhile bagman. + +Crevel himself had married for money the daughter of a miller of la +Brie, an only child indeed, whose inheritance constituted +three-quarters of his fortune; for when retail-dealers grow rich, it +is generally not so much by trade as through some alliance between +the shop and rural thrift. A large proportion of the farmers, +corn-factors, dairy-keepers, and market-gardeners in the neighborhood +of Paris, dream of the glories of the desk for their daughters, and +look upon a shopkeeper, a jeweler, or a money-changer as a son-in-law +after their own heart, in preference to a notary or an attorney, whose +superior social position is a ground of suspicion; they are afraid of +being scorned in the future by these citizen bigwigs. + +Madame Crevel, ugly, vulgar, and silly, had given her husband no +pleasures but those of paternity; she died young. Her libertine +husband, fettered at the beginning of his commercial career by the +necessity for working, and held in thrall by want of money, had led +the life of Tantalus. Thrown in--as he phrased it--with the most +elegant women in Paris, he let them out of the shop with servile +homage, while admiring their grace, their way of wearing the fashions, +and all the nameless charms of what is called breeding. To rise to the +level of one of these fairies of the drawing-room was a desire formed +in his youth, but buried in the depths of his heart. Thus to win the +favors of Madame Marneffe was to him not merely the realization of his +chimera, but, as has been shown, a point of pride, of vanity, of +self-satisfaction. His ambition grew with success; his brain was +turned with elation; and when the mind is captivated, the heart feels +more keenly, every gratification is doubled. + +Also, it must be said that Madame Marneffe offered to Crevel a +refinement of pleasure of which he had no idea; neither Josepha nor +Heloise had loved him; and Madame Marneffe thought it necessary to +deceive him thoroughly, for this man, she saw, would prove an +inexhaustible till. The deceptions of a venal passion are more +delightful than the real thing. True love is mixed up with birdlike +squabbles, in which the disputants wound each other to the quick; but +a quarrel without animus is, on the contrary, a piece of flattery to +the dupe's conceit. + +The rare interviews granted to Crevel kept his passion at white heat. +He was constantly blocked by Valerie's virtuous severity; she acted +remorse, and wondered what her father must be thinking of her in the +paradise of the brave. Again and again he had to contend with a sort +of coldness, which the cunning slut made him believe he had overcome +by seeming to surrender to the man's crazy passion; and then, as if +ashamed, she entrenched herself once more in her pride of +respectability and airs of virtue, just like an Englishwoman, neither +more nor less; and she always crushed her Crevel under the weight of +her dignity--for Crevel had, in the first instance, swallowed her +pretensions to virtue. + +In short, Valerie had special veins of affections which made her +equally indispensable to Crevel and to the Baron. Before the world she +displayed the attractive combination of modest and pensive innocence, +of irreproachable propriety, with a bright humor enhanced by the +suppleness, the grace and softness of the Creole; but in a +_tete-a-tete_ she would outdo any courtesan; she was audacious, amusing, +and full of original inventiveness. Such a contrast is irresistible to a +man of the Crevel type; he is flattered by believing himself sole +author of the comedy, thinking it is performed for his benefit alone, +and he laughs at the exquisite hypocrisy while admiring the hypocrite. + +Valerie had taken entire possession of Baron Hulot; she had persuaded +him to grow old by one of those subtle touches of flattery which +reveal the diabolical wit of women like her. In all evergreen +constitutions a moment arrives when the truth suddenly comes out, as +in a besieged town which puts a good face on affairs as long as +possible. Valerie, foreseeing the approaching collapse of the old beau +of the Empire, determined to forestall it. + +"Why give yourself so much bother, my dear old veteran?" said she one +day, six months after their doubly adulterous union. "Do you want to +be flirting? To be unfaithful to me? I assure you, I should like you +better without your make-up. Oblige me by giving up all your +artificial charms. Do you suppose that it is for two sous' worth of +polish on your boots that I love you? For your india-rubber belt, your +strait-waistcoat, and your false hair? And then, the older you look, +the less need I fear seeing my Hulot carried off by a rival." + +And Hulot, trusting to Madame Marneffe's heavenly friendship as much +as to her love, intending, too, to end his days with her, had taken +this confidential hint, and ceased to dye his whiskers and hair. After +this touching declaration from his Valerie, handsome Hector made his +appearance one morning perfectly white. Madame Marneffe could assure +him that she had a hundred times detected the white line of the growth +of the hair. + +"And white hair suits your face to perfection," said she; "it softens +it. You look a thousand times better, quite charming." + +The Baron, once started on this path of reform, gave up his leather +waistcoat and stays; he threw off all his bracing. His stomach fell +and increased in size. The oak became a tower, and the heaviness of +his movements was all the more alarming because the Baron grew +immensely older by playing the part of Louis XII. His eyebrows were +still black, and left a ghostly reminiscence of Handsome Hulot, as +sometimes on the wall of some feudal building a faint trace of +sculpture remains to show what the castle was in the days of its +glory. This discordant detail made his eyes, still bright and +youthful, all the more remarkable in his tanned face, because it had +so long been ruddy with the florid hues of a Rubens; and now a certain +discoloration and the deep tension of the wrinkles betrayed the +efforts of a passion at odds with natural decay. Hulot was now one of +those stalwart ruins in which virile force asserts itself by tufts of +hair in the ears and nostrils and on the fingers, as moss grows on the +almost eternal monuments of the Roman Empire. + +How had Valerie contrived to keep Crevel and Hulot side by side, each +tied to an apron-string, when the vindictive Mayor only longed to +triumph openly over Hulot? Without immediately giving an answer to +this question, which the course of the story will supply, it may be +said that Lisbeth and Valerie had contrived a powerful piece of +machinery which tended to this result. Marneffe, as he saw his wife +improved in beauty by the setting in which she was enthroned, like the +sun at the centre of the sidereal system, appeared, in the eyes of the +world, to have fallen in love with her again himself; he was quite +crazy about her. Now, though his jealousy made him somewhat of a +marplot, it gave enhanced value to Valerie's favors. Marneffe +meanwhile showed a blind confidence in his chief, which degenerated +into ridiculous complaisance. The only person whom he really would not +stand was Crevel. + +Marneffe, wrecked by the debauchery of great cities, described by +Roman authors, though modern decency has no name for it, was as +hideous as an anatomical figure in wax. But this disease on feet, +clothed in good broadcloth, encased his lathlike legs in elegant +trousers. The hollow chest was scented with fine linen, and musk +disguised the odors of rotten humanity. This hideous specimen of +decaying vice, trotting in red heels--for Valerie dressed the man as +beseemed his income, his cross, and his appointment--horrified Crevel, +who could not meet the colorless eyes of the Government clerk. +Marneffe was an incubus to the Mayor. And the mean rascal, aware of +the strange power conferred on him by Lisbeth and his wife, was amused +by it; he played on it as on an instrument; and cards being the last +resource of a mind as completely played out as the body, he plucked +Crevel again and again, the Mayor thinking himself bound to +subserviency to the worthy official whom _he was cheating_. + +Seeing Crevel a mere child in the hands of that hideous and atrocious +mummy, of whose utter vileness the Mayor knew nothing; and seeing him, +yet more, an object of deep contempt to Valerie, who made game of +Crevel as of some mountebank, the Baron apparently thought him so +impossible as a rival that he constantly invited him to dinner. + +Valerie, protected by two lovers on guard, and by a jealous husband, +attracted every eye, and excited every desire in the circle she shone +upon. And thus, while keeping up appearances, she had, in the course +of three years, achieved the most difficult conditions of the success +a courtesan most cares for and most rarely attains, even with the help +of audacity and the glitter of an existence in the light of the sun. +Valerie's beauty, formerly buried in the mud of the Rue du Doyenne, +now, like a well-cut diamond exquisitely set by Chanor, was worth more +than its real value--it could break hearts. Claude Vignon adored +Valerie in secret. + + + +This retrospective explanation, quite necessary after the lapse of +three years, shows Valerie's balance-sheet. Now for that of her +partner, Lisbeth. + +Lisbeth Fischer filled the place in the Marneffe household of a +relation who combines the functions of a lady companion and a +housekeeper; but she suffered from none of the humiliations which, for +the most part, weigh upon the women who are so unhappy as to be +obliged to fill these ambiguous situations. Lisbeth and Valerie +offered the touching spectacle of one of those friendships between +women, so cordial and so improbable, that men, always too keen-tongued +in Paris, forthwith slander them. The contrast between Lisbeth's dry +masculine nature and Valerie's creole prettiness encouraged calumny. +And Madame Marneffe had unconsciously given weight to the scandal by +the care she took of her friend, with matrimonial views, which were, +as will be seen, to complete Lisbeth's revenge. + +An immense change had taken place in Cousin Betty; and Valerie, who +wanted to smarten her, had turned it to the best account. The strange +woman had submitted to stays, and laced tightly, she used bandoline to +keep her hair smooth, wore her gowns as the dressmaker sent them home, +neat little boots, and gray silk stockings, all of which were included +in Valerie's bills, and paid for by the gentleman in possession. Thus +furbished up, and wearing the yellow cashmere shawl, Lisbeth would +have been unrecognizable by any one who had not seen her for three +years. + +This other diamond--a black diamond, the rarest of all--cut by a +skilled hand, and set as best became her, was appreciated at her full +value by certain ambitious clerks. Any one seeing her for the first +time might have shuddered involuntarily at the look of poetic wildness +which the clever Valerie had succeeded in bringing out by the arts of +dress in this Bleeding Nun, framing the ascetic olive face in thick +bands of hair as black as the fiery eyes, and making the most of the +rigid, slim figure. Lisbeth, like a Virgin by Cranach or Van Eyck, or +a Byzantine Madonna stepped out of its frame, had all the stiffness, +the precision of those mysterious figures, the more modern cousins of +Isis and her sister goddesses sheathed in marble folds by Egyptian +sculptors. It was granite, basalt, porphyry, with life and movement. + +Saved from want for the rest of her life, Lisbeth was most amiable; +wherever she dined she brought merriment. And the Baron paid the rent +of her little apartment, furnished, as we know, with the leavings of +her friend Valerie's former boudoir and bedroom. + +"I began," she would say, "as a hungry nanny goat, and I am ending as +a _lionne_." + +She still worked for Monsieur Rivet at the more elaborate kinds of +gold-trimming, merely, as she said, not to lose her time. At the same +time, she was, as we shall see, very full of business; but it is +inherent in the nature of country-folks never to give up +bread-winning; in this they are like the Jews. + +Every morning, very early, Cousin Betty went off to market with the +cook. It was part of Lisbeth's scheme that the house-book, which was +ruining Baron Hulot, was to enrich her dear Valerie--as it did indeed. + +Is there a housewife who, since 1838, has not suffered from the evil +effects of Socialist doctrines diffused among the lower classes by +incendiary writers? In every household the plague of servants is +nowadays the worst of financial afflictions. With very few exceptions, +who ought to be rewarded with the Montyon prize, the cook, male or +female, is a domestic robber, a thief taking wages, and perfectly +barefaced, with the Government for a fence, developing the tendency to +dishonesty, which is almost authorized in the cook by the time-honored +jest as to the "handle of the basket." The women who formerly picked +up their forty sous to buy a lottery ticket now take fifty francs to +put into the savings bank. And the smug Puritans who amuse themselves +in France with philanthropic experiments fancy that they are making +the common people moral! + +Between the market and the master's table the servants have their +secret toll, and the municipality of Paris is less sharp in collecting +the city-dues than the servants are in taking theirs on every single +thing. To say nothing of fifty per cent charged on every form of food, +they demand large New Year's premiums from the tradesmen. The best +class of dealers tremble before this occult power, and subsidize it +without a word--coachmakers, jewelers, tailors, and all. If any +attempt is made to interfere with them, the servants reply with +impudent retorts, or revenge themselves by the costly blunders of +assumed clumsiness; and in these days they inquire into their master's +character as, formerly, the master inquired into theirs. This mischief +is now really at its height, and the law-courts are beginning to take +cognizance of it; but in vain, for it cannot be remedied but by a law +which shall compel domestic servants, like laborers, to have a +pass-book as a guarantee of conduct. Then the evil will vanish as if +by magic. If every servant were obliged to show his pass-book, and if +masters were required to state in it the cause of his dismissal, this +would certainly prove a powerful check to the evil. + +The men who are giving their attentions to the politics of the day +know not to what lengths the depravity of the lower classes has gone. +Statistics are silent as to the startling number of working men of +twenty who marry cooks of between forty and fifty enriched by robbery. +We shudder to think of the result of such unions from the three points +of view of increasing crime, degeneracy of the race, and miserable +households. + +As to the mere financial mischief that results from domestic +peculation, that too is immense from a political point of view. Life +being made to cost double, any superfluity becomes impossible in most +households. Now superfluity means half the trade of the world, as it +is half the elegance of life. Books and flowers are to many persons as +necessary as bread. + +Lisbeth, well aware of this dreadful scourge of Parisian households, +determined to manage Valerie's, promising her every assistance in the +terrible scene when the two women had sworn to be like sisters. So she +had brought from the depths of the Vosges a humble relation on her +mother's side, a very pious and honest soul, who had been cook to the +Bishop of Nancy. Fearing, however, her inexperience of Paris ways, and +yet more the evil counsel which wrecks such fragile virtue, at first +Lisbeth always went to market with Mathurine, and tried to teach her +what to buy. To know the real prices of things and command the +salesman's respect; to purchase unnecessary delicacies, such as fish, +only when they were cheap; to be well informed as to the price current +of groceries and provisions, so as to buy when prices are low in +anticipation of a rise,--all this housekeeping skill is in Paris +essential to domestic economy. As Mathurine got good wages and many +presents, she liked the house well enough to be glad to drive good +bargains. And by this time Lisbeth had made her quite a match for +herself, sufficiently experienced and trustworthy to be sent to market +alone, unless Valerie was giving a dinner--which, in fact, was not +unfrequently the case. And this was how it came about. + +The Baron had at first observed the strictest decorum; but his passion +for Madame Marneffe had ere long become so vehement, so greedy, that +he would never quit her if he could help it. At first he dined there +four times a week; then he thought it delightful to dine with her +every day. Six months after his daughter's marriage he was paying her +two thousand francs a month for his board. Madame Marneffe invited any +one her dear Baron wished to entertain. The dinner was always arranged +for six; he could bring in three unexpected guests. Lisbeth's economy +enabled her to solve the extraordinary problem of keeping up the table +in the best style for a thousand francs a month, giving the other +thousand to Madame Marneffe. Valerie's dress being chiefly paid for by +Crevel and the Baron, the two women saved another thousand francs a +month on this. + +And so this pure and innocent being had already accumulated a hundred +and fifty thousand francs in savings. She had capitalized her income +and monthly bonus, and swelled the amount by enormous interest, due to +Crevel's liberality in allowing his "little Duchess" to invest her +money in partnership with him in his financial operations. Crevel had +taught Valerie the slang and the procedure of the money market, and, +like every Parisian woman, she had soon outstripped her master. +Lisbeth, who never spent a sou of her twelve hundred francs, whose +rent and dress were given to her, and who never put her hand in her +pocket, had likewise a small capital of five or six thousand francs, +of which Crevel took fatherly care. + +At the same time, two such lovers were a heavy burthen on Valerie. On +the day when this drama reopens, Valerie, spurred by one of those +incidents which have the effect in life that the ringing of a bell has +in inducing a swarm of bees to settle, went up to Lisbeth's rooms to +give vent to one of those comforting lamentations--a sort of cigarette +blown off from the tongue--by which women alleviate the minor miseries +of life. + +"Oh, Lisbeth, my love, two hours of Crevel this morning! It is +crushing! How I wish I could send you in my place!" + +"That, unluckily, is impossible," said Lisbeth, smiling. "I shall die +a maid." + +"Two old men lovers! Really, I am ashamed sometimes! If my poor mother +could see me." + +"You are mistaking me for Crevel!" said Lisbeth. + +"Tell me, my little Betty, do you not despise me?" + +"Oh! if I had but been pretty, what adventures I would have had!" +cried Lisbeth. "That is your justification." + +"But you would have acted only at the dictates of your heart," said +Madame Marneffe, with a sigh. + +"Pooh! Marneffe is a dead man they have forgotten to bury," replied +Lisbeth. "The Baron is as good as your husband; Crevel is your adorer; +it seems to me that you are quite in order--like every other married +woman." + +"No, it is not that, dear, adorable thing; that is not where the shoe +pinches; you do not choose to understand." + +"Yes, I do," said Lisbeth. "The unexpressed factor is part of my +revenge; what can I do? I am working it out." + +"I love Wenceslas so that I am positively growing thin, and I can +never see him," said Valerie, throwing up her arms. "Hulot asks him to +dinner, and my artist declines. He does not know that I idolize him, +the wretch! What is his wife after all? Fine flesh! Yes, she is +handsome, but I--I know myself--I am worse!" + +"Be quite easy, my child, he will come," said Lisbeth, in the tone of +a nurse to an impatient child. "He shall." + +"But when?" + +"This week perhaps." + +"Give me a kiss." + +As may be seen, these two women were but one. Everything Valerie did, +even her most reckless actions, her pleasures, her little sulks, were +decided on after serious deliberation between them. + +Lisbeth, strangely excited by this harlot existence, advised Valerie +on every step, and pursued her course of revenge with pitiless logic. +She really adored Valerie; she had taken her to be her child, her +friend, her love; she found her docile, as Creoles are, yielding from +voluptuous indolence; she chattered with her morning after morning +with more pleasure than with Wenceslas; they could laugh together over +the mischief they plotted, and over the folly of men, and count up the +swelling interest on their respective savings. + +Indeed, in this new enterprise and new affection, Lisbeth had found +food for her activity that was far more satisfying than her insane +passion for Wenceslas. The joys of gratified hatred are the fiercest +and strongest the heart can know. Love is the gold, hatred the iron of +the mine of feeling that lies buried in us. And then, Valerie was, to +Lisbeth, Beauty in all its glory--the beauty she worshiped, as we +worship what we have not, beauty far more plastic to her hand than +that of Wenceslas, who had always been cold to her and distant. + +At the end of nearly three years, Lisbeth was beginning to perceive +the progress of the underground mine on which she was expending her +life and concentrating her mind. Lisbeth planned, Madame Marneffe +acted. Madame Marneffe was the axe, Lisbeth was the hand the wielded +it, and that hand was rapidly demolishing the family which was every +day more odious to her; for we can hate more and more, just as, when +we love, we love better every day. + +Love and hatred are feelings that feed on themselves; but of the two, +hatred has the longer vitality. Love is restricted within limits of +power; it derives its energies from life and from lavishness. Hatred +is like death, like avarice; it is, so to speak, an active +abstraction, above beings and things. + +Lisbeth, embarked on the existence that was natural to her, expended +in it all her faculties; governing, like the Jesuits, by occult +influences. The regeneration of her person was equally complete; her +face was radiant. Lisbeth dreamed of becoming Madame la Marechale +Hulot. + +This little scene, in which the two friends had bluntly uttered their +ideas without any circumlocution in expressing them, took place +immediately on Lisbeth's return from market, whither she had been to +procure the materials for an elegant dinner. Marneffe, who hoped to +get Coquet's place, was to entertain him and the virtuous Madame +Coquet, and Valerie hoped to persuade Hulot, that very evening, to +consider the head-clerk's resignation. + +Lisbeth dressed to go to the Baroness, with whom she was to dine. + +"You will come back in time to make tea for us, my Betty?" said +Valerie. + +"I hope so." + +"You hope so--why? Have you come to sleeping with Adeline to drink her +tears while she is asleep?" + +"If only I could!" said Lisbeth, laughing. "I would not refuse. She is +expiating her happiness--and I am glad, for I remember our young days. +It is my turn now. She will be in the mire, and I shall be Comtesse de +Forzheim!" + +Lisbeth set out for the Rue Plumet, where she now went as to the +theatre--to indulge her emotions. + + + +The residence Hulot had found for his wife consisted of a large, bare +entrance-room, a drawing-room, and a bed and dressing-room. The +dining-room was next the drawing-room on one side. Two servants' rooms +and a kitchen on the third floor completed the accommodation, which +was not unworthy of a Councillor of State, high up in the War Office. +The house, the court-yard, and the stairs were extremely handsome. + +The Baroness, who had to furnish her drawing-room, bed-room, and +dining-room with the relics of her splendor, had brought away the best +of the remains from the house in the Rue de l'Universite. Indeed, the +poor woman was attached to these mute witnesses of her happier life; +to her they had an almost consoling eloquence. In memory she saw her +flowers, as in the carpets she could trace patterns hardly visible now +to other eyes. + +On going into the spacious anteroom, where twelve chairs, a barometer, +a large stove, and long, white cotton curtains, bordered with red, +suggested the dreadful waiting-room of a Government office, the +visitor felt oppressed, conscious at once of the isolation in which +the mistress lived. Grief, like pleasure, infects the atmosphere. A +first glance into any home is enough to tell you whether love or +despair reigns there. + +Adeline would be found sitting in an immense bedroom with beautiful +furniture by Jacob Desmalters, of mahogany finished in the Empire +style with ormolu, which looks even less inviting than the brass-work +of Louis XVI.! It gave one a shiver to see this lonely woman sitting +on a Roman chair, a work-table with sphinxes before her, colorless, +affecting false cheerfulness, but preserving her imperial air, as she +had preserved the blue velvet gown she always wore in the house. Her +proud spirit sustained her strength and preserved her beauty. + +The Baroness, by the end of her first year of banishment to this +apartment, had gauged every depth of misfortune. + +"Still, even here my Hector has made my life much handsomer than it +should be for a mere peasant," said she to herself. "He chooses that +it should be so; his will be done! I am Baroness Hulot, the +sister-in-law of a Marshal of France. I have done nothing wrong; my +two children are settled in life; I can wait for death, wrapped in +the spotless veil of an immaculate wife and the crape of departed +happiness." + +A portrait of Hulot, in the uniform of a Commissary General of the +Imperial Guard, painted in 1810 by Robert Lefebvre, hung above the +work-table, and when visitors were announced, Adeline threw into a +drawer an _Imitation of Jesus Christ_, her habitual study. This +blameless Magdalen thus heard the Voice of the Spirit in her desert. + +"Mariette, my child," said Lisbeth to the woman who opened the door, +"how is my dear Adeline to-day?" + +"Oh, she looks pretty well, mademoiselle; but between you and me, if +she goes on in this way, she will kill herself," said Mariette in a +whisper. "You really ought to persuade her to live better. Now, +yesterday madame told me to give her two sous' worth of milk and a +roll for one sou; to get her a herring for dinner and a bit of cold +veal; she had a pound cooked to last her the week--of course, for the +days when she dines at home and alone. She will not spend more than +ten sous a day for her food. It is unreasonable. If I were to say +anything about it to Monsieur le Marechal, he might quarrel with +Monsieur le Baron and leave him nothing, whereas you, who are so kind +and clever, can manage things----" + +"But why do you not apply to my cousin the Baron?" said Lisbeth. + +"Oh, dear mademoiselle, he has not been here for three weeks or more; +in fact, not since we last had the pleasure of seeing you! Besides, +madame has forbidden me, under threat of dismissal, ever to ask the +master for money. But as for grief!--oh, poor lady, she has been very +unhappy. It is the first time that monsieur has neglected her for so +long. Every time the bell rang she rushed to the window--but for the +last five days she has sat still in her chair. She reads. Whenever she +goes out to see Madame la Comtesse, she says, 'Mariette, if monsieur +comes in,' says she, 'tell him I am at home, and send the porter to +fetch me; he shall be well paid for his trouble.'" + +"Poor soul!" said Lisbeth; "it goes to my heart. I speak of her to the +Baron every day. What can I do? 'Yes,' says he, 'Betty, you are right; +I am a wretch. My wife is an angel, and I am a monster! I will go +to-morrow----' And he stays with Madame Marneffe. That woman is +ruining him, and he worships her; he lives only in her sight.--I do +what I can; if I were not there, and if I had not Mathurine to depend +upon, he would spend twice as much as he does; and as he has hardly +any money in the world, he would have blown his brains out by this +time. And, I tell you, Mariette, Adeline would die of her husband's +death, I am perfectly certain. At any rate, I pull to make both ends +meet, and prevent my cousin from throwing too much money into the +fire." + +"Yes, that is what madame says, poor soul! She knows how much she owes +you," replied Mariette. "She said she had judged you unjustly for many +years----" + +"Indeed!" said Lisbeth. "And did she say anything else?" + +"No, mademoiselle. If you wish to please her, talk to her about +Monsieur le Baron; she envies you your happiness in seeing him every +day." + +"Is she alone?" + +"I beg pardon, no; the Marshal is with her. He comes every day, and +she always tells him she saw monsieur in the morning, but that he +comes in very late at night." + +"And is there a good dinner to-day?" + +Mariette hesitated; she could not meet Lisbeth's eye. The drawing-room +door opened, and Marshal Hulot rushed out in such haste that he bowed +to Lisbeth without looking at her, and dropped a paper. Lisbeth picked +it up and ran after him downstairs, for it was vain to hail a deaf +man; but she managed not to overtake the Marshal, and as she came up +again she furtively read the following lines written in pencil:-- + + "MY DEAR BROTHER,--My husband has given me the money for my + quarter's expenses; but my daughter Hortense was in such need of + it, that I lent her the whole sum, which was scarcely enough to + set her straight. Could you lend me a few hundred francs? For I + cannot ask Hector for more; if he were to blame me, I could not + bear it." + +"My word!" thought Lisbeth, "she must be in extremities to bend her +pride to such a degree!" + +Lisbeth went in. She saw tears in Adeline's eyes, and threw her arms +round her neck. + +"Adeline, my dearest, I know all," cried Cousin Betty. "Here, the +Marshal dropped this paper--he was in such a state of mind, and +running like a greyhound.--Has that dreadful Hector given you no money +since----?" + +"He gives it me quite regularly," replied the Baroness, "but Hortense +needed it, and--" + +"And you had not enough to pay for dinner to-night," said Lisbeth, +interrupting her. "Now I understand why Mariette looked so confused +when I said something about the soup. You really are childish, +Adeline; come, take my savings." + +"Thank you, my kind cousin," said Adeline, wiping away a tear. "This +little difficulty is only temporary, and I have provided for the +future. My expenses henceforth will be no more than two thousand four +hundred francs a year, rent inclusive, and I shall have the money. +--Above all, Betty, not a word to Hector. Is he well?" + +"As strong as the Pont Neuf, and as gay as a lark; he thinks of +nothing but his charmer Valerie." + +Madame Hulot looked out at a tall silver-fir in front of the window, +and Lisbeth could not see her cousin's eyes to read their expression. + +"Did you mention that it was the day when we all dine together here?" + +"Yes. But, dear me! Madame Marneffe is giving a grand dinner; she +hopes to get Monsieur Coquet to resign, and that is of the first +importance.--Now, Adeline, listen to me. You know that I am fiercely +proud as to my independence. Your husband, my dear, will certainly +bring you to ruin. I fancied I could be of use to you all by living +near this woman, but she is a creature of unfathomable depravity, and +she will make your husband promise things which will bring you all to +disgrace." Adeline writhed like a person stabbed to the heart. "My +dear Adeline, I am sure of what I say. I feel it is my duty to +enlighten you.--Well, let us think of the future. The Marshal is an +old man, but he will last a long time yet--he draws good pay; when he +dies his widow would have a pension of six thousand francs. On such an +income I would undertake to maintain you all. Use your influence over +the good man to get him to marry me. It is not for the sake of being +Madame la Marechale; I value such nonsense at no more than I value +Madame Marneffe's conscience; but you will all have bread. I see that +Hortense must be wanting it, since you give her yours." + +The Marshal now came in; he had made such haste, that he was mopping +his forehead with his bandana. + +"I have given Mariette two thousand francs," he whispered to his +sister-in-law. + +Adeline colored to the roots of her hair. Two tears hung on the +fringes of the still long lashes, and she silently pressed the old +man's hand; his beaming face expressed the glee of a favored lover. + +"I intended to spend the money in a present for you, Adeline," said +he. "Instead of repaying me, you must choose for yourself the thing +you would like best." + +He took Lisbeth's hand, which she held out to him, and so bewildered +was he by his satisfaction, that he kissed it. + +"That looks promising," said Adeline to Lisbeth, smiling so far as she +was able to smile. + +The younger Hulot and his wife now came in. + +"Is my brother coming to dinner?" asked the Marshal sharply. + +Adeline took up a pencil and wrote these words on a scrap of paper: + +"I expect him; he promised this morning that he would be here; but if +he should not come, it would be because the Marshal kept him. He is +overwhelmed with business." + +And she handed him the paper. She had invented this way of conversing +with Marshal Hulot, and kept a little collection of paper scraps and a +pencil at hand on the work-table. + +"I know," said the Marshal, "he is worked very hard over the business +in Algiers." + +At this moment, Hortense and Wenceslas arrived, and the Baroness, as +she saw all her family about her, gave the Marshal a significant +glance understood by none but Lisbeth. + +Happiness had greatly improved the artist, who was adored by his wife +and flattered by the world. His face had become almost round, and his +graceful figure did justice to the advantages which blood gives to men +of birth. His early fame, his important position, the delusive +eulogies that the world sheds on artists as lightly as we say, "How +d'ye do?" or discuss the weather, gave him that high sense of merit +which degenerates into sheer fatuity when talent wanes. The Cross of +the Legion of Honor was the crowning stamp of the great man he +believed himself to be. + +After three years of married life, Hortense was to her husband what a +dog is to its master; she watched his every movement with a look that +seemed a constant inquiry, her eyes were always on him, like those of +a miser on his treasure; her admiring abnegation was quite pathetic. +In her might be seen her mother's spirit and teaching. Her beauty, as +great as ever, was poetically touched by the gentle shadow of +concealed melancholy. + +On seeing Hortense come in, it struck Lisbeth that some +long-suppressed complaint was about to break through the thin veil of +reticence. Lisbeth, from the first days of the honeymoon, had been +sure that this couple had too small an income for so great a passion. + +Hortense, as she embraced her mother, exchanged with her a few +whispered phrases, heart to heart, of which the mystery was betrayed +to Lisbeth by certain shakes of the head. + +"Adeline, like me, must work for her living," thought Cousin Betty. +"She shall be made to tell me what she will do! Those pretty fingers +will know at last, like mine, what it is to work because they must." + +At six o'clock the family party went in to dinner. A place was laid +for Hector. + +"Leave it so," said the Baroness to Mariette, "monsieur sometimes +comes in late." + +"Oh, my father will certainly come," said Victorin to his mother. "He +promised me he would when we parted at the Chamber." + +Lisbeth, like a spider in the middle of its net, gloated over all +these countenances. Having known Victorin and Hortense from their +birth, their faces were to her like panes of glass, through which she +could read their young souls. Now, from certain stolen looks directed +by Victorin on his mother, she saw that some disaster was hanging over +Adeline which Victorin hesitated to reveal. The famous young lawyer +had some covert anxiety. His deep reverence for his mother was evident +in the regret with which he gazed at her. + +Hortense was evidently absorbed in her own woes; for a fortnight past, +as Lisbeth knew, she had been suffering the first uneasiness which +want of money brings to honest souls, and to young wives on whom life +has hitherto smiled, and who conceal their alarms. Also Lisbeth had +immediately guessed that her mother had given her no money. Adeline's +delicacy had brought her so low as to use the fallacious excuses that +necessity suggests to borrowers. + +Hortense's absence of mind, with her brother's and the Baroness' deep +dejection, made the dinner a melancholy meal, especially with the +added chill of the Marshal's utter deafness. Three persons gave a +little life to the scene: Lisbeth, Celestine, and Wenceslas. +Hortense's affection had developed the artist's natural liveliness as +a Pole, the somewhat swaggering vivacity and noisy high spirits that +characterize these Frenchmen of the North. His frame of mind and the +expression of his face showed plainly that he believed in himself, and +that poor Hortense, faithful to her mother's training, kept all +domestic difficulties to herself. + +"You must be content, at any rate," said Lisbeth to her young cousin, +as they rose from table, "since your mother has helped you with her +money." + +"Mamma!" replied Hortense in astonishment. "Oh, poor mamma! It is for +me that she would like to make money. You do not know, Lisbeth, but I +have a horrible suspicion that she works for it in secret." + +They were crossing the large, dark drawing-room where there were no +candles, all following Mariette, who was carrying the lamp into +Adeline's bedroom. At this instant Victorin just touched Lisbeth and +Hortense on the arm. The two women, understanding the hint, left +Wenceslas, Celestine, the Marshal, and the Baroness to go on together, +and remained standing in a window-bay. + +"What is it, Victorin?" said Lisbeth. "Some disaster caused by your +father, I dare wager." + +"Yes, alas!" replied Victorin. "A money-lender named Vauvinet has +bills of my father's to the amount of sixty thousand francs, and wants +to prosecute. I tried to speak of the matter to my father at the +Chamber, but he would not understand me; he almost avoided me. Had we +better tell my mother?" + +"No, no," said Lisbeth, "she has too many troubles; it would be a +death-blow; you must spare her. You have no idea how low she has +fallen. But for your uncle, you would have found no dinner here this +evening." + +"Dear Heaven! Victorin, what wretches we are!" said Hortense to her +brother. "We ought to have guessed what Lisbeth has told us. My dinner +is choking me!" + +Hortense could say no more; she covered her mouth with her +handkerchief to smother a sob, and melted into tears. + +"I told the fellow Vauvinet to call on me to-morrow," replied +Victorin, "but will he be satisfied by my guarantee on a mortgage? I +doubt it. Those men insist on ready money to sweat others on usurious +terms." + +"Let us sell out of the funds!" said Lisbeth to Hortense. + +"What good would that do?" replied Victorin. "It would bring fifteen +or sixteen thousand francs, and we want sixty thousand." + +"Dear cousin!" cried Hortense, embracing Lisbeth with the enthusiasm +of guilelessness. + +"No, Lisbeth, keep your little fortune," said Victorin, pressing the +old maid's hand. "I shall see to-morrow what this man would be up to. +With my wife's consent, I can at least hinder or postpone the +prosecution--for it would really be frightful to see my father's honor +impugned. What would the War Minister say? My father's salary, which +he pledged for three years, will not be released before the month of +December, so we cannot offer that as a guarantee. This Vauvinet has +renewed the bills eleven times; so you may imagine what my father must +pay in interest. We must close this pit." + +"If only Madame Marneffe would throw him over!" said Hortense +bitterly. + +"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Victorin. "He would take up some one else; +and with her, at any rate, the worst outlay is over." + +What a change in children formerly so respectful, and kept so long by +their mother in blind worship of their father! They knew him now for +what he was. + +"But for me," said Lisbeth, "your father's ruin would be more complete +than it is." + +"Come in to mamma," said Hortense; "she is very sharp, and will +suspect something; as our kind Lisbeth says, let us keep everything +from her--let us be cheerful." + +"Victorin," said Lisbeth, "you have no notion of what your father will +be brought to by his passion for women. Try to secure some future +resource by getting the Marshal to marry me. Say something about it +this evening; I will leave early on purpose." + +Victorin went into the bedroom. + +"And you, poor little thing!" said Lisbeth in an undertone to +Hortense, "what can you do?" + +"Come to dinner with us to-morrow, and we will talk it over," answered +Hortense. "I do not know which way to turn; you know how hard life is, +and you will advise me." + + + +While the whole family with one consent tried to persuade the Marshal +to marry, and while Lisbeth was making her way home to the Rue +Vanneau, one of those incidents occurred which, in such women as +Madame Marneffe, are a stimulus to vice by compelling them to exert +their energy and every resource of depravity. One fact, at any rate, +must however be acknowledged: life in Paris is too full for vicious +persons to do wrong instinctively and unprovoked; vice is only a +weapon of defence against aggressors--that is all. + +Madame Marneffe's drawing-room was full of her faithful admirers, and +she had just started the whist-tables, when the footman, a pensioned +soldier recruited by the Baron, announced: + +"Monsieur le Baron Montes de Montejanos." + +Valerie's heart jumped, but she hurried to the door, exclaiming: + +"My cousin!" and as she met the Brazilian, she whispered: + +"You are my relation--or all is at an end between us!--And so you were +not wrecked, Henri?" she went on audibly, as she led him to the fire. +"I heard you were lost, and have mourned for you these three years." + +"How are you, my good fellow?" said Marneffe, offering his hand to the +stranger, whose get-up was indeed that of a Brazilian and a +millionaire. + +Monsieur le Baron Henri Montes de Montejanos, to whom the climate of +the equator had given the color and stature we expect to see in +Othello on the stage, had an alarming look of gloom, but it was a +merely pictorial illusion; for, sweet and affectionate by nature, he +was predestined to be the victim that a strong man often is to a weak +woman. The scorn expressed in his countenance, the muscular strength +of his stalwart frame, all his physical powers were shown only to his +fellow-men; a form of flattery which women appreciate, nay, which so +intoxicates them, that every man with his mistress on his arm assumes +a matador swagger that provokes a smile. Very well set up, in a +closely fitting blue coat with solid gold buttons, in black trousers, +spotless patent evening boots, and gloves of a fashionable hue, the +only Brazilian touch in the Baron's costume was a large diamond, worth +about a hundred thousand francs, which blazed like a star on a +handsome blue silk cravat, tucked into a white waistcoat in such a way +as to show corners of a fabulously fine shirt front. + +His brow, bossy like that of a satyr, a sign of tenacity in his +passions, was crowned by thick jet-black hair like a virgin forest, +and under it flashed a pair of hazel eyes, so wild looking as to +suggest that before his birth his mother must have been scared by a +jaguar. + +This fine specimen of the Portuguese race in Brazil took his stand +with his back to the fire, in an attitude that showed familiarity with +Paris manners; holding his hat in one hand, his elbow resting on the +velvet-covered shelf, he bent over Madame Marneffe, talking to her in +an undertone, and troubling himself very little about the dreadful +people who, in his opinion, were so very much in the way. + +This fashion of taking the stage, with the Brazilian's attitude and +expression, gave, alike to Crevel and to the baron, an identical shock +of curiosity and anxiety. Both were struck by the same impression and +the same surmise. And the manoeuvre suggested in each by their very +genuine passion was so comical in its simultaneous results, that it +made everybody smile who was sharp enough to read its meaning. Crevel, +a tradesman and shopkeeper to the backbone, though a mayor of Paris, +unluckily, was a little slower to move than his rival partner, and +this enabled the Baron to read at a glance Crevel's involuntary +self-betrayal. This was a fresh arrow to rankle in the very amorous +old man's heart, and he resolved to have an explanation from Valerie. + +"This evening," said Crevel to himself too, as he sorted his hand, "I +must know where I stand." + +"You have a heart!" cried Marneffe. "You have just revoked." + +"I beg your pardon," said Crevel, trying to withdraw his card.--"This +Baron seems to me very much in the way," he went on, thinking to +himself. "If Valerie carries on with my Baron, well and good--it is a +means to my revenge, and I can get rid of him if I choose; but as for +this cousin!--He is one Baron too many; I do not mean to be made a +fool of. I will know how they are related." + +That evening, by one of those strokes of luck which come to pretty +women, Valerie was charmingly dressed. Her white bosom gleamed under a +lace tucker of rusty white, which showed off the satin texture of her +beautiful shoulders--for Parisian women, Heaven knows how, have some +way of preserving their fine flesh and remaining slender. She wore a +black velvet gown that looked as if it might at any moment slip off +her shoulders, and her hair was dressed with lace and drooping +flowers. Her arms, not fat but dimpled, were graced by deep ruffles to +her sleeves. She was like a luscious fruit coquettishly served in a +handsome dish, and making the knife-blade long to be cutting it. + +"Valerie," the Brazilian was saying in her ear, "I have come back +faithful to you. My uncle is dead; I am twice as rich as I was when I +went away. I mean to live and die in Paris, for you and with you." + +"Lower, Henri, I implore you----" + +"Pooh! I mean to speak to you this evening, even if I should have to +pitch all these creatures out of window, especially as I have lost two +days in looking for you. I shall stay till the last.--I can, I +suppose?" + +Valerie smiled at her adopted cousin, and said: + +"Remember that you are the son of my mother's sister, who married your +father during Junot's campaign in Portugal." + +"What, I, Montes de Montejanos, great grandson of a conquerer of +Brazil! Tell a lie?" + +"Hush, lower, or we shall never meet again." + +"Pray, why?" + +"Marneffe, like all dying wretches, who always take up some last whim, +has a revived passion for me----" + +"That cur?" said the Brazilian, who knew his Marneffe; "I will settle +him!" + +"What violence!" + +"And where did you get all this splendor?" the Brazilian went on, just +struck by the magnificence of the apartment. + +She began to laugh. + +"Henri! what bad taste!" said she. + +She had felt two burning flashes of jealousy which had moved her so +far as to make her look at the two souls in purgatory. Crevel, playing +against Baron Hulot and Monsieur Coquet, had Marneffe for his partner. +The game was even, because Crevel and the Baron were equally +absent-minded, and made blunder after blunder. Thus, in one instant, +the old men both confessed the passion which Valerie had persuaded them +to keep secret for the past three years; but she too had failed to hide +the joy in her eyes at seeing the man who had first taught her heart +to beat, the object of her first love. The rights of such happy +mortals survive as long as the woman lives over whom they have +acquired them. + +With these three passions at her side--one supported by the insolence +of wealth, the second by the claims of possession, and the third by +youth, strength, fortune, and priority--Madame Marneffe preserved her +coolness and presence of mind, like General Bonaparte when, at the +siege of Mantua, he had to fight two armies, and at the same time +maintain the blockade. + +Jealousy, distorting Hulot's face, made him look as terrible as the +late Marshal Montcornet leading a cavalry charge against a Russian +square. Being such a handsome man, he had never known any ground for +jealousy, any more than Murat knew what it was to be afraid. He had +always felt sure that he should triumph. His rebuff by Josepha, the +first he had ever met, he ascribed to her love of money; "he was +conquered by millions, and not by a changeling," he would say when +speaking of the Duc d'Herouville. And now, in one instant, the poison +and delirium that the mad passion sheds in a flood had rushed to his +heart. He kept turning from the whist-table towards the fireplace with +an action _a la_ Mirabeau; and as he laid down his cards to cast a +challenging glance at the Brazilian and Valerie, the rest of the +company felt the sort of alarm mingled with curiosity that is caused +by evident violence ready to break out at any moment. The sham cousin +stared at Hulot as he might have looked at some big China mandarin. + +This state of things could not last; it was bound to end in some +tremendous outbreak. Marneffe was as much afraid of Hulot as Crevel +was of Marneffe, for he was anxious not to die a mere clerk. Men +marked for death believe in life as galley-slaves believe in liberty; +this man was bent on being a first-class clerk at any cost. Thoroughly +frightened by the pantomime of the Baron and Crevel, he rose, said a +few words in his wife's ear, and then, to the surprise of all, Valerie +went into the adjoining bedroom with the Brazilian and her husband. + +"Did Madame Marneffe ever speak to you of this cousin of hers?" said +Crevel to Hulot. + +"Never!" replied the Baron, getting up. "That is enough for this +evening," said he. "I have lost two louis--there they are." + +He threw the two gold pieces on the table, and seated himself on the +sofa with a look which everybody else took as a hint to go. Monsieur +and Madame Coquet, after exchanging a few words, left the room, and +Claude Vignon, in despair, followed their example. These two +departures were a hint to less intelligent persons, who now found that +they were not wanted. The Baron and Crevel were left together, and +spoke never a word. Hulot, at last, ignoring Crevel, went on tiptoe to +listen at the bedroom door; but he bounded back with a prodigious +jump, for Marneffe opened the door and appeared with a calm face, +astonished to find only the two men. + +"And the tea?" said he. + +"Where is Valerie?" replied the Baron in a rage. + +"My wife," said Marneffe. "She is gone upstairs to speak to +mademoiselle your cousin. She will come down directly." + +"And why has she deserted us for that stupid creature?" + +"Well," said Marneffe, "Mademoiselle Lisbeth came back from dining +with the Baroness with an attack of indigestion and Mathurine asked +Valerie for some tea for her, so my wife went up to see what was the +matter." + +"And _her_ cousin?" + +"He is gone." + +"Do you really believe that?" said the Baron. + +"I have seen him to his carriage," replied Marneffe, with a hideous +smirk. + +The wheels of a departing carriage were audible in the street. The +Baron, counting Marneffe for nothing, went upstairs to Lisbeth. An +idea flashed through him such as the heart sends to the brain when it +is on fire with jealousy. Marneffe's baseness was so well known to +him, that he could imagine the most degrading connivance between +husband and wife. + +"What has become of all the ladies and gentlemen?" said Marneffe, +finding himself alone with Crevel. + +"When the sun goes to bed, the cocks and hens follow suit," said +Crevel. "Madame Marneffe disappeared, and her adorers departed. Will +you play a game of piquet?" added Crevel, who meant to remain. + +He too believed that the Brazilian was in the house. + +Monsieur Marneffe agreed. The Mayor was a match for the Baron. Simply +by playing cards with the husband he could stay on indefinitely; and +Marneffe, since the suppression of the public tables, was quite +satisfied with the more limited opportunities of private play. + +Baron Hulot went quickly up to Lisbeth's apartment, but the door was +locked, and the usual inquiries through the door took up time enough +to enable the two light-handed and cunning women to arrange the scene +of an attack of indigestion with the accessories of tea. Lisbeth was +in such pain that Valerie was very much alarmed, and consequently +hardly paid any heed to the Baron's furious entrance. Indisposition is +one of the screens most often placed by women to ward off a quarrel. +Hulot peeped about, here and there, but could see no spot in Cousin +Betty's room where a Brazilian might lie hidden. + +"Your indigestion does honor to my wife's dinner, Lisbeth," said he, +scrutinizing her, for Lisbeth was perfectly well, trying to imitate +the hiccough of spasmodic indigestion as she drank her tea. + +"How lucky it is that dear Betty should be living under my roof!" said +Madame Marneffe. "But for me, the poor thing would have died." + +"You look as if you only half believed it," added Lisbeth, turning to +the Baron, "and that would be a shame----" + +"Why?" asked the Baron. "Do you know the purpose of my visit?" + +And he leered at the door of a dressing-closet from which the key had +been withdrawn. + +"Are you talking Greek?" said Madame Marneffe, with an appealing look +of misprized tenderness and devotedness. + +"But it is all through you, my dear cousin; yes, it is your doing that +I am in such a state," said Lisbeth vehemently. + +This speech diverted the Baron's attention; he looked at the old maid +with the greatest astonishment. + +"You know that I am devoted to you," said Lisbeth. "I am here, that +says everything. I am wearing out the last shreds of my strength in +watching over your interests, since they are one with our dear +Valerie's. Her house costs one-tenth of what any other does that is +kept on the same scale. But for me, Cousin, instead of two thousand +francs a month, you would be obliged to spend three or four thousand." + +"I know all that," replied the Baron out of patience; "you are our +protectress in many ways," he added, turning to Madame Marneffe and +putting his arm round her neck.--"Is not she, my pretty sweet?" + +"On my honor," exclaimed Valerie, "I believe you are gone mad!" + +"Well, you cannot doubt my attachment," said Lisbeth. "But I am also +very fond of my cousin Adeline, and I found her in tears. She has not +seen you for a month. Now that is really too bad; you leave my poor +Adeline without a sou. Your daughter Hortense almost died of it when +she was told that it is thanks to your brother that we had any dinner +at all. There was not even bread in your house this day. + +"Adeline is heroically resolved to keep her sufferings to herself. She +said to me, 'I will do as you have done!' The speech went to my heart; +and after dinner, as I thought of what my cousin had been in 1811, and +of what she is in 1841--thirty years after--I had a violent +indigestion.--I fancied I should get over it; but when I got home, I +thought I was dying--" + +"You see, Valerie, to what my adoration of you has brought me! To +crime--domestic crime!" + +"Oh! I was wise never to marry!" cried Lisbeth, with savage joy. "You +are a kind, good man; Adeline is a perfect angel;--and this is the +reward of her blind devotion." + +"An elderly angel!" said Madame Marneffe softly, as she looked half +tenderly, half mockingly, at her Hector, who was gazing at her as an +examining judge gazes at the accused. + +"My poor wife!" said Hulot. "For more than nine months I have given +her no money, though I find it for you, Valerie; but at what a cost! +No one else will ever love you so, and what torments you inflict on me +in return!" + +"Torments?" she echoed. "Then what do you call happiness?" + +"I do not yet know on what terms you have been with this so-called +cousin whom you never mentioned to me," said the Baron, paying no heed +to Valerie's interjection. "But when he came in I felt as if a +penknife had been stuck into my heart. Blinded I may be, but I am not +blind. I could read his eyes, and yours. In short, from under that +ape's eyelids there flashed sparks that he flung at you--and your +eyes!--Oh! you have never looked at me so, never! As to this mystery, +Valerie, it shall all be cleared up. You are the only woman who ever +made me know the meaning of jealousy, so you need not be surprised by +what I say.--But another mystery which has rent its cloud, and it +seems to me infamous----" + +"Go on, go on," said Valerie. + +"It is that Crevel, that square lump of flesh and stupidity, is in +love with you, and that you accept his attentions with so good a grace +that the idiot flaunts his passion before everybody." + +"Only three! Can you discover no more?" asked Madame Marneffe. + +"There may be more!" retorted the Baron. + +"If Monsieur Crevel is in love with me, he is in his rights as a man +after all; if I favored his passion, that would indeed be the act of a +coquette, or of a woman who would leave much to be desired on your +part.--Well, love me as you find me, or let me alone. If you restore +me to freedom, neither you nor Monsieur Crevel will ever enter my +doors again. But I will take up with my cousin, just to keep my hand +in, in those charming habits you suppose me to indulge.--Good-bye, +Monsieur le Baron Hulot." + +She rose, but the Baron took her by the arm and made her sit down +again. The old man could not do without Valerie. She had become more +imperatively indispensable to him than the necessaries of life; he +preferred remaining in uncertainty to having any proof of Valerie's +infidelity. + +"My dearest Valerie," said he, "do you not see how miserable I am? I +only ask you to justify yourself. Give me sufficient reasons--" + +"Well, go downstairs and wait for me; for I suppose you do not wish to +look on at the various ceremonies required by your cousin's state." + +Hulot slowly turned away. + +"You old profligate," cried Lisbeth, "you have not even asked me how +your children are? What are you going to do for Adeline? I, at any +rate, will take her my savings to-morrow." + +"You owe your wife white bread to eat at least," said Madame Marneffe, +smiling. + +The Baron, without taking offence at Lisbeth's tone, as despotic as +Josepha's, got out of the room, only too glad to escape so importunate +a question. + + + +The door bolted once more, the Brazilian came out of the +dressing-closet, where he had been waiting, and he appeared with his +eyes full of tears, in a really pitiable condition. Montes had heard +everything. + +"Henri, you must have ceased to love me, I know it!" said Madame +Marneffe, hiding her face in her handkerchief and bursting into tears. + +It was the outcry of real affection. The cry of a woman's despair is +so convincing that it wins the forgiveness that lurks at the bottom of +every lover's heart--when she is young and pretty, and wears a gown so +low that she could slip out at the top and stand in the garb of Eve. + +"But why, if you love me, do you not leave everything for my sake?" +asked the Brazilian. + +This South American born, being logical, as men are who have lived the +life of nature, at once resumed the conversation at the point where it +had been broken off, putting his arm round Valerie's waist. + +"Why?" she repeated, gazing up at Henri, whom she subjugated at once +by a look charged with passion, "why, my dear boy, I am married; we +are in Paris, not in the savannah, the pampas, the backwoods of +America.--My dear Henri, my first and only love, listen to me. That +husband of mine, a second clerk in the War Office, is bent on being a +head-clerk and officer of the Legion of Honor; can I help his being +ambitious? Now for the very reason that made him leave us our liberty +--nearly four years ago, do you remember, you bad boy?--he now +abandons me to Monsieur Hulot. I cannot get rid of that dreadful +official, who snorts like a grampus, who has fins in his nostrils, who +is sixty-three years old, and who had grown ten years older by dint of +trying to be young; who is so odious to me that the very day when +Marneffe is promoted, and gets his Cross of the Legion of Honor----" + +"How much more will your husband get then?" + +"A thousand crowns." + +"I will pay him as much in an annuity," said Baron Montes. "We will +leave Paris and go----" + +"Where?" said Valerie, with one of the pretty sneers by which a woman +makes fun of a man she is sure of. "Paris is the only place where we +can live happy. I care too much for your love to risk seeing it die +out in a _tete-a-tete_ in the wilderness. Listen, Henri, you are the +only man I care for in the whole world. Write that down clearly in +your tiger's brain." + +For women, when they have made a sheep of a man, always tell him that +he is a lion with a will of iron. + +"Now, attend to me. Monsieur Marneffe has not five years to live; he +is rotten to the marrow of his bones. He spends seven months of the +twelve in swallowing drugs and decoctions; he lives wrapped in +flannel; in short, as the doctor says, he lives under the scythe, and +may be cut off at any moment. An illness that would not harm another +man would be fatal to him; his blood is corrupt, his life undermined +at the root. For five years I have never allowed him to kiss me--he is +poisonous! Some day, and the day is not far off, I shall be a widow. +Well, then, I--who have already had an offer from a man with sixty +thousand francs a year, I who am as completely mistress of that man as +I am of this lump of sugar--I swear to you that if you were as poor as +Hulot and as foul as Marneffe, if you beat me even, still you are the +only man I will have for a husband, the only man I love, or whose name +I will ever bear. And I am ready to give any pledge of my love that +you may require." + +"Well, then, to-night----" + +"But you, son of the South, my splendid jaguar, come expressly for me +from the virgin forest of Brazil," said she, taking his hand and +kissing and fondling it, "I have some consideration for the poor +creature you mean to make your wife.--Shall I be your wife, Henri?" + +"Yes," said the Brazilian, overpowered by this unbridled volubility of +passion. And he knelt at her feet. + +"Well, then, Henri," said Valerie, taking his two hands and looking +straight into his eyes, "swear to me now, in the presence of Lisbeth, +my best and only friend, my sister--that you will make me your wife at +the end of my year's widowhood." + +"I swear it." + +"That is not enough. Swear by your mother's ashes and eternal +salvation, swear by the Virgin Mary and by all your hopes as a +Catholic!" + +Valerie knew that the Brazilian would keep that oath even if she +should have fallen into the foulest social slough. + +The Baron solemnly swore it, his nose almost touching Valerie's white +bosom, and his eyes spellbound. He was drunk, drunk as a man is when +he sees the woman he loves once more, after a sea voyage of a hundred +and twenty days. + +"Good. Now be quite easy. And in Madame Marneffe respect the future +Baroness de Montejanos. You are not to spend a sou upon me; I forbid +it.--Stay here in the outer room; sleep on the sofa. I myself will +come and tell you when you may move.--We will breakfast to-morrow +morning, and you can be leaving at about one o'clock as if you had +come to call at noon. There is nothing to fear; the gate-keepers love +me as much as if they were my father and mother.--Now I must go down +and make tea." + +She beckoned to Lisbeth, who followed her out on to the landing. There +Valerie whispered in the old maid's ear: + +"My darkie has come back too soon. I shall die if I cannot avenge you +on Hortense!" + +"Make your mind easy, my pretty little devil!" said Lisbeth, kissing +her forehead. "Love and Revenge on the same track will never lose the +game. Hortense expects me to-morrow; she is in beggary. For a thousand +francs you may have a thousand kisses from Wenceslas." + +On leaving Valerie, Hulot had gone down to the porter's lodge and made +a sudden invasion there. + +"Madame Olivier?" + +On hearing the imperious tone of this address, and seeing the action +by which the Baron emphasized it, Madame Olivier came out into the +courtyard as far as the Baron led her. + +"You know that if any one can help your son to a connection by and by, +it is I; it is owing to me that he is already third clerk in a +notary's office, and is finishing his studies." + +"Yes, Monsieur le Baron; and indeed, sir, you may depend on our +gratitude. Not a day passes that I do not pray to God for Monsieur le +Baron's happiness." + +"Not so many words, my good woman," said Hulot, "but deeds----" + +"What can I do, sir?" asked Madame Olivier. + +"A man came here to-night in a carriage. Do you know him?" + +Madame Olivier had recognized Montes well enough. How could she have +forgotten him? In the Rue du Doyenne the Brazilian had always slipped +a five-franc piece into her hand as he went out in the morning, rather +too early. If the Baron had applied to Monsieur Olivier, he would +perhaps have learned all he wanted to know. But Olivier was in bed. In +the lower orders the woman is not merely the superior of the man--she +almost always has the upper hand. Madame Olivier had long since made +up her mind as to which side to take in case of a collision between +her two benefactors; she regarded Madame Marneffe as the stronger +power. + +"Do I know him?" she repeated. "No, indeed, no. I never saw him +before!" + +"What! Did Madame Marneffe's cousin never go to see her when she was +living in the Rue du Doyenne?" + +"Oh! Was it her cousin?" cried Madame Olivier. "I dare say he did +come, but I did not know him again. Next time, sir, I will look at +him----" + +"He will be coming out," said Hulot, hastily interrupting Madame +Olivier. + +"He has left," said Madame Olivier, understanding the situation. "The +carriage is gone." + +"Did you see him go?" + +"As plainly as I see you. He told his servant to drive to the +Embassy." + +This audacious statement wrung a sigh of relief from the Baron; he +took Madame Olivier's hand and squeezed it. + +"Thank you, my good Madame Olivier. But that is not all.--Monsieur +Crevel?" + +"Monsieur Crevel? What can you mean, sir? I do not understand," said +Madame Olivier. + +"Listen to me. He is Madame Marneffe's lover----" + +"Impossible, Monsieur le Baron; impossible," said she, clasping her +hands. + +"He is Madame Marneffe's lover," the Baron repeated very positively. +"How do they manage it? I don't know; but I mean to know, and you are +to find out. If you can put me on the tracks of this intrigue, your +son is a notary." + +"Don't you fret yourself so, Monsieur le Baron," said Madame Olivier. +"Madame cares for you, and for no one but you; her maid knows that for +true, and we say, between her and me, that you are the luckiest man in +this world--for you know what madame is.--Just perfection! + +"She gets up at ten every morning; then she breakfasts. Well and good. +After that she takes an hour or so to dress; that carries her on till +two; then she goes for a walk in the Tuileries in the sight of all +men, and she is always in by four to be ready for you. She lives like +clockwork. She keeps no secrets from her maid, and Reine keeps nothing +from me, you may be sure. Reine can't if she would--along of my son, +for she is very sweet upon him. So, you see, if madame had any +intimacy with Monsieur Crevel, we should be bound to know it." + +The Baron went upstairs again with a beaming countenance, convinced +that he was the only man in the world to that shameless slut, as +treacherous, but as lovely and as engaging as a siren. + +Crevel and Marneffe had begun a second rubber at piquet. Crevel was +losing, as a man must who is not giving his thoughts to his game. +Marneffe, who knew the cause of the Mayor's absence of mind, took +unscrupulous advantage of it; he looked at the cards in reverse, and +discarded accordingly; thus, knowing his adversary's hand, he played +to beat him. The stake being a franc a point, he had already robbed +the Mayor of thirty francs when Hulot came in. + +"Hey day!" said he, amazed to find no company. "Are you alone? Where +is everybody gone?" + +"Your pleasant temper put them all to flight," said Crevel. + +"No, it was my wife's cousin," replied Marneffe. "The ladies and +gentlemen supposed that Valerie and Henri might have something to say +to each other after three years' separation, and they very discreetly +retired.--If I had been in the room, I would have kept them; but then, +as it happens, it would have been a mistake, for Lisbeth, who always +comes down to make tea at half-past ten, was taken ill, and that upset +everything--" + +"Then is Lisbeth really unwell?" asked Crevel in a fury. + +"So I was told," replied Marneffe, with the heartless indifference of +a man to whom women have ceased to exist. + +The Mayor looked at the clock; and, calculating the time, the Baron +seemed to have spent forty minutes in Lisbeth's rooms. Hector's +jubilant expression seriously incriminated Valerie, Lisbeth, and +himself. + +"I have just seen her; she is in great pain, poor soul!" said the +Baron. + +"Then the sufferings of others must afford you much joy, my friend," +retorted Crevel with acrimony, "for you have come down with a face +that is positively beaming. Is Lisbeth likely to die? For your +daughter, they say, is her heiress. You are not like the same man. You +left this room looking like the Moor of Venice, and you come back with +the air of Saint-Preux!--I wish I could see Madame Marneffe's face at +this minute----" + +"And pray, what do you mean by that?" said Marneffe to Crevel, packing +his cards and laying them down in front of him. + +A light kindled in the eyes of this man, decrepit at the age of +forty-seven; a faint color flushed his flaccid cold cheeks, his +ill-furnished mouth was half open, and on his blackened lips a sort +of foam gathered, thick, and as white as chalk. This fury in such a +helpless wretch, whose life hung on a thread, and who in a duel would +risk nothing while Crevel had everything to lose, frightened the +Mayor. + +"I said," repeated Crevel, "that I should like to see Madame +Marneffe's face. And with all the more reason since yours, at this +moment, is most unpleasant. On my honor, you are horribly ugly, my +dear Marneffe----" + +"Do you know that you are very uncivil?" + +"A man who has won thirty francs of me in forty-five minutes cannot +look handsome in my eyes." + +"Ah, if you had but seen me seventeen years ago!" replied the clerk. + +"You were so good-looking?" asked Crevel. + +"That was my ruin; now, if I had been like you--I might be a mayor and +a peer." + +"Yes," said Crevel, with a smile, "you have been too much in the wars; +and of the two forms of metal that may be earned by worshiping the god +of trade, you have taken the worse--the dross!" [This dialogue is +garnished with puns for which it is difficult to find any English +equivalent.] And Crevel roared with laughter. Though Marneffe could +take offence if his honor were in peril, he always took these rough +pleasantries in good part; they were the small coin of conversation +between him and Crevel. + +"The daughters of Eve cost me dear, no doubt; but, by the powers! +'Short and sweet' is my motto." + +"'Long and happy' is more to my mind," returned Crevel. + +Madame Marneffe now came in; she saw that her husband was at cards +with Crevel, and only the Baron in the room besides; a mere glance at +the municipal dignitary showed her the frame of mind he was in, and +her line of conduct was at once decided on. + +"Marneffe, my dear boy," said she, leaning on her husband's shoulder, +and passing her pretty fingers through his dingy gray hair, but +without succeeding in covering his bald head with it, "it is very late +for you; you ought to be in bed. To-morrow, you know, you must dose +yourself by the doctor's orders. Reine will give you your herb tea at +seven. If you wish to live, give up your game." + +"We will pay it out up to five points," said Marneffe to Crevel. + +"Very good--I have scored two," replied the Mayor. + +"How long will it take you?" + +"Ten minutes," said Marneffe. + +"It is eleven o'clock," replied Valerie. "Really, Monsieur Crevel, one +might fancy you meant to kill my husband. Make haste, at any rate." + +This double-barreled speech made Crevel and Hulot smile, and even +Marneffe himself. Valerie sat down to talk to Hector. + +"You must leave, my dearest," said she in Hulot's ear. "Walk up and +down the Rue Vanneau, and come in again when you see Crevel go out." + +"I would rather leave this room and go into your room through the +dressing-room door. You could tell Reine to let me in." + +"Reine is upstairs attending to Lisbeth." + +"Well, suppose then I go up to Lisbeth's rooms?" + +Danger hemmed in Valerie on every side; she foresaw a discussion with +Crevel, and could not allow Hulot to be in her room, where he could +hear all that went on.--And the Brazilian was upstairs with Lisbeth. + +"Really, you men, when you have a notion in your head, you would burn +a house down to get into it!" exclaimed she. "Lisbeth is not in a fit +state to admit you.--Are you afraid of catching cold in the street? Be +off there--or good-night." + +"Good evening, gentlemen," said the Baron to the other two. + +Hulot, when piqued in his old man's vanity, was bent on proving that +he could play the young man by waiting for the happy hour in the open +air, and he went away. + +Marneffe bid his wife good-night, taking her hands with a semblance of +devotion. Valerie pressed her husband's hand with a significant +glance, conveying: + +"Get rid of Crevel." + +"Good-night, Crevel," said Marneffe. "I hope you will not stay long +with Valerie. Yes! I am jealous--a little late in the day, but it has +me hard and fast. I shall come back to see if you are gone." + +"We have a little business to discuss, but I shall not stay long," +said Crevel. + +"Speak low.--What is it?" said Valerie, raising her voice, and looking +at him with a mingled expression of haughtiness and scorn. + +Crevel, as he met this arrogant stare, though he was doing Valerie +important services, and had hoped to plume himself on the fact, was at +once reduced to submission. + +"That Brazilian----" he began, but, overpowered by Valerie's fixed +look of contempt, he broke off. + +"What of him?" said she. + +"That cousin--" + +"Is no cousin of mine," said she. "He is my cousin to the world and to +Monsieur Marneffe. And if he were my lover, it would be no concern of +yours. A tradesman who pays a woman to be revenged on another man, is, +in my opinion, beneath the man who pays her for love of her. You did +not care for me; all you saw in me was Monsieur Hulot's mistress. You +bought me as a man buys a pistol to kill his adversary. I wanted +bread--I accepted the bargain." + +"But you have not carried it out," said Crevel, the tradesman once +more. + +"You want Baron Hulot to be told that you have robbed him of his +mistress, to pay him out for having robbed you of Josepha? Nothing can +more clearly prove your baseness. You say you love a woman, you treat +her like a duchess, and then you want to degrade her? Well, my good +fellow, and you are right. This woman is no match for Josepha. That +young person has the courage of her disgrace, while I--I am a +hypocrite, and deserve to be publicly whipped.--Alas! Josepha is +protected by her cleverness and her wealth. I have nothing to shelter +me but my reputation; I am still the worthy and blameless wife of a +plain citizen; if you create a scandal, what is to become of me? If I +were rich, then indeed; but my income is fifteen thousand francs a +year at most, I suppose." + +"Much more than that," said Crevel. "I have doubled your savings in +these last two months by investing in _Orleans_." + +"Well, a position in Paris begins with fifty thousand. And you +certainly will not make up to me for the position I should surrender. +--What was my aim? I want to see Marneffe a first-class clerk; he will +then draw a salary of six thousand francs. He has been twenty-seven +years in his office; within three years I shall have a right to a +pension of fifteen hundred francs when he dies. You, to whom I have +been entirely kind, to whom I have given your fill of happiness--you +cannot wait!--And that is what men call love!" she exclaimed. + +"Though I began with an ulterior purpose," said Crevel, "I have become +your poodle. You trample on my heart, you crush me, you stultify me, +and I love you as I have never loved in my life. Valerie, I love you +as much as I love my Celestine. I am capable of anything for your +sake.--Listen, instead of coming twice a week to the Rue du Dauphin, +come three times." + +"Is that all! You are quite young again, my dear boy!" + +"Only let me pack off Hulot, humiliate him, rid you of him," said +Crevel, not heeding her impertinence! "Have nothing to say to the +Brazilian, be mine alone; you shall not repent of it. To begin with, I +will give you eight thousand francs a year, secured by bond, but only +as an annuity; I will not give you the capital till the end of five +years' constancy--" + +"Always a bargain! A tradesman can never learn to give. You want to +stop for refreshments on the road of love--in the form of Government +bonds! Bah! Shopman, pomatum seller! you put a price on everything! +--Hector told me that the Duc d'Herouville gave Josepha a bond for +thirty thousand francs a year in a packet of sugar almonds! And I am +worth six of Josepha. + +"Oh! to be loved!" she went on, twisting her ringlets round her +fingers, and looking at herself in the glass. "Henri loves me. He +would smash you like a fly if I winked at him! Hulot loves me; he +leaves his wife in beggary! As for you, go my good man, be the worthy +father of a family. You have three hundred thousand francs over and +above your fortune, only to amuse yourself, a hoard, in fact, and you +think of nothing but increasing it--" + +"For you, Valerie, since I offer you half," said he, falling on his +knees. + +"What, still here!" cried Marneffe, hideous in his dressing-gown. +"What are you about?" + +"He is begging my pardon, my dear, for an insulting proposal he has +dared to make me. Unable to obtain my consent, my gentleman proposed +to pay me----" + +Crevel only longed to vanish into the cellar, through a trap, as is +done on the stage. + +"Get up, Crevel," said Marneffe, laughing, "you are ridiculous. I can +see by Valerie's manner that my honor is in no danger." + +"Go to bed and sleep in peace," said Madame Marneffe. + +"Isn't she clever?" thought Crevel. "She has saved me. She is +adorable!" + +As Marneffe disappeared, the Mayor took Valerie's hands and kissed +them, leaving on them the traces of tears. + +"It shall all stand in your name," he said. + +"That is true love," she whispered in his ear. "Well, love for love. +Hulot is below, in the street. The poor old thing is waiting to return +when I place a candle in one of the windows of my bedroom. I give you +leave to tell him that you are the man I love; he will refuse to +believe you; take him to the Rue du Dauphin, give him every proof, +crush him; I allow it--I order it! I am tired of that old seal; he +bores me to death. Keep your man all night in the Rue du Dauphin, +grill him over a slow fire, be revenged for the loss of Josepha. Hulot +may die of it perhaps, but we shall save his wife and children from +utter ruin. Madame Hulot is working for her bread--" + +"Oh! poor woman! On my word, it is quite shocking!" exclaimed Crevel, +his natural feeling coming to the top. + +"If you love me, Celestin," said she in Crevel's ear, which she +touched with her lips, "keep him there, or I am done for. Marneffe is +suspicious. Hector has a key of the outer gate, and will certainly +come back." + +Crevel clasped Madame Marneffe to his heart, and went away in the +seventh heaven of delight. Valerie fondly escorted him to the landing, +and then followed him, like a woman magnetized, down the stairs to the +very bottom. + +"My Valerie, go back, do not compromise yourself before the porters. +--Go back; my life, my treasure, all is yours.--Go in, my duchess!" + +"Madame Olivier," Valerie called gently when the gate was closed. + +"Why, madame! You here?" said the woman in bewilderment. + +"Bolt the gates at top and bottom, and let no one in." + +"Very good, madame." + +Having barred the gate, Madame Olivier told of the bribe that the War +Office chief had tried to offer her. + +"You behaved like an angel, my dear Olivier; we shall talk of that +to-morrow." + +Valerie flew like an arrow to the third floor, tapped three times at +Lisbeth's door, and then went down to her room, where she gave +instructions to Mademoiselle Reine, for a woman must make the most of +the opportunity when a Montes arrives from Brazil. + + + +"By Heaven! only a woman of the world is capable of such love," said +Crevel to himself. "How she came down those stairs, lighting them up +with her eyes, following me! Never did Josepha--Josepha! she is +cag-mag!" cried the ex-bagman. "What have I said? _Cag-mag_--why, I +might have let the word slip out at the Tuileries! I can never do any +good unless Valerie educates me--and I was so bent on being a +gentleman.--What a woman she is! She upsets me like a fit of the +colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What wit! Never did +Josepha move me so. And what perfection when you come to know her! +--Ha, there is my man!" + +He perceived in the gloom of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat +stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he +went straight up to him. + +"Good-morning, Baron, for it is past midnight, my dear fellow. What +the devil are your doing here? You are airing yourself under a +pleasant drizzle. That is not wholesome at our time of life. Will you +let me give you a little piece of advice? Let each of us go home; for, +between you and me, you will not see the candle in the window." + +The last words made the Baron suddenly aware that he was sixty-three, +and that his cloak was wet. + +"Who on earth told you--?" he began. + +"Valerie, of course, _our_ Valerie, who means henceforth to be _my_ +Valerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you +please. You have nothing to complain of; you know, I always stipulated +for the right of taking my revenge; it took you three months to rob me +of Josepha; I took Valerie from you in--We will say no more about +that. Now I mean to have her all to myself. But we can be very good +friends, all the same." + +"Crevel, no jesting," said Hulot, in a voice choked by rage. "It is a +matter of life and death." + +"Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not remember what +you said to me the day of Hortense's marriage: 'Can two old gaffers +like us quarrel over a petticoat? It is too low, too common. We are +_Regence_, we agreed, Pompadour, eighteenth century, quite the +Marechal Richelieu, Louis XV., nay, and I may say, _Liaisons +dangereuses_!" + +Crevel might have gone on with his string of literary allusions; the +Baron heard him as a deaf man listens when he is but half deaf. But, +seeing in the gaslight the ghastly pallor of his face, the triumphant +Mayor stopped short. This was, indeed, a thunderbolt after Madame +Olivier's asservations and Valerie's parting glance. + +"Good God! And there are so many other women in Paris!" he said at +last. + +"That is what I said to you when you took Josepha," said Crevel. + +"Look here, Crevel, it is impossible. Give me some proof.--Have you a +key, as I have, to let yourself in?" + +And having reached the house, the Baron put the key into the lock; but +the gate was immovable; he tried in vain to open it. + +"Do not make a noise in the streets at night," said Crevel coolly. "I +tell you, Baron, I have far better proof than you can show." + +"Proofs! give me proof!" cried the Baron, almost crazy with +exasperation. + +"Come, and you shall have them," said Crevel. + +And in obedience to Valerie's instructions, he led the Baron away +towards the quay, down the Rue Hillerin-Bertin. The unhappy Baron +walked on, as a merchant walks on the day before he stops payment; he +was lost in conjectures as to the reasons of the depravity buried in +the depths of Valerie's heart, and still believed himself the victim +of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to +him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his +financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the +evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river and throw +himself in after. + +On reaching the Rue du Dauphin, which had not yet been widened, Crevel +stopped before a door in a wall. It opened into a long corridor paved +with black-and-white marble, and serving as an entrance-hall, at the +end of which there was a flight of stairs and a doorkeeper's lodge, +lighted from an inner courtyard, as is often the case in Paris. This +courtyard, which was shared with another house, was oddly divided into +two unequal portions. Crevel's little house, for he owned it, had +additional rooms with a glass skylight, built out on to the adjoining +plot, under conditions that it should have no story added above the +ground floor, so that the structure was entirely hidden by the lodge +and the projecting mass of the staircase. + +This back building had long served as a store-room, backshop, and +kitchen to one of the shops facing the street. Crevel had cut off +these three rooms from the rest of the ground floor, and Grindot had +transformed them into an inexpensive private residence. There were two +ways in--from the front, through the shop of a furniture-dealer, to +whom Crevel let it at a low price, and only from month to month, so as +to be able to get rid of him in case of his telling tales, and also +through a door in the wall of the passage, so ingeniously hidden as to +be almost invisible. The little apartment, comprising a dining-room, +drawing-room, and bedroom, all lighted from above, and standing partly +on Crevel's ground and partly on his neighbor's, was very difficult to +find. With the exception of the second-hand furniture-dealer, the +tenants knew nothing of the existence of this little paradise. + +The doorkeeper, paid to keep Crevel's secrets, was a capital cook. So +Monsieur le Maire could go in and out of his inexpensive retreat at +any hour of the night without any fear of being spied upon. By day, a +lady, dressed as Paris women dress to go shopping, and having a key, +ran no risk in coming to Crevel's lodgings; she would stop to look at +the cheapened goods, ask the price, go into the shop, and come out +again, without exciting the smallest suspicion if any one should +happen to meet her. + +As soon as Crevel had lighted the candles in the sitting-room, the +Baron was surprised at the elegance and refinement it displayed. The +perfumer had given the architect a free hand, and Grindot had done +himself credit by fittings in the Pompadour style, which had in fact +cost sixty thousand francs. + +"What I want," said Crevel to Grindot, "is that a duchess, if I +brought one there, should be surprised at it." + +He wanted to have a perfect Parisian Eden for his Eve, his "real +lady," his Valerie, his duchess. + +"There are two beds," said Crevel to Hulot, showing him a sofa that +could be made wide enough by pulling out a drawer. "This is one, the +other is in the bedroom. We can both spend the night here." + +"Proof!" was all the Baron could say. + +Crevel took a flat candlestick and led Hulot into the adjoining room, +where he saw, on a sofa, a superb dressing-gown belonging to Valerie, +which he had seen her wear in the Rue Vanneau, to display it before +wearing it in Crevel's little apartment. The Mayor pressed the spring +of a little writing-table of inlaid work, known as a +_bonheur-du-jour_, and took out of it a letter that he handed to the +Baron. + +"Read that," said he. + +The Councillor read these words written in pencil: + + "I have waited in vain, you old wretch! A woman of my quality does + not expect to be kept waiting by a retired perfumer. There was no + dinner ordered--no cigarettes. I will make you pay for this!" + +"Well, is that her writing?" + +"Good God!" gasped Hulot, sitting down in dismay. "I see all the +things she uses--her caps, her slippers. Why, how long since--?" + +Crevel nodded that he understood, and took a packet of bills out of +the little inlaid cabinet. + +"You can see, old man. I paid the decorators in December, 1838. In +October, two months before, this charming little place was first +used." + +Hulot bent his head. + +"How the devil do you manage it? I know how she spends every hour of +her day." + +"How about her walk in the Tuileries?" said Crevel, rubbing his hands +in triumph. + +"What then?" said Hulot, mystified. + +"Your lady love comes to the Tuileries, she is supposed to be airing +herself from one till four. But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here. +You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is nothing imaginary in your +title." + +Hulot, left without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence. +Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be +philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man +trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy +taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel +very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague. + +"As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will +you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!" + +"Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten +pretty women at least seven are false?" + +But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is +the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no +counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly. +Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice. + +"You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful +wife, and she is virtuous." + +"I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made +her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are +avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my +love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But +was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous +than this Valerie?" + +"She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves +whipping on the Place du Chatelet. But, my dear Canillac, though we +are such blades, so Marechal de Richelieu, Louis XV., Pompadour, +Madame du Barry, gay dogs, and everything that is most eighteenth +century, there is no longer a lieutenant of police." + +"How can we make them love us?" Hulot wondered to himself without +heeding Crevel. + +"It is sheer folly in us to expect to be loved, my dear fellow," said +Crevel. "We can only be endured; for Madame Marneffe is a hundred +times more profligate than Josepha." + +"And avaricious! she costs me a hundred and ninety-two thousand francs +a year!" cried Hulot. + +"And how many centimes!" sneered Crevel, with the insolence of a +financier who scorns so small a sum. + +"You do not love her, that is very evident," said the Baron dolefully. + +"I have had enough of her," replied Crevel, "for she has had more than +three hundred thousand francs of mine!" + +"Where is it? Where does it all go?" said the Baron, clasping his head +in his hands. + +"If we had come to an agreement, like the simple young men who combine +to maintain a twopenny baggage, she would have cost us less." + +"That is an idea"! replied the Baron. "But she would still be cheating +us; for, my burly friend, what do you say to this Brazilian?" + +"Ay, old sly fox, you are right, we are swindled like--like +shareholders!" said Crevel. "All such women are an unlimited +liability, and we the sleeping partners." + +"Then it was she who told you about the candle in the window?" + +"My good man," replied Crevel, striking an attitude, "she has fooled +us both. Valerie is a--She told me to keep you here.--Now I see it +all. She has got her Brazilian!--Oh, I have done with her, for if you +hold her hands, she would find a way to cheat you with her feet! +There! she is a minx, a jade!" + +"She is lower than a prostitute," said the Baron. "Josepha and Jenny +Cadine were in their rights when they were false to us; they make a +trade of their charms." + +"But she, who affects the saint--the prude!" said Crevel. "I tell you +what, Hulot, do you go back to your wife; your money matters are not +looking well; I have heard talk of certain notes of hand given to a +low usurer whose special line of business is lending to these sluts, a +man named Vauvinet. For my part, I am cured of your 'real ladies.' +And, after all, at our time of life what do we want of these swindling +hussies, who, to be honest, cannot help playing us false? You have +white hair and false teeth; I am of the shape of Silenus. I shall go +in for saving. Money never deceives one. Though the Treasury is indeed +open to all the world twice a year, it pays you interest, and this +woman swallows it. With you, my worthy friend, as Gubetta, as my +partner in the concern, I might have resigned myself to a shady +bargain--no, a philosophical calm. But with a Brazilian who has +possibly smuggled in some doubtful colonial produce----" + +"Woman is an inexplicable creature!" said Hulot. + +"I can explain her," said Crevel. "We are old; the Brazilian is young +and handsome." + +"Yes; that, I own, is true," said Hulot; "we are older than we were. +But, my dear fellow, how is one to do without these pretty creatures +--seeing them undress, twist up their hair, smile cunningly through +their fingers as they screw up their curl-papers, put on all their +airs and graces, tell all their lies, declare that we don't love them +when we are worried with business; and they cheer us in spite of +everything." + +"Yes, by the Power! It is the only pleasure in life!" cried Crevel. +"When a saucy little mug smiles at you and says, 'My old dear, you +don't know how nice you are! I am not like other women, I suppose, who +go crazy over mere boys with goats' beards, smelling of smoke, and as +coarse as serving-men! For in their youth they are so insolent!--They +come in and they bid you good-morning, and out they go.--I, whom you +think such a flirt, I prefer a man of fifty to these brats. A man who +will stick by me, who is devoted, who knows a woman is not to be +picked up every day, and appreciates us.--That is what I love you for, +you old monster!'--and they fill up these avowals with little pettings +and prettinesses and--Faugh! they are as false as the bills on the +Hotel de Ville." + +"A lie is sometimes better than the truth," said Hulot, remembering +sundry bewitching scenes called up by Crevel, who mimicked Valerie. +"They are obliged to act upon their lies, to sew spangles on their +stage frocks--" + +"And they are ours, after all, the lying jades!" said Crevel coarsely. + +"Valerie is a witch," said the Baron. "She can turn an old man into a +young one." + +"Oh, yes!" said Crevel, "she is an eel that wriggles through your +hands; but the prettiest eel, as white and sweet as sugar, as amusing +as Arnal--and ingenious!" + +"Yes, she is full of fun," said Hulot, who had now quite forgotten his +wife. + +The colleagues went to bed the best friends in the world, reminding +each other of Valerie's perfections, the tones of her voice, her +kittenish way, her movements, her fun, her sallies of wit, and of +affections; for she was an artist in love, and had charming impulses, +as tenors may sing a scena better one day than another. And they fell +asleep, cradled in tempting and diabolical visions lighted by the +fires of hell. + +At nine o'clock next morning Hulot went off to the War Office, Crevel +had business out of town; they left the house together, and Crevel +held out his hand to the Baron, saying: + +"To show that there is no ill-feeling. For we, neither of us, will +have anything more to say to Madame Marneffe?" + +"Oh, this is the end of everything," replied Hulot with a sort of +horror. + + + +By half-past ten Crevel was mounting the stairs, four at a time, up to +Madame Marneffe's apartment. He found the infamous wretch, the +adorable enchantress, in the most becoming morning wrapper, enjoying +an elegant little breakfast in the society of the Baron Montes de +Montejanos and Lisbeth. Though the sight of the Brazilian gave him a +shock, Crevel begged Madame Marneffe to grant him two minutes' speech +with her. Valerie led Crevel into the drawing-room. + +"Valerie, my angel," said the amorous Mayor, "Monsieur Marneffe cannot +have long to live. If you will be faithful to me, when he dies we will +be married. Think it over. I have rid you of Hulot.--So just consider +whether this Brazilian is to compare with a Mayor of Paris, a man who, +for your sake, will make his way to the highest dignities, and who can +already offer you eighty-odd thousand francs a year." + +"I will think it over," said she. "You will see me in the Rue du +Dauphin at two o'clock, and we can discuss the matter. But be a good +boy--and do not forget the bond you promised to transfer to me." + +She returned to the dining-room, followed by Crevel, who flattered +himself that he had hit on a plan for keeping Valerie to himself; but +there he found Baron Hulot, who, during this short colloquy, had also +arrived with the same end in view. He, like Crevel, begged for a brief +interview. Madame Marneffe again rose to go to the drawing-room, with +a smile at the Brazilian that seemed to say, "What fools they are! +Cannot they see you?" + +"Valerie," said the official, "my child, that cousin of yours is an +American cousin--" + +"Oh, that is enough!" she cried, interrupting the Baron. "Marneffe +never has been, and never will be, never can be my husband! The first, +the only man I ever loved, has come back quite unexpectedly. It is no +fault of mine! But look at Henri and look at yourself. Then ask +yourself whether a woman, and a woman in love, can hesitate for a +moment. My dear fellow, I am not a kept mistress. From this day forth +I refuse to play the part of Susannah between the two Elders. If you +really care for me, you and Crevel, you will be our friends; but all +else is at an end, for I am six-and-twenty, and henceforth I mean to +be a saint, an admirable and worthy wife--as yours is." + +"Is that what you have to say?" answered Hulot. "Is this the way you +receive me when I come like a Pope with my hands full of Indulgences? +--Well, your husband will never be a first-class clerk, nor be +promoted in the Legion of Honor." + +"That remains to be seen," said Madame Marneffe, with a meaning look +at Hulot. + +"Well, well, no temper," said Hulot in despair. "I will call this +evening, and we will come to an understanding." + +"In Lisbeth's rooms then." + +"Very good--at Lisbeth's," said the old dotard. + +Hulot and Crevel went downstairs together without speaking a word till +they were in the street; but outside on the sidewalk they looked at +each other with a dreary laugh. + +"We are a couple of old fools," said Crevel. + +"I have got rid of them," said Madame Marneffe to Lisbeth, as she sat +down once more. "I never loved and I never shall love any man but my +Jaguar," she added, smiling at Henri Montes. "Lisbeth, my dear, you +don't know. Henri has forgiven me the infamy to which I was reduced by +poverty." + +"It was my own fault," said the Brazilian. "I ought to have sent you a +hundred thousand francs." + +"Poor boy!" said Valerie; "I might have worked for my living, but my +fingers were not made for that--ask Lisbeth." + +The Brazilian went away the happiest man in Paris. + +At noon Valerie and Lisbeth were chatting in the splendid bedroom +where this dangerous woman was giving to her dress those finishing +touches which a lady alone can give. The doors were bolted, the +curtains drawn over them, and Valerie related in every detail all the +events of the evening, the night, the morning. + +"What do you think of it all, my darling?" she said to Lisbeth in +conclusion. "Which shall I be when the time comes--Madame Crevel, or +Madame Montes?" + +"Crevel will not last more than ten years, such a profligate as he +is," replied Lisbeth. "Montes is young. Crevel will leave you about +thirty thousand francs a year. Let Montes wait; he will be happy +enough as Benjamin. And so, by the time you are three-and-thirty, if +you take care of your looks, you may marry your Brazilian and make a +fine show with sixty thousand francs a year of your own--especially +under the wing of a Marechale." + +"Yes, but Montes is a Brazilian; he will never make his mark," +observed Valerie. + +"We live in the day of railways," said Lisbeth, "when foreigners rise +to high positions in France." + +"We shall see," replied Valerie, "when Marneffe is dead. He has not +much longer to suffer." + +"These attacks that return so often are a sort of physical remorse," +said Lisbeth. "Well, I am off to see Hortense." + +"Yes--go, my angel!" replied Valerie. "And bring me my artist.--Three +years, and I have not gained an inch of ground! It is a disgrace to +both of us!--Wenceslas and Henri--these are my two passions--one for +love, the other for fancy." + +"You are lovely this morning," said Lisbeth, putting her arm round +Valerie's waist and kissing her forehead. "I enjoy all your pleasures, +your good fortune, your dresses--I never really lived till the day +when we became sisters." + +"Wait a moment, my tiger-cat!" cried Valerie, laughing; "your shawl is +crooked. You cannot put a shawl on yet in spite of my lessons for +three years--and you want to be Madame la Marechale Hulot!" + +Shod in prunella boots, over gray silk stockings, in a gown of +handsome corded silk, her hair in smooth bands under a very pretty +black velvet bonnet, lined with yellow satin, Lisbeth made her way to +the Rue Saint-Dominique by the Boulevard des Invalides, wondering +whether sheer dejection would at last break down Hortense's brave +spirit, and whether Sarmatian instability, taken at a moment when, +with such a character, everything is possible, would be too much for +Steinbock's constancy. + + + +Hortense and Wenceslas had the ground floor of a house situated at the +corner of the Rue Saint-Dominique and the Esplanade des Invalides. +These rooms, once in harmony with the honeymoon, now had that +half-new, half-faded look that may be called the autumnal aspect of +furniture. Newly married folks are as lavish and wasteful, without +knowing it or intending it, of everything about them as they are of +their affection. Thinking only of themselves, they reck little of the +future, which, at a later time, weighs on the mother of a family. + +Lisbeth found Hortense just as she had finished dressing a baby +Wenceslas, who had been carried into the garden. + +"Good-morning, Betty," said Hortense, opening the door herself to her +cousin. The cook was gone out, and the house-servant, who was also the +nurse, was doing some washing. + +"Good-morning, dear child," replied Lisbeth, kissing her. "Is +Wenceslas in the studio?" she added in a whisper. + +"No; he is in the drawing-room talking to Stidmann and Chanor." + +"Can we be alone?" asked Lisbeth. + +"Come into my room." + +In this room, the hangings of pink-flowered chintz with green leaves +on a white ground, constantly exposed to the sun, were much faded, as +was the carpet. The muslin curtains had not been washed for many a +day. The smell of tobacco hung about the room; for Wenceslas, now an +artist of repute, and born a fine gentleman, left his cigar-ash on the +arms of the chairs and the prettiest pieces of furniture, as a man +does to whom love allows everything--a man rich enough to scorn vulgar +carefulness. + +"Now, then, let us talk over your affairs," said Lisbeth, seeing her +pretty cousin silent in the armchair into which she had dropped. "But +what ails you? You look rather pale, my dear." + +"Two articles have just come out in which my poor Wenceslas is pulled +to pieces; I have read them, but I have hidden them from him, for they +would completely depress him. The marble statue of Marshal Montcornet +is pronounced utterly bad. The bas-reliefs are allowed to pass muster, +simply to allow of the most perfidious praise of his talent as a +decorative artist, and to give the greater emphasis to the statement +that serious art is quite out of his reach! Stidmann, whom I besought +to tell me the truth, broke my heart by confessing that his own +opinion agreed with that of every other artist, of the critics, and +the public. He said to me in the garden before breakfast, 'If +Wenceslas cannot exhibit a masterpiece next season, he must give up +heroic sculpture and be content to execute idyllic subjects, small +figures, pieces of jewelry, and high-class goldsmiths' work!' This +verdict is dreadful to me, for Wenceslas, I know, will never accept +it; he feels he has so many fine ideas." + +"Ideas will not pay the tradesman's bills," remarked Lisbeth. "I was +always telling him so--nothing but money. Money is only to be had for +work done--things that ordinary folks like well enough to buy them. +When an artist has to live and keep a family, he had far better have a +design for a candlestick on his counter, or for a fender or a table, +than for groups or statues. Everybody must have such things, while he +may wait months for the admirer of the group--and for his money---" + +"You are right, my good Lisbeth. Tell him all that; I have not the +courage.--Besides, as he was saying to Stidmann, if he goes back to +ornamental work and small sculpture, he must give up all hope of the +Institute and grand works of art, and we should not get the three +hundred thousand francs' worth of work promised at Versailles and by +the City of Paris and the Ministers. That is what we are robbed of by +those dreadful articles, written by rivals who want to step into our +shoes." + +"And that is not what you dreamed of, poor little puss!" said Lisbeth, +kissing Hortense on the brow. "You expected to find a gentleman, a +leader of Art, the chief of all living sculptors.--But that is poetry, +you see, a dream requiring fifty thousand francs a year, and you have +only two thousand four hundred--so long as I live. After my death +three thousand." + +A few tears rose to Hortense's eyes, and Lisbeth drank them with her +eyes as a cat laps milk. + +This is the story of their honeymoon--the tale will perhaps not be +lost on some artists. + +Intellectual work, labor in the upper regions of mental effort, is one +of the grandest achievements of man. That which deserves real glory in +Art--for by Art we must understand every creation of the mind--is +courage above all things--a sort of courage of which the vulgar have +no conception, and which has never perhaps been described till now. + +Driven by the dreadful stress of poverty, goaded by Lisbeth, and kept +by her in blinders, as a horse is, to hinder it from seeing to the +right and left of its road, lashed on by that hard woman, the +personification of Necessity, a sort of deputy Fate, Wenceslas, a born +poet and dreamer, had gone on from conception to execution, and +overleaped, without sounding it, the gulf that divides these two +hemispheres of Art. To muse, to dream, to conceive of fine works, is a +delightful occupation. It is like smoking a magic cigar or leading the +life of a courtesan who follows her own fancy. The work then floats in +all the grace of infancy, in the mad joy of conception, with the +fragrant beauty of a flower, and the aromatic juices of a fruit +enjoyed in anticipation. + +The man who can sketch his purpose beforehand in words is regarded as +a wonder, and every artist and writer possesses that faculty. But +gestation, fruition, the laborious rearing of the offspring, putting +it to bed every night full fed with milk, embracing it anew every +morning with the inexhaustible affection of a mother's heart, licking +it clean, dressing it a hundred times in the richest garb only to be +instantly destroyed; then never to be cast down at the convulsions of +this headlong life till the living masterpiece is perfected which in +sculpture speaks to every eye, in literature to every intellect, in +painting to every memory, in music to every heart!--This is the task +of execution. The hand must be ready at every instant to come forward +and obey the brain. But the brain has no more a creative power at +command than love has a perennial spring. + +The habit of creativeness, the indefatigable love of motherhood which +makes a mother--that miracle of nature which Raphael so perfectly +understood--the maternity of the brain, in short, which is so +difficult to develop, is lost with prodigious ease. Inspiration is the +opportunity of genius. She does not indeed dance on the razor's edge, +she is in the air and flies away with the suspicious swiftness of a +crow; she wears no scarf by which the poet can clutch her; her hair is +a flame; she vanishes like the lovely rose and white flamingo, the +sportsman's despair. And work, again, is a weariful struggle, alike +dreaded and delighted in by these lofty and powerful natures who are +often broken by it. A great poet of our day has said in speaking of +this overwhelming labor, "I sit down to it in despair, but I leave it +with regret." Be it known to all who are ignorant! If the artist does +not throw himself into his work as Curtius sprang into the gulf, as a +soldier leads a forlorn hope without a moment's thought, and if when +he is in the crater he does not dig on as a miner does when the earth +has fallen in on him; if he contemplates the difficulties before him +instead of conquering them one by one, like the lovers in fairy tales, +who to win their princesses overcome ever new enchantments, the work +remains incomplete; it perishes in the studio where creativeness +becomes impossible, and the artist looks on at the suicide of his own +talent. + +Rossini, a brother genius to Raphael, is a striking instance in his +poverty-stricken youth, compared with his latter years of opulence. +This is the reason why the same prize, the same triumph, the same bays +are awarded to great poets and to great generals. + +Wenceslas, by nature a dreamer, had expended so much energy in +production, in study, and in work under Lisbeth's despotic rule, that +love and happiness resulted in reaction. His real character +reappeared, the weakness, recklessness, and indolence of the Sarmatian +returned to nestle in the comfortable corners of his soul, whence the +schoolmaster's rod had routed them. + +For the first few months the artist adored his wife. Hortense and +Wenceslas abandoned themselves to the happy childishness of a +legitimate and unbounded passion. Hortense was the first to release +her husband from his labors, proud to triumph over her rival, his Art. +And, indeed, a woman's caresses scare away the Muse, and break down +the sturdy, brutal resolution of the worker. + +Six or seven months slipped by, and the artist's fingers had forgotten +the use of the modeling tool. When the need for work began to be felt, +when the Prince de Wissembourg, president of the committee of +subscribers, asked to see the statue, Wenceslas spoke the inevitable +byword of the idler, "I am just going to work on it," and he lulled +his dear Hortense with fallacious promises and the magnificent schemes +of the artist as he smokes. Hortense loved her poet more than ever; +she dreamed of a sublime statue of Marshal Montcornet. Montcornet +would be the embodied ideal of bravery, the type of the cavalry +officer, of courage _a la Murat_. Yes, yes; at the mere sight of that +statue all the Emperor's victories were to seem a foregone conclusion. +And then such workmanship! The pencil was accommodating and answered +to the word. + +By way of a statue the result was a delightful little Wenceslas. + +When the progress of affairs required that he should go to the studio +at le Gros-Caillou to mould the clay and set up the life-size model, +Steinbock found one day that the Prince's clock required his presence +in the workshop of Florent and Chanor, where the figures were being +finished; or, again, the light was gray and dull; to-day he had +business to do, to-morrow they had a family dinner, to say nothing of +indispositions of mind and body, and the days when he stayed at home +to toy with his adored wife. + +Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg was obliged to be angry to get the +clay model finished; he declared that he must put the work into other +hands. It was only by dint of endless complaints and much strong +language that the committee of subscribers succeeded in seeing the +plaster-cast. Day after day Steinbock came home, evidently tired, +complaining of this "hodman's work" and his own physical weakness. +During that first year the household felt no pinch; the Countess +Steinbock, desperately in love with her husband cursed the War +Minister. She went to see him; she told him that great works of art +were not to be manufactured like cannon; and that the State--like +Louis XIV., Francis I., and Leo X.--ought to be at the beck and call +of genius. Poor Hortense, believing she held a Phidias in her embrace, +had the sort of motherly cowardice for her Wenceslas that is in every +wife who carries her love to the pitch of idolatry. + +"Do not be hurried," said she to her husband, "our whole future life +is bound up with that statue. Take your time and produce a +masterpiece." + +She would go to the studio, and then the enraptured Steinbock wasted +five hours out of seven in describing the statue instead of working at +it. He thus spent eighteen months in finishing the design, which to +him was all-important. + +When the plaster was cast and the model complete, poor Hortense, who +had looked on at her husband's toil, seeing his health really suffer +from the exertions which exhaust a sculptor's frame and arms and hands +--Hortense thought the result admirable. Her father, who knew nothing +of sculpture, and her mother, no less ignorant, lauded it as a +triumph; the War Minister came with them to see it, and, overruled by +them, expressed approval of the figure, standing as it did alone, in a +favorable light, thrown up against a green baize background. + +Alas! at the exhibition of 1841, the disapprobation of the public soon +took the form of abuse and mockery in the mouths of those who were +indignant with the idol too hastily set up for worship. Stidmann tried +to advise his friend, but was accused of jealousy. Every article in a +newspaper was to Hortense an outcry of envy. Stidmann, the best of +good fellows, got articles written, in which adverse criticism was +contravened, and it was pointed out that sculptors altered their works +in translating the plaster into marble, and that the marble would be +the test. + +"In reproducing the plaster sketch in marble," wrote Claude Vignon, "a +masterpiece may be ruined, or a bad design made beautiful. The plaster +is the manuscript, the marble is the book." + +So in two years and a half Wenceslas had produced a statue and a son. +The child was a picture of beauty; the statue was execrable. + +The clock for the Prince and the price of the statue paid off the +young couple's debts. Steinbock had acquired fashionable habits; he +went to the play, to the opera; he talked admirably about art; and in +the eyes of the world he maintained his reputation as a great artist +by his powers of conversation and criticism. There are many clever men +in Paris who spend their lives in talking themselves out, and are +content with a sort of drawing-room celebrity. Steinbock, emulating +these emasculated but charming men, grew every day more averse to hard +work. As soon as he began a thing, he was conscious of all its +difficulties, and the discouragement that came over him enervated his +will. Inspiration, the frenzy of intellectual procreation, flew +swiftly away at the sight of this effete lover. + +Sculpture--like dramatic art--is at once the most difficult and the +easiest of all arts. You have but to copy a model, and the task is +done; but to give it a soul, to make it typical by creating a man or a +woman--this is the sin of Prometheus. Such triumphs in the annals of +sculpture may be counted, as we may count the few poets among men. +Michael Angelo, Michel Columb, Jean Goujon, Phidias, Praxiteles, +Polycletes, Puget, Canova, Albert Durer, are the brothers of Milton, +Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Tasso, Homer, and Moliere. And such an +achievement is so stupendous that a single statue is enough to make a +man immortal, as Figaro, Lovelace, and Manon Lescaut have immortalized +Beaumarchais, Richardson, and the Abbe Prevost. + +Superficial thinkers--and there are many in the artist world--have +asserted that sculpture lives only by the nude, that it died with the +Greeks, and that modern vesture makes it impossible. But, in the first +place, the Ancients have left sublime statues entirely clothed--the +_Polyhymnia_, the _Julia_, and others, and we have not found one-tenth +of all their works; and then, let any lover of art go to Florence and +see Michael Angelo's _Penseroso_, or to the Cathedral of Mainz, and +behold the _Virgin_ by Albert Durer, who has created a living woman +out of ebony, under her threefold drapery, with the most flowing, the +softest hair that ever a waiting-maid combed through; let all the +ignorant flock thither, and they will acknowledge that genius can give +mind to drapery, to armor, to a robe, and fill it with a body, just as +a man leaves the stamp of his individuality and habits of life on the +clothes he wears. + +Sculpture is the perpetual realization of the fact which once, and +never again, was, in painting called Raphael! + +The solution of this hard problem is to be found only in constant +persevering toil; for, merely to overcome the material difficulties to +such an extent, the hand must be so practised, so dexterous and +obedient, that the sculptor may be free to struggle soul to soul with +the elusive moral element that he has to transfigure as he embodies +it. If Paganini, who uttered his soul through the strings of his +violin, spent three days without practising, he lost what he called +the _stops_ of his instrument, meaning the sympathy between the wooden +frame, the strings, the bow, and himself; if he had lost this +alliance, he would have been no more than an ordinary player. + +Perpetual work is the law of art, as it is the law of life, for art is +idealized creation. Hence great artists and perfect poets wait neither +for commission nor for purchasers. They are constantly creating +--to-day, to-morrow, always. The result is the habit of work, the +unfailing apprehension of the difficulties which keep them in close +intercourse with the Muse and her productive forces. Canova lived in +his studio, as Voltaire lived in his study; and so must Homer and +Phidias have lived. + +While Lisbeth kept Wenceslas Steinbock in thraldom in his garret, he +was on the thorny road trodden by all these great men, which leads to +the Alpine heights of glory. Then happiness, in the person of +Hortense, had reduced the poet to idleness--the normal condition of +all artists, since to them idleness is fully occupied. Their joy is +such as that of the pasha of a seraglio; they revel with ideas, they +get drunk at the founts of intellect. Great artists, such as +Steinbock, wrapped in reverie, are rightly spoken of as dreamers. +They, like opium-eaters, all sink into poverty, whereas if they had +been kept up to the mark by the stern demands of life, they might have +been great men. + +At the same time, these half-artists are delightful; men like them and +cram them with praise; they even seem superior to the true artists, +who are taxed with conceit, unsociableness, contempt of the laws of +society. This is why: Great men are the slaves of their work. Their +indifference to outer things, their devotion to their work, make +simpletons regard them as egotists, and they are expected to wear the +same garb as the dandy who fulfils the trivial evolutions called +social duties. These men want the lions of the Atlas to be combed and +scented like a lady's poodle. + +These artists, who are too rarely matched to meet their fellows, fall +into habits of solitary exclusiveness; they are inexplicable to the +majority, which, as we know, consists mostly of fools--of the envious, +the ignorant, and the superficial. + +Now you may imagine what part a wife should play in the life of these +glorious and exceptional beings. She ought to be what, for five years, +Lisbeth had been, but with the added offering of love, humble and +patient love, always ready and always smiling. + +Hortense, enlightened by her anxieties as a mother, and driven by dire +necessity, had discovered too late the mistakes she had been +involuntarily led into by her excessive love. Still, the worthy +daughter of her mother, her heart ached at the thought of worrying +Wenceslas; she loved her dear poet too much to become his torturer; +and she could foresee the hour when beggary awaited her, her child, +and her husband. + +"Come, come, my child," said Lisbeth, seeing the tears in her cousin's +lovely eyes, "you must not despair. A glassful of tears will not buy a +plate of soup. How much do you want?" + +"Well, five or six thousand francs." + +"I have but three thousand at the most," said Lisbeth. "And what is +Wenceslas doing now?" + +"He has had an offer to work in partnership with Stidmann at a table +service for the Duc d'Herouville for six thousand francs. Then +Monsieur Chanor will advance four thousand to repay Monsieur de Lora +and Bridau--a debt of honor." + +"What, you have had the money for the statue and the bas-reliefs for +Marshal Montcornet's monument, and you have not paid them yet?" + +"For the last three years," said Hortense, "we have spent twelve +thousand francs a year, and I have but a hundred louis a year of my +own. The Marshal's monument, when all the expenses were paid, brought +us no more than sixteen thousand francs. Really and truly, if +Wenceslas gets no work, I do not know what is to become of us. Oh, if +only I could learn to make statues, I would handle the clay!" she +cried, holding up her fine arms. + +The woman, it was plain, fulfilled the promise of the girl; there was +a flash in her eye; impetuous blood, strong with iron, flowed in her +veins; she felt that she was wasting her energy in carrying her +infant. + +"Ah, my poor little thing! a sensible girl should not marry an artist +till his fortune is made--not while it is still to make." + +At this moment they heard voices; Stidmann and Wenceslas were seeing +Chanor to the door; then Wenceslas and Stidmann came in again. + +Stidmann, an artist in vogue in the world of journalists, famous +actresses, and courtesans of the better class, was a young man of +fashion whom Valerie much wished to see in her rooms; indeed, he had +already been introduced to her by Claude Vignon. Stidmann had lately +broken off an intimacy with Madame Schontz, who had married some +months since and gone to live in the country. Valerie and Lisbeth, +hearing of this upheaval from Claude Vignon, thought it well to get +Steinbock's friend to visit in the Rue Vanneau. + +Stidmann, out of good feeling, went rarely to the Steinbocks'; and as +it happened that Lisbeth was not present when he was introduced by +Claude Vignon, she now saw him for the first time. As she watched this +noted artist, she caught certain glances from his eyes at Hortense, +which suggested to her the possibility of offering him to the Countess +Steinbock as a consolation if Wenceslas should be false to her. In +point of fact, Stidmann was reflecting that if Steinbock were not his +friend, Hortense, the young and superbly beautiful countess, would be +an adorable mistress; it was this very notion, controlled by honor, +that kept him away from the house. Lisbeth was quick to mark the +significant awkwardness that troubles a man in the presence of a woman +with whom he will not allow himself to flirt. + +"Very good-looking--that young man," said she in a whisper to +Hortense. + +"Oh, do you think so?" she replied. "I never noticed him." + +"Stidmann, my good fellow," said Wenceslas, in an undertone to his +friend, "we are on no ceremony, you and I--we have some business to +settle with this old girl." + +Stidmann bowed to the ladies and went away. + +"It is settled," said Wenceslas, when he came in from taking leave of +Stidmann. "But there are six months' work to be done, and we must live +meanwhile." + +"There are my diamonds," cried the young Countess, with the impetuous +heroism of a loving woman. + +A tear rose in Wenceslas' eye. + +"Oh, I am going to work," said he, sitting down by his wife and +drawing her on to his knee. "I will do odd jobs--a wedding chest, +bronze groups----" + +"But, my children," said Lisbeth; "for, as you know, you will be my +heirs, and I shall leave you a very comfortable sum, believe me, +especially if you help me to marry the Marshal; nay, if we succeed in +that quickly, I will take you all to board with me--you and Adeline. +We should live very happily together.--But for the moment, listen to +the voice of my long experience. Do not fly to the Mont-de-Piete; it +is the ruin of the borrower. I have always found that when the +interest was due, those who had pledged their things had nothing +wherewith to pay up, and then all is lost. I can get you a loan at +five per cent on your note of hand." + +"Oh, we are saved!" said Hortense. + +"Well, then, child, Wenceslas had better come with me to see the +lender, who will oblige him at my request. It is Madame Marneffe. If +you flatter her a little--for she is as vain as a _parvenue_--she will +get you out of the scrape in the most obliging way. Come yourself and +see her, my dear Hortense." + +Hortense looked at her husband with the expression a man condemned to +death must wear on his way to the scaffold. + +"Claude Vignon took Stidmann there," said Wenceslas. "He says it is a +very pleasant house." + +Hortense's head fell. What she felt can only be expressed in one word; +it was not pain; it was illness. + +"But, my dear Hortense, you must learn something of life!" exclaimed +Lisbeth, understanding the eloquence of her cousin's looks. +"Otherwise, like your mother, you will find yourself abandoned in a +deserted room, where you will weep like Calypso on the departure of +Ulysses, and at an age when there is no hope of Telemachus--" she +added, repeating a jest of Madame Marneffe's. "We have to regard the +people in the world as tools which we can make use of or let alone, +according as they can serve our turn. Make use of Madame Marneffe now, +my dears, and let her alone by and by. Are you afraid lest Wenceslas, +who worships you, should fall in love with a woman four or five years +older than himself, as yellow as a bundle of field peas, and----?" + +"I would far rather pawn my diamonds," said Hortense. "Oh, never go +there, Wenceslas!--It is hell!" + +"Hortense is right," said Steinbock, kissing his wife. + +"Thank you, my dearest," said Hortense, delighted. "My husband is an +angel, you see, Lisbeth. He does not gamble, he goes nowhere without +me; if he only could stick to work--oh, I should be too happy. Why +take us on show to my father's mistress, a woman who is ruining him +and is the cause of troubles that are killing my heroic mother?" + +"My child, that is not where the cause of your father's ruin lies. It +was his singer who ruined him, and then your marriage!" replied her +cousin. "Bless me! why, Madame Marneffe is of the greatest use to him. +However, I must tell no tales." + +"You have a good word for everybody, dear Betty--" + +Hortense was called into the garden by hearing the child cry; Lisbeth +was left alone with Wenceslas. + +"You have an angel for your wife, Wenceslas!" said she. "Love her as +you ought; never give her cause for grief." + +"Yes, indeed, I love her so well that I do not tell her all," replied +Wenceslas; "but to you, Lisbeth, I may confess the truth.--If I took +my wife's diamonds to the Monte-de-Piete, we should be no further +forward." + +"Then borrow of Madame Marneffe," said Lisbeth. "Persuade Hortense, +Wenceslas, to let you go there, or else, bless me! go there without +telling her." + +"That is what I was thinking of," replied Wenceslas, "when I refused +for fear of grieving Hortense." + +"Listen to me; I care too much for you both not to warn you of your +danger. If you go there, hold your heart tight in both hands, for the +woman is a witch. All who see her adore her; she is so wicked, so +inviting! She fascinates men like a masterpiece. Borrow her money, but +do not leave your soul in pledge. I should never be happy again if you +were false to Hortense--here she is! not another word! I will settle +the matter." + +"Kiss Lisbeth, my darling," said Wenceslas to his wife. "She will help +us out of our difficulties by lending us her savings." + +And he gave Lisbeth a look which she understood. + +"Then, I hope you mean to work, my dear treasure," said Hortense. + +"Yes, indeed," said the artist. "I will begin to-morrow." + +"To-morrow is our ruin!" said his wife, with a smile. + +"Now, my dear child! say yourself whether some hindrance has not come +in the way every day; some obstacle or business?" + +"Yes, very true, my love." + +"Here!" cried Steinbock, striking his brow, "here I have swarms of +ideas! I mean to astonish all my enemies. I am going to design a +service in the German style of the sixteenth century; the romantic +style: foliage twined with insects, sleeping children, newly invented +monsters, chimeras--real chimeras, such as we dream of!--I see it all! +It will be undercut, light, and yet crowded. Chanor was quite amazed. +--And I wanted some encouragement, for the last article on +Montcornet's monument had been crushing." + +At a moment in the course of the day when Lisbeth and Wenceslas were +left together, the artist agreed to go on the morrow to see Madame +Marneffe--he either would win his wife's consent, or he would go +without telling her. + + + +Valerie, informed the same evening of this success, insisted that +Hulot should go to invite Stidmann, Claude Vignon, and Steinbock to +dinner; for she was beginning to tyrannize over him as women of that +type tyrannize over old men, who trot round town, and go to make +interest with every one who is necessary to the interests or the +vanity of their task-mistress. + +Next evening Valerie armed herself for conquest by making such a +toilet as a Frenchwoman can devise when she wishes to make the most of +herself. She studied her appearance in this great work as a man going +out to fight a duel practises his feints and lunges. Not a speck, not +a wrinkle was to be seen. Valerie was at her whitest, her softest, her +sweetest. And certain little "patches" attracted the eye. + +It is commonly supposed that the patch of the eighteenth century is +out of date or out of fashion; that is a mistake. In these days women, +more ingenious perhaps than of yore, invite a glance through the +opera-glass by other audacious devices. One is the first to hit on a +rosette in her hair with a diamond in the centre, and she attracts +every eye for a whole evening; another revives the hair-net, or sticks +a dagger through the twist to suggest a garter; this one wears velvet +bands round her wrists, that one appears in lace lippets. These +valiant efforts, an Austerlitz of vanity or of love, then set the +fashion for lower spheres by the time the inventive creatress has +originated something new. This evening, which Valerie meant to be a +success for her, she had placed three patches. She had washed her hair +with some lye, which changed its hue for a few days from a gold color +to a duller shade. Madame Steinbock's was almost red, and she would be +in every point unlike her. This new effect gave her a piquant and +strange appearance, which puzzled her followers so much, that Montes +asked her: + +"What have you done to yourself this evening?"--Then she put on a +rather wide black velvet neck-ribbon, which showed off the whiteness +of her skin. One patch took the place of the _assassine_ of our +grandmothers. And Valerie pinned the sweetest rosebud into her bodice, +just in the middle above the stay-busk, and in the daintiest little +hollow! It was enough to make every man under thirty drop his eyelids. + +"I am as sweet as a sugar-plum," said she to herself, going through +her attitudes before the glass, exactly as a dancer practises her +curtesies. + +Lisbeth had been to market, and the dinner was to be one of those +superfine meals which Mathurine had been wont to cook for her Bishop +when he entertained the prelate of the adjoining diocese. + +Stidmann, Claude Vignon, and Count Steinbock arrived almost together, +just at six. An ordinary, or, if you will, a natural woman would have +hastened at the announcement of a name so eagerly longed for; but +Valerie, though ready since five o'clock, remained in her room, +leaving her three guests together, certain that she was the subject of +their conversation or of their secret thoughts. She herself had +arranged the drawing-room, laying out the pretty trifles produced in +Paris and nowhere else, which reveal the woman and announce her +presence: albums bound in enamel or embroidered with beads, saucers +full of pretty rings, marvels of Sevres or Dresden mounted exquisitely +by Florent and Chanor, statues, books, all the frivolities which cost +insane sums, and which passion orders of the makers in its first +delirium--or to patch up its last quarrel. + +Besides, Valerie was in the state of intoxication that comes of +triumph. She had promised to marry Crevel if Marneffe should die; and +the amorous Crevel had transferred to the name of Valerie Fortin bonds +bearing ten thousand francs a year, the sum-total of what he had made +in railway speculations during the past three years, the returns on +the capital of a hundred thousand crowns which he had at first offered +to the Baronne Hulot. So Valerie now had an income of thirty-two +thousand francs. + +Crevel had just committed himself to a promise of far greater +magnitude than this gift of his surplus. In the paroxysm of rapture +which _his Duchess_ had given him from two to four--he gave this fine +title to Madame _de_ Marneffe to complete the illusion--for Valerie +had surpassed herself in the Rue du Dauphin that afternoon, he had +thought well to encourage her in her promised fidelity by giving her +the prospect of a certain little mansion, built in the Rue Barbette by +an imprudent contractor, who now wanted to sell it. Valerie could +already see herself in this delightful residence, with a fore-court +and a garden, and keeping a carriage! + +"What respectable life can ever procure so much in so short a time, or +so easily?" said she to Lisbeth as she finished dressing. Lisbeth was +to dine with Valerie that evening, to tell Steinbock those things +about the lady which nobody can say about herself. + +Madame Marneffe, radiant with satisfaction, came into the drawing-room +with modest grace, followed by Lisbeth dressed in black and yellow to +set her off. + +"Good-evening, Claude," said she, giving her hand to the famous old +critic. + +Claude Vignon, like many another, had become a political personage--a +word describing an ambitious man at the first stage of his career. The +_political personage_ of 1840 represents, in some degree, the _Abbe_ +of the eighteenth century. No drawing-room circle is complete without +one. + +"My dear, this is my cousin, Count Steinbock," said Lisbeth, +introducing Wenceslas, whom Valerie seemed to have overlooked. + +"Oh yes, I recognized Monsieur le Comte," replied Valerie with a +gracious bow to the artist. "I often saw you in the Rue du Doyenne, +and I had the pleasure of being present at your wedding.--It would be +difficult, my dear," said she to Lisbeth, "to forget your adopted son +after once seeing him.--It is most kind of you, Monsieur Stidmann," +she went on, "to have accepted my invitation at such short notice; but +necessity knows no law. I knew you to be the friend of both these +gentlemen. Nothing is more dreary, more sulky, than a dinner where all +the guests are strangers, so it was for their sake that I hailed you +in--but you will come another time for mine, I hope?--Say that you +will." + +And for a few minutes she moved about the room with Stidmann, wholly +occupied with him. + +Crevel and Hulot were announced separately, and then a deputy named +Beauvisage. + +This individual, a provincial Crevel, one of the men created to make +up the crowd in the world, voted under the banner of Giraud, a State +Councillor, and Victorin Hulot. These two politicians were trying to +form a nucleus of progressives in the loose array of the Conservative +Party. Giraud himself occasionally spent the evening at Madame +Marneffe's, and she flattered herself that she should also capture +Victorin Hulot; but the puritanical lawyer had hitherto found excuses +for refusing to accompany his father and father-in-law. It seemed to +him criminal to be seen in the house of the woman who cost his mother +so many tears. Victorin Hulot was to the puritans of political life +what a pious woman is among bigots. + +Beauvisage, formerly a stocking manufacturer at Arcis, was anxious to +_pick up the Paris style_. This man, one of the outer stones of the +Chamber, was forming himself under the auspices of this delicious and +fascinating Madame Marneffe. Introduced here by Crevel, he had +accepted him, at her instigation, as his model and master. He +consulted him on every point, took the address of his tailor, imitated +him, and tried to strike the same attitudes. In short, Crevel was his +Great Man. + +Valerie, surrounded by these bigwigs and the three artists, and +supported by Lisbeth, struck Wenceslas as a really superior woman, all +the more so because Claude Vignon spoke of her like a man in love. + +"She is Madame de Maintenon in Ninon's petticoats!" said the veteran +critic. "You may please her in an evening if you have the wit; but as +for making her love you--that would be a triumph to crown a man's +ambition and fill up his life." + +Valerie, while seeming cold and heedless of her former neighbor, +piqued his vanity, quite unconsciously indeed, for she knew nothing of +the Polish character. There is in the Slav a childish element, as +there is in all these primitively wild nations which have overflowed +into civilization rather than that they have become civilized. The +race has spread like an inundation, and has covered a large portion of +the globe. It inhabits deserts whose extent is so vast that it expands +at its ease; there is no jostling there, as there is in Europe, and +civilization is impossible without the constant friction of minds and +interests. The Ukraine, Russia, the plains by the Danube, in short, +the Slav nations, are a connecting link between Europe and Asia, +between civilization and barbarism. Thus the Pole, the wealthiest +member of the Slav family, has in his character all the childishness +and inconsistency of a beardless race. He has courage, spirit, and +strength; but, cursed with instability, that courage, strength, and +energy have neither method nor guidance; for the Pole displays a +variability resembling that of the winds which blow across that vast +plain broken with swamps; and though he has the impetuosity of the +snow squalls that wrench and sweep away buildings, like those aerial +avalanches he is lost in the first pool and melts into water. Man +always assimilates something from the surroundings in which he lives. +Perpetually at strife with the Turk, the Pole has imbibed a taste for +Oriental splendor; he often sacrifices what is needful for the sake of +display. The men dress themselves out like women, yet the climate has +given them the tough constitution of Arabs. + +The Pole, sublime in suffering, has tired his oppressors' arms by +sheer endurance of beating; and, in the nineteenth century, has +reproduced the spectacle presented by the early Christians. Infuse +only ten per cent of English cautiousness into the frank and open +Polish nature, and the magnanimous white eagle would at this day be +supreme wherever the two-headed eagle has sneaked in. A little +Machiavelism would have hindered Poland from helping to save Austria, +who has taken a share of it; from borrowing from Prussia, the usurer +who had undermined it; and from breaking up as soon as a division was +first made. + +At the christening of Poland, no doubt, the Fairy Carabosse, +overlooked by the genii who endowed that attractive people with the +most brilliant gifts, came in to say: + +"Keep all the gifts that my sisters have bestowed on you; but you +shall never know what you wish for!" + +If, in its heroic duel with Russia, Poland had won the day, the Poles +would now be fighting among themselves, as they formerly fought in +their Diets to hinder each other from being chosen King. When that +nation, composed entirely of hot-headed dare-devils, has good sense +enough to seek a Louis XI. among her own offspring, to accept his +despotism and a dynasty, she will be saved. + +What Poland has been politically, almost every Pole is in private +life, especially under the stress of disaster. Thus Wenceslas +Steinbock, after worshiping his wife for three years and knowing that +he was a god to her, was so much nettled at finding himself barely +noticed by Madame Marneffe, that he made it a point of honor to +attract her attention. He compared Valerie with his wife and gave her +the palm. Hortense was beautiful flesh, as Valerie had said to +Lisbeth; but Madame Marneffe had spirit in her very shape, and the +savor of vice. + +Such devotion as Hortense's is a feeling which a husband takes as his +due; the sense of the immense preciousness of such perfect love soon +wears off, as a debtor, in the course of time, begins to fancy that +the borrowed money is his own. This noble loyalty becomes the daily +bread of the soul, and an infidelity is as tempting as a dainty. The +woman who is scornful, and yet more the woman who is reputed +dangerous, excites curiosity, as spices add flavor to good food. +Indeed, the disdain so cleverly acted by Valerie was a novelty to +Wenceslas, after three years of too easy enjoyment. Hortense was a +wife; Valerie a mistress. + +Many men desire to have two editions of the same work, though it is in +fact a proof of inferiority when a man cannot make his mistress of his +wife. Variety in this particular is a sign of weakness. Constancy will +always be the real genius of love, the evidence of immense power--the +power that makes the poet! A man ought to find every woman in his +wife, as the squalid poets of the seventeenth century made their +Manons figure as Iris and Chloe. + +"Well," said Lisbeth to the Pole, as she beheld him fascinated, "what +do you think of Valerie?" + +"She is too charming," replied Wenceslas. + +"You would not listen to me," said Betty. "Oh! my little Wenceslas, if +you and I had never parted, you would have been that siren's lover; +you might have married her when she was a widow, and you would have +had her forty thousand francs a year----" + +"Really?" + +"Certainly," replied Lisbeth. "Now, take care of yourself; I warned +you of the danger; do not singe your wings in the candle!--Come, give +me your arm, dinner is served." + +No language could be so thoroughly demoralizing as this; for if you +show a Pole a precipice, he is bound to leap it. As a nation they have +the very spirit of cavalry; they fancy they can ride down every +obstacle and come out victorious. The spur applied by Lisbeth to +Steinbock's vanity was intensified by the appearance of the +dining-room, bright with handsome silver plate; the dinner was served +with every refinement and extravagance of Parisian luxury. + +"I should have done better to take Celimene," thought he to himself. + +All through the dinner Hulot was charming; pleased to see his +son-in-law at that table, and yet more happy in the prospect of a +reconciliation with Valerie, whose fidelity he proposed to secure by +the promise of Coquet's head-clerkship. Stidmann responded to the +Baron's amiability by shafts of Parisian banter and an artist's high +spirits. Steinbock would not allow himself to be eclipsed by his +friend; he too was witty, said amusing things, made his mark, and was +pleased with himself; Madame Marneffe smiled at him several times to +show that she quite understood him. + +The good meal and heady wines completed the work; Wenceslas was deep +in what must be called the slough of dissipation. Excited by just a +glass too much, he stretched himself on a settee after dinner, sunk in +physical and mental ecstasy, which Madame Marneffe wrought to the +highest pitch by coming to sit down by him--airy, scented, pretty +enough to damn an angel. She bent over Wenceslas and almost touched +his ear as she whispered to him: + +"We cannot talk over business matters this evening, unless you will +remain till the last. Between us--you, Lisbeth, and me--we can settle +everything to suit you." + +"Ah, Madame, you are an angel!" replied Wenceslas, also in a murmur. +"I was a pretty fool not to listen to Lisbeth--" + +"What did she say?" + +"She declared, in the Rue du Doyenne, that you loved me!" + +Madame Marneffe looked at him, seemed covered with confusion, and +hastily left her seat. A young and pretty woman never rouses the hope +of immediate success with impunity. This retreat, the impulse of a +virtuous woman who is crushing a passion in the depths of her heart, +was a thousand times more effective than the most reckless avowal. +Desire was so thoroughly aroused in Wenceslas that he doubled his +attentions to Valerie. A woman seen by all is a woman wished for. +Hence the terrible power of actresses. Madame Marneffe, knowing that +she was watched, behaved like an admired actress. She was quite +charming, and her success was immense. + +"I no longer wonder at my father-in-law's follies," said Steinbock to +Lisbeth. + +"If you say such things, Wenceslas, I shall to my dying day repent of +having got you the loan of these ten thousand francs. Are you, like +all these men," and she indicated the guests, "madly in love with that +creature? Remember, you would be your father-in-law's rival. And think +of the misery you would bring on Hortense." + +"That is true," said Wenceslas. "Hortense is an angel; I should be a +wretch." + +"And one is enough in the family!" said Lisbeth. + +"Artists ought never to marry!" exclaimed Steinbock. + +"Ah! that is what I always told you in the Rue du Doyenne. Your +groups, your statues, your great works, ought to be your children." + +"What are you talking about?" Valerie asked, joining Lisbeth.--"Give +us tea, Cousin." + +Steinbock, with Polish vainglory, wanted to appear familiar with this +drawing-room fairy. After defying Stidmann, Vignon, and Crevel with a +look, he took Valerie's hand and forced her to sit down by him on the +settee. + +"You are rather too lordly, Count Steinbock," said she, resisting a +little. But she laughed as she dropped on to the seat, not without +arranging the rosebud pinned into her bodice. + +"Alas! if I were really lordly," said he, "I should not be here to +borrow money." + +"Poor boy! I remember how you worked all night in the Rue du Doyenne. +You really were rather a spooney; you married as a starving man +snatches a loaf. You knew nothing of Paris, and you see where you are +landed. But you turned a deaf ear to Lisbeth's devotion, as you did to +the love of a woman who knows her Paris by heart." + +"Say no more!" cried Steinbock; "I am done for!" + +"You shall have your ten thousand francs, my dear Wenceslas; but on +one condition," she went on, playing with his handsome curls. + +"What is that?" + +"I will take no interest----" + +"Madame!" + +"Oh, you need not be indignant; you shall make it good by giving me a +bronze group. You began the story of Samson; finish it.--Do a Delilah +cutting off the Jewish Hercules' hair. And you, who, if you will +listen to me, will be a great artist, must enter into the subject. +What you have to show is the power of woman. Samson is a secondary +consideration. He is the corpse of dead strength. It is Delilah +--passion--that ruins everything. How far more beautiful is that +_replica_--That is what you call it, I think--" She skilfully +interpolated, as Claude Vignon and Stidmann came up to them on hearing +her talk of sculpture--"how far more beautiful than the Greek myth is +that _replica_ of Hercules at Omphale's feet.--Did Greece copy Judaea, +or did Judaea borrow the symbolism from Greece?" + +"There, madame, you raise an important question--that of the date of +the various writings in the Bible. The great and immortal Spinoza +--most foolishly ranked as an atheist, whereas he gave mathematical +proof of the existence of God--asserts that the Book of Genesis and +all the political history of the Bible are of the time of Moses, and +he demonstrates the interpolated passages by philological evidence. +And he was thrice stabbed as he went into the synagogue." + +"I had no idea I was so learned," said Valerie, annoyed at this +interruption to her _tete-a-tete_. + +"Women know everything by instinct," replied Claude Vignon. + +"Well, then, you promise me?" she said to Steinbock, taking his hand +with the timidity of a girl in love. + +"You are indeed a happy man, my dear fellow," cried Stidmann, "if +madame asks a favor of you!" + +"What is it?" asked Claude Vignon. + +"A small bronze group," replied Steinbock, "Delilah cutting off +Samson's hair." + +"It is difficult," remarked Vignon. "A bed----" + +"On the contrary, it is exceedingly easy," replied Valerie, smiling. + +"Ah ha! teach us sculpture!" said Stidmann. + +"You should take madame for your subject," replied Vignon, with a keen +glance at Valerie. + +"Well," she went on, "this is my notion of the composition. Samson on +waking finds he has no hair, like many a dandy with a false top-knot. +The hero is sitting on the bed, so you need only show the foot of it, +covered with hangings and drapery. There he is, like Marius among the +ruins of Carthage, his arms folded, his head shaven--Napoleon at +Saint-Helena--what you will! Delilah is on her knees, a good deal like +Canova's Magdalen. When a hussy has ruined her man, she adores him. As +I see it, the Jewess was afraid of Samson in his strength and terrors, +but she must have loved him when she saw him a child again. So Delilah +is bewailing her sin, she would like to give her lover his hair again. +She hardly dares to look at him; but she does look, with a smile, for +she reads forgiveness in Samson's weakness. Such a group as this, and +one of the ferocious Judith, would epitomize woman. Virtue cuts off +your head; vice only cuts off your hair. Take care of your wigs, +gentlemen!" + +And she left the artists quite overpowered, to sing her praises in +concert with the critic. + +"It is impossible to be more bewitching!" cried Stidmann. + +"Oh! she is the most intelligent and desirable woman I have ever met," +said Claude Vignon. "Such a combination of beauty and cleverness is so +rare." + +"And if you who had the honor of being intimate with Camille Maupin +can pronounce such a verdict," replied Stidmann, "what are we to +think?" + +"If you will make your Delilah a portrait of Valerie, my dear Count," +said Crevel, who had risen for a moment from the card-table, and who +had heard what had been said, "I will give you a thousand crowns for +an example--yes, by the Powers! I will shell out to the tune of a +thousand crowns!" + +"Shell out! What does that mean?" asked Beauvisage of Claude Vignon. + +"Madame must do me the honor to sit for it then," said Steinbock to +Crevel. "Ask her--" + +At this moment Valerie herself brought Steinbock a cup of tea. This +was more than a compliment, it was a favor. There is a complete +language in the manner in which a woman does this little civility; but +women are fully aware of the fact, and it is a curious thing to study +their movements, their manner, their look, tone, and accent when they +perform this apparently simple act of politeness.--From the question, +"Do you take tea?"--"Will you have some tea?"--"A cup of tea?" coldly +asked, and followed by instructions to the nymph of the urn to bring +it, to the eloquent poem of the odalisque coming from the tea-table, +cup in hand, towards the pasha of her heart, presenting it +submissively, offering it in an insinuating voice, with a look full of +intoxicating promises, a physiologist could deduce the whole scale of +feminine emotion, from aversion or indifference to Phaedra's +declaration to Hippolytus. Women can make it, at will, contemptuous to +the verge of insult, or humble to the expression of Oriental +servility. + +And Valerie was more than woman; she was the serpent made woman; she +crowned her diabolical work by going up to Steinbock, a cup of tea in +her hand. + +"I will drink as many cups of tea as you will give me," said the +artist, murmuring in her ear as he rose, and touching her fingers with +his, "to have them given to me thus!" + +"What were you saying about sitting?" said she, without betraying that +this declaration, so frantically desired, had gone straight to her +heart. + +"Old Crevel promises me a thousand crowns for a copy of your group." + +"He! a thousand crowns for a bronze group?" + +"Yes--if you will sit for Delilah," said Steinbock. + +"He will not be there to see, I hope!" replied she. "The group would +be worth more than all his fortune, for Delilah's costume is rather +un-dressy." + +Just as Crevel loved to strike an attitude, every woman has a +victorious gesture, a studied movement, which she knows must win +admiration. You may see in a drawing-room how one spends all her time +looking down at her tucker or pulling up the shoulder-piece of her +gown, how another makes play with the brightness of her eyes by +glancing up at the cornice. Madame Marneffe's triumph, however, was +not face to face like that of other women. She turned sharply round to +return to Lisbeth at the tea-table. This ballet-dancer's pirouette, +whisking her skirts, by which she had overthrown Hulot, now fascinated +Steinbock. + +"Your vengeance is secure," said Valerie to Lisbeth in a whisper. +"Hortense will cry out all her tears, and curse the day when she +robbed you of Wenceslas." + +"Till I am Madame la Marechale I shall not think myself successful," +replied the cousin; "but they are all beginning to wish for it.--This +morning I went to Victorin's--I forgot to tell you.--The young Hulots +have bought up their father's notes of hand given to Vauvinet, and +to-morrow they will endorse a bill for seventy-two thousand francs at +five per cent, payable in three years, and secured by a mortgage on +their house. So the young people are in straits for three years; they +can raise no more money on that property. Victorin is dreadfully +distressed; he understands his father. And Crevel is capable of +refusing to see them; he will be so angry at this piece of +self-sacrifice." + +"The Baron cannot have a sou now," said Valerie, and she smiled at +Hulot. + +"I don't see where he can get it. But he will draw his salary again in +September." + +"And he has his policy of insurance; he has renewed it. Come, it is +high time he should get Marneffe promoted. I will drive it home this +evening." + +"My dear cousin," said Lisbeth to Wenceslas, "go home, I beg. You are +quite ridiculous. Your eyes are fixed on Valerie in a way that is +enough to compromise her, and her husband is insanely jealous. Do not +tread in your father-in-law's footsteps. Go home; I am sure Hortense +is sitting up for you." + +"Madame Marneffe told me to stay till the last to settle my little +business with you and her," replied Wenceslas. + +"No, no," said Lisbeth; "I will bring you the ten thousand francs, for +her husband has his eye on you. It would be rash to remain. To-morrow +at eleven o'clock bring your note of hand; at that hour that mandarin +Marneffe is at his office, Valerie is free.--Have you really asked her +to sit for your group?--Come up to my rooms first.--Ah! I was sure of +it," she added, as she caught the look which Steinbock flashed at +Valerie, "I knew you were a profligate in the bud! Well, Valerie is +lovely--but try not to bring trouble on Hortense." + + + +Nothing annoys a married man so much as finding his wife perpetually +interposing between himself and his wishes, however transient. + +Wenceslas got home at about one in the morning; Hortense had expected +him ever since half-past nine. From half-past nine till ten she had +listened to the passing carriages, telling herself that never before +had her husband come in so late from dining with Florent and Chanor. +She sat sewing by the child's cot, for she had begun to save a +needlewoman's pay for the day by doing the mending herself.--From ten +till half-past, a suspicion crossed her mind; she sat wondering: + +"Is he really gone to dinner, as he told me, with Chanor and Florent? +He put on his best cravat and his handsomest pin when he dressed. He +took as long over his toilet as a woman when she wants to make the +best of herself.--I am crazy! He loves me!--And here he is!" + +But instead of stopping, the cab she heard went past. + +From eleven till midnight Hortense was a victim to terrible alarms; +the quarter where they lived was now deserted. + +"If he has set out on foot, some accident may have happened," thought +she. "A man may be killed by tumbling over a curbstone or failing to +see a gap. Artists are so heedless! Or if he should have been stopped +by robbers!--It is the first time he has ever left me alone here for +six hours and a half!--But why should I worry myself? He cares for no +one but me." + +Men ought to be faithful to the wives who love them, were it only on +account of the perpetual miracles wrought by true love in the sublime +regions of the spiritual world. The woman who loves is, in relation to +the man she loves, in the position of a somnambulist to whom the +magnetizer should give the painful power, when she ceases to be the +mirror of the world, of being conscious as a woman of what she has +seen as a somnambulist. Passion raises the nervous tension of a woman +to the ecstatic pitch at which presentiment is as acute as the insight +of a clairvoyant. A wife knows she is betrayed; she will not let +herself say so, she doubts still--she loves so much! She gives the lie +to the outcry of her own Pythian power. This paroxysm of love deserves +a special form of worship. + +In noble souls, admiration of this divine phenomenon will always be a +safeguard to protect them from infidelity. How should a man not +worship a beautiful and intellectual creature whose soul can soar to +such manifestations? + +By one in the morning Hortense was in a state of such intense anguish, +that she flew to the door as she recognized her husband's ring at the +bell, and clasped him in her arms like a mother. + +"At last--here you are!" cried she, finding her voice again. "My +dearest, henceforth where you go I go, for I cannot again endure the +torture of such waiting.--I pictured you stumbling over a curbstone, +with a fractured skull! Killed by thieves!--No, a second time I know I +should go mad.--Have you enjoyed yourself so much?--And without me! +--Bad boy!" + +"What can I say, my darling? There was Bixiou, who drew fresh +caricatures for us; Leon de Lora, as witty as ever; Claude Vignon, to +whom I owe the only consolatory article that has come out about the +Montcornet statue. There were--" + +"Were there no ladies?" Hortense eagerly inquired. + +"Worthy Madame Florent--" + +"You said the Rocher de Cancale.--Were you at the Florents'?" + +"Yes, at their house; I made a mistake." + +"You did not take a coach to come home?" + +"No." + +"And you have walked from the Rue des Tournelles?" + +"Stidmann and Bixiou came back with me along the boulevards as far as +the Madeleine, talking all the way." + +"It is dry then on the boulevards and the Place de la Concorde and the +Rue de Bourgogne? You are not muddy at all!" said Hortense, looking at +her husband's patent leather boots. + +It had been raining, but between the Rue Vanneau and the Rue +Saint-Dominique Wenceslas had not got his boots soiled. + +"Here--here are five thousand francs Chanor has been so generous as to +lend me," said Wenceslas, to cut short this lawyer-like examination. + +He had made a division of the ten thousand-franc notes, half for +Hortense and half for himself, for he had five thousand francs' worth +of debts of which Hortense knew nothing. He owed money to his foreman +and his workmen. + +"Now your anxieties are relieved," said he, kissing his wife. "I am +going to work to-morrow morning. So I am going to bed this minute to +get up early, by your leave, my pet." + +The suspicion that had dawned in Hortense's mind vanished; she was +miles away from the truth. Madame Marneffe! She had never thought of +her. Her fear for her Wenceslas was that he should fall in with street +prostitutes. The names of Bixiou and Leon de Lora, two artists noted +for their wild dissipations, had alarmed her. + +Next morning she saw Wenceslas go out at nine o'clock, and was quite +reassured. + +"Now he is at work again," said she to herself, as she proceeded to +dress her boy. "I see he is quite in the vein! Well, well, if we +cannot have the glory of Michael Angelo, we may have that of Benvenuto +Cellini!" + +Lulled by her own hopes, Hortense believed in a happy future; and she +was chattering to her son of twenty months in the language of +onomatopoeia that amuses babes when, at about eleven o'clock, the +cook, who had not seen Wenceslas go out, showed in Stidmann. + +"I beg pardon, madame," said he. "Is Wenceslas gone out already?" + +"He is at the studio." + +"I came to talk over the work with him." + +"I will send for him," said Hortense, offering Stidmann a chair. + +Thanking Heaven for this piece of luck, Hortense was glad to detain +Stidmann to ask some questions about the evening before. Stidmann +bowed in acknowledgment of her kindness. The Countess Steinbock rang; +the cook appeared, and was desired to go at once and fetch her master +from the studio. + +"You had an amusing dinner last night?" said Hortense. "Wenceslas did +not come in till past one in the morning." + +"Amusing? not exactly," replied the artist, who had intended to +fascinate Madame Marneffe. "Society is not very amusing unless one is +interested in it. That little Madame Marneffe is clever, but a great +flirt." + +"And what did Wenceslas think of her?" asked poor Hortense, trying to +keep calm. "He said nothing about her to me." + +"I will only say one thing," said Stidmann, "and that is, that I think +her a very dangerous woman." + +Hortense turned as pale as a woman after childbirth. + +"So--it was at--at Madame Marneffe's that you dined--and not--not with +Chanor?" said she, "yesterday--and Wenceslas--and he----" + +Stidmann, without knowing what mischief he had done, saw that he had +blundered. + +The Countess did not finish her sentence; she simply fainted away. The +artist rang, and the maid came in. When Louise tried to get her +mistress into her bedroom, a serious nervous attack came on, with +violent hysterics. Stidmann, like any man who by an involuntary +indiscretion has overthrown the structure built on a husband's lie to +his wife, could not conceive that his words should produce such an +effect; he supposed that the Countess was in such delicate health that +the slightest contradiction was mischievous. + +The cook presently returned to say, unfortunately in loud tones, that +her master was not in the studio. In the midst of her anguish, +Hortense heard, and the hysterical fit came on again. + +"Go and fetch madame's mother," said Louise to the cook. "Quick--run!" + +"If I knew where to find Steinbock, I would go and fetch him!" +exclaimed Stidmann in despair. + +"He is with that woman!" cried the unhappy wife. "He was not dressed +to go to his work!" + +Stidmann hurried off to Madame Marneffe's, struck by the truth of this +conclusion, due to the second-sight of passion. + +At that moment Valerie was posed as Delilah. Stidmann, too sharp to +ask for Madame Marneffe, walked straight in past the lodge, and ran +quickly up to the second floor, arguing thus: "If I ask for Madame +Marneffe, she will be out. If I inquire point-blank for Steinbock, I +shall be laughed at to my face.--Take the bull by the horns!" + +Reine appeared in answer to his ring. + +"Tell Monsieur le Comte Steinbock to come at once, his wife is +dying--" + +Reine, quite a match for Stidmann, looked at him with blank surprise. + +"But, sir--I don't know--did you suppose----" + +"I tell you that my friend Monsieur Steinbock is here; his wife is +very ill. It is quite serious enough for you to disturb your +mistress." And Stidmann turned on his heel. + +"He is there, sure enough!" said he to himself. + +And in point of fact, after waiting a few minutes in the Rue Vanneau, +he saw Wenceslas come out, and beckoned to him to come quickly. After +telling him of the tragedy enacted in the Rue Saint-Dominique, +Stidmann scolded Steinbock for not having warned him to keep the +secret of yesterday's dinner. + +"I am done for," said Wenceslas, "but you are forgiven. I had totally +forgotten that you were to call this morning, and I blundered in not +telling you that we were to have dined with Florent.--What can I say? +That Valerie has turned my head; but, my dear fellow, for her glory is +well lost, misfortune well won! She really is!--Good Heavens!--But I +am in a dreadful fix. Advise me. What can I say? How can I excuse +myself?" + +"I! advise you! I don't know," replied Stidmann. "But your wife loves +you, I imagine? Well, then, she will believe anything. Tell her that +you were on your way to me when I was on my way to you; that, at any +rate, will set this morning's business right. Good-bye." + +Lisbeth, called down by Reine, ran after Wenceslas and caught him up +at the corner of the Rue Hillerin-Bertin; she was afraid of his Polish +artlessness. Not wishing to be involved in the matter, she said a few +words to Wenceslas, who in his joy hugged her then and there. She had +no doubt pushed out a plank to enable the artist to cross this awkward +place in his conjugal affairs. + +At the sight of her mother, who had flown to her aid, Hortense burst +into floods of tears. This happily changed the character of the +hysterical attack. + +"Treachery, dear mamma!" cried she. "Wenceslas, after giving me his +word of honor that he would not go near Madame Marneffe, dined with +her last night, and did not come in till a quarter-past one in the +morning.--If you only knew! The day before we had had a discussion, +not a quarrel, and I had appealed to him so touchingly. I told him I +was jealous, that I should die if he were unfaithful; that I was +easily suspicious, but that he ought to have some consideration for my +weaknesses, as they came of my love for him; that I had my father's +blood in my veins as well as yours; that at the first moment of such +discovery I should be mad, and capable of mad deeds--of avenging +myself--of dishonoring us all, him, his child, and myself; that I +might even kill him first and myself after--and so on. + +"And yet he went there; he is there!--That woman is bent on breaking +all our hearts! Only yesterday my brother and Celestine pledged their +all to pay off seventy thousand francs on notes of hand signed for +that good-for-nothing creature.--Yes, mamma, my father would have been +arrested and put into prison. Cannot that dreadful woman be content +with having my father, and with all your tears? Why take my Wenceslas? +--I will go to see her and stab her!" + +Madame Hulot, struck to the heart by the dreadful secrets Hortense was +unwittingly letting out, controlled her grief by one of the heroic +efforts which a magnanimous mother can make, and drew her daughter's +head on to her bosom to cover it with kisses. + +"Wait for Wenceslas, my child; all will be explained. The evil cannot +be so great as you picture it!--I, too, have been deceived, my dear +Hortense; you think me handsome, I have lived blameless; and yet I +have been utterly forsaken for three-and-twenty years--for a Jenny +Cadine, a Josepha, a Madame Marneffe!--Did you know that?" + +"You, mamma, you! You have endured this for twenty----" + +She broke off, staggered by her own thoughts. + +"Do as I have done, my child," said her mother. "Be gentle and kind, +and your conscience will be at peace. On his death-bed a man may say, +'My wife has never cost me a pang!' And God, who hears that dying +breath, credits it to us. If I had abandoned myself to fury like you, +what would have happened? Your father would have been embittered, +perhaps he would have left me altogether, and he would not have been +withheld by any fear of paining me. Our ruin, utter as it now is, +would have been complete ten years sooner, and we should have shown +the world the spectacle of a husband and wife living quite apart--a +scandal of the most horrible, heart-breaking kind, for it is the +destruction of the family. Neither your brother nor you could have +married. + +"I sacrificed myself, and that so bravely, that, till this last +connection of your father's, the world has believed me happy. My +serviceable and indeed courageous falsehood has, till now, screened +Hector; he is still respected; but this old man's passion is taking +him too far, that I see. His own folly, I fear, will break through the +veil I have kept between the world and our home. However, I have held +that curtain steady for twenty-three years, and have wept behind it +--motherless, I, without a friend to trust, with no help but in +religion--I have for twenty-three years secured the family honor----" + +Hortense listened with a fixed gaze. The calm tone of resignation and +of such crowning sorrow soothed the smart of her first wound; the +tears rose again and flowed in torrents. In a frenzy of filial +affection, overcome by her mother's noble heroism, she fell on her +knees before Adeline, took up the hem of her dress and kissed it, as +pious Catholics kiss the holy relics of a martyr. + +"Nay, get up, Hortense," said the Baroness. "Such homage from my +daughter wipes out many sad memories. Come to my heart, and weep for +no sorrows but your own. It is the despair of my dear little girl, +whose joy was my only joy, that broke the solemn seal which nothing +ought to have removed from my lips. Indeed, I meant to have taken my +woes to the tomb, as a shroud the more. It was to soothe your anguish +that I spoke.--God will forgive me! + +"Oh! if my life were to be your life, what would I not do? Men, the +world, Fate, Nature, God Himself, I believe, make us pay for love with +the most cruel grief. I must pay for ten years of happiness and +twenty-four years of despair, of ceaseless sorrow, of bitterness--" + +"But you had ten years, dear mamma, and I have had but three!" said +the self-absorbed girl. + +"Nothing is lost yet," said Adeline. "Only wait till Wenceslas comes." + +"Mother," said she, "he lied, he deceived me. He said, 'I will not +go,' and he went. And that over his child's cradle." + +"For pleasure, my child, men will commit the most cowardly, the most +infamous actions--even crimes; it lies in their nature, it would seem. +We wives are set apart for sacrifice. I believed my troubles were +ended, and they are beginning again, for I never thought to suffer +doubly by suffering with my child. Courage--and silence!--My Hortense, +swear that you will never discuss your griefs with anybody but me, +never let them be suspected by any third person. Oh! be as proud as +your mother has been." + +Hortense started; she had heard her husband's step. + +"So it would seem," said Wenceslas, as he came in, "that Stidmann has +been here while I went to see him." + +"Indeed!" said Hortense, with the angry irony of an offended woman who +uses words to stab. + +"Certainly," said Wenceslas, affecting surprise. "We have just met." + +"And yesterday?" + +"Well, yesterday I deceived you, my darling love; and your mother +shall judge between us." + +This candor unlocked his wife's heart. All really lofty women like the +truth better than lies. They cannot bear to see their idol smirched; +they want to be proud of the despotism they bow to. + +There is a strain of this feeling in the devotion of the Russians to +their Czar. + +"Now, listen, dear mother," Wenceslas went on. "I so truly love my +sweet and kind Hortense, that I concealed from her the extent of our +poverty. What could I do? She was still nursing the boy, and such +troubles would have done her harm; you know what the risk is for a +woman. Her beauty, youth, and health are imperiled. Did I do wrong? +--She believes that we owe five thousand francs; but I owe five +thousand more. The day before yesterday we were in the depths! No one +on earth will lend to us artists. Our talents are not less +untrustworthy than our whims. I knocked in vain at every door. Lisbeth, +indeed, offered us her savings." + +"Poor soul!" said Hortense. + +"Poor soul!" said the Baroness. + +"But what are Lisbeth's two thousand francs? Everything to her, +nothing to us.--Then, as you know, Hortense, she spoke to us of Madame +Marneffe, who, as she owes so much to the Baron, out of a sense of +honor, will take no interest. Hortense wanted to send her diamonds to +the Mont-de-Piete; they would have brought in a few thousand francs, +but we needed ten thousand. Those ten thousand francs were to be had +free of interest for a year!--I said to myself, 'Hortense will be none +the wiser; I will go and get them.' + +"Then the woman asked me to dinner through my father-in-law, giving me +to understand that Lisbeth had spoken of the matter, and I should have +the money. Between Hortense's despair on one hand, and the dinner on +the other, I could not hesitate.--That is all. + +"What! could Hortense, at four-and-twenty, lovely, pure, and virtuous, +and all my pride and glory, imagine that, when I have never left her +since we married, I could now prefer--what?--a tawny, painted, ruddled +creature?" said he, using the vulgar exaggeration of the studio to +convince his wife by the vehemence that women like. + +"Oh! if only your father had ever spoken so----!" cried the Baroness. + +Hortense threw her arms round her husband's neck. + +"Yes, that is what I should have done," said her mother. "Wenceslas, +my dear fellow, your wife was near dying of it," she went on very +seriously. "You see how well she loves you. And, alas--she is yours!" + +She sighed deeply. + +"He may make a martyr of her, or a happy woman," thought she to +herself, as every mother thinks when she sees her daughter married. +--"It seems to me," she said aloud, "that I am miserable enough to +hope to see my children happy." + +"Be quite easy, dear mamma," said Wenceslas, only too glad to see this +critical moment end happily. "In two months I shall have repaid that +dreadful woman. How could I help it," he went on, repeating this +essentially Polish excuse with a Pole's grace; "there are times when a +man would borrow of the Devil.--And, after all, the money belongs to +the family. When once she had invited me, should I have got the money +at all if I had responded to her civility with a rude refusal?" + +"Oh, mamma, what mischief papa is bringing on us!" cried Hortense. + +The Baroness laid her finger on her daughter's lips, aggrieved by this +complaint, the first blame she had ever uttered of a father so +heroically screened by her mother's magnanimous silence. + +"Now, good-bye, my children," said Madame Hulot. "The storm is over. +But do not quarrel any more." + +When Wenceslas and his wife returned to their room after letting out +the Baroness, Hortense said to her husband: + +"Tell me all about last evening." + +And she watched his face all through the narrative, interrupting him +by the questions that crowd on a wife's mind in such circumstances. +The story made Hortense reflect; she had a glimpse of the infernal +dissipation which an artist must find in such vicious company. + +"Be honest, my Wenceslas; Stidmann was there, Claude Vignon, +Vernisset.--Who else? In short, it was good fun?" + +"I, I was thinking of nothing but our ten thousand francs, and I was +saying to myself, 'My Hortense will be freed from anxiety.'" + +This catechism bored the Livonian excessively; he seized a gayer +moment to say: + +"And you, my dearest, what would you have done if your artist had +proved guilty?" + +"I," said she, with an air of prompt decision, "I should have taken up +Stidmann--not that I love him, of course!" + +"Hortense!" cried Steinbock, starting to his feet with a sudden and +theatrical emphasis. "You would not have had the chance--I would have +killed you!" + +Hortense threw herself into his arms, clasping him closely enough to +stifle him, and covered him with kisses, saying: + +"Ah, you do love me! I fear nothing!--But no more Marneffe. Never go +plunging into such horrible bogs." + +"I swear to you, my dear Hortense, that I will go there no more, +excepting to redeem my note of hand." + +She pouted at this, but only as a loving woman sulks to get something +for it. Wenceslas, tired out with such a morning's work, went off to +his studio to make a clay sketch of the _Samson and Delilah_, for +which he had the drawings in his pocket. + +Hortense, penitent for her little temper, and fancying that her +husband was annoyed with her, went to the studio just as the sculptor +had finished handling the clay with the impetuosity that spurs an +artist when the mood is on him. On seeing his wife, Wenceslas hastily +threw the wet wrapper over the group, and putting both arms round her, +he said: + +"We were not really angry, were we, my pretty puss?" + +Hortense had caught sight of the group, had seen the linen thrown over +it, and had said nothing; but as she was leaving, she took off the +rag, looked at the model, and asked: + +"What is that?" + +"A group for which I had just had an idea." + +"And why did you hide it?" + +"I did not mean you to see it till it was finished." + +"The woman is very pretty," said Hortense. + +And a thousand suspicions cropped up in her mind, as, in India, tall, +rank plants spring up in a night-time. + + + +By the end of three weeks, Madame Marneffe was intensely irritated by +Hortense. Women of that stamp have a pride of their own; they insist +that men shall kiss the devil's hoof; they have no forgiveness for the +virtue that does not quail before their dominion, or that even holds +its own against them. Now, in all that time Wenceslas had not paid one +visit in the Rue Vanneau, not even that which politeness required to a +woman who had sat for Delilah. + +Whenever Lisbeth called on the Steinbocks, there had been nobody at +home. Monsieur and madame lived in the studio. Lisbeth, following the +turtle doves to their nest at le Gros-Caillou, found Wenceslas hard at +work, and was informed by the cook that madame never left monsieur's +side. Wenceslas was a slave to the autocracy of love. So now Valerie, +on her own account, took part with Lisbeth in her hatred of Hortense. + +Women cling to a lover that another woman is fighting for, just as +much as men do to women round whom many coxcombs are buzzing. Thus any +reflections _a propos_ to Madame Marneffe are equally applicable to +any lady-killing rake; he is, in fact, a sort of male courtesan. +Valerie's last fancy was a madness; above all, she was bent on getting +her group; she was even thinking of going one morning to the studio to +see Wenceslas, when a serious incident arose of the kind which, to a +woman of that class, may be called the spoil of war. + +This is how Valerie announced this wholly personal event. + +She was breakfasting with Lisbeth and her husband. + +"I say, Marneffe, what would you say to being a second time a father?" + +"You don't mean it--a baby?--Oh, let me kiss you!" + +He rose and went round the table; his wife held up her head so that he +could just kiss her hair. + +"If that is so," he went on, "I am head-clerk and officer of the +Legion of Honor at once. But you must understand, my dear, Stanislas +is not to be the sufferer, poor little man." + +"Poor little man?" Lisbeth put in. "You have not set your eyes on him +these seven months. I am supposed to be his mother at the school; I am +the only person in the house who takes any trouble about him." + +"A brat that costs us a hundred crowns a quarter!" said Valerie. "And +he, at any rate, is your own child, Marneffe. You ought to pay for his +schooling out of your salary.--The newcomer, far from reminding us of +butcher's bills, will rescue us from want." + +"Valerie," replied Marneffe, assuming an attitude like Crevel, "I hope +that Monsieur le Baron Hulot will take proper charge of his son, and +not lay the burden on a poor clerk. I intend to keep him well up to +the mark. So take the necessary steps, madame! Get him to write you +letters in which he alludes to his satisfaction, for he is rather +backward in coming forward in regard to my appointment." + +And Marneffe went away to the office, where his chief's precious +leniency allowed him to come in at about eleven o'clock. And, indeed, +he did little enough, for his incapacity was notorious, and he +detested work. + +No sooner were they alone than Lisbeth and Valerie looked at each +other for a moment like Augurs, and both together burst into a loud +fit of laughter. + +"I say, Valerie--is it the fact?" said Lisbeth, "or merely a farce?" + +"It is a physical fact!" replied Valerie. "Now, I am sick and tired of +Hortense; and it occurred to me in the night that I might fire this +infant, like a bomb, into the Steinbock household." + +Valerie went back to her room, followed by Lisbeth, to whom she showed +the following letter:-- + + "WENCESLAS MY DEAR,--I still believe in your love, though it is + nearly three weeks since I saw you. Is this scorn? Delilah can + scarcely believe that. Does it not rather result from the tyranny + of a woman whom, as you told me, you can no longer love? + Wenceslas, you are too great an artist to submit to such dominion. + Home is the grave of glory.--Consider now, are you the Wenceslas + of the Rue du Doyenne? You missed fire with my father's statue; + but in you the lover is greater than the artist, and you have had + better luck with his daughter. You are a father, my beloved + Wenceslas. + + "If you do not come to me in the state I am in, your friends would + think very badly of you. But I love you so madly, that I feel I + should never have the strength to curse you. May I sign myself as + ever, + +"YOUR VALERIE." + + +"What do you say to my scheme for sending this note to the studio at a +time when our dear Hortense is there by herself?" asked Valerie. "Last +evening I heard from Stidmann that Wenceslas is to pick him up at +eleven this morning to go on business to Chanor's; so that gawk +Hortense will be there alone." + +"But after such a trick as that," replied Lisbeth, "I cannot continue +to be your friend in the eyes of the world; I shall have to break with +you, to be supposed never to visit you, or even to speak to you." + +"Evidently," said Valerie; "but--" + +"Oh! be quite easy," interrupted Lisbeth; "we shall often meet when I +am Madame la Marechale. They are all set upon it now. Only the Baron +is in ignorance of the plan, but you can talk him over." + +"Well," said Valerie, "but it is quite likely that the Baron and I may +be on distant terms before long." + +"Madame Olivier is the only person who can make Hortense demand to see +the letter," said Lisbeth. "And you must send her to the Rue +Saint-Dominique before she goes on to the studio." + +"Our beauty will be at home, no doubt," said Valerie, ringing for +Reine to call up Madame Olivier. + +Ten minutes after the despatch of this fateful letter, Baron Hulot +arrived. Madame Marneffe threw her arms round the old man's neck with +kittenish impetuosity. + +"Hector, you are a father!" she said in his ear. "That is what comes +of quarreling and making friends again----" + +Perceiving a look of surprise, which the Baron did not at once +conceal, Valerie assumed a reserve which brought the old man to +despair. She made him wring the proofs from her one by one. When +conviction, led on by vanity, had at last entered his mind, she +enlarged on Monsieur Marneffe's wrath. + +"My dear old veteran," said she, "you can hardly avoid getting your +responsible editor, our representative partner if you like, appointed +head-clerk and officer of the Legion of Honor, for you really have +done for the poor man, he adores his Stanislas, the little monstrosity +who is so like him, that to me he is insufferable. Unless you prefer +to settle twelve hundred francs a year on Stanislas--the capital to be +his, and the life-interest payable to me, of course--" + +"But if I am to settle securities, I would rather it should be on my +own son, and not on the monstrosity," said the Baron. + +This rash speech, in which the words "my own son" came out as full as +a river in flood, was, by the end of the hour, ratified as a formal +promise to settle twelve hundred francs a year on the future boy. And +this promise became, on Valerie's tongue and in her countenance, what +a drum is in the hands of a child; for three weeks she played on it +incessantly. + +At the moment when Baron Hulot was leaving the Rue Vanneau, as happy +as a man who after a year of married life still desires an heir, +Madame Olivier had yielded to Hortense, and given up the note she was +instructed to give only into the Count's own hands. The young wife +paid twenty francs for that letter. The wretch who commits suicide +must pay for the opium, the pistol, the charcoal. + +Hortense read and re-read the note; she saw nothing but this sheet of +white paper streaked with black lines; the universe held for her +nothing but that paper; everything was dark around her. The glare of +the conflagration that was consuming the edifice of her happiness +lighted up the page, for blackest night enfolded her. The shouts of +her little Wenceslas at play fell on her ear, as if he had been in the +depths of a valley and she on a high mountain. Thus insulted at +four-and-twenty, in all the splendor of her beauty, enhanced by pure +and devoted love--it was not a stab, it was death. The first shock had +been merely on the nerves, the physical frame had struggled in the +grip of jealousy; but now certainty had seized her soul, her body was +unconscious. + +For about ten minutes Hortense sat under the incubus of this +oppression. Then a vision of her mother appeared before her, and +revulsion ensued; she was calm and cool, and mistress of her reason. + +She rang. + +"Get Louise to help you, child," said she to the cook. "As quickly as +you can, pack up everything that belongs to me and everything wanted +for the little boy. I give you an hour. When all is ready, fetch a +hackney coach from the stand, and call me. + +"Make no remarks! I am leaving the house, and shall take Louise with +me. You must stay here with monsieur; take good care of him----" + +She went into her room, and wrote the following letter:-- + + "MONSIEUR LE COMTE,-- + + "The letter I enclose will sufficiently account for the + determination I have come to. + + "When you read this, I shall have left your house and have found + refuge with my mother, taking our child with me. + + "Do not imagine that I shall retrace my steps. Do not imagine that + I am acting with the rash haste of youth, without reflection, with + the anger of offended affection; you will be greatly mistaken. + + "I have been thinking very deeply during the last fortnight of + life, of love, of our marriage, of our duties to each other. I + have known the perfect devotion of my mother; she has told me all + her sorrows! She has been heroical--every day for twenty-three + years. But I have not the strength to imitate her, not because I + love you less than she loves my father, but for reasons of spirit + and nature. Our home would be a hell; I might lose my head so far + as to disgrace you--disgrace myself and our child. + + "I refuse to be a Madame Marneffe; once launched on such a course, + a woman of my temper might not, perhaps, be able to stop. I am, + unfortunately for myself, a Hulot, not a Fischer. + + "Alone, and absent from the scene of your dissipations, I am sure + of myself, especially with my child to occupy me, and by the side + of a strong and noble mother, whose life cannot fail to influence + the vehement impetuousness of my feelings. There, I can be a good + mother, bring our boy up well, and live. Under your roof the wife + would oust the mother; and constant contention would sour my + temper. + + "I can accept a death-blow, but I will not endure for + twenty-five years, like my mother. If, at the end of three years of + perfect, unwavering love, you can be unfaithful to me with your + father-in-law's mistress, what rivals may I expect to have in later + years? Indeed, monsieur, you have begun your career of profligacy + much earlier than my father did, the life of dissipation, which is + a disgrace to the father of a family, which undermines the respect + of his children, and which ends in shame and despair. + + "I am not unforgiving. Unrelenting feelings do not beseem erring + creatures living under the eye of God. If you win fame and fortune + by sustained work, if you have nothing to do with courtesans and + ignoble, defiling ways, you will find me still a wife worthy of + you. + + "I believe you to be too much a gentleman, Monsieur le Comte, to + have recourse to the law. You will respect my wishes, and leave me + under my mother's roof. Above all, never let me see you there. I + have left all the money lent to you by that odious woman.-- + Farewell. + +"HORTENSE HULOT." + + +This letter was written in anguish. Hortense abandoned herself to the +tears, the outcries of murdered love. She laid down her pen and took +it up again, to express as simply as possible all that passion +commonly proclaims in this sort of testamentary letter. Her heart went +forth in exclamations, wailing and weeping; but reason dictated the +words. + +Informed by Louise that all was ready, the young wife slowly went +round the little garden, through the bedroom and drawing-room, looking +at everything for the last time. Then she earnestly enjoined the cook +to take the greatest care for her master's comfort, promising to +reward her handsomely if she would be honest. At last she got into the +hackney coach to drive to her mother's house, her heart quite broken, +crying so much as to distress the maid, and covering little Wenceslas +with kisses, which betrayed her still unfailing love for his father. + +The Baroness knew already from Lisbeth that the father-in-law was +largely to blame for the son-in-law's fault; nor was she surprised to +see her daughter, whose conduct she approved, and she consented to +give her shelter. Adeline, perceiving that her own gentleness and +patience had never checked Hector, for whom her respect was indeed +fast diminishing, thought her daughter very right to adopt another +course. + +In three weeks the poor mother had suffered two wounds of which the +pain was greater than any ill-fortune she had hitherto endured. The +Baron had placed Victorin and his wife in great difficulties; and +then, by Lisbeth's account, he was the cause of his son-in-law's +misconduct, and had corrupted Wenceslas. The dignity of the father of +the family, so long upheld by her really foolish self-sacrifice, was +now overthrown. Though they did not regret the money the young Hulots +were full alike of doubts and uneasiness as regarded the Baron. This +sentiment, which was evidence enough, distressed the Baroness; she +foresaw a break-up of the family tie. + +Hortense was accommodated in the dining-room, arranged as a bedroom +with the help of the Marshal's money, and the anteroom became the +dining-room, as it is in many apartments. + + + +When Wenceslas returned home and had read the two letters, he felt a +kind of gladness mingled with regret. Kept so constantly under his +wife's eye, so to speak, he had inwardly rebelled against this fresh +thraldom, _a la_ Lisbeth. Full fed with love for three years past, he +too had been reflecting during the last fortnight; and he found a +family heavy on his hands. He had just been congratulated by Stidmann +on the passion he had inspired in Valerie; for Stidmann, with an +under-thought that was not unnatural, saw that he might flatter the +husband's vanity in the hope of consoling the victim. And Wenceslas +was glad to be able to return to Madame Marneffe. + +Still, he remembered the pure and unsullied happiness he had known, +the perfections of his wife, her judgment, her innocent and guileless +affection,--and he regretted her acutely. He thought of going at once +to his mother-in-law's to crave forgiveness; but, in fact, like Hulot +and Crevel, he went to Madame Marneffe, to whom he carried his wife's +letter to show her what a disaster she had caused, and to discount his +misfortune, so to speak, by claiming in return the pleasures his +mistress could give him. + +He found Crevel with Valerie. The mayor, puffed up with pride, marched +up and down the room, agitated by a storm of feelings. He put himself +into position as if he were about to speak, but he dared not. His +countenance was beaming, and he went now and again to the window, +where he drummed on the pane with his fingers. He kept looking at +Valerie with a glance of tender pathos. Happily for him, Lisbeth +presently came in. + +"Cousin Betty," he said in her ear, "have you heard the news? I am a +father! It seems to me I love my poor Celestine the less.--Oh! what a +thing it is to have a child by the woman one idolizes! It is the +fatherhood of the heart added to that of the flesh! I say--tell +Valerie that I will work for that child--it shall be rich. She tells +me she has some reason for believing that it will be a boy! If it is a +boy, I shall insist on his being called Crevel. I will consult my +notary about it." + +"I know how much she loves you," said Lisbeth. "But for her sake in +the future, and for your own, control yourself. Do not rub your hands +every five minutes." + +While Lisbeth was speaking aside on this wise to Crevel, Valerie had +asked Wenceslas to give her back her letter, and she was saying things +that dispelled all his griefs. + +"So now you are free, my dear," said she. "Ought any great artist to +marry? You live only by fancy and freedom! There, I shall love you so +much, beloved poet, that you shall never regret your wife. At the same +time, if, like so many people, you want to keep up appearances, I +undertake to bring Hortense back to you in a very short time." + +"Oh, if only that were possible!" + +"I am certain of it," said Valerie, nettled. "Your poor father-in-law +is a man who is in every way utterly done for; who wants to appear as +though he could be loved, out of conceit, and to make the world +believe that he has a mistress; and he is so excessively vain on this +point, that I can do what I please with him. The Baroness is still so +devoted to her old Hector--I always feel as if I were talking of the +_Iliad_--that these two old folks will contrive to patch up matters +between you and Hortense. Only, if you want to avoid storms at home +for the future, do not leave me for three weeks without coming to see +your mistress--I was dying of it. My dear boy, some consideration is +due from a gentleman to a woman he has so deeply compromised, +especially when, as in my case, she has to be very careful of her +reputation. + +"Stay to dinner, my darling--and remember that I must treat you with +all the more apparent coldness because you are guilty of this too +obvious mishap." + +Baron Montes was presently announced; Valerie rose and hurried forward +to meet him; she spoke a few sentences in his ear, enjoining on him +the same reserve as she had impressed on Wenceslas; the Brazilian +assumed a diplomatic reticence suitable to the great news which filled +him with delight, for he, at any rate was sure of his paternity. + +Thanks to these tactics, based on the vanity of the man in the lover +stage of his existence, Valerie sat down to table with four men, all +pleased and eager to please, all charmed, and each believing himself +adored; called by Marneffe, who included himself, in speaking to +Lisbeth, the five Fathers of the Church. + +Baron Hulot alone at first showed an anxious countenance, and this was +why. Just as he was leaving the office, the head of the staff of +clerks had come to his private room--a General with whom he had served +for thirty years--and Hulot had spoken to him as to appointing +Marneffe to Coquet's place, Coquet having consented to retire. + +"My dear fellow," said he, "I would not ask this favor of the Prince +without our having agreed on the matter, and knowing that you +approved." + +"My good friend," replied the other, "you must allow me to observe +that, for your own sake, you should not insist on this nomination. I +have already told you my opinion. There would be a scandal in the +office, where there is a great deal too much talk already about you +and Madame Marneffe. This, of course, is between ourselves. I have no +wish to touch you on a sensitive spot, or disoblige you in any way, +and I will prove it. If you are determined to get Monsieur Coquet's +place, and he will really be a loss in the War Office, for he has been +here since 1809, I will go into the country for a fortnight, so as to +leave the field open between you and the Marshal, who loves you as a +son. Then I shall take neither part, and shall have nothing on my +conscience as an administrator." + +"Thank you very much," said Hulot. "I will reflect on what you have +said." + +"In allowing myself to say so much, my dear friend, it is because your +personal interest is far more deeply implicated than any concern or +vanity of mine. In the first place, the matter lies entirely with the +Marshal. And then, my good fellow, we are blamed for so many things, +that one more or less! We are not at the maiden stage in our +experience of fault-finding. Under the Restoration, men were put in +simply to give them places, without any regard for the office.--We are +old friends----" + +"Yes," the Baron put in; "and it is in order not to impair our old and +valued friendship that I--" + +"Well, well," said the departmental manager, seeing Hulot's face +clouded with embarrassment, "I will take myself off, old fellow.--But +I warn you! you have enemies--that is to say, men who covet your +splendid appointment, and you have but one anchor out. Now if, like +me, you were a Deputy, you would have nothing to fear; so mind what +you are about." + +This speech, in the most friendly spirit, made a deep impression on +the Councillor of State. + +"But, after all, Roger, what is it that is wrong? Do not make any +mysteries with me." + +The individual addressed as Roger looked at Hulot, took his hand, and +pressed it. + +"We are such old friends, that I am bound to give you warning. If you +want to keep your place, you must make a bed for yourself, and instead +of asking the Marshal to give Coquet's place to Marneffe, in your +place I would beg him to use his influence to reserve a seat for me on +the General Council of State; there you may die in peace, and, like +the beaver, abandon all else to the pursuers." + +"What, do you think the Marshal would forget--" + +"The Marshal has already taken your part so warmly at a General +Meeting of the Ministers, that you will not now be turned out; but it +was seriously discussed! So give them no excuse. I can say no more. At +this moment you may make your own terms; you may sit on the Council of +State and be made a Peer of the Chamber. If you delay too long, if you +give any one a hold against you, I can answer for nothing.--Now, am I +to go?" + +"Wait a little. I will see the Marshal," replied Hulot, "and I will +send my brother to see which way the wind blows at headquarters." + +The humor in which the Baron came back to Madame Marneffe's may be +imagined; he had almost forgotten his fatherhood, for Roger had taken +the part of a true and kind friend in explaining the position. At the +same time Valerie's influence was so great that, by the middle of +dinner, the Baron was tuned up to the pitch, and was all the more +cheerful for having unwonted anxieties to conceal; but the hapless man +was not yet aware that in the course of that evening he would find +himself in a cleft stick, between his happiness and the danger pointed +out by his friend--compelled, in short, to choose between Madame +Marneffe and his official position. + +At eleven o'clock, when the evening was at its gayest, for the room +was full of company, Valerie drew Hector into a corner of her sofa. + +"My dear old boy," said she, "your daughter is so annoyed at knowing +that Wenceslas comes here, that she has left him 'planted.' Hortense +is wrong-headed. Ask Wenceslas to show you the letter the little fool +has written to him. + +"This division of two lovers, of which I am reputed to be the cause, +may do me the greatest harm, for this is how virtuous women undermine +each other. It is disgraceful to pose as a victim in order to cast the +blame on a woman whose only crime is that she keeps a pleasant house. +If you love me, you will clear my character by reconciling the sweet +turtle-doves. + +"I do not in the least care about your son-in-law's visits; you +brought him here--take him away again! If you have any authority in +your family, it seems to me that you may very well insist on your +wife's patching up this squabble. Tell the worthy old lady from me, +that if I am unjustly charged with having caused a young couple to +quarrel, with upsetting the unity of a family, and annexing both the +father and the son-in-law, I will deserve my reputation by annoying +them in my own way! Why, here is Lisbeth talking of throwing me over! +She prefers to stick to her family, and I cannot blame her for it. She +will throw me over, says she, unless the young people make friends +again. A pretty state of things! Our expenses here will be trebled!" + +"Oh, as for that!" said the Baron, on hearing of his daughter's strong +measures, "I will have no nonsense of that kind." + +"Very well," said Valerie. "And now for the next thing.--What about +Coquet's place?" + +"That," said Hector, looking away, "is more difficult, not to say +impossible." + +"Impossible, my dear Hector?" said Madame Marneffe in the Baron's ear. +"But you do not know to what lengths Marneffe will go. I am completely +in his power; he is immoral for his own gratification, like most men, +but he is excessively vindictive, like all weak and impotent natures. +In the position to which you have reduced me, I am in his power. I am +bound to be on terms with him for a few days, and he is quite capable +of refusing to leave my room any more." + +Hulot started with horror. + +"He would leave me alone on condition of being head-clerk. It is +abominable--but logical." + +"Valerie, do you love me?" + +"In the state in which I am, my dear, the question is the meanest +insult." + +"Well, then--if I were to attempt, merely to attempt, to ask the +Prince for a place for Marneffe, I should be done for, and Marneffe +would be turned out." + +"I thought that you and the Prince were such intimate friends." + +"We are, and he has amply proved it; but, my child, there is authority +above the Marshal's--for instance, the whole Council of Ministers. +With time and a little tacking, we shall get there. But, to succeed, I +must wait till the moment when some service is required of me. Then I +can say one good turn deserves another--" + +"If I tell Marneffe this tale, my poor Hector, he will play us some +mean trick. You must tell him yourself that he has to wait. I will not +undertake to do so. Oh! I know what my fate would be. He knows how to +punish me! He will henceforth share my room---- + +"Do not forget to settle the twelve hundred francs a year on the +little one!" + +Hulot, seeing his pleasures in danger, took Monsieur Marneffe aside, +and for the first time derogated from the haughty tone he had always +assumed towards him, so greatly was he horrified by the thought of +that half-dead creature in his pretty young wife's bedroom. + +"Marneffe, my dear fellow," said he, "I have been talking of you +to-day. But you cannot be promoted to the first class just yet. We +must have time." + +"I will be, Monsieur le Baron," said Marneffe shortly. + +"But, my dear fellow--" + +"I _will_ be, Monsieur le Baron," Marneffe coldly repeated, looking +alternately at the Baron and at Valerie. "You have placed my wife in a +position that necessitates her making up her differences with me, and +I mean to keep her; for, _my dear fellow_, she is a charming +creature," he added, with crushing irony. "I am master here--more than +you are at the War Office." + +The Baron felt one of those pangs of fury which have the effect, in +the heart, of a fit of raging toothache, and he could hardly conceal +the tears in his eyes. + +During this little scene, Valerie had been explaining Marneffe's +imaginary determination to Montes, and thus had rid herself of him for +a time. + +Of her four adherents, Crevel alone was exempted from the rule +--Crevel, the master of the little "bijou" apartment; and he displayed +on his countenance an air of really insolent beatitude, +notwithstanding the wordless reproofs administered by Valerie in +frowns and meaning grimaces. His triumphant paternity beamed in every +feature. + +When Valerie was whispering a word of correction in his ear, he +snatched her hand, and put in: + +"To-morrow, my Duchess, you shall have your own little house! The +papers are to be signed to-morrow." + +"And the furniture?" said she, with a smile. + +"I have a thousand shares in the Versailles _rive gauche_ railway. I +bought them at twenty-five, and they will go up to three hundred in +consequence of the amalgamation of the two lines, which is a secret +told to me. You shall have furniture fit for a queen. But then you +will be mine alone henceforth?" + +"Yes, burly Maire," said this middle-class Madame de Merteuil. "But +behave yourself; respect the future Madame Crevel." + +"My dear cousin," Lisbeth was saying to the Baron, "I shall go to see +Adeline early to-morrow; for, as you must see, I cannot, with any +decency, remain here. I will go and keep house for your brother the +Marshal." + +"I am going home this evening," said Hulot. + +"Very well, you will see me at breakfast to-morrow," said Lisbeth, +smiling. + +She understood that her presence would be necessary at the family +scene that would take place on the morrow. And the very first thing in +the morning she went to see Victorin and to tell him that Hortense and +Wenceslas had parted. + +When the Baron went home at half-past ten, Mariette and Louise, who +had had a hard day, were locking up the apartment. Hulot had not to +ring. + +Very much put out at this compulsory virtue, the husband went straight +to his wife's room, and through the half-open door he saw her kneeling +before her Crucifix, absorbed in prayer, in one of those attitudes +which make the fortune of the painter or the sculptor who is so happy +to invent and then to express them. Adeline, carried away by her +enthusiasm, was praying aloud: + +"O God, have mercy and enlighten him!" + +The Baroness was praying for her Hector. + +At this sight, so unlike what he had just left, and on hearing this +petition founded on the events of the day, the Baron heaved a sigh of +deep emotion. Adeline looked round, her face drowned in tears. She was +so convinced that her prayer had been heard, that, with one spring, +she threw her arms round Hector with the impetuosity of happy +affection. Adeline had given up all a wife's instincts; sorrow had +effaced even the memory of them. No feeling survived in her but those +of motherhood, of the family honor, and the pure attachment of a +Christian wife for a husband who has gone astray--the saintly +tenderness which survives all else in a woman's soul. + +"Hector!" she said, "are you come back to us? Has God taken pity on +our family?" + +"Dear Adeline," replied the Baron, coming in and seating his wife by +his side on a couch, "you are the saintliest creature I ever knew; I +have long known myself to be unworthy of you." + +"You would have very little to do, my dear," said she, holding Hulot's +hand and trembling so violently that it was as though she had a palsy, +"very little to set things in order--" + +She dared not proceed; she felt that every word would be a reproof, +and she did not wish to mar the happiness with which this meeting was +inundating her soul. + +"It is Hortense who has brought me here," said Hulot. "That child may +do us far more harm by her hasty proceeding than my absurd passion for +Valerie has ever done. But we will discuss all this to-morrow morning. +Hortense is asleep, Mariette tells me; we will not disturb her." + +"Yes," said Madame Hulot, suddenly plunged into the depths of grief. + +She understood that the Baron's return was prompted not so much by the +wish to see his family as by some ulterior interest. + +"Leave her in peace till to-morrow," said the mother. "The poor child +is in a deplorable condition; she has been crying all day." + + + +At nine the next morning, the Baron, awaiting his daughter, whom he +had sent for, was pacing the large, deserted drawing-room, trying to +find arguments by which to conquer the most difficult form of +obstinacy there is to deal with--that of a young wife, offended and +implacable, as blameless youth ever is, in its ignorance of the +disgraceful compromises of the world, of its passions and interests. + +"Here I am, papa," said Hortense in a tremulous voice, and looking +pale from her miseries. + +Hulot, sitting down, took his daughter round the waist, and drew her +down to sit on his knee. + +"Well, my child," said he, kissing her forehead, "so there are +troubles at home, and you have been hasty and headstrong? That is not +like a well-bred child. My Hortense ought not to have taken such a +decisive step as that of leaving her house and deserting her husband +on her own account, and without consulting her parents. If my darling +girl had come to see her kind and admirable mother, she would not have +given me this cruel pain I feel!--You do not know the world; it is +malignantly spiteful. People will perhaps say that your husband sent +you back to your parents. Children brought up as you were, on your +mother's lap, remain artless; maidenly passion like yours for +Wenceslas, unfortunately, makes no allowances; it acts on every +impulse. The little heart is moved, the head follows suit. You would +burn down Paris to be revenged, with no thought of the courts of +justice! + +"When your old father tells you that you have outraged the +proprieties, you may take his word for it.--I say nothing of the cruel +pain you have given me. It is bitter, I assure you, for you throw all +the blame on a woman of whose heart you know nothing, and whose +hostility may become disastrous. And you, alas! so full of guileless +innocence and purity, can have no suspicions; but you may be vilified +and slandered.--Besides, my darling pet, you have taken a foolish jest +too seriously. I can assure you, on my honor, that your husband is +blameless. Madame Marneffe--" + +So far the Baron, artistically diplomatic, had formulated his +remonstrances very judiciously. He had, as may be observed, worked up +to the mention of this name with superior skill; and yet Hortense, as +she heard it, winced as if stung to the quick. + +"Listen to me; I have had great experience, and I have seen much," he +went on, stopping his daughter's attempt to speak. "That lady is very +cold to your husband. Yes, you have been made the victim of a +practical joke, and I will prove it to you. Yesterday Wenceslas was +dining with her--" + +"Dining with her!" cried the young wife, starting to her feet, and +looking at her father with horror in every feature. "Yesterday! After +having had my letter! Oh, great God!--Why did I not take the veil +rather than marry? But now my life is not my own! I have the child!" +and she sobbed. + +Her weeping went to Madame Hulot's heart. She came out of her room and +ran to her daughter, taking her in her arms, and asking her those +questions, stupid with grief, which first rose to her lips. + +"Now we have tears," said the Baron to himself, "and all was going so +well! What is to be done with women who cry?" + +"My child," said the Baroness, "listen to your father! He loves us all +--come, come--" + +"Come, Hortense, my dear little girl, cry no more, you make yourself +too ugly!" said the Baron, "Now, be a little reasonable. Go sensibly +home, and I promise you that Wenceslas shall never set foot in that +woman's house. I ask you to make the sacrifice, if it is a sacrifice +to forgive the husband you love so small a fault. I ask you--for the +sake of my gray hairs, and of the love you owe your mother. You do not +want to blight my later years with bitterness and regret?" + +Hortense fell at her father's feet like a crazed thing, with the +vehemence of despair; her hair, loosely pinned up, fell about her, and +she held out her hands with an expression that painted her misery. + +"Father," she said, "ask my life! Take it if you will, but at least +take it pure and spotless, and I will yield it up gladly. Do not ask +me to die in dishonor and crime. I am not at all like my husband; I +cannot swallow an outrage. If I went back under my husband's roof, I +should be capable of smothering him in a fit of jealousy--or of doing +worse! Do no exact from me a thing that is beyond my powers. Do not +have to mourn for me still living, for the least that can befall me is +to go mad. I feel madness close upon me! + +"Yesterday, yesterday, he could dine with that woman, after having +read my letter?--Are other men made so? My life I give you, but do not +let my death be ignominious!--His fault?--A small one! When he has a +child by that woman!" + +"A child!" cried Hulot, starting back a step or two. "Come. This is +really some fooling." + +At this juncture Victorin and Lisbeth arrived, and stood dumfounded at +the scene. The daughter was prostrate at her father's feet. The +Baroness, speechless between her maternal feelings and her conjugal +duty, showed a harassed face bathed in tears. + +"Lisbeth," said the Baron, seizing his cousin by the hand and pointing +to Hortense, "you can help me here. My poor child's brain is turned; +she believes that her Wenceslas is Madame Marneffe's lover, while all +that Valerie wanted was to have a group by him." + +"_Delilah_!" cried the young wife. "The only thing he has done since +our marriage. The man would not work for me or for his son, and he has +worked with frenzy for that good-for-nothing creature.--Oh, father, +kill me outright, for every word stabs like a knife!" + +Lisbeth turned to the Baroness and Victorin, pointing with a pitying +shrug to the Baron, who could not see her. + +"Listen to me," said she to him. "I had no idea--when you asked me to +go to lodge over Madame Marneffe and keep house for her--I had no idea +of what she was; but many things may be learned in three years. That +creature is a prostitute, and one whose depravity can only be compared +with that of her infamous and horrible husband. You are the dupe, my +lord pot-boiler, of those people; you will be led further by them than +you dream of! I speak plainly, for you are at the bottom of a pit." + +The Baroness and her daughter, hearing Lisbeth speak in this style, +cast adoring looks at her, such as the devout cast at a Madonna for +having saved their life. + +"That horrible woman was bent on destroying your son-in-law's home. To +what end?--I know not. My brain is not equal to seeing clearly into +these dark intrigues--perverse, ignoble, infamous! Your Madame +Marneffe does not love your son-in-law, but she will have him at her +feet out of revenge. I have just spoken to the wretched woman as she +deserves. She is a shameless courtesan; I have told her that I am +leaving her house, that I would not have my honor smirched in that +muck-heap.--I owe myself to my family before all else. + +"I knew that Hortense had left her husband, so here I am. Your +Valerie, whom you believe to be a saint, is the cause of this +miserable separation; can I remain with such a woman? Our poor little +Hortense," said she, touching the Baron's arm, with peculiar meaning, +"is perhaps the dupe of a wish of such women as these, who, to possess +a toy, would sacrifice a family. + +"I do not think Wenceslas guilty; but I think him weak, and I cannot +promise that he will not yield to her refinements of temptation.--My +mind is made up. The woman is fatal to you; she will bring you all to +utter ruin. I will not even seem to be concerned in the destruction of +my own family, after living there for three years solely to hinder it. + +"You are cheated, Baron; say very positively that you will have +nothing to say to the promotion of that dreadful Marneffe, and you +will see then! There is a fine rod in pickle for you in that case." + +Lisbeth lifted up Hortense and kissed her enthusiastically. + +"My dear Hortense, stand firm," she whispered. + +The Baroness embraced Lisbeth with the vehemence of a woman who sees +herself avenged. The whole family stood in perfect silence round the +father, who had wit enough to know what that silence implied. A storm +of fury swept across his brow and face with evident signs; the veins +swelled, his eyes were bloodshot, his flesh showed patches of color. +Adeline fell on her knees before him and seized his hands. + +"My dear, forgive, my dear!" + +"You loathe me!" cried the Baron--the cry of his conscience. + +For we all know the secret of our own wrong-doing. We almost always +ascribe to our victims the hateful feelings which must fill them with +the hope of revenge; and in spite of every effort of hypocrisy, our +tongue or our face makes confession under the rack of some unexpected +anguish, as the criminal of old confessed under the hands of the +torturer. + +"Our children," he went on, to retract the avowal, "turn at last to be +our enemies--" + +"Father!" Victorin began. + +"You dare to interrupt your father!" said the Baron in a voice of +thunder, glaring at his son. + +"Father, listen to me," Victorin went on in a clear, firm voice, the +voice of a puritanical deputy. "I know the respect I owe you too well +ever to fail in it, and you will always find me the most respectful +and submissive of sons." + +Those who are in the habit of attending the sittings of the Chamber +will recognize the tactics of parliamentary warfare in these +fine-drawn phrases, used to calm the factions while gaining time. + +"We are far from being your enemies," his son went on. "I have +quarreled with my father-in-law, Monsieur Crevel, for having rescued +your notes of hand for sixty thousand francs from Vauvinet, and that +money is, beyond doubt, in Madame Marneffe's pocket.--I am not finding +fault with you, father," said he, in reply to an impatient gesture of +the Baron's; "I simply wish to add my protest to my cousin Lisbeth's, +and to point out to you that though my devotion to you as a father is +blind and unlimited, my dear father, our pecuniary resources, +unfortunately, are very limited." + +"Money!" cried the excitable old man, dropping on to a chair, quite +crushed by this argument. "From my son!--You shall be repaid your +money, sir," said he, rising, and he went to the door. + +"Hector!" + +At this cry the Baron turned round, suddenly showing his wife a face +bathed in tears; she threw her arms round him with the strength of +despair. + +"Do not leave us thus--do not go away in anger. I have not said a word +--not I!" + +At this heart-wrung speech the children fell at their father's feet. + +"We all love you," said Hortense. + +Lisbeth, as rigid as a statue, watched the group with a superior smile +on her lips. Just then Marshal Hulot's voice was heard in the +anteroom. The family all felt the importance of secrecy, and the scene +suddenly changed. The young people rose, and every one tried to hide +all traces of emotion. + +A discussion was going on at the door between Mariette and a soldier, +who was so persistent that the cook came in. + +"Monsieur, a regimental quartermaster, who says he is just come from +Algiers, insists on seeing you." + +"Tell him to wait." + +"Monsieur," said Mariette to her master in an undertone, "he told me +to tell you privately that it has to do with your uncle there." + +The Baron started; he believed that the funds had been sent at last +which he had been asking for these two months, to pay up his bills; he +left the family-party, and hurried out to the anteroom. + +"You are Monsieur de Paron Hulot?" + +"Yes." + +"Your own self?" + +"My own self." + +The man, who had been fumbling meanwhile in the lining of his cap, +drew out a letter, of which the Baron hastily broke the seal, and read +as follows:-- + + "DEAR NEPHEW,--Far from being able to send you the hundred + thousand francs you ask of me, my present position is not tenable + unless you can take some decisive steps to save me. We are saddled + with a public prosecutor who talks goody, and rhodomontades + nonsense about the management. It is impossible to get the + black-chokered pump to hold his tongue. If the War Minister allows + civilians to feed out of his hand, I am done for. I can trust the + bearer; try to get him promoted; he has done us good service. Do + not abandon me to the crows!" + +This letter was a thunderbolt; the Baron could read in it the +intestine warfare between civil and military authorities, which to +this day hampers the Government, and he was required to invent on the +spot some palliative for the difficulty that stared him in the face. +He desired the soldier to come back next day, dismissing him with +splendid promises of promotion, and he returned to the drawing-room. +"Good-day and good-bye, brother," said he to the Marshal.--"Good-bye, +children.--Good-bye, my dear Adeline.--And what are you going to do, +Lisbeth?" he asked. + +"I?--I am going to keep house for the Marshal, for I must end my days +doing what I can for one or another of you." + +"Do not leave Valerie till I have seen you again," said Hulot in his +cousin's ear.--"Good-bye, Hortense, refractory little puss; try to be +reasonable. I have important business to be attended to at once; we +will discuss your reconciliation another time. Now, think it over, my +child," said he as he kissed her. + +And he went away, so evidently uneasy, that his wife and children felt +the gravest apprehensions. + +"Lisbeth," said the Baroness, "I must find out what is wrong with +Hector; I never saw him in such a state. Stay a day or two longer with +that woman; he tells her everything, and we can then learn what has so +suddenly upset him. Be quite easy; we will arrange your marriage to +the Marshal, for it is really necessary." + +"I shall never forget the courage you have shown this morning," said +Hortense, embracing Lisbeth. + +"You have avenged our poor mother," said Victorin. + +The Marshal looked on with curiosity at all the display of affection +lavished on Lisbeth, who went off to report the scene to Valerie. + +This sketch will enable guileless souls to understand what various +mischief Madame Marneffes may do in a family, and the means by which +they reach poor virtuous wives apparently so far out of their ken. And +then, if we only transfer, in fancy, such doings to the upper class of +society about a throne, and if we consider what kings' mistresses must +have cost them, we may estimate the debt owed by a nation to a +sovereign who sets the example of a decent and domestic life. + + + +In Paris each ministry is a little town by itself, whence women are +banished; but there is just as much detraction and scandal as though +the feminine population were admitted there. At the end of three +years, Monsieur Marneffe's position was perfectly clear and open to +the day, and in every room one and another asked, "Is Marneffe to be, +or not to be, Coquet's successor?" Exactly as the question might have +been put to the Chamber, "Will the estimates pass or not pass?" The +smallest initiative on the part of the board of Management was +commented on; everything in Baron Hulot's department was carefully +noted. The astute State Councillor had enlisted on his side the victim +of Marneffe's promotion, a hard-working clerk, telling him that if he +could fill Marneffe's place, he would certainly succeed to it; he had +told him that the man was dying. So this clerk was scheming for +Marneffe's advancement. + +When Hulot went through his anteroom, full of visitors, he saw +Marneffe's colorless face in a corner, and sent for him before any one +else. + +"What do you want of me, my dear fellow?" said the Baron, disguising +his anxiety. + +"Monsieur le Directeur, I am the laughing-stock of the office, for it +has become known that the chief of the clerks has left this morning +for a holiday, on the ground of his health. He is to be away a month. +Now, we all know what waiting for a month means. You deliver me over +to the mockery of my enemies, and it is bad enough to be drummed upon +one side; drumming on both at once, monsieur, is apt to burst the +drum." + +"My dear Marneffe, it takes long patience to gain an end. You cannot +be made head-clerk in less than two months, if ever. Just when I must, +as far as possible, secure my own position, is not the time to be +applying for your promotion, which would raise a scandal." + +"If you are broke, I shall never get it," said Marneffe coolly. "And +if you get me the place, it will make no difference in the end." + +"Then I am to sacrifice myself for you?" said the Baron. + +"If you do not, I shall be much mistaken in you." + +"You are too exclusively Marneffe, Monsieur Marneffe," said Hulot, +rising and showing the clerk the door. + +"I have the honor to wish you good-morning, Monsieur le Baron," said +Marneffe humbly. + +"What an infamous rascal!" thought the Baron. "This is uncommonly like +a summons to pay within twenty-four hours on pain of distraint." + +Two hours later, just when the Baron had been instructing Claude +Vignon, whom he was sending to the Ministry of Justice to obtain +information as to the judicial authorities under whose jurisdiction +Johann Fischer might fall, Reine opened the door of his private room +and gave him a note, saying she would wait for the answer. + +"Valerie is mad!" said the Baron to himself. "To send Reine! It is +enough to compromise us all, and it certainly compromises that +dreadful Marneffe's chances of promotion!" + +But he dismissed the minister's private secretary, and read as +follows:-- + + "Oh, my dear friend, what a scene I have had to endure! Though you + have made me happy for three years, I have paid dearly for it! He + came in from the office in a rage that made me quake. I knew he + was ugly; I have seen him a monster! His four real teeth + chattered, and he threatened me with his odious presence without + respite if I should continue to receive you. My poor, dear old + boy, our door is closed against you henceforth. You see my tears; + they are dropping on the paper and soaking it; can you read what I + write, dear Hector? Oh, to think of never seeing you, of giving + you up when I bear in me some of your life, as I flatter myself I + have your heart--it is enough to kill me. Think of our little + Hector! + + "Do not forsake me, but do not disgrace yourself for Marneffe's + sake; do not yield to his threats. + + "I love you as I have never loved! I remember all the sacrifices + you have made for your Valerie; she is not, and never will be, + ungrateful; you are, and will ever be, my only husband. Think no + more of the twelve hundred francs a year I asked you to settle on + the dear little Hector who is to come some months hence; I will + not cost you anything more. And besides, my money will always be + yours. + + "Oh, if you only loved me as I love you, my Hector, you would + retire on your pension; we should both take leave of our family, + our worries, our surroundings, so full of hatred, and we should go + to live with Lisbeth in some pretty country place--in Brittany, or + wherever you like. There we should see nobody, and we should be + happy away from the world. Your pension and the little property I + can call my own would be enough for us. You say you are jealous; + well, you would then have your Valerie entirely devoted to her + Hector, and you would never have to talk in a loud voice, as you + did the other day. I shall have but one child--ours--you may be + sure, my dearly loved old veteran. + + "You cannot conceive of my fury, for you cannot know how he + treated me, and the foul words he vomited on your Valerie. Such + words would disgrace my paper; a woman such as I am--Montcornet's + daughter--ought never to have heard one of them in her life. I + only wish you had been there, that I might have punished him with + the sight of the mad passion I felt for you. My father would have + killed the wretch; I can only do as women do--love you devotedly! + Indeed, my love, in the state of exasperation in which I am, I + cannot possibly give up seeing you. I must positively see you, in + secret, every day! That is what we are, we women. Your resentment + is mine. If you love me, I implore you, do not let him be + promoted; leave him to die a second-class clerk. + + "At this moment I have lost my head; I still seem to hear him + abusing me. Betty, who had meant to leave me, has pity on me, and + will stay for a few days. + + "My dear kind love, I do not know yet what is to be done. I see + nothing for it but flight. I always delight in the country + --Brittany, Languedoc, what you will, so long as I am free to love + you. Poor dear, how I pity you! Forced now to go back to your old + Adeline, to that lachrymal urn--for, as he no doubt told you, the + monster means to watch me night and day; he spoke of a detective! + Do not come here, he is capable of anything I know, since he could + make use of me for the basest purposes of speculation. I only wish + I could return you all the things I have received from your + generosity. + + "Ah! my kind Hector, I may have flirted, and have seemed to you to + be fickle, but you did not know your Valerie; she liked to tease + you, but she loves you better than any one in the world. + + "He cannot prevent your coming to see your cousin; I will arrange + with her that we have speech with each other. My dear old boy, + write me just a line, pray, to comfort me in the absence of your + dear self. (Oh, I would give one of my hands to have you by me on + our sofa!) A letter will work like a charm; write me something + full of your noble soul; I will return your note to you, for I + must be cautious; I should not know where to hide it, he pokes his + nose in everywhere. In short, comfort your Valerie, your little + wife, the mother of your child.--To think of my having to write to + you, when I used to see you every day. As I say to Lisbeth, 'I did + not know how happy I was.' A thousand kisses, dear boy. Be true to + your + +"VALERIE." + + +"And tears!" said Hulot to himself as he finished this letter, "tears +which have blotted out her name.--How is she?" said he to Reine. + +"Madame is in bed; she has dreadful spasms," replied Reine. "She had a +fit of hysterics that twisted her like a withy round a faggot. It came +on after writing. It comes of crying so much. She heard monsieur's +voice on the stairs." + +The Baron in his distress wrote the following note on office paper +with a printed heading:-- + + "Be quite easy, my angel, he will die a second-class clerk!--Your + idea is admirable; we will go and live far from Paris, where we + shall be happy with our little Hector; I will retire on my + pension, and I shall be sure to find some good appointment on a + railway. + + "Ah, my sweet friend, I feel so much the younger for your letter! + I shall begin life again and make a fortune, you will see, for our + dear little one. As I read your letter, a thousand times more + ardent than those of the _Nouvelle Heloise_, it worked a miracle! + I had not believed it possible that I could love you more. This + evening, at Lisbeth's you will see + +"YOUR HECTOR, FOR LIFE." + + +Reine carried off this reply, the first letter the Baron had written +to his "sweet friend." Such emotions to some extent counterbalanced +the disasters growling in the distance; but the Baron, at this moment +believing he could certainly avert the blows aimed at his uncle, +Johann Fischer, thought only of the deficit. + +One of the characteristics of the Bonapartist temperament is a firm +belief in the power of the sword, and confidence in the superiority of +the military over civilians. Hulot laughed to scorn the Public +Prosecutor in Algiers, where the War Office is supreme. Man is always +what he has once been. How can the officers of the Imperial Guard +forget that time was when the mayors of the largest towns in the +Empire and the Emperor's prefects, Emperors themselves on a minute +scale, would come out to meet the Imperial Guard, to pay their +respects on the borders of the Departments through which it passed, +and to do it, in short, the homage due to sovereigns? + +At half-past four the baron went straight to Madame Marneffe's; his +heart beat as high as a young man's as he went upstairs, for he was +asking himself this question, "Shall I see her? or shall I not?" + +How was he now to remember the scene of the morning when his weeping +children had knelt at his feet? Valerie's note, enshrined for ever in +a thin pocket-book over his heart, proved to him that she loved him +more than the most charming of young men. + +Having rung, the unhappy visitor heard within the shuffling slippers +and vexatious scraping cough of the detestable master. Marneffe opened +the door, but only to put himself into an attitude and point to the +stairs, exactly as Hulot had shown him the door of his private room. + +"You are too exclusively Hulot, Monsieur Hulot!" said he. + +The Baron tried to pass him, Marneffe took a pistol out of his pocket +and cocked it. + +"Monsieur le Baron," said he, "when a man is as vile as I am--for you +think me very vile, don't you?--he would be the meanest galley-slave +if he did not get the full benefit of his betrayed honor.--You are for +war; it will be hot work and no quarter. Come here no more, and do not +attempt to get past me. I have given the police notice of my position +with regard to you." + +And taking advantage of Hulot's amazement, he pushed him out and shut +the door. + +"What a low scoundrel!" said Hulot to himself, as he went upstairs to +Lisbeth. "I understand her letter now. Valerie and I will go away from +Paris. Valerie is wholly mine for the remainder of my days; she will +close my eyes." + +Lisbeth was out. Madame Olivier told the Baron that she had gone to +his wife's house, thinking that she would find him there. + +"Poor thing! I should never have expected her to be so sharp as she +was this morning," thought Hulot, recalling Lisbeth's behavior as he +made his way from the Rue Vanneau to the Rue Plumet. + +As he turned the corner of the Rue Vanneau and the Rue de Babylone, he +looked back at the Eden whence Hymen had expelled him with the sword +of the law. Valerie, at her window, was watching his departure; as he +glanced up, she waved her handkerchief, but the rascally Marneffe hit +his wife's cap and dragged her violently away from the window. A tear +rose to the great official's eye. + +"Oh! to be so well loved! To see a woman so ill used, and to be so +nearly seventy years old!" thought he. + +Lisbeth had come to give the family the good news. Adeline and +Hortense had already heard that the Baron, not choosing to compromise +himself in the eyes of the whole office by appointing Marneffe to the +first class, would be turned from the door by the Hulot-hating +husband. Adeline, very happy, had ordered a dinner that her Hector was +to like better than any of Valerie's; and Lisbeth, in her devotion, +was helping Mariette to achieve this difficult result. Cousin Betty +was the idol of the hour. Mother and daughter kissed her hands, and +had told her with touching delight that the Marshal consented to have +her as his housekeeper. + +"And from that, my dear, there is but one step to becoming his wife!" +said Adeline. + +"In fact, he did not say no when Victorin mentioned it," added the +Countess. + +The Baron was welcomed home with such charming proofs of affection, so +pathetically overflowing with love, that he was fain to conceal his +troubles. + +Marshal Hulot came to dinner. After dinner, Hector did not go out. +Victorin and his wife joined them, and they made up a rubber. + +"It is a long time, Hector," said the Marshal gravely, "since you gave +us the treat of such an evening." + +This speech from the old soldier, who spoiled his brother though he +thus implicitly blamed him, made a deep impression. It showed how wide +and deep were the wounds in a heart where all the woes he had divined +had found an echo. At eight o'clock the Baron insisted on seeing +Lisbeth home, promising to return. + +"Do you know, Lisbeth, he ill-treats her!" said he in the street. "Oh, +I never loved her so well!" + +"I never imagined that Valerie loved you so well," replied Lisbeth. +"She is frivolous and a coquette, she loves to have attentions paid +her, and to have the comedy of love-making performed for her, as she +says; but you are her only real attachment." + +"What message did she send me?" + +"Why, this," said Lisbeth. "She has, as you know, been on intimate +terms with Crevel. You must owe her no grudge, for that, in fact, is +what has raised her above utter poverty for the rest of her life; but +she detests him, and matters are nearly at an end.--Well, she has kept +the key of some rooms--" + +"Rue du Dauphin!" cried the thrice-blest Baron. "If it were for that +alone, I would overlook Crevel.--I have been there; I know." + +"Here, then, is the key," said Lisbeth. "Have another made from it in +the course of to-morrow--two if you can." + +"And then," said Hulot eagerly. + +"Well, I will dine at your house again to-morrow; you must give me +back Valerie's key, for old Crevel might ask her to return it to him, +and you can meet her there the day after; then you can decide what +your facts are to be. You will be quite safe, as there are two ways +out. If by chance Crevel, who is _Regence_ in his habits, as he is +fond of saying, should come in by the side street, you could go out +through the shop, or _vice versa_. + +"You owe all this to me, you old villain; now what will you do for +me?" + +"Whatever you want." + +"Then you will not oppose my marrying your brother?" + +"You! the Marechale Hulot, the Comtesse de Frozheim?" cried Hector, +startled. + +"Well, Adeline is a Baroness!" retorted Betty in a vicious and +formidable tone. "Listen to me, you old libertine. You know how +matters stand; your family may find itself starving in the gutter--" + +"That is what I dread," said Hulot in dismay. + +"And if your brother were to die, who would maintain your wife and +daughter? The widow of a Marshal gets at least six thousand francs +pension, doesn't she? Well, then, I wish to marry to secure bread for +your wife and daughter--old dotard!" + +"I had not seen it in that light!" said the Baron. "I will talk to my +brother--for we are sure of you.--Tell my angel that my life is hers." + +And the Baron, having seen Lisbeth go into the house in the Rue +Vanneau, went back to his whist and stayed at home. The Baroness was +at the height of happiness; her husband seemed to be returning to +domestic habits; for about a fortnight he went to his office at nine +every morning, he came in to dinner at six, and spent the evening with +his family. He twice took Adeline and Hortense to the play. The mother +and daughter paid for three thanksgiving masses, and prayed to God to +suffer them to keep the husband and father He had restored to them. + +One evening Victorin Hulot, seeing his father retire for the night, +said to his mother: + +"Well, we are at any rate so far happy that my father has come back to +us. My wife and I shall never regret our capital if only this lasts--" + +"Your father is nearly seventy," said the Baroness. "He still thinks +of Madame Marneffe, that I can see; but he will forget her in time. A +passion for women is not like gambling, or speculation, or avarice; +there is an end to it." + +But Adeline, still beautiful in spite of her fifty years and her +sorrows, in this was mistaken. Profligates, men whom Nature has gifted +with the precious power of loving beyond the limits ordinarily set to +love, rarely are as old as their age. + + + +During this relapse into virtue Baron Hulot had been three times to +the Rue du Dauphin, and had certainly not been the man of seventy. His +rekindled passion made him young again, and he would have sacrificed +his honor to Valerie, his family, his all, without a regret. But +Valerie, now completely altered, never mentioned money, not even the +twelve hundred francs a year to be settled on their son; on the +contrary, she offered him money, she loved Hulot as a woman of +six-and-thirty loves a handsome law-student--a poor, poetical, ardent +boy. And the hapless wife fancied she had reconquered her dear Hector! + +The fourth meeting between this couple had been agreed upon at the end +of the third, exactly as formerly in Italian theatres the play was +announced for the next night. The hour fixed was nine in the morning. +On the next day when the happiness was due for which the amorous old +man had resigned himself to domestic rules, at about eight in the +morning, Reine came and asked to see the Baron. Hulot, fearing some +catastrophe, went out to speak with Reine, who would not come into the +anteroom. The faithful waiting-maid gave him the following note:-- + + "DEAR OLD MAN,--Do not go to the Rue du Dauphin. Our incubus is + ill, and I must nurse him; but be there this evening at nine. + Crevel is at Corbeil with Monsieur Lebas; so I am sure he will + bring no princess to his little palace. I have made arrangements + here to be free for the night and get back before Marneffe is + awake. Answer me as to all this, for perhaps your long elegy of a + wife no longer allows you your liberty as she did. I am told she + is still so handsome that you might play me false, you are such a + gay dog! Burn this note; I am suspicious of every one." + +Hulot wrote this scrap in reply: + + "MY LOVE,--As I have told you, my wife has not for five-and-twenty + years interfered with my pleasures. For you I would give up a + hundred Adelines.--I will be in the Crevel sanctum at nine this + evening awaiting my divinity. Oh that your clerk might soon die! + We should part no more. And this is the dearest wish of + +"YOUR HECTOR." + + +That evening the Baron told his wife that he had business with the +Minister at Saint-Cloud, that he would come home at about four or five +in the morning; and he went to the Rue du Dauphin. It was towards the +end of the month of June. + +Few men have in the course of their life known really the dreadful +sensation of going to their death; those who have returned from the +foot of the scaffold may be easily counted. But some have had a vivid +experience of it in dreams; they have gone through it all, to the +sensation of the knife at their throat, at the moment when waking and +daylight come to release them.--Well, the sensation to which the +Councillor of State was a victim at five in the morning in Crevel's +handsome and elegant bed, was immeasurably worse than that of feeling +himself bound to the fatal block in the presence of ten thousand +spectators looking at you with twenty thousand sparks of fire. + +Valerie was asleep in a graceful attitude. She was lovely, as a woman +is who is lovely enough to look so even in sleep. It is art invading +nature; in short, a living picture. + +In his horizontal position the Baron's eyes were but three feet above +the floor. His gaze, wandering idly, as that of a man who is just +awake and collecting his ideas, fell on a door painted with flowers by +Jan, an artist disdainful of fame. The Baron did not indeed see twenty +thousand flaming eyes, like the man condemned to death; he saw but +one, of which the shaft was really more piercing than the thousands on +the Public Square. + +Now this sensation, far rarer in the midst of enjoyment even than that +of a man condemned to death, was one for which many a splenetic +Englishman would certainly pay a high price. The Baron lay there, +horizontal still, and literally bathed in cold sweat. He tried to +doubt the fact; but this murderous eye had a voice. A sound of +whispering was heard through the door. + +"So long as it is nobody but Crevel playing a trick on me!" said the +Baron to himself, only too certain of an intruder in the temple. + +The door was opened. The Majesty of the French Law, which in all +documents follows next to the King, became visible in the person of a +worthy little police-officer supported by a tall Justice of the Peace, +both shown in by Monsieur Marneffe. The police functionary, rooted in +shoes of which the straps were tied together with flapping bows, ended +at top in a yellow skull almost bare of hair, and a face betraying him +as a wide-awake, cheerful, and cunning dog, from whom Paris life had +no secrets. His eyes, though garnished with spectacles, pierced the +glasses with a keen mocking glance. The Justice of the Peace, a +retired attorney, and an old admirer of the fair sex, envied the +delinquent. + +"Pray excuse the strong measures required by our office, Monsieur le +Baron!" said the constable; "we are acting for the plaintiff. The +Justice of the Peace is here to authorize the visitation of the +premises.--I know who you are, and who the lady is who is accused." + +Valerie opened her astonished eyes, gave such a shriek as actresses +use to depict madness on the stage, writhed in convulsions on the bed, +like a witch of the Middle Ages in her sulphur-colored frock on a bed +of faggots. + +"Death, and I am ready! my dear Hector--but a police court?--Oh! +never." + +With one bound she passed the three spectators and crouched under the +little writing-table, hiding her face in her hands. + +"Ruin! Death!" she cried. + +"Monsieur," said Marneffe to Hulot, "if Madame Marneffe goes mad, you +are worse than a profligate; you will be a murderer." + +What can a man do, what can he say, when he is discovered in a bed +which is not his, even on the score of hiring, with a woman who is no +more his than the bed is?--Well, this: + +"Monsieur the Justice of the Peace, Monsieur the Police Officer," said +the Baron with some dignity, "be good enough to take proper care of +that unhappy woman, whose reason seems to me to be in danger.--You can +harangue me afterwards. The doors are locked, no doubt; you need not +fear that she will get away, or I either, seeing the costume we wear." + +The two functionaries bowed to the magnate's injunctions. + +"You, come here, miserable cur!" said Hulot in a low voice to +Marneffe, taking him by the arm and drawing him closer. "It is not I, +but you, who will be the murderer! You want to be head-clerk of your +room and officer of the Legion of Honor?" + +"That in the first place, Chief!" replied Marneffe, with a bow. + +"You shall be all that, only soothe your wife and dismiss these +fellows." + +"Nay, nay!" said Marneffe knowingly. "These gentlemen must draw up +their report as eyewitnesses to the fact; without that, the chief +evidence in my case, where should I be? The higher official ranks are +chokeful of rascalities. You have done me out of my wife, and you have +not promoted me, Monsieur le Baron; I give you only two days to get +out of the scrape. Here are some letters--" + +"Some letters!" interrupted Hulot. + +"Yes; letters which prove that you are the father of the child my wife +expects to give birth to.--You understand? And you ought to settle on +my son a sum equal to what he will lose through this bastard. But I +will be reasonable; this does not distress me, I have no mania for +paternity myself. A hundred louis a year will satisfy me. By to-morrow +I must be Monsieur Coquet's successor and see my name on the list for +promotion in the Legion of Honor at the July fetes, or else--the +documentary evidence and my charge against you will be laid before the +Bench. I am not so hard to deal with after all, you see." + +"Bless me, and such a pretty woman!" said the Justice of the Peace to +the police constable. "What a loss to the world if she should go mad!" + +"She is not mad," said the constable sententiously. The police is +always the incarnation of scepticism.--"Monsieur le Baron Hulot has +been caught by a trick," he added, loud enough for Valerie to hear +him. + +Valerie shot a flash from her eye which would have killed him on the +spot if looks could effect the vengeance they express. The +police-officer smiled; he had laid a snare, and the woman had fallen +into it. Marneffe desired his wife to go into the other room and clothe +herself decently, for he and the Baron had come to an agreement on all +points, and Hulot fetched his dressing-gown and came out again. + +"Gentlemen," said he to the two officials, "I need not impress on you +to be secret." + +The functionaries bowed. + +The police-officer rapped twice on the door; his clerk came in, sat +down at the "bonheur-du-jour," and wrote what the constable dictated +to him in an undertone. Valerie still wept vehemently. When she was +dressed, Hulot went into the other room and put on his clothes. +Meanwhile the report was written. + +Marneffe then wanted to take his wife home; but Hulot, believing that +he saw her for the last time, begged the favor of being allowed to +speak with her. + +"Monsieur, your wife has cost me dear enough for me to be allowed to +say good-bye to her--in the presence of you all, of course." + +Valerie went up to Hulot, and he whispered in her ear: + +"There is nothing left for us but to fly, but how can we correspond? +We have been betrayed--" + +"Through Reine," she answered. "But my dear friend, after this scandal +we can never meet again. I am disgraced. Besides, you will hear +dreadful things about me--you will believe them--" + +The Baron made a gesture of denial. + +"You will believe them, and I can thank God for that, for then perhaps +you will not regret me." + +"He will _not_ die a second-class clerk!" said Marneffe to Hulot, as +he led his wife away, saying roughly, "Come, madame; if I am foolish +to you, I do not choose to be a fool to others." + +Valerie left the house, Crevel's Eden, with a last glance at the +Baron, so cunning that he thought she adored him. The Justice of the +Peace gave Madame Marneffe his arm to the hackney coach with a +flourish of gallantry. The Baron, who was required to witness the +report, remained quite bewildered, alone with the police-officer. When +the Baron had signed, the officer looked at him keenly, over his +glasses. + +"You are very sweet on the little lady, Monsieur le Baron?" + +"To my sorrow, as you see." + +"Suppose that she does not care for you?" the man went on, "that she +is deceiving you?" + +"I have long known that, monsieur--here, in this very spot, Monsieur +Crevel and I told each other----" + +"Oh! Then you knew that you were in Monsieur le Maire's private +snuggery?" + +"Perfectly." + +The constable lightly touched his hat with a respectful gesture. + +"You are very much in love," said he. "I say no more. I respect an +inveterate passion, as a doctor respects an inveterate complaint.--I +saw Monsieur de Nucingen, the banker, attacked in the same way--" + +"He is a friend of mine," said the Baron. "Many a time have I supped +with his handsome Esther. She was worth the two million francs she +cost him." + +"And more," said the officer. "That caprice of the old Baron's cost +four persons their lives. Oh! such passions as these are like the +cholera!" + +"What had you to say to me?" asked the Baron, who took this indirect +warning very ill. + +"Oh! why should I deprive you of your illusions?" replied the officer. +"Men rarely have any left at your age!" + +"Rid me of them!" cried the Councillor. + +"You will curse the physician later," replied the officer, smiling. + +"I beg of you, monsieur." + +"Well, then, that woman was in collusion with her husband." + +"Oh!----" + +"Yes, sir, and so it is in two cases out of every ten. Oh! we know it +well." + +"What proof have you of such a conspiracy?" + +"In the first place, the husband!" said the other, with the calm +acumen of a surgeon practised in unbinding wounds. "Mean speculation +is stamped in every line of that villainous face. But you, no doubt, +set great store by a certain letter written by that woman with regard +to the child?" + +"So much so, that I always have it about me," replied Hulot, feeling +in his breast-pocket for the little pocketbook which he always kept +there. + +"Leave your pocketbook where it is," said the man, as crushing as a +thunder-clap. "Here is the letter.--I now know all I want to know. +Madame Marneffe, of course, was aware of what that pocketbook +contained?" + +"She alone in the world." + +"So I supposed.--Now for the proof you asked for of her collusion with +her husband." + +"Let us hear!" said the Baron, still incredulous. + +"When we came in here, Monsieur le Baron, that wretched creature +Marneffe led the way, and he took up this letter, which his wife, no +doubt, had placed on this writing-table," and he pointed to the +_bonheur-du-jour_. "That evidently was the spot agreed upon by the +couple, in case she should succeed in stealing the letter while you +were asleep; for this letter, as written to you by the lady, is, +combined with those you wrote to her, decisive evidence in a +police-court." + +He showed Hulot the note that Reine had delivered to him in his +private room at the office. + +"It is one of the documents in the case," said the police-agent; +"return it to me, monsieur." + +"Well, monsieur," replied Hulot with bitter expression, "that woman is +profligacy itself in fixed ratios. I am certain at this moment that +she has three lovers." + +"That is perfectly evident," said the officer. "Oh, they are not all +on the streets! When a woman follows that trade in a carriage and a +drawing-room, and her own house, it is not a case for francs and +centimes, Monsieur le Baron. Mademoiselle Esther, of whom you spoke, +and who poisoned herself, made away with millions.--If you will take +my advice, you will get out of it, monsieur. This last little game +will have cost you dear. That scoundrel of a husband has the law on +his side. And indeed, but for me, that little woman would have caught +you again!" + +"Thank you, monsieur," said the Baron, trying to maintain his dignity. + +"Now we will lock up; the farce is played out, and you can send your +key to Monsieur the Mayor." + +Hulot went home in a state of dejection bordering on helplessness, and +sunk in the gloomiest thoughts. He woke his noble and saintly wife, +and poured into her heart the history of the past three years, sobbing +like a child deprived of a toy. This confession from an old man young +in feeling, this frightful and heart-rending narrative, while it +filled Adeline with pity, also gave her the greatest joy; she thanked +Heaven for this last catastrophe, for in fancy she saw the husband +settled at last in the bosom of his family. + +"Lisbeth was right," said Madame Hulot gently and without any useless +recrimination, "she told us how it would be." + +"Yes. If only I had listened to her, instead of flying into a rage, +that day when I wanted poor Hortense to go home rather than compromise +the reputation of that--Oh! my dear Adeline, we must save Wenceslas. +He is up to his chin in that mire!" + +"My poor old man, the respectable middle-classes have turned out no +better than the actresses," said Adeline, with a smile. + +The Baroness was alarmed at the change in her Hector; when she saw him +so unhappy, ailing, crushed under his weight of woes, she was all +heart, all pity, all love; she would have shed her blood to make Hulot +happy. + +"Stay with us, my dear Hector. Tell me what is it that such women do +to attract you so powerfully. I too will try. Why have you not taught +me to be what you want? Am I deficient in intelligence? Men still +think me handsome enough to court my favor." + +Many a married woman, attached to her duty and to her husband, may +here pause to ask herself why strong and affectionate men, so +tender-hearted to the Madame Marneffes, do not take their wives for +the object of their fancies and passions, especially wives like the +Baronne Adeline Hulot. + +This is, indeed, one of the most recondite mysteries of human nature. +Love, which is debauch of reason, the strong and austere joy of a +lofty soul, and pleasure, the vulgar counterfeit sold in the +market-place, are two aspects of the same thing. The woman who can +satisfy both these devouring appetites is as rare in her sex as a great +general, a great writer, a great artist, a great inventor in a nation. +A man of superior intellect or an idiot--a Hulot or a Crevel--equally +crave for the ideal and for enjoyment; all alike go in search of the +mysterious compound, so rare that at last it is usually found to be a +work in two volumes. This craving is a depraved impulse due to +society. + +Marriage, no doubt, must be accepted as a tie; it is life, with its +duties and its stern sacrifices on both parts equally. Libertines, who +seek for hidden treasure, are as guilty as other evil-doers who are +more hardly dealt with than they. These reflections are not a mere +veneer of moralizing; they show the reason of many unexplained +misfortunes. But, indeed, this drama points its own moral--or morals, +for they are of many kinds. + +The Baron presently went to call on the Marshal Prince de Wissembourg, +whose powerful patronage was now his only chance. Having dwelt under +his protection for five-and-thirty years, he was a visitor at all +hours, and would be admitted to his rooms as soon as he was up. + +"Ah! How are you, my dear Hector?" said the great and worthy leader. +"What is the matter? You look anxious. And yet the session is ended. +One more over! I speak of that now as I used to speak of a campaign. +And indeed I believe the newspapers nowadays speak of the sessions as +parliamentary campaigns." + +"We have been in difficulties, I must confess, Marshal; but the times +are hard!" said Hulot. "It cannot be helped; the world was made so. +Every phase has its own drawbacks. The worst misfortunes in the year +1841 is that neither the King nor the ministers are free to act as +Napoleon was." + +The Marshal gave Hulot one of those eagle flashes which in its pride, +clearness, and perspicacity showed that, in spite of years, that lofty +soul was still upright and vigorous. + +"You want me to so something for you?" said he, in a hearty tone. + +"I find myself under the necessity of applying to you for the +promotion of one of my second clerks to the head of a room--as a +personal favor to myself--and his advancement to be officer of the +Legion of Honor." + +"What is his name?" said the Marshal, with a look like a lightning +flash. + +"Marneffe." + +"He has a pretty wife; I saw her on the occasion of your daughter's +marriage.--If Roger--but Roger is away!--Hector, my boy, this is +concerned with your pleasures. What, you still indulge--? Well, you +are a credit to the old Guard. That is what comes of having been in +the Commissariat; you have reserves!--But have nothing to do with this +little job, my dear boy; it is too strong of the petticoat to be good +business." + +"No, Marshal; it is bad business, for the police courts have a finger +in it. Would you like to see me go there?" + +"The devil!" said the Prince uneasily. "Go on!" + +"Well, I am in the predicament of a trapped fox. You have always been +so kind to me, that you will, I am sure, condescend to help me out of +the shameful position in which I am placed." + +Hulot related his misadventures, as wittily and as lightly as he +could. + +"And you, Prince, will you allow my brother to die of grief, a man you +love so well; or leave one of your staff in the War Office, a +Councillor of State, to live in disgrace. This Marneffe is a wretched +creature; he can be shelved in two or three years." + +"How you talk of two or three years, my dear fellow!" said the +Marshal. + +"But, Prince, the Imperial Guard is immortal." + +"I am the last of the first batch of Marshals," said the Prince. +"Listen, Hector. You do not know the extent of my attachment to you; +you shall see. On the day when I retire from office, we will go +together. But you are not a Deputy, my friend. Many men want your +place; but for me, you would be out of it by this time. Yes, I have +fought many a pitched battle to keep you in it.--Well, I grant you +your two requests; it would be too bad to see you riding the bar at +your age and in the position you hold. But you stretch your credit a +little too far. If this appointment gives rise to discussion, we shall +not be held blameless. I can laugh at such things; but you will find +it a thorn under your feet. And the next session will see your +dismissal. Your place is held out as a bait to five or six influential +men, and you have been enabled to keep it solely by the force of my +arguments. I tell you, on the day when you retire, there will be five +malcontents to one happy man; whereas, by keeping you hanging on by a +thread for two or three years, we shall secure all six votes. There +was a great laugh at the Council meeting; the Veteran of the Old +Guard, as they say, was becoming desperately wide awake in +parliamentary tactics! I am frank with you.--And you are growing gray; +you are a happy man to be able to get into such difficulties as these! +How long is it since I--Lieutenant Cottin--had a mistress?" + +He rang the bell. + +"That police report must be destroyed," he added. + +"Monseigneur, you are as a father to me! I dared not mention my +anxiety on that point." + +"I still wish I had Roger here," cried the Prince, as Mitouflet, his +groom of the chambers, came in. "I was just going to send for him! +--You may go, Mitouflet.--Go you, my dear old fellow, go and have the +nomination made out; I will sign it. At the same time, that low +schemer will not long enjoy the fruit of his crimes. He will be +sharply watched, and drummed out of the regiment for the smallest +fault.--You are saved this time, my dear Hector; take care for the +future. Do not exhaust your friends' patience. You shall have the +nomination this morning, and your man shall get his promotion in the +Legion of Honor.--How old are you now?" + +"Within three months of seventy." + +"What a scapegrace!" said the Prince, laughing. "It is you who deserve +a promotion, but, by thunder! we are not under Louis XV.!" + +Such is the sense of comradeship that binds the glorious survivors of +the Napoleonic phalanx, that they always feel as if they were in camp +together, and bound to stand together through thick and thin. + +"One more favor such as this," Hulot reflected as he crossed the +courtyard, "and I am done for!" + +The luckless official went to Baron de Nucingen, to whom he now owed a +mere trifle, and succeeded in borrowing forty thousand francs, on his +salary pledged for two years more; the banker stipulated that in the +event of Hulot's retirement on his pension, the whole of it should be +devoted to the repayment of the sum borrowed till the capital and +interest were all cleared off. + +This new bargain, like the first, was made in the name of Vauvinet, to +whom the Baron signed notes of hand to the amount of twelve thousand +francs. + +On the following day, the fateful police report, the husband's charge, +the letters--all the papers--were destroyed. The scandalous promotion +of Monsieur Marneffe, hardly heeded in the midst of the July fetes, +was not commented on in any newspaper. + +Lisbeth, to all appearance at war with Madame Marneffe, had taken up +her abode with Marshal Hulot. Ten days after these events, the banns +of marriage were published between the old maid and the distinguished +old officer, to whom, to win his consent, Adeline had related the +financial disaster that had befallen her Hector, begging him never to +mention it to the Baron, who was, as she said, much saddened, quite +depressed and crushed. + +"Alas! he is as old as his years," she added. + +So Lisbeth had triumphed. She was achieving the object of her +ambition, she would see the success of her scheme, and her hatred +gratified. She delighted in the anticipated joy of reigning supreme +over the family who had so long looked down upon her. Yes, she would +patronize her patrons, she would be the rescuing angel who would dole +out a livelihood to the ruined family; she addressed herself as +"Madame la Comtesse" and "Madame la Marechale," courtesying in front +of a glass. Adeline and Hortense should end their days in struggling +with poverty, while she, a visitor at the Tuileries, would lord it in +the fashionable world. + + + +A terrible disaster overthrew the old maid from the social heights +where she so proudly enthroned herself. + +On the very day when the banns were first published, the Baron +received a second message from Africa. Another Alsatian arrived, +handed him a letter, after assuring himself that he spoke to Baron +Hulot, and after giving the Baron the address of his lodgings, bowed +himself out, leaving the great man stricken by the opening lines of +this letter:-- + + "DEAR NEPHEW,--You will receive this letter, by my calculations, + on the 7th of August. Supposing it takes you three days to send us + the help we need, and that it is a fortnight on the way here, that + brings us to the 1st of September. + + "If you can act decisively within that time, you will have saved + the honor and the life of yours sincerely, Johann Fischer. + + "This is what I am required to demand by the clerk you have made + my accomplice; for I am amenable, it would seem, to the law, at + the Assizes, or before a council of war. Of course, you understand + that Johann Fischer will never be brought to the bar of any + tribunal; he will go of his own act to appear at that of God. + + "Your clerk seems to me a bad lot, quite capable of getting you + into hot water; but he is as clever as any rogue. He says the line + for you to take is to call out louder than any one, and to send + out an inspector, a special commissioner, to discover who is + really guilty, rake up abuses, and make a fuss, in short; but if + we stir up the struggle, who will stand between us and the law? + + "If your commissioner arrives here by the 1st of September, and + you have given him your orders, sending by him two hundred + thousand francs to place in our storehouses the supplies we + profess to have secured in remote country places, we shall be + absolutely solvent and regarded as blameless. You can trust the + soldier who is the bearer of this letter with a draft in my name + on a house in Algiers. He is a trustworthy fellow, a relation of + mine, incapable of trying to find out what he is the bearer of. I + have taken measures to guarantee the fellow's safe return. If you + can do nothing, I am ready and willing to die for the man to whom + we owe our Adeline's happiness!" + +The anguish and raptures of passion and the catastrophe which had +checked his career of profligacy had prevented Baron Hulot's ever +thinking of poor Johann Fischer, though his first letter had given +warning of the danger now become so pressing. The Baron went out of +the dining-room in such agitation that he literally dropped on to a +sofa in the drawing-room. He was stunned, sunk in the dull numbness of +a heavy fall. He stared at a flower on the carpet, quite unconscious +that he still held in his hand Johann's fatal letter. + +Adeline, in her room, heard her husband throw himself on the sofa, +like a lifeless mass; the noise was so peculiar that she fancied he +had an apoplectic attack. She looked through the door at the mirror, +in such dread as stops the breath and hinders motion, and she saw her +Hector in the attitude of a man crushed. The Baroness stole in on +tiptoe; Hector heard nothing; she went close up to him, saw the +letter, took it, read it, trembling in every limb. She went through +one of those violent nervous shocks that leave their traces for ever +on the sufferer. Within a few days she became subject to a constant +trembling, for after the first instant the need for action gave her +such strength as can only be drawn from the very wellspring of the +vital powers. + +"Hector, come into my room," said she, in a voice that was no more +than a breath. "Do not let your daughter see you in this state! Come, +my dear, come!" + +"Two hundred thousand francs? Where can I find them? I can get Claude +Vignon sent out there as commissioner. He is a clever, intelligent +fellow.--That is a matter of a couple of days.--But two hundred +thousand francs! My son has not so much; his house is loaded with +mortgages for three hundred thousand. My brother has saved thirty +thousand francs at most. Nucingen would simply laugh at me!--Vauvinet? +--he was not very ready to lend me the ten thousand francs I wanted to +make up the sum for that villain Marneffe's boy. No, it is all up with +me; I must throw myself at the Prince's feet, confess how matters +stand, hear myself told that I am a low scoundrel, and take his +broadside so as to go decently to the bottom." + +"But, Hector, this is not merely ruin, it is disgrace," said Adeline. +"My poor uncle will kill himself. Only kill us--yourself and me; you +have a right to do that, but do not be a murderer! Come, take courage; +there must be some way out of it." + +"Not one," said Hulot. "No one in the Government could find two +hundred thousand francs, not if it were to save an Administration! +--Oh, Napoleon! where art thou?" + +"My uncle! poor man! Hector, he must not be allowed to kill himself in +disgrace." + +"There is one more chance," said he, "but a very remote one.--Yes, +Crevel is at daggers drawn with his daughter.--He has plenty of money, +he alone could--" + +"Listen, Hector it will be better for your wife to perish than to +leave our uncle to perish--and your brother--the honor of the family!" +cried the Baroness, struck by a flash of light. "Yes, I can save you +all.--Good God! what a degrading thought! How could it have occurred +to me?" + +She clasped her hands, dropped on her knees, and put up a prayer. On +rising, she saw such a crazy expression of joy on her husband's face, +that the diabolical suggestion returned, and then Adeline sank into a +sort of idiotic melancholy. + +"Go, my dear, at once to the War Office," said she, rousing herself +from this torpor; "try to send out a commission; it must be done. Get +round the Marshal. And on your return, at five o'clock, you will find +--perhaps--yes! you shall find two hundred thousand francs. Your +family, your honor as a man, as a State official, a Councillor of +State, your honesty--your son--all shall be saved;--but your Adeline +will be lost, and you will see her no more. Hector, my dear," said +she, kneeling before him, clasping and kissing his hand, "give me your +blessing! Say farewell." + +It was so heart-rending that Hulot put his arms round his wife, raised +her and kissed her, saying: + +"I do not understand." + +"If you did," said she, "I should die of shame, or I should not have +the strength to carry out this last sacrifice." + +"Breakfast is served," said Mariette. + +Hortense came in to wish her parents good-morning. They had to go to +breakfast and assume a false face. + +"Begin without me; I will join you," said the Baroness. + +She sat down to her desk and wrote as follows: + + "MY DEAR MONSIEUR CREVEL,--I have to ask a service of you; I shall + expect you this morning, and I count on your gallantry, which is + well known to me, to save me from having too long to wait for you. + --Your faithful servant, + +"ADELINE HULOT." + + +"Louise," said she to her daughter's maid, who waited on her, "take +this note down to the porter and desire him to carry it at once to +this address and wait for an answer." + +The Baron, who was reading the news, held out a Republican paper to +his wife, pointing to an article, and saying: + +"Is there time?" + +This was the paragraph, one of the terrible "notes" with which the +papers spice their political bread and butter:-- + + "A correspondent in Algiers writes that such abuses have been + discovered in the commissariate transactions of the province of + Oran, that the Law is making inquiries. The peculation is + self-evident, and the guilty persons are known. If severe measures + are not taken, we shall continue to lose more men through the + extortion that limits their rations than by Arab steel or the + fierce heat of the climate. We await further information before + enlarging on this deplorable business. We need no longer wonder at + the terror caused by the establishment of the Press in Africa, as + was contemplated by the Charter of 1830." + +"I will dress and go to the Minister," said the Baron, as they rose +from table. "Time is precious; a man's life hangs on every minute." + +"Oh, mamma, there is no hope for me!" cried Hortense. And unable to +check her tears, she handed to her mother a number of the _Revue des +Beaux Arts_. + +Madame Hulot's eye fell on a print of the group of "Delilah" by Count +Steinbock, under which were the words, "The property of Madame +Marneffe." + +The very first lines of the article, signed V., showed the talent and +friendliness of Claude Vignon. + +"Poor child!" said the Baroness. + +Alarmed by her mother's tone of indifference, Hortense looked up, saw +the expression of a sorrow before which her own paled, and rose to +kiss her mother, saying: + +"What is the matter, mamma? What is happening? Can we be more wretched +than we are already?" + +"My child, it seems to me that in what I am going through to-day my +past dreadful sorrows are as nothing. When shall I have ceased to +suffer?" + +"In heaven, mother," said Hortense solemnly. + +"Come, my angel, help me to dress.--No, no; I will not have you help +me in this! Send me Louise." + +Adeline, in her room, went to study herself in the glass. She looked +at herself closely and sadly, wondering to herself: + +"Am I still handsome? Can I still be desirable? Am I not wrinkled?" + +She lifted up her fine golden hair, uncovering her temples; they were +as fresh as a girl's. She went further; she uncovered her shoulders, +and was satisfied; nay, she had a little feeling of pride. The beauty +of really handsome shoulders is one of the last charms a woman loses, +especially if she has lived chastely. + +Adeline chose her dress carefully, but the pious and blameless woman +is decent to the end, in spite of her little coquettish graces. Of +what use were brand-new gray silk stockings and high heeled satin +shoes when she was absolutely ignorant of the art of displaying a +pretty foot at a critical moment, by obtruding it an inch or two +beyond a half-lifted skirt, opening horizons to desire? She put on, +indeed, her prettiest flowered muslin dress, with a low body and short +sleeves; but horrified at so much bareness, she covered her fine arms +with clear gauze sleeves and hid her shoulders under an embroidered +cape. Her curls, _a l'Anglaise_, struck her as too fly-away; she +subdued their airy lightness by putting on a very pretty cap; but, +with or without the cap, would she have known how to twist the golden +ringlets so as to show off her taper fingers to admiration? + +As to rouge--the consciousness of guilt, the preparations for a +deliberate fall, threw this saintly woman into a state of high fever, +which, for the time, revived the brilliant coloring of youth. Her eyes +were bright, her cheeks glowed. Instead of assuming a seductive air, +she saw in herself a look of barefaced audacity which shocked her. + +Lisbeth, at Adeline's request, had told her all the circumstances of +Wenceslas' infidelity; and the Baroness had learned to her utter +amazement, that in one evening in one moment, Madame Marneffe had made +herself the mistress of the bewitched artist. + +"How do these women do it?" the Baroness had asked Lisbeth. + +There is no curiosity so great as that of virtuous women on such +subjects; they would like to know the arts of vice and remain +immaculate. + +"Why, they are seductive; it is their business," said Cousin Betty. +"Valerie that evening, my dear, was, I declare, enough to bring an +angel to perdition." + +"But tell me how she set to work." + +"There is no principle, only practice in that walk of life," said +Lisbeth ironically. + +The Baroness, recalling this conversation, would have liked to consult +Cousin Betty; but there was no time for that. Poor Adeline, incapable +of imagining a patch, of pinning a rosebud in the very middle of her +bosom, of devising the tricks of the toilet intended to resuscitate +the ardors of exhausted nature, was merely well dressed. A woman is +not a courtesan for the wishing! + +"Woman is soup for man," as Moliere says by the mouth of the judicious +Gros-Rene. This comparison suggests a sort of culinary art in love. +Then the virtuous wife would be a Homeric meal, flesh laid on hot +cinders. The courtesan, on the contrary, is a dish by Careme, with its +condiments, spices, and elegant arrangement. The Baroness could not +--did not know how to serve up her fair bosom in a lordly dish of lace, +after the manner of Madame Marneffe. She knew nothing of the secrets +of certain attitudes. This high-souled woman might have turned round +and round a hundred times, and she would have betrayed nothing to the +keen glance of a profligate. + +To be a good woman and a prude to all the world, and a courtesan to +her husband, is the gift of a woman of genius, and they are few. This +is the secret of long fidelity, inexplicable to the women who are not +blessed with the double and splendid faculty. Imagine Madame Marneffe +virtuous, and you have the Marchesa di Pescara. But such lofty and +illustrious women, beautiful as Diane de Poitiers, but virtuous, may +be easily counted. + +So the scene with which this serious and terrible drama of Paris +manners opened was about to be repeated, with this singular difference +--that the calamities prophesied then by the captain of the municipal +Militia had reversed the parts. Madame Hulot was awaiting Crevel with +the same intentions as had brought him to her, smiling down at the +Paris crowd from his _milord_, three years ago. And, strangest thing +of all, the Baroness was true to herself and to her love, while +preparing to yield to the grossest infidelity, such as the storm of +passion even does not justify in the eyes of some judges. + +"What can I do to become a Madame Marneffe?" she asked herself as she +heard the door-bell. + +She restrained her tears, fever gave brilliancy to her face, and she +meant to be quite the courtesan, poor, noble soul. + + + +"What the devil can that worthy Baronne Hulot want of me?" Crevel +wondered as he mounted the stairs. "She is going to discuss my quarrel +with Celestine and Victorin, no doubt; but I will not give way!" + +As he went into the drawing-room, shown in by Louise, he said to +himself as he noted the bareness of the place (Crevel's word): + +"Poor woman! She lives here like some fine picture stowed in a loft by +a man who knows nothing of painting." + +Crevel, seeing Comte Popinot, the Minister of Commerce, buy pictures +and statues, wanted also to figure as a Maecenas of Paris, whose love +of Art consists in making good investments. + +Adeline smiled graciously at Crevel, pointing to a chair facing her. + +"Here I am, fair lady, at your command," said Crevel. + +Monsieur the Mayor, a political personage, now wore black broadcloth. +His face, at the top of this solemn suit, shone like a full moon +rising above a mass of dark clouds. His shirt, buttoned with three +large pearls worth five hundred francs apiece, gave a great idea of +his thoracic capacity, and he was apt to say, "In me you see the +coming athlete of the tribune!" His enormous vulgar hands were encased +in yellow gloves even in the morning; his patent leather boots spoke +of the chocolate-colored coupe with one horse in which he drove. + +In the course of three years ambition had altered Crevel's +pretensions. Like all great artists, he had come to his second manner. +In the great world, when he went to the Prince de Wissembourg's, to +the Prefecture, to Comte Popinot's, and the like, he held his hat in +his hand in an airy manner taught him by Valerie, and he inserted the +thumb of the other hand in the armhole of his waistcoat with a knowing +air, and a simpering face and expression. This new grace of attitude +was due to the satirical inventiveness of Valerie, who, under pretence +of rejuvenating her mayor, had given him an added touch of the +ridiculous. + +"I begged you to come, my dear kind Monsieur Crevel," said the +Baroness in a husky voice, "on a matter of the greatest importance--" + +"I can guess what it is, madame," said Crevel, with a knowing air, +"but what you would ask is impossible.--Oh, I am not a brutal father, +a man--to use Napoleon's words--set hard and fast on sheer avarice. +Listen to me, fair lady. If my children were ruining themselves for +their own benefit, I would help them out of the scrape; but as for +backing your husband, madame? It is like trying to fill the vat of the +Danaides! Their house is mortgaged for three hundred thousand francs +for an incorrigible father! Why, they have nothing left, poor +wretches! And they have no fun for their money. All they have to live +upon is what Victorin may make in Court. He must wag his tongue more, +must monsieur your son! And he was to have been a Minister, that +learned youth! Our hope and pride. A pretty pilot, who runs aground +like a land-lubber; for if he had borrowed to enable him to get on, if +he had run into debt for feasting Deputies, winning votes, and +increasing his influence, I should be the first to say, 'Here is my +purse--dip your hand in, my friend!' But when it comes of paying for +papa's folly--folly I warned you of!--Ah! his father has deprived him +of every chance of power.--It is I who shall be Minister!" + +"Alas, my dear Crevel, it has nothing to do with the children, poor +devoted souls!--If your heart is closed to Victorin and Celestine, I +shall love them so much that perhaps I may soften the bitterness of +their souls caused by your anger. You are punishing your children for +a good action!" + +"Yes, for a good action badly done! That is half a crime," said +Crevel, much pleased with his epigram. + +"Doing good, my dear Crevel, does not mean sparing money out of a +purse that is bursting with it; it means enduring privations to be +generous, suffering for liberality! It is being prepared for +ingratitude! Heaven does not see the charity that costs us nothing--" + +"Saints, madame, may if they please go to the workhouse; they know +that it is for them the door of heaven. For my part, I am +worldly-minded; I fear God, but yet more I fear the hell of poverty. +To be destitute is the last depth of misfortune in society as now +constituted. I am a man of my time; I respect money." + +"And you are right," said Adeline, "from the worldly point of view." + +She was a thousand miles from her point, and she felt herself on a +gridiron, like Saint Laurence, as she thought of her uncle, for she +could see him blowing his brains out. + +She looked down; then she raised her eyes to gaze at Crevel with +angelic sweetness--not with the inviting suggestiveness which was part +of Valerie's wit. Three years ago she could have bewitched Crevel by +that beautiful look. + +"I have known the time," said she, "when you were more generous--you +used to talk of three hundred thousand francs like a grand +gentleman--" + +Crevel looked at Madame Hulot; he beheld her like a lily in the last +of its bloom, vague sensations rose within him, but he felt such +respect for this saintly creature that he spurned all suspicions and +buried them in the most profligate corner of his heart. + +"I, madame, am still the same; but a retired merchant, if he is a +grand gentleman, plays, and must play, the part with method and +economy; he carries his ideas of order into everything. He opens an +account for his little amusements, and devotes certain profits to that +head of expenditure; but as to touching his capital! it would be +folly. My children will have their fortune intact, mine and my wife's; +but I do not suppose that they wish their father to be dull, a monk +and a mummy! My life is a very jolly one; I float gaily down the +stream. I fulfil all the duties imposed on me by law, by my +affections, and by family ties, just as I always used to be punctual +in paying my bills when they fell due. If only my children conduct +themselves in their domestic life as I do, I shall be satisfied; and +for the present, so long as my follies--for I have committed follies +--are no loss to any one but the gulls--excuse me, you do not perhaps +understand the slang word--they will have nothing to blame me for, and +will find a tidy little sum still left when I die. Your children +cannot say as much of their father, who is ruining his son and my +daughter by his pranks--" + +The Baroness was getting further from her object as he went on. + +"You are very unkind about my husband, my dear Crevel--and yet, if you +had found his wife obliging, you would have been his best friend----" + +She shot a burning glance at Crevel; but, like Dubois, who gave the +Regent three kicks, she affected too much, and the rakish perfumer's +thoughts jumped at such profligate suggestions, that he said to +himself, "Does she want to turn the tables on Hulot?--Does she think +me more attractive as a Mayor than as a National Guardsman? Women are +strange creatures!" + +And he assumed the position of his second manner, looking at the +Baroness with his _Regency_ leer. + +"I could almost fancy," she went on, "that you want to visit on him +your resentment against the virtue that resisted you--in a woman whom +you loved well enough--to--to buy her," she added in a low voice. + +"In a divine woman," Crevel replied, with a meaning smile at the +Baroness, who looked down while tears rose to her eyes. "For you have +swallowed not a few bitter pills!--in these three years--hey, my +beauty?" + +"Do not talk of my troubles, dear Crevel; they are too much for the +endurance of a mere human being. Ah! if you still love me, you may +drag me out of the pit in which I lie. Yes, I am in hell torment! The +regicides who were racked and nipped and torn into quarters by four +horses were on roses compared with me, for their bodies only were +dismembered, and my heart is torn in quarters----" + +Crevel's thumb moved from his armhole, he placed his hand on the +work-table, he abandoned his attitude, he smiled! The smile was so +vacuous that it misled the Baroness; she took it for an expression +of kindness. + +"You see a woman, not indeed in despair, but with her honor at the +point of death, and prepared for everything, my dear friend, to hinder +a crime." + +Fearing that Hortense might come in, she bolted the door; then with +equal impetuosity she fell at Crevel's feet, took his hand and kissed +it. + +"Be my deliverer!" she cried. + +She thought there was some generous fibre in this mercantile soul, and +full of sudden hope that she might get the two hundred thousand francs +without degrading herself: + +"Buy a soul--you were once ready to buy virtue!" she went on, with a +frenzied gaze. "Trust to my honesty as a woman, to my honor, of which +you know the worth! Be my friend! Save a whole family from ruin, +shame, despair; keep it from falling into a bog where the quicksands +are mingled with blood! Oh! ask for no explanations," she exclaimed, +at a movement on Crevel's part, who was about to speak. "Above all, do +not say to me, 'I told you so!' like a friend who is glad at a +misfortune. Come now, yield to her whom you used to love, to the woman +whose humiliation at your feet is perhaps the crowning moment of her +glory; ask nothing of her, expect what you will from her gratitude! +--No, no. Give me nothing, but lend--lend to me whom you used to call +Adeline----" + +At this point her tears flowed so fast, Adeline was sobbing so +passionately, that Crevel's gloves were wet. The words, "I need two +hundred thousand francs," were scarcely articulate in the torrent of +weeping, as stones, however large, are invisible in Alpine cataracts +swollen by the melting of the snows. + +This is the inexperience of virtue. Vice asks for nothing, as we have +seen in Madame Marneffe; it gets everything offered to it. Women of +that stamp are never exacting till they have made themselves +indispensable, or when a man has to be worked as a quarry is worked +where the lime is rather scarce--going to ruin, as the quarry-men say. + +On hearing these words, "Two hundred thousand francs," Crevel +understood all. He cheerfully raised the Baroness, saying insolently: + +"Come, come, bear up, mother," which Adeline, in her distraction, +failed to hear. The scene was changing its character. Crevel was +becoming "master of the situation," to use his own words. The vastness +of the sum startled Crevel so greatly that his emotion at seeing this +handsome woman in tears at his feet was forgotten. Besides, however +angelical and saintly a woman may be, when she is crying bitterly her +beauty disappears. A Madame Marneffe, as has been seen, whimpers now +and then, a tear trickles down her cheek; but as to melting into tears +and making her eyes and nose red!--never would she commit such a +blunder. + +"Come, child, compose yourself.--Deuce take it!" Crevel went on, +taking Madame Hulot's hands in his own and patting them. "Why do you +apply to me for two hundred thousand francs? What do you want with +them? Whom are they for?" + +"Do not," said she, "insist on any explanations. Give me the money! +--You will save three lives and the honor of our children." + +"And do you suppose, my good mother, that in all Paris you will find a +man who at a word from a half-crazy woman will go off _hic et nunc_, +and bring out of some drawer, Heaven knows where, two hundred thousand +francs that have been lying simmering there till she is pleased to +scoop them up? Is that all you know of life and of business, my +beauty? Your folks are in a bad way; you may send them the last +sacraments; for no one in Paris but her Divine Highness Madame la +Banque, or the great Nucingen, or some miserable miser who is in love +with gold as we other folks are with a woman, could produce such a +miracle! The civil list, civil as it may be, would beg you to call +again tomorrow. Every one invests his money, and turns it over to the +best of his powers. + +"You are quite mistaken, my angel, if you suppose that King +Louis-Philippe rules us; he himself knows better than that. He knows +as well as we do that supreme above the Charter reigns the holy, +venerated, substantial, delightful, obliging, beautiful, noble, +ever-youthful, and all-powerful five-franc piece! But money, my beauty, +insists on interest, and is always engaged in seeking it! 'God of the +Jews, thou art supreme!' says Racine. The perennial parable of the +golden calf, you see!--In the days of Moses there was stock-jobbing in +the desert! + +"We have reverted to Biblical traditions; the Golden Calf was the +first State ledger," he went on. "You, my Adeline, have not gone +beyond the Rue Plumet. The Egyptians had lent enormous sums to the +Hebrews, and what they ran after was not God's people, but their +capital." + +He looked at the Baroness with an expression which said, "How clever I +am!" + +"You know nothing of the devotion of every city man to his sacred +hoard!" he went on, after a pause. "Excuse me. Listen to me. Get this +well into your head.--You want two hundred thousand francs? No one can +produce the sum without selling some security. Now consider! To have +two hundred thousand francs in hard cash it would be needful to sell +about seven hundred thousand francs' worth of stock at three per cent. +Well; and then you would only get the money on the third day. That is +the quickest way. To persuade a man to part with a fortune--for two +hundred thousand francs is the whole fortune of many a man--he ought +at least to know where it is all going to, and for what purpose--" + +"It is going, my dear kind Crevel, to save the lives of two men, one +of whom will die of grief and the other will kill himself! And to save +me too from going mad! Am I not a little mad already?" + +"Not so mad!" said he, taking Madame Hulot round the knees; "old +Crevel has his price, since you thought of applying to him, my angel." + +"They submit to have a man's arms round their knees, it would seem!" +thought the saintly woman, covering her face with her hands. + +"Once you offered me a fortune!" said she, turning red. + +"Ay, mother! but that was three years ago!" replied Crevel. "Well, you +are handsomer now than ever I saw you!" he went on, taking the +Baroness' arm and pressing it to his heart. "You have a good memory, +my dear, by Jove!--And now you see how wrong you were to be so +prudish, for those three hundred thousand francs that you refused so +magnanimously are in another woman's pocket. I loved you then, I love +you still; but just look back these three years. + +"When I said to you, 'You shall be mine,' what object had I in view? I +meant to be revenged on that rascal Hulot. But your husband, my +beauty, found himself a mistress--a jewel of a woman, a pearl, a +cunning hussy then aged three-and-twenty, for she is six-and-twenty +now. It struck me as more amusing, more complete, more Louis XV., more +Marechal de Richelieu, more first-class altogether, to filch away that +charmer, who, in point of fact, never cared for Hulot, and who for +these three years has been madly in love with your humble servant." + +As he spoke, Crevel, from whose hands the Baroness had released her +own, had resumed his favorite attitude; both thumbs were stuck into +his armholes, and he was patting his ribs with his fingers, like two +flapping wings, fancying that he was thus making himself very +attractive and charming. It was as much as to say, "And this is the +man you would have nothing to say to!" + +"There you are my dear; I had my revenge, and your husband knows it. I +proved to him clearly that he was basketed--just where he was before, +as we say. Madame Marneffe is my mistress, and when her precious +Marneffe kicks the bucket, she will be my wife." + +Madame Hulot stared at Crevel with a fixed and almost dazed look. + +"Hector knew it?" she said. + +"And went back to her," replied Crevel. "And I allowed it, because +Valerie wished to be the wife of a head-clerk; but she promised me +that she would manage things so that our Baron should be so +effectually bowled over that he can never interfere any more. And my +little duchess--for that woman is a born duchess, on my soul!--kept +her word. She restores you your Hector, madame, virtuous in +perpetuity, as she says--she is so witty! He has had a good lesson, I +can tell you! The Baron has had some hard knocks; he will help no more +actresses or fine ladies; he is radically cured; cleaned out like a +beer-glass. + +"If you had listened to Crevel in the first instance, instead of +scorning him and turning him out of the house, you might have had four +hundred thousand francs, for my revenge has cost me all of that.--But +I shall get my change back, I hope, when Marneffe dies--I have +invested in a wife, you see; that is the secret of my extravagance. I +have solved the problem of playing the lord on easy terms." + +"Would you give your daughter such a mother-in-law? cried Madame +Hulot. + +"You do not know Valerie, madame," replied Crevel gravely, striking +the attitude of his first manner. "She is a woman with good blood in +her veins, a lady, and a woman who enjoys the highest consideration. +Why, only yesterday the vicar of the parish was dining with her. She +is pious, and we have presented a splendid monstrance to the church. + +"Oh! she is clever, she is witty, she is delightful, well informed +--she has everything in her favor. For my part, my dear Adeline, I owe +everything to that charming woman; she has opened my mind, polished my +speech, as you may have noticed; she corrects my impetuosity, and +gives me words and ideas. I never say anything now that I ought not. I +have greatly improved; you must have noticed it. And then she has +encouraged my ambition. I shall be a Deputy; and I shall make no +blunders, for I shall consult my Egeria. Every great politician, from +Numa to our present Prime Minister, has had his Sibyl of the fountain. +A score of deputies visit Valerie; she is acquiring considerable +influence; and now that she is about to be established in a charming +house, with a carriage, she will be one of the occult rulers of Paris. + +"A fine locomotive! That is what such a woman is. Oh, I have blessed +you many a time for your stern virtue." + +"It is enough to make one doubt the goodness of God!" cried Adeline, +whose indignation had dried her tears. "But, no! Divine justice must +be hanging over her head." + +"You know nothing of the world, my beauty," said the great politician, +deeply offended. "The world, my Adeline, loves success! Say, now, has +it come to seek out your sublime virtue, priced at two hundred +thousand francs?" + +The words made Madame Hulot shudder; the nervous trembling attacked +her once more. She saw that the ex-perfumer was taking a mean revenge +on her as he had on Hulot; she felt sick with disgust, and a spasm +rose to her throat, hindering speech. + +"Money!" she said at last. "Always money!" + +"You touched me deeply," said Crevel, reminded by these words of the +woman's humiliation, "when I beheld you there, weeping at my feet! +--You perhaps will not believe me, but if I had my pocket-book about +me, it would have been yours.--Come, do you really want such a sum?" + +As she heard this question, big with two hundred thousand francs, +Adeline forgot the odious insults heaped on her by this cheap-jack +fine gentleman, before the tempting picture of success described by +Machiavelli-Crevel, who only wanted to find out her secrets and laugh +over them with Valerie. + +"Oh! I will do anything, everything," cried the unhappy woman. +"Monsieur, I will sell myself--I will be a Valerie, if I must." + +"You will find that difficult," replied Crevel. "Valerie is a +masterpiece in her way. My good mother, twenty-five years of virtue +are always repellent, like a badly treated disease. And your virtue +has grown very mouldy, my dear child. But you shall see how much I +love you. I will manage to get you your two hundred thousand francs." + +Adeline, incapable of uttering a word, seized his hand and laid it on +her heart; a tear of joy trembled in her eyes. + +"Oh! don't be in a hurry; there will be some hard pulling. I am a +jolly good fellow, a good soul with no prejudices, and I will put +things plainly to you. You want to do as Valerie does--very good. But +that is not all; you must have a gull, a stockholder, a Hulot.--Well, +I know a retired tradesman--in fact, a hosier. He is heavy, dull, has +not an idea, I am licking him into shape, but I don't know when he +will do me credit. My man is a deputy, stupid and conceited; the +tyranny of a turbaned wife, in the depths of the country, has +preserved him in a state of utter virginity as to the luxury and +pleasures of Paris life. But Beauvisage--his name is Beauvisage--is a +millionaire, and, like me, my dear, three years ago, he will give a +hundred thousand crowns to be the lover of a real lady.--Yes, you +see," he went on, misunderstanding a gesture on Adeline's part, "he is +jealous of me, you understand; jealous of my happiness with Madame +Marneffe, and he is a fellow quite capable of selling an estate to +purchase a--" + +"Enough, Monsieur Crevel!" said Madame Hulot, no longer controlling +her disgust, and showing all her shame in her face. "I am punished +beyond my deserts. My conscience, so sternly repressed by the iron +hand of necessity, tells me, at this final insult, that such +sacrifices are impossible.--My pride is gone; I do not say now, as I +did the first time, 'Go!' after receiving this mortal thrust. I have +lost the right to do so. I have flung myself before you like a +prostitute. + +"Yes," she went on, in reply to a negative on Crevel's part, "I have +fouled my life, till now so pure, by a degrading thought; and I am +inexcusable!--I know it!--I deserve every insult you can offer me! +God's will be done! If, indeed, He desires the death of two creatures +worthy to appear before Him, they must die! I shall mourn them, and +pray for them! If it is His will that my family should be humbled to +the dust, we must bow to His avenging sword, nay, and kiss it, since +we are Christians.--I know how to expiate this disgrace, which will be +the torment of all my remaining days. + +"I who speak to you, monsieur, am not Madame Hulot, but a wretched, +humble sinner, a Christian whose heart henceforth will know but one +feeling, and that is repentance, all my time given up to prayer and +charity. With such a sin on my soul, I am the last of women, the first +only of penitents.--You have been the means of bringing me to a right +mind; I can hear the Voice of God speaking within me, and I can thank +you!" + +She was shaking with the nervous trembling which from that hour never +left her. Her low, sweet tones were quite unlike the fevered accents +of the woman who was ready for dishonor to save her family. The blood +faded from her cheeks, her face was colorless, and her eyes were dry. + +"And I played my part very badly, did I not?" she went on, looking at +Crevel with the sweetness that martyrs must have shown in their eyes +as they looked up at the Proconsul. "True love, the sacred love of a +devoted woman, gives other pleasures, no doubt, than those that are +bought in the open market!--But why so many words?" said she, suddenly +bethinking herself, and advancing a step further in the way to +perfection. "They sound like irony, but I am not ironical! Forgive me. +Besides, monsieur, I did not want to hurt any one but myself--" + +The dignity of virtue and its holy flame had expelled the transient +impurity of the woman who, splendid in her own peculiar beauty, looked +taller in Crevel's eyes. Adeline had, at this moment, the majesty of +the figures of Religion clinging to the Cross, as painted by the old +Venetians; but she expressed, too, the immensity of her love and the +grandeur of the Catholic Church, to which she flew like a wounded +dove. + +Crevel was dazzled, astounded. + +"Madame, I am your slave, without conditions," said he, in an +inspiration of generosity. "We will look into this matter--and +--whatever you want--the impossible even--I will do. I will pledge my +securities at the Bank, and in two hours you shall have the money." + +"Good God! a miracle!" said poor Adeline, falling on her knees. + +She prayed to Heaven with such fervor as touched Crevel deeply; Madame +Hulot saw that he had tears in his eyes when, having ended her prayer, +she rose to her feet. + +"Be a friend to me, monsieur," said she. "Your heart is better than +your words and conduct. God gave you your soul; your passions and the +world have given you your ideas. Oh, I will love you truly," she +exclaimed, with an angelic tenderness in strange contrast with her +attempts at coquettish trickery. + +"But cease to tremble so," said Crevel. + +"Am I trembling?" said the Baroness, unconscious of the infirmity that +had so suddenly come upon her. + +"Yes; why, look," said Crevel, taking Adeline by the arm and showing +her that she was shaking with nervousness. "Come, madame," he added +respectfully, "compose yourself; I am going to the Bank at once." + +"And come back quickly! Remember," she added, betraying all her +secrets, "that the first point is to prevent the suicide of our poor +Uncle Fischer involved by my husband--for I trust you now, and I am +telling you everything. Oh, if we should not be on time, I know my +brother-in-law, the Marshal, and he has such a delicate soul, that he +would die of it in a few days." + +"I am off, then," said Crevel, kissing the Baroness' hand. "But what +has that unhappy Hulot done?" + +"He has swindled the Government." + +"Good Heavens! I fly, madame; I understand, I admire you!" + +Crevel bent one knee, kissed Madame Hulot's skirt, and vanished, +saying, "You will see me soon." + +Unluckily, on his way from the Rue Plumet to his own house, to fetch +the securities, Crevel went along the Rue Vanneau, and he could not +resist going in to see his little Duchess. His face still bore an +agitated expression. + +He went straight into Valerie's room, who was having her hair dressed. +She looked at Crevel in her glass, and, like every woman of that sort, +was annoyed, before she knew anything about it, to see that he was +moved by some strong feeling of which she was not the cause. + +"What is the matter, my dear?" said she. "Is that a face to bring in +to your little Duchess? I will not be your Duchess any more, monsieur, +no more than I will be your 'little duck,' you old monster." + +Crevel replied by a melancholy smile and a glance at the maid. + +"Reine, child, that will do for to-day; I can finish my hair myself. +Give me my Chinese wrapper; my gentleman seems to me out of sorts." + +Reine, whose face was pitted like a colander, and who seemed to have +been made on purpose to wait on Valerie, smiled meaningly in reply, +and brought the dressing-gown. Valerie took off her combing-wrapper; +she was in her shift, and she wriggled into the dressing-gown like a +snake into a clump of grass. + +"Madame is not at home?" + +"What a question!" said Valerie.--"Come, tell me, my big puss, have +_Rives Gauches_ gone down?" + +"No." + +"They have raised the price of the house?" + +"No." + +"You fancy that you are not the father of our little Crevel?" + +"What nonsense!" replied he, sure of his paternity. + +"On my honor, I give it up!" said Madame Marneffe. "If I am expected +to extract my friend's woes as you pull the cork out of a bottle of +Bordeaux, I let it alone.--Go away, you bore me." + +"It is nothing," said Crevel. "I must find two hundred thousand francs +in two hours." + +"Oh, you can easily get them.--I have not spent the fifty thousand +francs we got out of Hulot for that report, and I can ask Henri for +fifty thousand--" + +"Henri--it is always Henri!" exclaimed Crevel. + +"And do you suppose, you great baby of a Machiavelli, that I will cast +off Henri? Would France disarm her fleet?--Henri! why, he is a dagger +in a sheath hanging on a nail. That boy serves as a weather-glass to +show me if you love me--and you don't love me this morning." + +"I don't love you, Valerie?" cried Crevel. "I love you as much as a +million." + +"That is not nearly enough!" cried she, jumping on to Crevel's knee, +and throwing both arms round his neck as if it were a peg to hang on +by. "I want to be loved as much as ten millions, as much as all the +gold in the world, and more to that. Henri would never wait a minute +before telling me all he had on his mind. What is it, my great pet? +Have it out. Make a clean breast of it to your own little duck!" + +And she swept her hair over Crevel's face, while she jestingly pulled +his nose. + +"Can a man with a nose like that," she went on, "have any secrets from +his _Vava--lele--ririe_?" + +And at the _Vava_ she tweaked his nose to the right; at _lele_ it went +to the left; at _ririe_ she nipped it straight again. + +"Well, I have just seen--" Crevel stopped and looked at Madame +Marneffe. + +"Valerie, my treasure, promise me on your honor--ours, you know?--not +to repeat a single word of what I tell you." + +"Of course, Mayor, we know all about that. One hand up--so--and one +foot--so!" And she put herself in an attitude which, to use Rabelais' +phrase, stripped Crevel bare from his brain to his heels, so quaint +and delicious was the nudity revealed through the light film of lawn. + +"I have just seen virtue in despair." + +"Can despair possess virtue?" said she, nodding gravely and crossing +her arms like Napoleon. + +"It is poor Madame Hulot. She wants two hundred thousand francs, or +else Marshal Hulot and old Johann Fischer will blow their brains out; +and as you, my little Duchess, are partly at the bottom of the +mischief, I am going to patch matters up. She is a saintly creature, I +know her well; she will repay you every penny." + +At the name of Hulot, at the words two hundred thousand francs, a +gleam from Valerie's eyes flashed from between her long eyelids like +the flame of a cannon through the smoke. + +"What did the old thing do to move you to compassion? Did she show you +--what?--her--her religion?" + +"Do not make game of her, sweetheart; she is a very saintly, a very +noble and pious woman, worthy of all respect." + +"Am I not worthy of respect then, heh?" answered Valerie, with a +threatening gaze at Crevel. + +"I never said so," replied he, understanding that the praise of virtue +might not be gratifying to Madame Marneffe. + +"I am pious too," Valerie went on, taking her seat in an armchair; +"but I do not make a trade of my religion. I go to church in secret." + +She sat in silence, and paid no further heed to Crevel. He, extremely +ill at ease, came to stand in front of the chair into which Valerie +had thrown herself, and saw her lost in the reflections he had been so +foolish as to suggest. + +"Valerie, my little Angel!" + +Utter silence. A highly problematical tear was furtively dashed away. + +"One word, my little duck?" + +"Monsieur!" + +"What are you thinking of, my darling?" + +"Oh, Monsieur Crevel, I was thinking of the day of my first communion! +How pretty I was! How pure, how saintly!--immaculate!--Oh! if any one +had come to my mother and said, 'Your daughter will be a hussy, and +unfaithful to her husband; one day a police-officer will find her in a +disreputable house; she will sell herself to a Crevel to cheat a Hulot +--two horrible old men--' Poof! horrible--she would have died before +the end of the sentence, she was so fond of me, poor dear!--" + +"Nay, be calm." + +"You cannot think how well a woman must love a man before she can +silence the remorse that gnaws at the heart of an adulterous wife. I +am quite sorry that Reine is not here; she would have told you that +she found me this morning praying with tears in my eyes. I, Monsieur +Crevel, for my part, do not make a mockery of religion. Have you ever +heard me say a word I ought not on such a subject?" + +Crevel shook his head in negation. + +"I will never allow it to be mentioned in my presence. I can make fun +of anything under the sun: Kings, politics, finance, everything that +is sacred in the eyes of the world--judges, matrimony, and love--old +men and maidens. But the Church and God!--There I draw the line.--I +know I am wicked; I am sacrificing my future life to you. And you have +no conception of the immensity of my love." + +Crevel clasped his hands. + +"No, unless you could see into my heart, and fathom the depth of my +conviction so as to know the extent of my sacrifice! I feel in me the +making of a Magdalen.--And see how respectfully I treat the priests; +think of the gifts I make to the Church! My mother brought me up in +the Catholic Faith, and I know what is meant by God! It is to sinners +like us that His voice is most awful." + +Valerie wiped away two tears that trickled down her cheeks. Crevel was +in dismay. Madame Marneffe stood up in her excitement. + +"Be calm, my darling--you alarm me!" + +Madame Marneffe fell on her knees. + +"Dear Heaven! I am not bad all through!" she cried, clasping her +hands. "Vouchsafe to rescue Thy wandering lamb, strike her, crush her, +snatch her from foul and adulterous hands, and how gladly she will +nestle on Thy shoulder! How willingly she will return to the fold!" + +She got up and looked at Crevel; her colorless eyes frightened him. + +"Yes, Crevel, and, do you know? I, too, am frightened sometimes. The +justice of God is exerted in this nether world as well as in the next. +What mercy can I expect at God's hands? His vengeance overtakes the +guilty in many ways; it assumes every aspect of disaster. That is what +my mother told me on her death-bed, speaking of her own old age.--But +if I should lose you," she added, hugging Crevel with a sort of savage +frenzy--"oh! I should die!" + +Madame Marneffe released Crevel, knelt down again at the armchair, +folded her hands--and in what a bewitching attitude!--and with +incredible fervor poured out the following prayer:-- + +"And thou, Saint Valerie, my patron saint, why dost thou so rarely +visit the pillow of her who was intrusted to thy care? Oh, come this +evening, as thou didst this morning, to inspire me with holy thoughts, +and I will quit the path of sin; like the Magdalen, I will give up +deluding joys and the false glitter of the world, even the man I love +so well--" + +"My precious duck!" + +"No more of the 'precious duck,' monsieur!" said she, turning round +like a virtuous wife, her eyes full of tears, but dignified, cold, and +indifferent. + +"Leave me," she went on, pushing him from her. "What is my duty? To +belong wholly to my husband.--He is a dying man, and what am I doing? +Deceiving him on the edge of the grave. He believes your child to be +his. I will tell him the truth, and begin by securing his pardon +before I ask for God's.--We must part. Good-bye, Monsieur Crevel," and +she stood up to offer him an icy cold hand. "Good-bye, my friend; we +shall meet no more till we meet in a better world.--You have to thank +me for some enjoyment, criminal indeed; now I want--oh yes, I shall +have your esteem." + +Crevel was weeping bitter tears. + +"You great pumpkin!" she exclaimed, with an infernal peal of laughter. +"That is how your pious women go about it to drag from you a plum of +two hundred thousand francs. And you, who talk of the Marechal de +Richelieu, the prototype of Lovelace, you could be taken in by such a +stale trick as that! I could get hundreds of thousands of francs out +of you any day, if I chose, you old ninny!--Keep your money! If you +have more than you know what to do with, it is mine. If you give two +sous to that 'respectable' woman, who is pious forsooth, because she +is fifty-six years of age, we shall never meet again, and you may take +her for your mistress! You could come back to me next day bruised all +over from her bony caresses and sodden with her tears, and sick of her +little barmaid's caps and her whimpering, which must turn her favors +into showers--" + +"In point of fact," said Crevel, "two hundred thousand francs is a +round sum of money." + +"They have fine appetites, have the goody sort! By the poker! they +sell their sermons dearer than we sell the rarest and realest thing on +earth--pleasure.--And they can spin a yarn! There, I know them. I have +seen plenty in my mother's house. They think everything is allowable +for the Church and for--Really, my dear love, you ought to be ashamed +of yourself--for you are not so open-handed! You have not given me two +hundred thousand francs all told!" + +"Oh yes," said Crevel, "your little house will cost as much as that." + +"Then you have four hundred thousand francs?" said she thoughtfully. + +"No." + +"Then, sir, you meant to lend that old horror the two hundred thousand +francs due for my hotel? What a crime, what high treason!" + +"Only listen to me." + +"If you were giving the money to some idiotic philanthropic scheme, +you would be regarded as a coming man," she went on, with increasing +eagerness, "and I should be the first to advise it; for you are too +simple to write a big political book that might make you famous; as +for style, you have not enough to butter a pamphlet; but you might do +as other men do who are in your predicament, and who get a halo of +glory about their name by putting it at the top of some social, or +moral, or general, or national enterprise. Benevolence is out of date, +quite vulgar. Providing for old offenders, and making them more +comfortable than the poor devils who are honest, is played out. What I +should like to see is some invention of your own with an endowment of +two hundred thousand francs--something difficult and really useful. +Then you would be talked about as a man of mark, a Montyon, and I +should be very proud of you! + +"But as to throwing two hundred thousand francs into a holy-water +shell, or lending them to a bigot--cast off by her husband, and who +knows why? there is always some reason: does any one cast me off, I +ask you?--is a piece of idiocy which in our days could only come into +the head of a retired perfumer. It reeks of the counter. You would not +dare look at yourself in the glass two days after. + +"Go and pay the money in where it will be safe--run, fly; I will not +admit you again without the receipt in your hand. Go, as fast and soon +as you can!" + +She pushed Crevel out of the room by the shoulders, seeing avarice +blossoming in his face once more. When she heard the outer door shut, +she exclaimed: + +"Then Lisbeth is revenged over and over again! What a pity that she is +at her old Marshal's now! We would have had a good laugh! So that old +woman wants to take the bread out of my mouth. I will startle her a +little!" + + + +Marshal Hulot, being obliged to live in a style suited to the highest +military rank, had taken a handsome house in the Rue du Mont-Parnasse, +where there are three or four princely residences. Though he rented +the whole house, he inhabited only the ground floor. When Lisbeth went +to keep house for him, she at once wished to let the first floor, +which, as she said, would pay the whole rent, so that the Count would +live almost rent-free; but the old soldier would not hear of it. + +For some months past the Marshal had had many sad thoughts. He had +guessed how miserably poor his sister-in-law was, and suspected her +griefs without understanding their cause. The old man, so cheerful in +his deafness, became taciturn; he could not help thinking that his +house would one day be a refuge for the Baroness and her daughter; and +it was for them that he kept the first floor. The smallness of his +fortune was so well known at headquarters, that the War Minister, the +Prince de Wissembourg, begged his old comrade to accept a sum of money +for his household expenses. This sum the Marshal spent in furnishing +the ground floor, which was in every way suitable; for, as he said, he +would not accept the Marshal's baton to walk the streets with. + +The house had belonged to a senator under the Empire, and the ground +floor drawing-rooms had been very magnificently fitted with carved +wood, white-and-gold, still in very good preservation. The Marshal had +found some good old furniture in the same style; in the coach-house he +had a carriage with two batons in saltire on the panels; and when he +was expected to appear in full fig, at the Minister's, at the +Tuileries, for some ceremony or high festival, he hired horses for the +job. + +His servant for more than thirty years was an old soldier of sixty, +whose sister was the cook, so he had saved ten thousand francs, adding +it by degrees to a little hoard he intended for Hortense. Every day +the old man walked along the boulevard, from the Rue du Mont-Parnasse +to the Rue Plumet; and every pensioner as he passed stood at +attention, without fail, to salute him: then the Marshal rewarded the +veteran with a smile. + +"Who is the man you always stand at attention to salute?" said a young +workman one day to an old captain and pensioner. + +"I will tell you, boy," replied the officer. + +The "boy" stood resigned, as a man does to listen to an old gossip. + +"In 1809," said the captain, "we were covering the flank of the main +army, marching on Vienna under the Emperor's command. We came to a +bridge defended by three batteries of cannon, one above another, on a +sort of cliff; three redoubts like three shelves, and commanding the +bridge. We were under Marshal Massena. That man whom you see there was +Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, and I was one of them. Our columns +held one bank of the river, the batteries were on the other. Three +times they tried for the bridge, and three times they were driven +back. 'Go and find Hulot!' said the Marshal; 'nobody but he and his +men can bolt that morsel.' So we came. The General, who was just +retiring from the bridge, stopped Hulot under fire, to tell him how to +do it, and he was in the way. 'I don't want advice, but room to pass,' +said our General coolly, marching across at the head of his men. And +then, rattle, thirty guns raking us at once." + +"By Heaven!" cried the workman, "that accounts for some of these +crutches!" + +"And if you, like me, my boy, had heard those words so quietly spoken, +you would bow before that man down to the ground! It is not so famous +as Arcole, but perhaps it was finer. We followed Hulot at the double, +right up to those batteries. All honor to those we left there!" and +the old man lifted his hat. "The Austrians were amazed at the dash of +it.--The Emperor made the man you saw a Count; he honored us all by +honoring our leader; and the King of to-day was very right to make him +a Marshal." + +"Hurrah for the Marshal!" cried the workman. + +"Oh, you may shout--shout away! The Marshal is as deaf as a post from +the roar of cannon." + +This anecdote may give some idea of the respect with which the +_Invalides_ regarded Marshal Hulot, whose Republican proclivities +secured him the popular sympathy of the whole quarter of the town. + +Sorrow taking hold on a spirit so calm and strict and noble, was a +heart-breaking spectacle. The Baroness could only tell lies, with a +woman's ingenuity, to conceal the whole dreadful truth from her +brother-in-law. + +In the course of this miserable morning, the Marshal, who, like all +old men, slept but little, had extracted from Lisbeth full particulars +as to his brother's situation, promising to marry her as the reward of +her revelations. Any one can imagine with what glee the old maid +allowed the secrets to be dragged from her which she had been dying to +tell ever since she had come into the house; for by this means she +made her marriage more certain. + +"Your brother is incorrigible!" Lisbeth shouted into the Marshal's +best ear. + +Her strong, clear tones enabled her to talk to him, but she wore out +her lungs, so anxious was she to prove to her future husband that to +her he would never be deaf. + +"He has had three mistresses," said the old man, "and his wife was an +Adeline! Poor Adeline!" + +"If you will take my advice," shrieked Lisbeth, "you will use your +influence with the Prince de Wissembourg to secure her some suitable +appointment. She will need it, for the Baron's pay is pledged for +three years." + +"I will go to the War Office," said he, "and see the Prince, to find +out what he thinks of my brother, and ask for his interest to help my +sister. Think of some place that is fit for her." + +"The charitable ladies of Paris, in concert with the Archbishop, have +formed various beneficent associations; they employ superintendents, +very decently paid, whose business it is to seek out cases of real +want. Such an occupation would exactly suit dear Adeline; it would be +work after her own heart." + +"Send to order the horses," said the Marshal. "I will go and dress. I +will drive to Neuilly if necessary." + +"How fond he is of her! She will always cross my path wherever I +turn!" said Lisbeth to herself. + +Lisbeth was already supreme in the house, but not with the Marshal's +cognizance. She had struck terror into the three servants--for she had +allowed herself a housemaid, and she exerted her old-maidish energy in +taking stock of everything, examining everything, and arranging in +every respect for the comfort of her dear Marshal. Lisbeth, quite as +Republican as he could be, pleased him by her democratic opinions, and +she flattered him with amazing dexterity; for the last fortnight the +old man, whose house was better kept, and who was cared for as a child +by its mother, had begun to regard Lisbeth as a part of what he had +dreamed of. + +"My dear Marshal," she shouted, following him out on to the steps, +"pull up the windows, do not sit in a draught, to oblige me!" + +The Marshal, who had never been so cosseted in his life, went off +smiling at Lisbeth, though his heart was aching. + +At the same hour Baron Hulot was quitting the War Office to call on +his chief, Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg, who had sent for him. +Though there was nothing extraordinary in one of the Generals on the +Board being sent for, Hulot's conscience was so uneasy that he fancied +he saw a cold and sinister expression in Mitouflet's face. + +"Mitouflet, how is the Prince?" he asked, locking the door of his +private room and following the messenger who led the way. + +"He must have a crow to pluck with you, Monsieur le Baron," replied +the man, "for his face is set at stormy." + +Hulot turned pale, and said no more; he crossed the anteroom and +reception rooms, and, with a violently beating heart, found himself at +the door of the Prince's private study. + +The chief, at this time seventy years old, with perfectly white hair, +and the tanned complexion of a soldier of that age, commanded +attention by a brow so vast that imagination saw in it a field of +battle. Under this dome, crowned with snow, sparkled a pair of eyes, +of the Napoleon blue, usually sad-looking and full of bitter thoughts +and regrets, their fire overshadowed by the penthouse of the strongly +projecting brow. This man, Bernadotte's rival, had hoped to find his +seat on a throne. But those eyes could flash formidable lightnings +when they expressed strong feelings. + +Then, his voice, always somewhat hollow, rang with strident tones. +When he was angry, the Prince was a soldier once more; he spoke the +language of Lieutenant Cottin; he spared nothing--nobody. Hulot d'Ervy +found the old lion, his hair shaggy like a mane, standing by the +fireplace, his brows knit, his back against the mantel-shelf, and his +eyes apparently fixed on vacancy. + +"Here! At your orders, Prince!" said Hulot, affecting a graceful ease +of manner. + +The Marshal looked hard at the Baron, without saying a word, during +the time it took him to come from the door to within a few steps of +where the chief stood. This leaden stare was like the eye of God; +Hulot could not meet it; he looked down in confusion. + +"He knows everything!" said he to himself. + +"Does your conscience tell you nothing?" asked the Marshal, in his +deep, hollow tones. + +"It tells me, sir, that I have been wrong, no doubt, in ordering +_razzias_ in Algeria without referring the matter to you. At my age, +and with my tastes, after forty-five years of service, I have no +fortune.--You know the principles of the four hundred elect +representatives of France. Those gentlemen are envious of every +distinction; they have pared down even the Ministers' pay--that says +everything! Ask them for money for an old servant!--What can you +expect of men who pay a whole class so badly as they pay the +Government legal officials?--who give thirty sous a day to the +laborers on the works at Toulon, when it is a physical impossibility +to live there and keep a family on less than forty sous?--who never +think of the atrocity of giving salaries of six hundred francs, up to +a thousand or twelve hundred perhaps, to clerks living in Paris; and +who want to secure our places for themselves as soon as the pay rises +to forty thousand?--who, finally, refuse to restore to the Crown a +piece of Crown property confiscated from the Crown in 1830--property +acquired, too, by Louis XVI. out of his privy purse!--If you had no +private fortune, Prince, you would be left high and dry, like my +brother, with your pay and not another sou, and no thought of your +having saved the army, and me with it, in the boggy plains of Poland." + +"You have robbed the State! You have made yourself liable to be +brought before the bench at Assizes," said the Marshal, "like that +clerk of the Treasury! And you take this, monsieur, with such levity." + +"But there is a great difference, monseigneur!" cried the baron. "Have +I dipped my hands into a cash box intrusted to my care?" + +"When a man of your rank commits such an infamous crime," said the +Marshal, "he is doubly guilty if he does it clumsily. You have +compromised the honor of our official administration, which hitherto +has been the purest in Europe!--And all for two hundred thousand +francs and a hussy!" said the Marshal, in a terrible voice. "You are a +Councillor of State--and a private soldier who sells anything +belonging to his regiment is punished with death! Here is a story told +to me one day by Colonel Pourin of the Second Lancers. At Saverne, one +of his men fell in love with a little Alsatian girl who had a fancy +for a shawl. The jade teased this poor devil of a lancer so +effectually, that though he could show twenty years' service, and was +about to be promoted to be quartermaster--the pride of the regiment +--to buy this shawl he sold some of his company's kit.--Do you know what +this lancer did, Baron d'Ervy? He swallowed some window-glass after +pounding it down, and died in eleven hours, of an illness, in +hospital.--Try, if you please, to die of apoplexy, that we may not see +you dishonored." + +Hulot looked with haggard eyes at the old warrior; and the Prince, +reading the look which betrayed the coward, felt a flush rise to his +cheeks; his eyes flamed. + +"Will you, sir, abandon me?" Hulot stammered. + +Marshal Hulot, hearing that only his brother was with the Minister, +ventured at this juncture to come in, and, like all deaf people, went +straight up to the Prince. + +"Oh," cried the hero of Poland, "I know what you are here for, my old +friend! But we can do nothing." + +"Do nothing!" echoed Marshal Hulot, who had heard only the last word. + +"Nothing; you have come to intercede for your brother. But do you know +what your brother is?" + +"My brother?" asked the deaf man. + +"Yes, he is a damned infernal blackguard, and unworthy of you." + +The Marshal in his rage shot from his eyes those fulminating fires +which, like Napoleon's, broke a man's will and judgment. + +"You lie, Cottin!" said Marshal Hulot, turning white. "Throw down your +baton as I throw mine! I am ready." + +The Prince went up to his old comrade, looked him in the face, and +shouted in his ear as he grasped his hand: + +"Are you a man?" + +"You will see that I am." + +"Well, then, pull yourself together! You must face the worst +misfortune that can befall you." + +The Prince turned round, took some papers from the table, and placed +them in the Marshal's hands, saying, "Read that." + +The Comte de Forzheim read the following letter, which lay +uppermost:-- + + "To his Excellency the President of the Council. + +"_Private and Confidential_. + +"ALGIERS. + + "MY DEAR PRINCE,--We have a very ugly business on our hands, as + you will see by the accompanying documents. + + "The story, briefly told, is this: Baron Hulot d'Ervy sent out to + the province of Oran an uncle of his as a broker in grain and + forage, and gave him an accomplice in the person of a storekeeper. + This storekeeper, to curry favor, has made a confession, and + finally made his escape. The Public Prosecutor took the matter up + very thoroughly, seeing, as he supposed, that only two inferior + agents were implicated; but Johann Fischer, uncle to your Chief of + the Commissariat Department, finding that he was to be brought up + at the Assizes, stabbed himself in prison with a nail. + + "That would have been the end of the matter if this worthy and + honest man, deceived, it would seem, by his agent and by his + nephew, had not thought proper to write to Baron Hulot. This + letter, seized as a document, so greatly surprised the Public + Prosecutor, that he came to see me. Now, the arrest and public + trial of a Councillor of State would be such a terrible thing--of + a man high in office too, who has a good record for loyal service + --for after the Beresina, it was he who saved us all by + reorganizing the administration--that I desired to have all the + papers sent to me. + + "Is the matter to take its course? Now that the principal agent is + dead, will it not be better to smother up the affair and sentence + the storekeeper in default? + + "The Public Prosecutor has consented to my forwarding the + documents for your perusal; the Baron Hulot d'Ervy, being resident + in Paris, the proceedings will lie with your Supreme Court. We + have hit on this rather shabby way of ridding ourselves of the + difficulty for the moment. + + "Only, my dear Marshal, decide quickly. This miserable business is + too much talked about already, and it will do as much harm to us + as to you all if the name of the principal culprit--known at + present only to the Public Prosecutor, the examining judge, and + myself--should happen to leak out." + +At this point the letter fell from Marshal Hulot's hands; he looked at +his brother; he saw that there was no need to examine the evidence. +But he looked for Johann Fischer's letter, and after reading it at a +glance, held it out to Hector:-- + +"FROM THE PRISON AT ORAN. + + "DEAR NEPHEW,--When you read this letter, I shall have ceased to + live. + + "Be quite easy, no proof can be found to incriminate you. When I + am dead and your Jesuit of a Chardin fled, the trial must + collapse. The face of our Adeline, made so happy by you, makes + death easy to me. Now you need not send the two hundred thousand + francs. Good-bye. + + "This letter will be delivered by a prisoner for a short term whom + I can trust, I believe. + +"JOHANN FISCHER." + + +"I beg your pardon," said Marshal Hulot to the Prince de Wissembourg +with pathetic pride. + +"Come, come, say _tu_, not the formal _vous_," replied the Minister, +clasping his old friend's hand. "The poor lancer killed no one but +himself," he added, with a thunderous look at Hulot d'Ervy. + +"How much have you had?" said the Comte de Forzheim to his brother. + +"Two hundred thousand francs." + +"My dear friend," said the Count, addressing the Minister, "you shall +have the two hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours. It +shall never be said that a man bearing the name of Hulot has wronged +the public treasury of a single sou." + +"What nonsense!" said the Prince. "I know where the money is, and I +can get it back.--Send in your resignation and ask for your pension!" +he went on, sending a double sheet of foolscap flying across to where +the Councillor of State had sat down by the table, for his legs gave +way under him. "To bring you to trial would disgrace us all. I have +already obtained from the superior Board their sanction to this line +of action. Since you can accept life with dishonor--in my opinion the +last degradation--you will get the pension you have earned. Only take +care to be forgotten." + +The Minister rang. + +"Is Marneffe, the head-clerk, out there?" + +"Yes, monseigneur." + +"Show him in!" + +"You," said the Minister as Marneffe came in, "you and your wife have +wittingly and intentionally ruined the Baron d'Ervy whom you see." + +"Monsieur le Ministre, I beg your pardon. We are very poor. I have +nothing to live on but my pay, and I have two children, and the one +that is coming will have been brought into the family by Monsieur le +Baron." + +"What a villain he looks!" said the Prince, pointing to Marneffe and +addressing Marshal Hulot.--"No more of Sganarelle speeches," he went +on; "you will disgorge two hundred thousand francs, or be packed off +to Algiers." + +"But, Monsieur le Ministre, you do not know my wife. She has spent it +all. Monsieur le Baron asked six persons to dinner every evening. +--Fifty thousand francs a year are spent in my house." + +"Leave the room!" said the Minister, in the formidable tones that had +given the word to charge in battle. "You will have notice of your +transfer within two hours. Go!" + +"I prefer to send in my resignation," said Marneffe insolently. "For +it is too much to be what I am already, and thrashed into the bargain. +That would not satisfy me at all." + +And he left the room. + +"What an impudent scoundrel!" said the Prince. + +Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a +corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to +the Prince, and took his hand, repeating: + +"In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but +honor!--Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I +shall die of it!" he said in his ear. + +"What the devil brought you here this morning?" said the Prince, much +moved. + +"I came to see what can be done for his wife," replied the Count, +pointing to his brother. "She is wanting bread--especially now!" + +"He has his pension." + +"It is pledged!" + +"The Devil must possess such a man," said the Prince, with a shrug. +"What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?" he +went on to Hulot d'Ervy. "How could you--you, who know the precise +details with which in French offices everything is written down at +full length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or +outlay of a few centimes--you, who have so often complained that a +hundred signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a +soldier, to buy a curry-comb--how could you hope to conceal a theft +for any length of time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the +envious, and the people who would like to steal!--those women must rob +you of your common-sense! Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells? +or are you yourself made of different stuff from us?--You ought to +have left the office as soon as you found that you were no longer a +man, but a temperament. If you have complicated your crime with such +gross folly, you will end--I will not say where----" + +"Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her," said the +Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his +sister-in-law. + +"Depend on me!" said the Minister. + +"Thank you, and good-bye then!--Come, monsieur," he said to his +brother. + +The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so +different in their demeanor, conduct, and character--the brave man and +the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the +peculator--and he said to himself: + +"That mean creature will not have courage to die! And my poor Hulot, +such an honest fellow! has death in his knapsack, I know!" + +He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches +from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a +leader and of the pity roused by the sight of a battle-field! For in +reality no one is so humane as a soldier, stern as he may seem in the +icy determination acquired by the habit of fighting, and so absolutely +essential in the battle-field. + +Next morning some of the newspapers contained, under various headings, +the following paragraphs:-- + + "Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy has applied for his retiring + pension. The unsatisfactory state of the Algerian exchequer, which + has come out in consequence of the death and disappearance of two + employes, has had some share in this distinguished official's + decision. On hearing of the delinquencies of the agents whom he + had unfortunately trusted, Monsieur le Baron Hulot had a paralytic + stroke in the War Minister's private room. + + "Monsieur Hulot d'Ervy, brother to the Marshal Comte de Forzheim, + has been forty-five years in the service. His determination has + been vainly opposed, and is greatly regretted by all who know + Monsieur Hulot, whose private virtues are as conspicuous as his + administrative capacity. No one can have forgotten the devoted + conduct of the Commissary General of the Imperial Guard at Warsaw, + or the marvelous promptitude with which he organized supplies for + the various sections of the army so suddenly required by Napoleon + in 1815. + + "One more of the heroes of the Empire is retiring from the stage. + Monsieur le Baron Hulot has never ceased, since 1830, to be one of + the guiding lights of the State Council and of the War Office." + + "ALGIERS.--The case known as the forage supply case, to which some + of our contemporaries have given absurd prominence, has been + closed by the death of the chief culprit. Johann Wisch has + committed suicide in his cell; his accomplice, who had absconded, + will be sentenced in default. + + "Wisch, formerly an army contractor, was an honest man and highly + respected, who could not survive the idea of having been the dupe + of Chardin, the storekeeper who has disappeared." + +And in the _Paris News_ the following paragraph appeared: + + "Monsieur le Marechal the Minister of War, to prevent the + recurrence of such scandals for the future, has arranged for a + regular Commissariat office in Africa. A head-clerk in the War + Office, Monsieur Marneffe, is spoken of as likely to be appointed + to the post of director." + + + + "The office vacated by Baron Hulot is the object of much ambition. + The appointment is promised, it is said, to Monsieur le Comte + Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Deputy, brother-in-law to Monsieur le + Comte de Rastignac. Monsieur Massol, Master of Appeals, will fill + his seat on the Council of State, and Monsieur Claude Vignon + becomes Master of Appeals." + +Of all kinds of false gossip, the most dangerous for the Opposition +newspapers is the official bogus paragraph. However keen journalists +may be, they are sometimes the voluntary or involuntary dupes of the +cleverness of those who have risen from the ranks of the Press, like +Claude Vignon, to the higher realms of power. The newspaper can only +be circumvented by the journalist. It may be said, as a parody on a +line by Voltaire: + +"The Paris news is never what the foolish folk believe." + +Marshal Hulot drove home with his brother, who took the front seat, +respectfully leaving the whole of the back of the carriage to his +senior. The two men spoke not a word. Hector was helpless. The Marshal +was lost in thought, like a man who is collecting all his strength, +and bracing himself to bear a crushing weight. On arriving at his own +house, still without speaking, but by an imperious gesture, he +beckoned his brother into his study. The Count had received from the +Emperor Napoleon a splendid pair of pistols from the Versailles +factory; he took the box, with its inscription. "_Given by the Emperor +Napoleon to General Hulot_," out of his desk, and placing it on the +top, he showed it to his brother, saying, "There is your remedy." + +Lisbeth, peeping through the chink of the door, flew down to the +carriage and ordered the coachman to go as fast as he could gallop to +the Rue Plumet. Within about twenty minutes she had brought back +Adeline, whom she had told of the Marshal's threat to his brother. + +The Marshal, without looking at Hector, rang the bell for his +factotum, the old soldier who had served him for thirty years. + +"Beau-Pied," said he, "fetch my notary, and Count Steinbock, and my +niece Hortense, and the stockbroker to the Treasury. It is now +half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs +--and go faster than _that_!" he added, a republican allusion which +in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that +had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom +on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See _Les Chouans_.) + +"You shall be obeyed, Marechal," said Beau-Pied, with a military +salute. + +Still paying no heed to his brother, the old man came back into his +study, took a key out of his desk, and opened a little malachite box +mounted in steel, the gift of the Emperor Alexander. + +By Napoleon's orders he had gone to restore to the Russian Emperor the +private property seized at the battle of Dresden, in exchange for +which Napoleon hoped to get back Vandamme. The Czar rewarded General +Hulot very handsomely, giving him this casket, and saying that he +hoped one day to show the same courtesy to the Emperor of the French; +but he kept Vandamme. The Imperial arms of Russia were displayed in +gold on the lid of the box, which was inlaid with gold. + +The Marshal counted the bank-notes it contained; he had a hundred and +fifty-two thousand francs. He saw this with satisfaction. At the same +moment Madame Hulot came into the room in a state to touch the heart +of the sternest judge. She flew into Hector's arms, looking +alternately with a crazy eye at the Marshal and at the case of +pistols. + +"What have you to say against your brother? What has my husband done +to you?" said she, in such a voice that the Marshal heard her. + +"He has disgraced us all!" replied the Republican veteran, who spoke +with a vehemence that reopened one of his old wounds. "He has robbed +the Government! He has cast odium on my name, he makes me wish I were +dead--he has killed me!--I have only strength enough left to make +restitution! + +"I have been abased before the Conde of the Republic, the man I esteem +above all others, and to whom I unjustifiably gave the lie--the Prince +of Wissembourg!--Is that nothing? That is the score his country has +against him!" + +He wiped away a tear. + +"Now, as to his family," he went on. "He is robbing you of the bread I +had saved for you, the fruit of thirty years' economy, of the +privations of an old soldier! Here is what was intended for you," and +he held up the bank-notes. "He has killed his Uncle Fischer, a noble +and worthy son of Alsace who could not--as he can--endure the thought +of a stain on his peasant's honor. + +"To crown all, God, in His adorable clemency, had allowed him to +choose an angel among women; he has had the unspeakable happiness of +having an Adeline for his wife! And he has deceived her, he has soaked +her in sorrows, he has neglected her for prostitutes, for +street-hussies, for ballet-girls, actresses--Cadine, Josepha, Marneffe! +--And that is the brother I treated as a son and made my pride! + +"Go, wretched man; if you can accept the life of degradation you have +made for yourself, leave my house! I have not the heart to curse a +brother I have loved so well--I am as foolish about him as you are, +Adeline--but never let me see him again. I forbid his attending my +funeral or following me to the grave. Let him show the decency of a +criminal if he can feel no remorse." + +The Marshal, as pale as death, fell back on the settee, exhausted by +his solemn speech. And, for the first time in his life perhaps, tears +gathered in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. + +"My poor uncle!" cried Lisbeth, putting a handkerchief to her eyes. + +"Brother!" said Adeline, kneeling down by the Marshal, "live for my +sake. Help me in the task of reconciling Hector to the world and +making him redeem the past." + +"He!" cried the Marshal. "If he lives, he is not at the end of his +crimes. A man who has misprized an Adeline, who has smothered in his +own soul the feelings of a true Republican which I tried to instill +into him, the love of his country, of his family, and of the poor +--that man is a monster, a swine!--Take him away if you still care for +him, for a voice within me cries to me to load my pistols and blow his +brains out. By killing him I should save you all, and I should save +him too from himself." + +The old man started to his feet with such a terrifying gesture that +poor Adeline exclaimed: + +"Hector--come!" + +She seized her husband's arm, dragged him away, and out of the house; +but the Baron was so broken down, that she was obliged to call a coach +to take him to the Rue Plumet, where he went to bed. The man remained +there for several days in a sort of half-dissolution, refusing all +nourishment without a word. By floods of tears, Adeline persuaded him +to swallow a little broth; she nursed him, sitting by his bed, and +feeling only, of all the emotions that once had filled her heart, the +deepest pity for him. + +At half-past twelve, Lisbeth showed into her dear Marshal's room--for +she would not leave him, so much was she alarmed at the evident change +in him--Count Steinbock and the notary. + +"Monsieur le Comte," said the Marshal, "I would beg you to be so good +as to put your signature to a document authorizing my niece, your +wife, to sell a bond for certain funds of which she at present holds +only the reversion.--You, Mademoiselle Fischer, will agree to this +sale, thus losing your life interest in the securities." + +"Yes, dear Count," said Lisbeth without hesitation. + +"Good, my dear," said the old soldier. "I hope I may live to reward +you. But I did not doubt you; you are a true Republican, a daughter of +the people." He took the old maid's hand and kissed it. + +"Monsieur Hannequin," he went on, speaking to the notary, "draw up the +necessary document in the form of a power of attorney, and let me have +it within two hours, so that I may sell the stock on the Bourse +to-day. My niece, the Countess, holds the security; she will be here +to sign the power of attorney when you bring it, and so will +mademoiselle. Monsieur le Comte will be good enough to go with you and +sign it at your office." + +The artist, at a nod from Lisbeth, bowed respectfully to the Marshal +and went away. + +Next morning, at ten o'clock, the Comte de Forzheim sent in to +announce himself to the Prince, and was at once admitted. + +"Well, my dear Hulot," said the Prince, holding out the newspapers to +his old friend, "we have saved appearances, you see.--Read." + +Marshal Hulot laid the papers on his comrade's table, and held out to +him the two hundred thousand francs. + +"Here is the money of which my brother robbed the State," said he. + +"What madness!" cried the Minister. "It is impossible," he said into +the speaking-trumpet handed to him by the Marshal, "to manage this +restitution. We should be obliged to declare your brother's dishonest +dealings, and we have done everything to hide them." + +"Do what you like with the money; but the family shall not owe one sou +of its fortune to a robbery on the funds of the State," said the +Count. + +"I will take the King's commands in the matter. We will discuss it no +further," replied the Prince, perceiving that it would be impossible +to conquer the old man's sublime obstinacy on the point. + +"Good-bye, Cottin," said the old soldier, taking the Prince's hand. "I +feel as if my soul were frozen--" + +Then, after going a step towards the door, he turned round, looked at +the Prince, and seeing that he was deeply moved, he opened his arms to +clasp him in them; the two old soldiers embraced each other. + +"I feel as if I were taking leave of the whole of the old army in +you," said the Count. + +"Good-bye, my good old comrade!" said the Minister. + +"Yes, it is good-bye; for I am going where all our brave men are for +whom we have mourned--" + +Just then Claude Vignon was shown in. The two relics of the Napoleonic +phalanx bowed gravely to each other, effacing every trace of emotion. + +"You have, I hope, been satisfied by the papers," said the Master of +Appeals-elect. "I contrived to let the Opposition papers believe that +they were letting out our secrets." + +"Unfortunately, it is all in vain," replied the Minister, watching +Hulot as he left the room. "I have just gone through a leave-taking +that has been a great grief to me. For, indeed, Marshal Hulot has not +three days to live; I saw that plainly enough yesterday. That man, one +of those honest souls that are above proof, a soldier respected by the +bullets in spite of his valor, received his death-blow--there, in that +armchair--and dealt by my hand, in a letter!--Ring and order my +carriage. I must go to Neuilly," said he, putting the two hundred +thousand francs into his official portfolio. + + + +Notwithstanding Lisbeth's nursing, Marshal Hulot three days later was +a dead man. Such men are the glory of the party they support. To +Republicans, the Marshal was the ideal of patriotism; and they all +attended his funeral, which was followed by an immense crowd. The +army, the State officials, the Court, and the populace all came to do +homage to this lofty virtue, this spotless honesty, this immaculate +glory. Such a last tribute of the people is not a thing to be had for +the asking. + +This funeral was distinguished by one of those tributes of delicate +feeling, of good taste, and sincere respect which from time to time +remind us of the virtues and dignity of the old French nobility. +Following the Marshal's bier came the old Marquis de Montauran, the +brother of him who, in the great rising of the Chouans in 1799, had +been the foe, the luckless foe, of Hulot. That Marquis, killed by the +balls of the "Blues," had confided the interests of his young brother +to the Republican soldier. (See _Les Chouans_.) Hulot had so +faithfully acted on the noble Royalist's verbal will, that he +succeeded in saving the young man's estates, though he himself was at +the time an emigre. And so the homage of the old French nobility was +not wanting to the leader who, nine years since, had conquered MADAME. + +This death, happening just four days before the banns were cried for +the last time, came upon Lisbeth like the thunderbolt that burns the +garnered harvest with the barn. The peasant of Lorraine, as often +happens, had succeeded too well. The Marshal had died of the blows +dealt to the family by herself and Madame Marneffe. + +The old maid's vindictiveness, which success seemed to have somewhat +mollified, was aggravated by this disappointment of her hopes. Lisbeth +went, crying with rage, to Madame Marneffe; for she was homeless, the +Marshal having agreed that his lease was at any time to terminate with +his life. Crevel, to console Valerie's friend, took charge of her +savings, added to them considerably, and invested the capital in five +per cents, giving her the life interest, and putting the securities +into Celestine's name. Thanks to this stroke of business, Lisbeth had +an income of about two thousand francs. + +When the Marshal's property was examined and valued, a note was found, +addressed to his sister-in-law, to his niece Hortense, and to his +nephew Victorin, desiring that they would pay among them an annuity of +twelve hundred francs to Mademoiselle Lisbeth Fischer, who was to have +been his wife. + +Adeline, seeing her husband between life and death, succeeded for some +days in hiding from him the fact of his brother's death; but Lisbeth +came, in mourning, and the terrible truth was told him eleven days +after the funeral. + +The crushing blow revived the sick man's energies. He got up, found +his family collected in the drawing-room, all in black, and suddenly +silent as he came in. In a fortnight, Hulot, as lean as a spectre, +looked to his family the mere shadow of himself. + +"I must decide on something," said he in a husky voice, as he seated +himself in an easy-chair, and looked round at the party, of whom +Crevel and Steinbock were absent. + +"We cannot stay here, the rent is too high," Hortense was saying just +as her father came in. + +"As to a home," said Victorin, breaking the painful silence, "I can +offer my mother----" + +As he heard these words, which excluded him, the Baron raised his +head, which was sunk on his breast as though he were studying the +pattern of the carpet, though he did not even see it, and he gave the +young lawyer an appealing look. The rights of a father are so +indefeasibly sacred, even when he is a villain and devoid of honor, +that Victorin paused. + +"To your mother," the Baron repeated. "You are right, my son." + +"The rooms over ours in our wing," said Celestine, finishing her +husband's sentence. + +"I am in your way, my dears?" said the Baron, with the mildness of a +man who has judged himself. "But do not be uneasy as to the future; +you will have no further cause for complaint of your father; you will +not see him till the time when you need no longer blush for him." + +He went up to Hortense and kissed her brow. He opened his arms to his +son, who rushed into his embrace, guessing his father's purpose. The +Baron signed to Lisbeth, who came to him, and he kissed her forehead. +Then he went to his room, whither Adeline followed him in an agony of +dread. + +"My brother was quite right, Adeline," he said, holding her hand. "I +am unworthy of my home life. I dared not bless my children, who have +behaved so nobly, but in my heart; tell them that I could only venture +to kiss them; for the blessing of a bad man, a father who has been an +assassin and the scourge of his family instead of its protector and +its glory, might bring evil on them; but assure them that I shall +bless them every day.--As to you, God alone, for He is Almighty, can +ever reward you according to your merits!--I can only ask your +forgiveness!" and he knelt at her feet, taking her hands and wetting +them with his tears. + +"Hector, Hector! Your sins have been great, but Divine Mercy is +infinite, and you may repair all by staying with me.--Rise up in +Christian charity, my dear--I am your wife, and not your judge. I am +your possession; do what you will with me; take me wherever you go, I +feel strong enough comfort you, to make life endurable to you, by the +strength of my love, my care, and respect.--Our children are settled +in life; they need me no more. Let me try to be an amusement to you, +an occupation. Let me share the pain of your banishment and of your +poverty, and help to mitigate it. I could always be of some use, if it +were only to save the expense of a servant." + +"Can you forgive, my dearly-beloved Adeline?" + +"Yes, only get up, my dear!" + +"Well, with that forgiveness I can live," said he, rising to his feet. +"I came back into this room that my children should not see their +father's humiliation. Oh! the sight constantly before their eyes of a +father so guilty as I am is a terrible thing; it must undermine +parental influence and break every family tie. So I cannot remain +among you, and I must go to spare you the odious spectacle of a father +bereft of dignity. Do not oppose my departure Adeline. It would only +be to load with your own hand the pistol to blow my brains out. Above +all, do not seek me in my hiding-place; you would deprive me of the +only strong motive remaining in me, that of remorse." + +Hector's decisiveness silenced his dejected wife. Adeline, lofty in +the midst of all this ruin, had derived her courage from her perfect +union with her husband; for she had dreamed of having him for her own, +of the beautiful task of comforting him, of leading him back to family +life, and reconciling him to himself. + +"But, Hector, would you leave me to die of despair, anxiety, and +alarms!" said she, seeing herself bereft of the mainspring of her +strength. + +"I will come back to you, dear angel--sent from Heaven expressly for +me, I believe. I will come back, if not rich, at least with enough to +live in ease.--Listen, my sweet Adeline, I cannot stay here for many +reasons. In the first place, my pension of six thousand francs is +pledged for four years, so I have nothing. That is not all. I shall be +committed to prison within a few days in consequence of the bills held +by Vauvinet. So I must keep out of the way until my son, to whom I +will give full instructions, shall have bought in the bills. My +disappearance will facilitate that. As soon as my pension is my own, +and Vauvinet is paid off, I will return to you.--You would be sure to +let out the secret of my hiding-place. Be calm; do not cry, Adeline +--it is only for a month--" + +"Where will you go? What will you do? What will become of you? Who +will take care of you now that you are no longer young? Let me go with +you--we will go abroad--" said she. + +"Well, well, we will see," he replied. + +The Baron rang and ordered Mariette to collect all his things and pack +them quickly and secretly. Then, after embracing his wife with a +warmth of affection to which she was unaccustomed, he begged her to +leave him alone for a few minutes while he wrote his instructions for +Victorin, promising that he would not leave the house till dark, or +without her. + +As soon as the Baroness was in the drawing-room, the cunning old man +stole out through the dressing-closet to the anteroom, and went away, +giving Mariette a slip of paper, on which was written, "Address my +trunks to go by railway to Corbeil--to Monsieur Hector, cloak-room, +Corbeil." + +The Baron jumped into a hackney coach, and was rushing across Paris by +the time Mariette came to give the Baroness this note, and say that +her master had gone out. Adeline flew back into her room, trembling +more violently than ever; her children followed on hearing her give a +piercing cry. They found her in a dead faint; and they put her to bed, +for she was seized by a nervous fever which held her for a month +between life and death. + +"Where is he?" was the only thing she would say. + +Victorin sought for him in vain. + +And this is why. The Baron had driven to the Place du Palais Royal. +There this man, who had recovered all his wits to work out a scheme +which he had premeditated during the days he had spent crushed with +pain and grief, crossed the Palais Royal on foot, and took a handsome +carriage from a livery-stable in the Rue Joquelet. In obedience to his +orders, the coachman went to the Rue de la Ville l'Eveque, and into +the courtyard of Josepha's mansion, the gates opening at once at the +call of the driver of such a splendid vehicle. Josepha came out, +prompted by curiosity, for her man-servant had told her that a +helpless old gentleman, unable to get out of his carriage, begged her +to come to him for a moment. + +"Josepha!--it is I----" + +The singer recognized her Hulot only by his voice. + +"What? you, poor old man?--On my honor, you look like a twenty-franc +piece that the Jews have sweated and the money-changers refuse." + +"Alas, yes," replied Hulot; "I am snatched from the jaws of death! But +you are as lovely as ever. Will you be kind?" + +"That depends," said she; "everything is relative." + +"Listen," said Hulot; "can you put me up for a few days in a servant's +room under the roof? I have nothing--not a farthing, not a hope; no +food, no pension, no wife, no children, no roof over my head; without +honor, without courage, without a friend; and worse than all that, +liable to imprisonment for not meeting a bill." + +"Poor old fellow! you are without most things.--Are you also _sans +culotte_?" + +"You laugh at me! I am done for," cried the Baron. "And I counted on +you as Gourville did on Ninon." + +"And it was a 'real lady,' I am told who brought you to this," said +Josepha. "Those precious sluts know how to pluck a goose even better +than we do!--Why, you are like a corpse that the crows have done with +--I can see daylight through!" + +"Time is short, Josepha!" + +"Come in, old boy, I am alone, as it happens, and my people don't know +you. Send away your trap. Is it paid for?" + +"Yes," said the Baron, getting out with the help of Josepha's arm. + +"You may call yourself my father if you like," said the singer, moved +to pity. + +She made Hulot sit down in the splendid drawing-room where he had last +seen her. + +"And is it the fact, old man," she went on, "that you have killed your +brother and your uncle, ruined your family, mortgaged your children's +house over and over again, and robbed the Government till in Africa, +all for your princess?" + +Hulot sadly bent his head. + +"Well, I admire that!" cried Josepha, starting up in her enthusiasm. +"It is a general flare-up! It is Sardanapalus! Splendid, thoroughly +complete! I may be a hussy, but I have a soul! I tell you, I like a +spendthrift, like you, crazy over a woman, a thousand times better +than those torpid, heartless bankers, who are supposed to be so good, +and who ruin no end of families with their rails--gold for them, and +iron for their gulls! You have only ruined those who belong to you, +you have sold no one but yourself; and then you have excuses, physical +and moral." + +She struck a tragic attitude, and spouted: + + "'Tis Venus whose grasp never parts from her prey. + +And there you are!" and she pirouetted on her toe. + +Vice, Hulot found, could forgive him; vice smiled on him from the +midst of unbridled luxury. Here, as before a jury, the magnitude of a +crime was an extenuating circumstance. "And is your lady pretty at any +rate?" asked Josepha, trying as a preliminary act of charity, to +divert Hulot's thoughts, for his depression grieved her. + +"On my word, almost as pretty as you are," said the Baron artfully. + +"And monstrously droll? So I have been told. What does she do, I say? +Is she better fun than I am?" + +"I don't want to talk about her," said Hulot. + +"And I hear she has come round my Crevel, and little Steinbock, and a +gorgeous Brazilian?" + +"Very likely." + +"And that she has got a house as good as this, that Crevel has given +her. The baggage! She is my provost-marshal, and finishes off those I +have spoiled. I tell you why I am so curious to know what she is like, +old boy; I just caught sight of her in the Bois, in an open carriage +--but a long way off. She is a most accomplished harpy, Carabine says. +She is trying to eat up Crevel, but he only lets her nibble. Crevel is +a knowing hand, good-natured but hard-headed, who will always say Yes, +and then go his own way. He is vain and passionate; but his cash is +cold. You can never get anything out of such fellows beyond a thousand +to three thousand francs a month; they jib at any serious outlay, as a +donkey does at a running stream. + +"Not like you, old boy. You are a man of passions; you would sell your +country for a woman. And, look here, I am ready to do anything for +you! You are my father; you started me in life; it is a sacred duty. +What do you want? Do you want a hundred thousand francs? I will wear +myself to a rag to gain them. As to giving you bed and board--that is +nothing. A place will be laid for you here every day; you can have a +good room on the second floor, and a hundred crowns a month for +pocket-money." + +The Baron, deeply touched by such a welcome, had a last qualm of +honor. + +"No, my dear child, no; I did not come here for you to keep me," said +he. + +"At your age it is something to be proud of," said she. + +"This is what I wish, my child. Your Duc d'Herouville has immense +estates in Normandy, and I want to be his steward, under the name of +Thoul. I have the capacity, and I am honest. A man may borrow of the +Government, and yet not steal from a cash-box----" + +"H'm, h'm," said Josepha. "Once drunk, drinks again." + +"In short, I only want to live out of sight for three years--" + +"Well, it is soon done," said Josepha. "This evening, after dinner, I +have only to speak. The Duke would marry me if I wished it, but I have +his fortune, and I want something better--his esteem. He is a Duke of +the first water. He is high-minded, as noble and great as Louis XIV. +and Napoleon rolled into one, though he is a dwarf. Besides, I have +done for him what la Schontz did for Rochefide; by taking my advice he +has made two millions. + +"Now, listen to me, old popgun. I know you; you are always after the +women, and you would be dancing attendance on the Normandy girls, who +are splendid creatures, and getting your ribs cracked by their lovers +and fathers, and the Duke would have to get you out of the scrape. +Why, can't I see by the way you look at me that the _young_ man is not +dead in you--as Fenelon put it.--No, this stewardship is not the thing +for you. A man cannot be off with his Paris and with us, old boy, for +the saying! You would die of weariness at Herouville." + +"What is to become of me?" said the Baron, "for I will only stay here +till I see my way." + +"Well, shall I find a pigeon-hole for you? Listen, you old pirate. +Women are what you want. They are consolation in all circumstances. +Attend now.--At the end of the Alley, Rue Saint-Maur-du-Temple, there +is a poor family I know of where there is a jewel of a little girl, +prettier than I was at sixteen.--Ah! there is a twinkle in your eye +already!--The child works sixteen hours a day at embroidering costly +pieces for the silk merchants, and earns sixteen sous a day--one sou +an hour!--and feeds like the Irish, on potatoes fried in rats' +dripping, with bread five times a week--and drinks canal water out of +the town pipes, because the Seine water costs too much; and she cannot +set up on her own account for lack of six or seven thousand francs. +Your wife and children bore you to death, don't they?--Besides, one +cannot submit to be nobody where one has been a little Almighty. A +father who has neither money nor honor can only be stuffed and kept in +a glass case." + +The Baron could not help smiling at these abominable jests. + +"Well, now, Bijou is to come to-morrow morning to bring me an +embroidered wrapper, a gem! It has taken six months to make; no one +else will have any stuff like it! Bijou is very fond of me; I give her +tidbits and my old gowns. And I send orders for bread and meat and +wood to the family, who would break the shin-bones of the first comer +if I bid them.--I try to do a little good. Ah! I know what I endured +from hunger myself!--Bijou has confided to me all her little sorrows. +There is the making of a super at the Ambigu-Comique in that child. +Her dream is to wear fine dresses like mine; above all, to ride in a +carriage. I shall say to her, 'Look here, little one, would you like +to have a friend of--' How old are you?" she asked, interrupting +herself. "Seventy-two?" + +"I have given up counting." + +"'Would you like an old gentleman of seventy-two?' I shall say. 'Very +clean and neat, and who does not take snuff, who is as sound as a +bell, and as good as a young man? He will marry you (in the Thirteenth +Arrondissement) and be very kind to you; he will place seven thousand +francs in your account, and furnish you a room all in mahogany, and if +you are good, he will sometimes take you to the play. He will give you +a hundred francs a month for pocket-money, and fifty francs for +housekeeping.'--I know Bijou; she is myself at fourteen. I jumped for +joy when that horrible Crevel made me his atrocious offers. Well, and +you, old man, will be disposed of for three years. She is a good +child, well behaved; for three or four years she will have her +illusions--not for longer." + +Hulot did not hesitate; he had made up his mind to refuse; but to seem +grateful to the kind-hearted singer, who was benevolent after her +lights, he affected to hesitate between vice and virtue. + +"Why, you are as cold as a paving-stone in winter!" she exclaimed in +amazement. "Come, now. You will make a whole family happy--a +grandfather who runs all the errands, a mother who is being worn out +with work, and two sisters--one of them very plain--who make +thirty-two sous a day while putting their eyes out. It will make up for +the misery you have caused at home, and you will expiate your sin while +you are having as much fun as a minx at Mabille." + +Hulot, to put an end to this temptation, moved his fingers as if he +were counting out money. + +"Oh! be quite easy as to ways and means," replied Josepha. "My Duke +will lend you ten thousand francs; seven thousand to start an +embroidery shop in Bijou's name, and three thousand for furnishing; +and every three months you will find a cheque here for six hundred and +fifty francs. When you get your pension paid you, you can repay the +seventeen thousand francs. Meanwhile you will be as happy as a cow in +clover, and hidden in a hole where the police will never find you. You +must wear a loose serge coat, and you will look like a comfortable +householder. Call yourself Thoul, if that is your fancy. I will tell +Bijou that you are an uncle of mine come from Germany, having failed +in business, and you will be cosseted like a divinity.--There now, +Daddy!--And who knows! you may have no regrets. In case you should be +bored, keep one Sunday rig-out, and you can come and ask me for a +dinner and spend the evening here." + +"I!--and I meant to settle down and behave myself!--Look here, borrow +twenty thousand francs for me, and I will set out to make my fortune +in America, like my friend d'Aiglemont when Nucingen cleaned him out." + +"You!" cried Josepha. "Nay, leave morals to work-a-day folks, to raw +recruits, to the _worrrthy_ citizens who have nothing to boast of but +their virtue. You! You were born to be something better than a +nincompoop; you are as a man what I am as a woman--a spendthrift of +genius." + +"We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning." + +"You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as +civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can +decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty, +we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep +it on as long as we can." + +This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's +keenest pangs. + +At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of +one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities +in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of +luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire +and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of +Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome. + +Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face +which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary +with overwork--black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched +with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a +complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly +opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the +whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set +off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather +shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves. The girl, all +unconscious of her charms, had put on her best frock to wait on the +fine lady. + +The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his +life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this +delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game; if +an emperor were present, he must take aim! + +"And warranted sound," said Josepha in his ear. "An honest child, and +wanting bread. This is Paris--I have been there!" + +"It is a bargain," replied the old man, getting up and rubbing his +hands. + +When Olympe Bijou was gone, Josepha looked mischievously at the Baron. + +"If you want things to keep straight, Daddy," said she, "be as firm as +the Public Prosecutor on the bench. Keep a tight hand on her, be a +Bartholo! Ware Auguste, Hippolyte, Nestor, Victor--_or_, that is gold, +in every form. When once the child is fed and dressed, if she gets the +upper hand, she will drive you like a serf.--I will see to settling +you comfortably. The Duke does the handsome; he will lend--that is, +give--you ten thousand francs; and he deposits eight thousand with his +notary, who will pay you six hundred francs every quarter, for I +cannot trust you.--Now, am I nice?" + +"Adorable." + +Ten days after deserting his family, when they were gathered round +Adeline, who seemed to be dying, as she said again and again, in a +weak voice, "Where is he?" Hector, under the name of Thoul, was +established in the Rue Saint-Maur, at the head of a business as +embroiderer, under the name of Thoul and Bijou. + + + +Victorin Hulot, under the overwhelming disasters of his family, had +received the finishing touch which makes or mars the man. He was +perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a +ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its +heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his +too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his +political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman. +He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine--who certainly +did not realize his dreams--and was wise enough to estimate life at +its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second +best. He vowed to fulfil his duties, so much had he been shocked by +his father's example. + +These feelings were confirmed as he stood by his mother's bed on the +day when she was out of danger. Nor did this happiness come single. +Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to +inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy +to go with him to see the Minister. + +"His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs +with you." + +The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a +friendliness that promised well. + +"My dear fellow," said the old soldier, "I promised your uncle, in +this room, that I would take care of your mother. That saintly woman, +I am told, is getting well again; now is the time to pour oil into +your wounds. I have for you here two hundred thousand francs; I will +give them to you----" + +The lawyer's gesture was worthy of his uncle the Marshal. + +"Be quite easy," said the Prince, smiling; "it is money in trust. My +days are numbered; I shall not always be here; so take this sum, and +fill my place towards your family. You may use this money to pay off +the mortgage on your house. These two hundred thousand francs are the +property of your mother and your sister. If I gave the money to Madame +Hulot, I fear that, in her devotion to her husband, she would be +tempted to waste it. And the intention of those who restore it to you +is, that it should produce bread for Madame Hulot and her daughter, +the Countess Steinbock. You are a steady man, the worthy son of your +noble mother, the true nephew of my friend the Marshal; you are +appreciated here, you see--and elsewhere. So be the guardian angel of +your family, and take this as a legacy from your uncle and me." + +"Monseigneur," said Hulot, taking the Minister's hand and pressing it, +"such men as you know that thanks in words mean nothing; gratitude +must be proven." + +"Prove yours--" said the old man. + +"In what way?" + +"By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We +propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just +now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for +fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police; +and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments +will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and +will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in +obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom +on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no +national opposition! + +"Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he +breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he +loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, +d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie +have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their +charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent +work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character +who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence, +ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help +given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the +poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an +angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and +these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the +cost of her hackney coaches. + +"You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still +assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's +is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized +scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know; +continue in it." + +"Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend," +said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes." + +"Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way," added the +Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has +disappeared?" + +"Alas! yes." + +"So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which, +indeed, he is not lacking." + +"There are bills of his to be met." + +"Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in +advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out +of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps +may succeed in releasing your father's pension, pledged to him, +without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed +the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession.--I +know not what----" + +So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan +of lodging his mother and sister under his roof. + +The young lawyer, already famous, had, for his sole fortune, one of +the handsomest houses in Paris, purchased in 1834 in preparation for +his marriage, situated on the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and +the Rue Louis-le-Grand. A speculator had built two houses between the +boulevard and the street; and between these, with the gardens and +courtyards to the front and back, there remained still standing a +splendid wing, the remains of the magnificent mansion of the +Verneuils. The younger Hulot had purchased this fine property, on the +strength of Mademoiselle Crevel's marriage-portion, for one million +francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand +down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out +of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in +house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire, +depending on unforeseen circumstances. + +As the Parisian lounger may have observed, the boulevard between the +Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand prospered but slowly; it +took so long to furbish and beautify itself, that trade did not set up +its display there till 1840--the gold of the money-changers, the +fairy-work of fashion, and the luxurious splendor of shop-fronts. + +In spite of two hundred thousand francs given by Crevel to his +daughter at the time when his vanity was flattered by this marriage, +before the Baron had robbed him of Josepha; in spite of the two +hundred thousand francs paid off by Victorin in the course of seven +years, the property was still burdened with a debt of five hundred +thousand francs, in consequence of Victorin's devotion to his father. +Happily, a rise in rents and the advantages of the situation had at +this time improved the value of the houses. The speculation was +justifying itself after eight years' patience, during which the lawyer +had strained every nerve to pay the interest and some trifling amounts +of the capital borrowed. + +The tradespeople were ready to offer good rents for the shops, on +condition of being granted leases for eighteen years. The dwelling +apartments rose in value by the shifting of the centre in Paris life +--henceforth transferred to the region between the Bourse and the +Madeleine, now the seat of the political power and financial authority +in Paris. The money paid to him by the Minister, added to a year's +rent in advance and the premiums paid by his tenants, would finally +reduce the outstanding debt to two hundred thousand francs. The two +houses, if entirely let, would bring in a hundred thousand francs a +year. Within two years more, during which the Hulots could live on his +salaries, added to by the Marshal's investments, Victorin would be in +a splendid position. + +This was manna from heaven. Victorin could give up the first floor of +his own house to his mother, and the second to Hortense, excepting two +rooms reserved for Lisbeth. With Cousin Betty as the housekeeper, this +compound household could bear all these charges, and yet keep up a +good appearance, as beseemed a pleader of note. The great stars of the +law-courts were rapidly disappearing; and Victorin Hulot, gifted with +a shrewd tongue and strict honesty, was listened to by the Bench and +Councillors; he studied his cases thoroughly, and advanced nothing +that he could not prove. He would not hold every brief that offered; +in fact, he was a credit to the bar. + +The Baroness' home in the Rue Plumet had become so odious to her, that +she allowed herself to be taken to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. Thus, by +her son's care, Adeline occupied a fine apartment; she was spared all +the daily worries of life; for Lisbeth consented to begin again, +working wonders of domestic economy, such as she had achieved for +Madame Marneffe, seeing here a way of exerting her silent vengeance on +those three noble lives, the object, each, of her hatred, which was +kept growing by the overthrow of all her hopes. + +Once a month she went to see Valerie, sent, indeed, by Hortense, who +wanted news of Wenceslas, and by Celestine, who was seriously uneasy +at the acknowledged and well-known connection between her father and a +woman to whom her mother-in-law and sister-in-law owed their ruin and +their sorrows. As may be supposed, Lisbeth took advantage of this to +see Valerie as often as possible. + + + +Thus, about twenty months passed by, during which the Baroness +recovered her health, though her palsied trembling never left her. She +made herself familiar with her duties, which afforded her a noble +distraction from her sorrow and constant food for the divine goodness +of her heart. She also regarded it as an opportunity for finding her +husband in the course of one of those expeditions which took her into +every part of Paris. + +During this time, Vauvinet had been paid, and the pension of six +thousand francs was almost redeemed. Victorin could maintain his +mother as well as Hortense out of the ten thousand francs interest on +the money left by Marshal Hulot in trust for them. Adeline's salary +amounted to six thousand francs a year; and this, added to the Baron's +pension when it was freed, would presently secure an income of twelve +thousand francs a year to the mother and daughter. + +Thus, the poor woman would have been almost happy but for her +perpetual anxieties as to the Baron's fate; for she longed to have him +with her to share the improved fortunes that smiled on the family; and +but for the constant sight of her forsaken daughter; and but for the +terrible thrusts constantly and _unconsciously_ dealt her by Lisbeth, +whose diabolical character had free course. + +A scene which took place at the beginning of the month of March 1843 +will show the results of Lisbeth's latent and persistent hatred, still +seconded, as she always was, by Madame Marneffe. + +Two great events had occurred in the Marneffe household. In the first +place, Valerie had given birth to a still-born child, whose little +coffin had cost her two thousand francs a year. And then, as to +Marneffe himself, eleven months since, this is the report given by +Lisbeth to the Hulot family one day on her return from a visit of +discovery at the hotel Marneffe. + +"This morning," said she, "that dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor +Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband +yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at +the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that +await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your +father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his good +news. + +"When he came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a +dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will +be Madame Crevel!'--And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's +bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me, +'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy +an estate I have my eye on--Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to +sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of +Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I +have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your +daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too +much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has +never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs +as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have +squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's +fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act +as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their +conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice +to their stepmother, I will receive them. I am a man, after all!'--In +short, all this rhodomontade! And an attitude like Napoleon on the +column." + +The ten months' widowhood insisted on by the law had now elapsed some +few days since. The estate of Presles was purchased. Victorin and +Celestine had that very morning sent Lisbeth to make inquiries as to +the marriage of the fascinating widow to the Mayor of Paris, now a +member of the Common Council of the Department of Seine-et-Oise. + +Celestine and Hortense, in whom the ties of affection had been drawn +closer since they had lived under the same roof, were almost +inseparable. The Baroness, carried away by a sense of honesty which +led her to exaggerate the duties of her place, devoted herself to the +work of charity of which she was the agent; she was out almost every +day from eleven till five. The sisters-in-law, united in their cares +for the children whom they kept together, sat at home and worked. They +had arrived at the intimacy which thinks aloud, and were a touching +picture of two sisters, one cheerful and the other sad. The less happy +of the two, handsome, lively, high-spirited, and clever, seemed by her +manner to defy her painful situation; while the melancholy Celestine, +sweet and calm, and as equable as reason itself, might have been +supposed to have some secret grief. It was this contradiction, +perhaps, that added to their warm friendship. Each supplied the other +with what she lacked. + +Seated in a little summer-house in the garden, which the speculator's +trowel had spared by some fancy of the builder's, who believed that he +was preserving these hundred feet square of earth for his own +pleasure, they were admiring the first green shoots of the +lilac-trees, a spring festival which can only be fully appreciated in +Paris when the inhabitants have lived for six months oblivious of what +vegetation means, among the cliffs of stone where the ocean of +humanity tosses to and fro. + +"Celestine," said Hortense to her sister-in-law, who had complained +that in such fine weather her husband should be kept at the Chamber, +"I think you do not fully appreciate your happiness. Victorin is a +perfect angel, and you sometimes torment him." + +"My dear, men like to be tormented! Certain ways of teasing are a +proof of affection. If your poor mother had only been--I will not say +exacting, but always prepared to be exacting, you would not have had +so much to grieve over." + +"Lisbeth is not come back. I shall have to sing the song of +_Malbrouck_," said Hortense. "I do long for some news of Wenceslas! +--What does he live on? He has not done a thing these two years." + +"Victorin saw him, he told me, with that horrible woman not long ago; +and he fancied that she maintains him in idleness.--If you only would, +dear soul, you might bring your husband back to you yet." + +Hortense shook her head. + +"Believe me," Celestine went on, "the position will ere long be +intolerable. In the first instance, rage, despair, indignation, gave +you strength. The awful disasters that have come upon us since--two +deaths, ruin, and the disappearance of Baron Hulot--have occupied your +mind and heart; but now you live in peace and silence, you will find +it hard to bear the void in your life; and as you cannot, and will +never leave the path of virtue, you will have to be reconciled to +Wenceslas. Victorin, who loves you so much, is of that opinion. There +is something stronger than one's feelings even, and that is Nature!" + +"But such a mean creature!" cried the proud Hortense. "He cares for +that woman because she feeds him.--And has she paid his debts, do you +suppose?--Good Heaven! I think of that man's position day and night! +He is the father of my child, and he is degrading himself." + +"But look at your mother, my dear," said Celestine. + +Celestine was one of those women who, when you have given them reasons +enough to convince a Breton peasant, still go back for the hundredth +time to their original argument. The character of her face, somewhat +flat, dull, and common, her light-brown hair in stiff, neat bands, her +very complexion spoke of a sensible woman, devoid of charm, but also +devoid of weakness. + +"The Baroness would willingly go to join her husband in his disgrace, +to comfort him and hide him in her heart from every eye," Celestine +went on. "Why, she has a room made ready upstairs for Monsieur Hulot, +as if she expected to find him and bring him home from one day to the +next." + +"Oh yes, my mother is sublime!" replied Hortense. "She has been so +every minute of every day for six-and-twenty years; but I am not like +her, it is not my nature.--How can I help it? I am angry with myself +sometimes; but you do not know, Celestine, what it would be to make +terms with infamy." + +"There is my father!" said Celestine placidly. "He has certainly +started on the road that ruined yours. He is ten years younger than +the Baron, to be sure, and was only a tradesman; but how can it end? +This Madame Marneffe has made a slave of my father; he is her dog; she +is mistress of his fortune and his opinions, and nothing can open his +eyes. I tremble when I remember that their banns of marriage are +already published!--My husband means to make a last attempt; he thinks +it a duty to try to avenge society and the family, and bring that +woman to account for all her crimes. Alas! my dear Hortense, such +lofty souls as Victorin and hearts like ours come too late to a +comprehension of the world and its ways!--This is a secret, dear, and +I have told you because you are interested in it, but never by a word +or a look betray it to Lisbeth, or your mother, or anybody, for--" + +"Here is Lisbeth!" said Hortense. "Well, cousin, and how is the +Inferno of the Rue Barbet going on?" + +"Badly for you, my children.--Your husband, my dear Hortense, is more +crazy about that woman than ever, and she, I must own, is madly in +love with him.--Your father, dear Celestine, is gloriously blind. +That, to be sure, is nothing; I have had occasion to see it once a +fortnight; really, I am lucky never to have had anything to do with +men, they are besotted creatures.--Five days hence you, dear child, +and Victorin will have lost your father's fortune." + +"Then the banns are cried?" said Celestine. + +"Yes," said Lisbeth, "and I have just been arguing your case. I +pointed out to that monster, who is going the way of the other, that +if he would only get you out of the difficulties you are in by paying +off the mortgage on the house, you would show your gratitude and +receive your stepmother--" + +Hortense started in horror. + +"Victorin will see about that," said Celestine coldly. + +"But do you know what Monsieur le Maire's answer was?" said Lisbeth. +"'I mean to leave them where they are. Horses can only be broken in +by lack of food, sleep, and sugar.'--Why, Baron Hulot was not so bad +as Monsieur Crevel. + +"So, my poor dears, you may say good-bye to the money. And such a fine +fortune! Your father paid three million francs for the Presles estate, +and he has thirty thousand francs a year in stocks! Oh!--he has no +secrets from me. He talks of buying the Hotel de Navarreins, in the +Rue du Bac. Madame Marneffe herself has forty thousand francs a year. +--Ah!--here is our guardian angel, here comes your mother!" she +exclaimed, hearing the rumble of wheels. + +And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the +party. At fifty-five, though crushed by so many troubles, and +constantly trembling as if shivering with ague, Adeline, whose face +was indeed pale and wrinkled, still had a fine figure, a noble +outline, and natural dignity. Those who saw her said, "She must have +been beautiful!" Worn with the grief of not knowing her husband's +fate, of being unable to share with him this oasis in the heart of +Paris, this peace and seclusion and the better fortune that was +dawning on the family, her beauty was the beauty of a ruin. As each +gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank +into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair. + +The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was +anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot, +to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had +seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of +extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron +Verneuil. This important personage, while asserting that he had +positively seen his old patron, and that his behaviour to the woman +indicated an illicit establishment, told Madame Hulot that to avoid +meeting him the Baron had left long before the end of the play. + +"He looked like a man at home with the damsel, but his dress betrayed +some lack of means," said he in conclusion. + +"Well?" said the three women as the Baroness came towards them. + +"Well, Monsieur Hulot is in Paris; and to me," said Adeline, "it is a +gleam of happiness only to know that he is within reach of us." + +"But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when +Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He +has taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money +from? I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle +Jenny Cadine or Josepha." + +The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered; +she wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully +up to heaven. + +"I cannot think that a Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor will +have fallen so low," said she. + +"For his pleasure what would he not do?" said Lisbeth. "He robbed the +State, he will rob private persons, commit murder--who knows?" + +"Oh, Lisbeth!" cried the Baroness, "keep such thoughts to yourself." + +At this moment Louise came up to the family group, now increased by +the arrival of the two Hulot children and little Wenceslas to see if +their grandmother's pockets did not contain some sweetmeats. + +"What is it, Louise?" asked one and another. + +"A man who wants to see Mademoiselle Fischer." + +"Who is the man?" asked Lisbeth. + +"He is in rags, mademoiselle, and covered with flue like a +mattress-picker; his nose is red, and he smells of brandy.--He is +one of those men who work half of the week at most." + +This uninviting picture had the effect of making Lisbeth hurry into +the courtyard of the house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, where she found +a man smoking a pipe colored in a style that showed him an artist in +tobacco. + +"Why have you come here, Pere Chardin?" she asked. "It is understood +that you go, on the first Saturday in every month, to the gate of the +Hotel Marneffe, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I have just come back after +waiting there for five hours, and you did not come." + +"I did go there, good and charitable lady!" replied the +mattress-picker. "But there was a game at pool going on at the Cafe +des Savants, Rue du Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine +is billiards. If it wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver +plate. For, I tell you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in +his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram +and plum-brandy.--It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things +it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary +that I came on to forbidden grounds.--If the hair was all hair, we +might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the +saying goes. He has His favorites--well, He has the right. Now, here +is the writing of your estimable relative and my very good friend--his +political opinion." + +Chardin attempted to trace some zigzag lines in the air with the +forefinger of his right hand. + +Lisbeth, not listening to him, read these few words: + + "DEAR COUSIN,--Be my Providence; give me three hundred francs this + day. + +"HECTOR." + + +"What does he want so much money for?" + +"The lan'lord!" said Chardin, still trying to sketch arabesques. "And +then my son, you see, has come back from Algiers through Spain and +Bayonee, and, and--he has _found_ nothing--against his rule, for a +sharp cove is my son, saving your presence. How can he help it, he is +in want of food; but he will repay all we lend him, for he is going to +get up a company. He has ideas, he has, that will carry him--" + +"To the police court," Lisbeth put in. "He murdered my uncle; I shall +not forget that." + +"He--why, he could not bleed a chicken, honorable lady." + +"Here are the three hundred francs," said Lisbeth, taking fifteen gold +pieces out of her purse. "Now, go, and never come here again." + +She saw the father of the Oran storekeeper off the premises, and +pointed out the drunken old creature to the porter. + +"At any time when that man comes here, if by chance he should come +again, do not let him in. If he should ask whether Monsieur Hulot +junior or Madame la Baronne Hulot lives here, tell him you know of no +such persons." + +"Very good, mademoiselle." + +"Your place depends on it if you make any mistake, even without +intending it," said Lisbeth, in the woman's ear.--"Cousin," she went +on to Victorin, who just now came in, "a great misfortune is hanging +over your head." + +"What is that?" said Victorin. + +"Within a few days Madame Marneffe will be your wife's stepmother." + +"That remains to be seen," replied Victorin. + +For six months past Lisbeth had very regularly paid a little allowance +to Baron Hulot, her former protector, whom she now protected; she knew +the secret of his dwelling-place, and relished Adeline's tears, saying +to her, as we have seen, when she saw her cheerful and hopeful, "You +may expect to find my poor cousin's name in the papers some day under +the heading 'Police Report.'" + +But in this, as on a former occasion, she let her vengeance carry her +too far. She had aroused the prudent suspicions of Victorin. He had +resolved to be rid of this Damocles' sword so constantly flourished +over them by Lisbeth, and of the female demon to whom his mother and +the family owed so many woes. The Prince de Wissembourg, knowing all +about Madame Marneffe's conduct, approved of the young lawyer's secret +project; he had promised him, as a President of the Council can +promise, the secret assistance of the police, to enlighten Crevel and +rescue a fine fortune from the clutches of the diabolical courtesan, +whom he could not forgive either for causing the death of Marshal +Hulot or for the Baron's utter ruin. + + + +The words spoken by Lisbeth, "He begs of his former mistresses," +haunted the Baroness all night. Like sick men given over by the +physicians, who have recourse to quacks, like men who have fallen into +the lowest Dantesque circle of despair, or drowning creatures who +mistake a floating stick for a hawser, she ended by believing in the +baseness of which the mere idea had horrified her; and it occurred to +her that she might apply for help to one of those terrible women. + +Next morning, without consulting her children or saying a word to +anybody, she went to see Mademoiselle Josepha Mirah, prima donna of +the Royal Academy of Music, to find or to lose the hope that had +gleamed before her like a will-o'-the-wisp. At midday, the great +singer's waiting-maid brought her in the card of the Baronne Hulot, +saying that this person was waiting at the door, having asked whether +Mademoiselle could receive her. + +"Are the rooms done?" + +"Yes, mademoiselle." + +"And the flowers fresh?" + +"Yes, mademoiselle." + +"Just tell Jean to look round and see that everything is as it should +be before showing the lady in, and treat her with the greatest +respect. Go, and come back to dress me--I must look my very best." + +She went to study herself in the long glass. + +"Now, to put our best foot foremost!" said she to herself. "Vice under +arms to meet virtue!--Poor woman, what can she want of me? I cannot +bear to see. + + "The noble victim of outrageous fortune!" + +And she sang through the famous aria as the maid came in again. + +"Madame," said the girl, "the lady has a nervous trembling--" + +"Offer her some orange-water, some rum, some broth--" + +"I did, mademoiselle; but she declines everything, and says it is an +infirmity, a nervous complaint--" + +"Where is she?" + +"In the big drawing-room." + +"Well, make haste, child. Give me my smartest slippers, the +dressing-gown embroidered by Bijou, and no end of lace frills. Do my +hair in a way to astonish a woman.--This woman plays a part against +mine; and tell the lady--for she is a real, great lady, my girl, nay, +more, she is what you will never be, a woman whose prayers can rescue +souls from your purgatory--tell her I was in bed, as I was playing +last night, and that I am just getting up." + +The Baroness, shown into Josepha's handsome drawing-room, did not note +how long she was kept waiting there, though it was a long half hour. +This room, entirely redecorated even since Josepha had had the house, +was hung with silk in purple and gold color. The luxury which fine +gentlemen were wont to lavish on their _petites maisons_, the scenes +of their profligacy, of which the remains still bear witness to the +follies from which they were so aptly named, was displayed to +perfection, thanks to modern inventiveness, in the four rooms opening +into each other, where the warm temperature was maintained by a system +of hot-air pipes with invisible openings. + +The Baroness, quite bewildered, examined each work of art with the +greatest amazement. Here she found fortunes accounted for that melt in +the crucible under which pleasure and vanity feed the devouring +flames. This woman, who for twenty-six years had lived among the dead +relics of imperial magnificence, whose eyes were accustomed to carpets +patterned with faded flowers, rubbed gilding, silks as forlorn as her +heart, half understood the powerful fascinations of vice as she +studied its results. It was impossible not to wish to possess these +beautiful things, these admirable works of art, the creation of the +unknown talent which abounds in Paris in our day and produces +treasures for all Europe. Each thing had the novel charm of unique +perfection. The models being destroyed, every vase, every figure, +every piece of sculpture was the original. This is the crowning grace +of modern luxury. To own the thing which is not vulgarized by the two +thousand wealthy citizens whose notion of luxury is the lavish display +of the splendors that shops can supply, is the stamp of true luxury +--the luxury of the fine gentlemen of the day, the shooting stars of +the Paris firmament. + +As she examined the flower-stands, filled with the choicest exotic +plants, mounted in chased brass and inlaid in the style of Boulle, the +Baroness was scared by the idea of the wealth in this apartment. And +this impression naturally shed a glamour over the person round whom +all this profusion was heaped. Adeline imagined that Josepha Mirah +--whose portrait by Joseph Bridau was the glory of the adjoining +boudoir--must be a singer of genius, a Malibran, and she expected to +see a real star. She was sorry she had come. But she had been prompted +by a strong and so natural a feeling, by such purely disinterested +devotion, that she collected all her courage for the interview. +Besides, she was about to satisfy her urgent curiosity, to see for +herself what was the charm of this kind of women, that they could +extract so much gold from the miserly ore of Paris mud. + +The Baroness looked at herself to see if she were not a blot on all +this splendor; but she was well dressed in her velvet gown, with a +little cape trimmed with beautiful lace, and her velvet bonnet of the +same shade was becoming. Seeing herself still as imposing as any +queen, always a queen even in her fall, she reflected that the dignity +of sorrow was a match for the dignity of talent. + +At last, after much opening and shutting of doors, she saw Josepha. +The singer bore a strong resemblance to Allori's _Judith_, which +dwells in the memory of all who have ever seen it in the Pitti palace, +near the door of one of the great rooms. She had the same haughty +mien, the same fine features, black hair simply knotted, and a yellow +wrapper with little embroidered flowers, exactly like the brocade worn +by the immortal homicide conceived of by Bronzino's nephew. + +"Madame la Baronne, I am quite overwhelmed by the honor you do me in +coming here," said the singer, resolved to play her part as a great +lady with a grace. + +She pushed forward an easy-chair for the Baroness and seated herself +on a stool. She discerned the faded beauty of the woman before her, +and was filled with pity as she saw her shaken by the nervous palsy +that, on the least excitement, became convulsive. She could read at a +glance the saintly life described to her of old by Hulot and Crevel; +and she not only ceased to think of a contest with her, she humiliated +herself before a superiority she appreciated. The great artist could +admire what the courtesan laughed to scorn. + +"Mademoiselle, despair brought me here. It reduces us to any means--" + +A look in Josepha's face made the Baroness feel that she had wounded +the woman from whom she hoped for so much, and she looked at her. Her +beseeching eyes extinguished the flash in Josepha's; the singer +smiled. It was a wordless dialogue of pathetic eloquence. + +"It is now two years and a half since Monsieur Hulot left his family, +and I do not know where to find him, though I know that he lives in +Paris," said the Baroness with emotion. "A dream suggested to me the +idea--an absurd one perhaps--that you may have interested yourself in +Monsieur Hulot. If you could enable me to see him--oh! mademoiselle, I +would pray Heaven for you every day as long as I live in this world--" + +Two large tears in the singer's eyes told what her reply would be. + +"Madame," said she, "I have done you an injury without knowing you; +but, now that I have the happiness of seeing in you the most perfect +virtue on earth, believe me I am sensible of the extent of my fault; I +repent sincerely, and believe me, I will do all in my power to remedy +it!" + +She took Madame Hulot's hand and before the lady could do anything to +hinder her, she kissed it respectfully, even humbling herself to bend +one knee. Then she rose, as proud as when she stood on the stage in +the part of _Mathilde_, and rang the bell. + +"Go on horseback," said she to the man-servant, "and kill the horse if +you must, to find little Bijou, Rue Saint-Maur-du-Temple, and bring +her here. Put her into a coach and pay the coachman to come at a +gallop. Do not lose a moment--or you lose your place. + +"Madame," she went on, coming back to the Baroness, and speaking to +her in respectful tones, "you must forgive me. As soon as the Duc +d'Herouville became my protector, I dismissed the Baron, having heard +that he was ruining his family for me. What more could I do? In an +actress' career a protector is indispensable from the first day of her +appearance on the boards. Our salaries do not pay half our expenses; +we must have a temporary husband. I did not value Monsieur Hulot, who +took me away from a rich man, a conceited idiot. Old Crevel would +undoubtedly have married me--" + +"So he told me," said the Baroness, interrupting her. + +"Well, then, you see, madame, I might at this day have been an honest +woman, with only one legitimate husband!" + +"You have many excuses, mademoiselle," said Adeline, "and God will +take them into account. But, for my part, far from reproaching you, I +came, on the contrary, to make myself your debtor in gratitude--" + +"Madame, for nearly three years I have provided for Monsieur le +Baron's necessities--" + +"You?" interrupted the Baroness, with tears in her eyes. "Oh, what can +I do for you? I can only pray--" + +"I and Monsieur le Duc d'Herouville," the singer said, "a noble soul, +a true gentleman--" and Josepha related the settling and _marriage_ of +Monsieur Thoul. + +"And so, thanks to you, mademoiselle, the Baron has wanted nothing?" + +"We have done our best to that end, madame." + +"And where is he now?" + +"About six months ago, Monsieur le Duc told me that the Baron, known +to the notary by the name of Thoul, had drawn all the eight thousand +francs that were to have been paid to him in fixed sums once a +quarter," replied Josepha. "We have heard no more of the Baron, +neither I nor Monsieur d'Herouville. Our lives are so full, we artists +are so busy, that I really have not time to run after old Thoul. As it +happens, for the last six months, Bijou, who works for me--his--what +shall I say--?" + +"His mistress," said Madame Hulot. + +"His mistress," repeated Josepha, "has not been here. Mademoiselle +Olympe Bijou is perhaps divorced. Divorce is common in the thirteenth +arrondissement." + +Josepha rose, and foraging among the rare plants in her stands, made a +charming bouquet for Madame Hulot, whose expectations, it may be said, +were by no means fulfilled. Like those worthy fold, who take men of +genius to be a sort of monsters, eating, drinking, walking, and +speaking unlike other people, the Baroness had hoped to see Josepha +the opera singer, the witch, the amorous and amusing courtesan; she +saw a calm and well-mannered woman, with the dignity of talent, the +simplicity of an actress who knows herself to be at night a queen, and +also, better than all, a woman of the town whose eyes, attitude, and +demeanor paid full and ungrudging homage to the virtuous wife, the +_Mater dolorosa_ of the sacred hymn, and who was crowning her sorrows +with flowers, as the Madonna is crowned in Italy. + +"Madame," said the man-servant, reappearing at the end of half an +hour, "Madame Bijou is on her way, but you are not to expect little +Olympe. Your needle-woman, madame, is settled in life; she is +married--" + +"More or less?" said Josepha. + +"No, madame, really married. She is at the head of a very fine +business; she has married the owner of a large and fashionable shop, +on which they have spent millions of francs, on the Boulevard des +Italiens; and she has left the embroidery business to her sister and +mother. She is Madame Grenouville. The fat tradesman--" + +"A Crevel?" + +"Yes, madame," said the man. "Well, he has settled thirty thousand +francs a year on Mademoiselle Bijou by the marriage articles. And her +elder sister, they say, is going to be married to a rich butcher." + +"Your business looks rather hopeless, I am afraid," said Josepha to +the Baroness. "Monsieur le Baron is no longer where I lodged him." + +Ten minutes later Madame Bijou was announced. Josepha very prudently +placed the Baroness in the boudoir, and drew the curtain over the +door. + +"You would scare her," said she to Madame Hulot. "She would let +nothing out if she suspected that you were interested in the +information. Leave me to catechise her. Hide there, and you will hear +everything. It is a scene that is played quite as often in real life +as on the stage--" + +"Well, Mother Bijou," she said to an old woman dressed in tartan +stuff, and who looked like a porter's wife in her Sunday best, "so you +are all very happy? Your daughter is in luck." + +"Oh, happy? As for that!--My daughter gives us a hundred francs a +month, while she rides in a carriage and eats off silver plate--she is +a millionary, is my daughter! Olympe might have lifted me above labor. +To have to work at my age? Is that being good to me?" + +"She ought not to be ungrateful, for she owes her beauty to you," +replied Josepha; "but why did she not come to see me? It was I who +placed her in ease by settling her with my uncle." + +"Yes, madame, with old Monsieur Thoul, but he is very old and +broken--" + +"But what have you done with him? Is he with you? She was very foolish +to leave him; he is worth millions now." + +"Heaven above us!" cried the mother. "What did I tell her when she +behaved so badly to him, and he as mild as milk, poor old fellow? Oh! +didn't she just give it him hot?--Olympe was perverted, madame?" + +"But how?" + +"She got to know a _claqueur_, madame, saving your presence, a man +paid to clap, you know, the grand nephew of an old mattress-picker of +the Faubourg Saint-Marceau. This good-for-naught, as all your +good-looking fellows are, paid to make a piece go, is the cock of the +walk out on the Boulevard du Temple, where he works up the new plays, +and takes care that the actresses get a reception, as he calls it. +First, he has a good breakfast in the morning; then, before the play, +he dines, to be 'up to the mark,' as he says; in short, he is a born +lover of billiards and drams. 'But that is not following a trade,' as +I said to Olympe." + +"It is a trade men follow, unfortunately," said Josepha. + +"Well, the rascal turned Olympe's head, and he, madame, did not keep +good company--when I tell you he was very near being nabbed by the +police in a tavern where thieves meet. 'Wever, Monsieur Braulard, the +leader of the claque, got him out of that. He wears gold earrings, and +he lives by doing nothing, hanging on to women, who are fools about +these good-looking scamps. He spent all the money Monsieur Thoul used +to give the child. + +"Then the business was going to grief; what embroidery brought in went +out across the billiard table. 'Wever, the young fellow had a pretty +sister, madame, who, like her brother, lived by hook and by crook, and +no better than she should be neither, over in the students' quarter." + +"One of the sluts at the Chaumiere," said Josepha. + +"So, madame," said the old woman. "So Idamore, his name is Idamore, +leastways that is what he calls himself, for his real name is Chardin +--Idamore fancied that your uncle had a deal more money than he owned +to, and he managed to send his sister Elodie--and that was a stage +name he gave her--to send her to be a workwoman at our place, without +my daughter's knowing who she was; and, gracious goodness! but that +girl turned the whole place topsy-turvy; she got all those poor girls +into mischief--impossible to whitewash them, saving your presence---- + +"And she was so sharp, she won over poor old Thoul, and took him away, +and we don't know where, and left us in a pretty fix, with a lot of +bills coming in. To this day as ever is we have not been able to +settle up; but my daughter, who knows all about such things, keeps an +eye on them as they fall due.--Then, when Idamore saw he had got hold +of the old man, through his sister, you understand, he threw over my +daughter, and now he has got hold of a little actress at the +_Funambules_.--And that was how my daughter came to get married, as +you will see--" + +"But you must know where the mattress-picker lives?" said Josepha. + +"What! old Chardin? As if he lived anywhere at all!--He is drunk by +six in the morning; he makes a mattress once a month; he hangs about +the wineshops all day; he plays at pools--" + +"He plays at pools?" said Josepha. + +"You do not understand, madame, pools of billiards, I mean, and he +wins three or four a day, and then he drinks." + +"Water out of the pools, I suppose?" said Josepha. "But if Idamore +haunts the Boulevard, by inquiring through my friend Vraulard, we +could find him." + +"I don't know, madame; all this was six months ago. Idamore was one of +the sort who are bound to find their way into the police courts, and +from that to Melun--and the--who knows--?" + +"To the prison yard!" said Josepha. + +"Well, madame, you know everything," said the old woman, smiling. +"Well, if my girl had never known that scamp, she would now be--Still, +she was in luck, all the same, you will say, for Monsieur Grenouville +fell so much in love with her that he married her--" + +"And what brought that about?" + +"Olympe was desperate, madame. When she found herself left in the +lurch for that little actress--and she took a rod out of pickle for +her, I can tell you; my word, but she gave her a dressing!--and when +she had lost poor old Thoul, who worshiped her, she would have nothing +more to say to the men. 'Wever, Monsieur Grenouville, who had been +dealing largely with us--to the tune of two hundred embroidered +China-crape shawls every quarter--he wanted to console her; but whether +or no, she would not listen to anything without the mayor and the +priest. 'I mean to be respectable,' said she, 'or perish!' and she +stuck to it. Monsieur Grenouville consented to marry her, on condition +of her giving us all up, and we agreed--" + +"For a handsome consideration?" said Josepha, with her usual +perspicacity. + +"Yes, madame, ten thousand francs, and an allowance to my father, who +is past work." + +"I begged your daughter to make old Thoul happy, and she has thrown me +over. That is not fair. I will take no interest in any one for the +future! That is what comes of trying to do good! Benevolence certainly +does not answer as a speculation!--Olympe ought, at least, to have +given me notice of this jobbing. Now, if you find the old man Thoul +within a fortnight, I will give you a thousand francs." + +"It will be a hard task, my good lady; still, there are a good many +five-franc pieces in a thousand francs, and I will try to earn your +money." + +"Good-morning, then, Madame Bijou." + +On going into the boudoir, the singer found that Madame Hulot had +fainted; but in spite of having lost consciousness, her nervous +trembling kept her still perpetually shaking, as the pieces of a snake +that has been cut up still wriggle and move. Strong salts, cold water, +and all the ordinary remedies were applied to recall the Baroness to +her senses, or rather, to the apprehension of her sorrows. + +"Ah! mademoiselle, how far has he fallen!" cried she, recognizing +Josepha, and finding that she was alone with her. + +"Take heart, madame," replied the actress, who had seated herself on a +cushion at Adeline's feet, and was kissing her hands. "We shall find +him; and if he is in the mire, well, he must wash himself. Believe me, +with people of good breeding it is a matter of clothes.--Allow me to +make up for you the harm I have done you, for I see how much you are +attached to your husband, in spite of his misconduct--or you should +not have come here.--Well, you see, the poor man is so fond of women. +If you had had a little of our dash, you would have kept him from +running about the world; for you would have been what we can never be +--all the women man wants. + +"The State ought to subsidize a school of manners for honest women! +But governments are so prudish! Still, they are guided by men, whom we +privately guide. My word, I pity nations! + +"But the matter in question is how you can be helped, and not to laugh +at the world.--Well, madame, be easy, go home again, and do not worry. +I will bring your Hector back to you as he was as a man of thirty." + +"Ah, mademoiselle, let us go to see that Madame Grenouville," said the +Baroness. "She surely knows something! Perhaps I may see the Baron +this very day, and be able to snatch him at once from poverty and +disgrace." + +"Madame, I will show you the deep gratitude I feel towards you by not +displaying the stage-singer Josepha, the Duc d'Herouville's mistress, +in the company of the noblest, saintliest image of virtue. I respect +you too much to be seen by your side. This is not acted humility; it +is sincere homage. You make me sorry, madame, that I cannot tread in +your footsteps, in spite of the thorns that tear your feet and hands. +--But it cannot be helped! I am one with art, as you are one with +virtue." + +"Poor child!" said the Baroness, moved amid her own sorrows by a +strange sense of compassionate sympathy; "I will pray to God for you; +for you are the victim of society, which must have theatres. When you +are old, repent--you will be heard if God vouchsafes to hear the +prayers of a--" + +"Of a martyr, madame," Josepha put in, and she respectfully kissed the +Baroness' skirt. + +But Adeline took the actress' hand, and drawing her towards her, +kissed her on the forehead. Coloring with pleasure Josepha saw the +Baroness into the hackney coach with the humblest politeness. + +"It must be some visiting Lady of Charity," said the man-servant to +the maid, "for she does not do so much for any one, not even for her +dear friend Madame Jenny Cadine." + +"Wait a few days," said she, "and you will see him, madame, or I +renounce the God of my fathers--and that from a Jewess, you know, is a +promise of success." + + + +At the very time when Madame Hulot was calling on Josepha, Victorin, +in his study, was receiving an old woman of about seventy-five, who, +to gain admission to the lawyer, had used the terrible name of the +head of the detective force. The man in waiting announced: + +"Madame de Saint-Esteve." + +"I have assumed one of my business names," said she, taking a seat. + +Victorin felt a sort of internal chill at the sight of this dreadful +old woman. Though handsomely dressed, she was terrible to look upon, +for her flat, colorless, strongly-marked face, furrowed with wrinkles, +expressed a sort of cold malignity. Marat, as a woman of that age, +might have been like this creature, a living embodiment of the Reign +of Terror. + +This sinister old woman's small, pale eyes twinkled with a tiger's +bloodthirsty greed. Her broad, flat nose, with nostrils expanded into +oval cavities, breathed the fires of hell, and resembled the beak of +some evil bird of prey. The spirit of intrigue lurked behind her low, +cruel brow. Long hairs had grown from her wrinkled chin, betraying the +masculine character of her schemes. Any one seeing that woman's face +would have said that artists had failed in their conceptions of +Mephistopheles. + +"My dear sir," she began, with a patronizing air, "I have long since +given up active business of any kind. What I have come to you to do, I +have undertaken, for the sake of my dear nephew, whom I love more than +I could love a son of my own.--Now, the Head of the Police--to whom +the President of the Council said a few words in his ear as regards +yourself, in talking to Monsieur Chapuzot--thinks as the police ought +not to appear in a matter of this description, you understand. They +gave my nephew a free hand, but my nephew will have nothing to say to +it, except as before the Council; he will not be seen in it." + +"Then your nephew is--" + +"You have hit it, and I am rather proud of him," said she, +interrupting the lawyer, "for he is my pupil, and he soon could teach +his teacher.--We have considered this case, and have come to our own +conclusions. Will you hand over thirty thousand francs to have the +whole thing taken off your hands? I will make a clean sweep of all, +and you need not pay till the job is done." + +"Do you know the persons concerned?" + +"No, my dear sir; I look for information from you. What we are told +is, that a certain old idiot has fallen into the clutches of a widow. +This widow, of nine-and-twenty, has played her cards so well, that she +has forty thousand francs a year, of which she has robbed two fathers +of families. She is now about to swallow down eighty thousand francs a +year by marrying an old boy of sixty-one. She will thus ruin a +respectable family, and hand over this vast fortune to the child of +some lover by getting rid at once of the old husband.--That is the +case as stated." + +"Quite correct," said Victorin. "My father-in-law, Monsieur Crevel--" + +"Formerly a perfumer, a mayor--yes, I live in his district under the +name of Ma'ame Nourrisson," said the woman. + +"The other person is Madame Marneffe." + +"I do not know," said Madame de Saint-Esteve. "But within three days I +will be in a position to count her shifts." + +"Can you hinder the marriage?" asked Victorin. + +"How far have they got?" + +"To the second time of asking." + +"We must carry off the woman.--To-day is Sunday--there are but three +days, for they will be married on Wednesday, no doubt; it is +impossible.--But she may be killed--" + +Victorin Hulot started with an honest man's horror at hearing these +five words uttered in cold blood. + +"Murder?" said he. "And how could you do it?" + +"For forty years, now, monsieur, we have played the part of fate," +replied she, with terrible pride, "and do just what we will in Paris. +More than one family--even in the Faubourg Saint-Germain--has told me +all its secrets, I can tell you. I have made and spoiled many a match, +I have destroyed many a will and saved many a man's honor. I have in +there," and she tapped her forehead, "a store of secrets which are +worth thirty-six thousand francs a year to me; and you--you will be +one of my lambs, hoh! Could such a woman as I am be what I am if she +revealed her ways and means? I act. + +"Whatever I may do, sir, will be the result of an accident; you need +feel no remorse. You will be like a man cured by a clairvoyant; by the +end of a month, it seems all the work of Nature." + +Victorin broke out in a cold sweat. The sight of an executioner would +have shocked him less than this prolix and pretentious Sister of the +Hulks. As he looked at her purple-red gown, she seemed to him dyed in +blood. + +"Madame, I do not accept the help of your experience and skill if +success is to cost anybody's life, or the least criminal act is to +come of it." + +"You are a great baby, monsieur," replied the woman; "you wish to +remain blameless in your own eyes, while you want your enemy to be +overthrown." + +Victorin shook his head in denial. + +"Yes," she went on, "you want this Madame Marneffe to drop the prey +she has between her teeth. But how do you expect to make a tiger drop +his piece of beef? Can you do it by patting his back and saying, 'Poor +Puss'? You are illogical. You want a battle fought, but you object to +blows.--Well, I grant you the innocence you are so careful over. I +have always found that there was material for hypocrisy in honesty! +One day, three months hence, a poor priest will come to beg of you +forty thousand francs for a pious work--a convent to be rebuilt in the +Levant--in the desert.--If you are satisfied with your lot, give the +good man the money. You will pay more than that into the treasury. It +will be a mere trifle in comparison with what you will get, I can tell +you." + +She rose, standing on the broad feet that seemed to overflow her satin +shoes; she smiled, bowed, and vanished. + +"The Devil has a sister," said Victorin, rising. + +He saw the hideous stranger to the door, a creature called up from the +dens of the police, as on the stage a monster comes up from the third +cellar at the touch of a fairy's wand in a ballet-extravaganza. + +After finishing what he had to do at the Courts, Victorin went to call +on Monsieur Chapuzot, the head of one of the most important branches +of the Central Police, to make some inquiries about the stranger. +Finding Monsieur Chapuzot alone in his office, Victorin thanked him +for his help. + +"You sent me an old woman who might stand for the incarnation of the +criminal side of Paris." + +Monsieur Chapuzot laid his spectacles on his papers and looked at the +lawyer with astonishment. + +"I should not have taken the liberty of sending anybody to see you +without giving you notice beforehand, or a line of introduction," said +he. + +"Then it was Monsieur le Prefet--?" + +"I think not," said Chapuzot. "The last time that the Prince de +Wissembourg dined with the Minister of the Interior, he spoke to the +Prefet of the position in which you find yourself--a deplorable +position--and asked him if you could be helped in any friendly way. +The Prefet, who was interested by the regrets his Excellency expressed +as to this family affair, did me the honor to consult me about it. + +"Ever since the present Prefet has held the reins of this department +--so useful and so vilified--he has made it a rule that family matters +are never to be interfered in. He is right in principle and in +morality; but in practice he is wrong. In the forty-five years that I +have served in the police, it did, from 1799 till 1815, great services +in family concerns. Since 1820 a constitutional government and the +press have completely altered the conditions of existence. So my +advice, indeed, was not to intervene in such a case, and the Prefet +did me the honor to agree with my remarks. The Head of the detective +branch has orders, in my presence, to take no steps; so if you have +had any one sent to you by him, he will be reprimanded. It might cost +him his place. 'The Police will do this or that,' is easily said; the +Police, the Police! But, my dear sir, the Marshal and the Ministerial +Council do not know what the Police is. The Police alone knows the +Police; but as for ours, only Fouche, Monsieur Lenoir, and Monsieur de +Sartines have had any notion of it.--Everything is changed now; we are +reduced and disarmed! I have seen many private disasters develop, +which I could have checked with five grains of despotic power.--We +shall be regretted by the very men who have crippled us when they, +like you, stand face to face with some moral monstrosities, which +ought to be swept away as we sweep away mud! In public affairs the +Police is expected to foresee everything, or when the safety of the +public is involved--but the family?--It is sacred! I would do my +utmost to discover and hinder a plot against the King's life, I would +see through the walls of a house; but as to laying a finger on a +household, or peeping into private interests--never, so long as I sit +in this office. I should be afraid." + +"Of what?" + +"Of the Press, Monsieur le Depute, of the left centre." + +"What, then, can I do?" said Hulot, after a pause. + +"Well, you are the Family," said the official. "That settles it; you +can do what you please. But as to helping you, as to using the Police +as an instrument of private feelings, and interests, how is it +possible? There lies, you see, the secret of the persecution, +necessary, but pronounced illegal, by the Bench, which was brought +to bear against the predecessor of our present chief detective. +Bibi-Lupin undertook investigations for the benefit of private persons. +This might have led to great social dangers. With the means at his +command, the man would have been formidable, an underlying fate--" + +"But in my place?" said Hulot. + +"Why, you ask my advice? You who sell it!" replied Monsieur Chapuzot. +"Come, come, my dear sir, you are making fun of me." + +Hulot bowed to the functionary, and went away without seeing that +gentleman's almost imperceptible shrug as he rose to open the door. + +"And he wants to be a statesman!" said Chapuzot to himself as he +returned to his reports. + +Victorin went home, still full of perplexities which he could confide +to no one. + +At dinner the Baroness joyfully announced to her children that within +a month their father might be sharing their comforts, and end his days +in peace among his family. + +"Oh, I would gladly give my three thousand six hundred francs a year +to see the Baron here!" cried Lisbeth. "But, my dear Adeline, do not +dream beforehand of such happiness, I entreat you!" + +"Lisbeth is right," said Celestine. "My dear mother, wait till the +end." + +The Baroness, all feeling and all hope, related her visit to Josepha, +expressed her sense of the misery of such women in the midst of good +fortune, and mentioned Chardin the mattress-picker, the father of the +Oran storekeeper, thus showing that her hopes were not groundless. + + + +By seven next morning Lisbeth had driven in a hackney coach to the +Quai de la Tournelle, and stopped the vehicle at the corner of the Rue +de Poissy. + +"Go to the Rue des Bernardins," said she to the driver, "No. 7, a +house with an entry and no porter. Go up to the fourth floor, ring at +the door to the left, on which you will see 'Mademoiselle Chardin +--Lace and shawls mended.' She will answer the door. Ask for the +Chevalier. She will say he is out. Say in reply, 'Yes, I know, but +find him, for his _bonne_ is out on the quay in a coach, and wants to +see him.'" + +Twenty minutes later, an old man, who looked about eighty, with +perfectly white hair, and a nose reddened by the cold, and a pale, +wrinkled face like an old woman's, came shuffling slowly along in list +slippers, a shiny alpaca overcoat hanging on his stooping shoulders, +no ribbon at his buttonhole, the sleeves of an under-vest showing +below his coat-cuffs, and his shirt-front unpleasantly dingy. He +approached timidly, looked at the coach, recognized Lisbeth, and came +to the window. + +"Why, my dear cousin, what a state you are in!" + +"Elodie keeps everything for herself," said Baron Hulot. "Those +Chardins are a blackguard crew." + +"Will you come home to us?" + +"Oh, no, no!" cried the old man. "I would rather go to America." + +"Adeline is on the scent." + +"Oh, if only some one would pay my debts!" said the Baron, with a +suspicious look, "for Samanon is after me." + +"We have not paid up the arrears yet; your son still owes a hundred +thousand francs." + +"Poor boy!" + +"And your pension will not be free before seven or eight months.--If +you will wait a minute, I have two thousand francs here." + +The Baron held out his hand with fearful avidity. + +"Give it me, Lisbeth, and may God reward you! Give it me; I know where +to go." + +"But you will tell me, old wretch?" + +"Yes, yes. Then I can wait eight months, for I have discovered a +little angel, a good child, an innocent thing not old enough to be +depraved." + +"Do not forget the police-court," said Lisbeth, who flattered herself +that she would some day see Hulot there. + +"No.--It is in the Rue de Charonne," said the Baron, "a part of the +town where no fuss is made about anything. No one will ever find me +there. I am called Pere Thorec, Lisbeth, and I shall be taken for a +retired cabinet-maker; the girl is fond of me, and I will not allow my +back to be shorn any more." + +"No, that has been done," said Lisbeth, looking at his coat. +"Supposing I take you there." + +Baron Hulot got into the coach, deserting Mademoiselle Elodie without +taking leave of her, as he might have tossed aside a novel he had +finished. + +In half an hour, during which Baron Hulot talked to Lisbeth of nothing +but little Atala Judici--for he had fallen by degrees to those base +passions that ruin old men--she set him down with two thousand francs +in his pocket, in the Rue de Charonne, Faubourg Saint-Antoine, at the +door of a doubtful and sinister-looking house. + +"Good-day, cousin; so now you are to be called Thorec, I suppose? Send +none but commissionaires if you need me, and always take them from +different parts." + +"Trust me! Oh, I am really very lucky!" said the Baron, his face +beaming with the prospect of new and future happiness. + +"No one can find him there," said Lisbeth; and she paid the coach at +the Boulevard Beaumarchais, and returned to the Rue Louis-le-Grand in +the omnibus. + +On the following day Crevel was announced at the hour when all the +family were together in the drawing-room, just after breakfast. +Celestine flew to throw her arms round her father's neck, and behaved +as if she had seen him only the day before, though in fact he had not +called there for more than two years. + +"Good-morning, father," said Victorin, offering his hand. + +"Good-morning, children," said the pompous Crevel. "Madame la Baronne, +I throw myself at your feet! Good Heavens, how the children grow! they +are pushing us off the perch--'Grand-pa,' they say, 'we want our turn +in the sunshine.'--Madame la Comtesse, you are as lovely as ever," he +went on, addressing Hortense.--"Ah, ha! and here is the best of good +money: Cousin Betty, the Wise Virgin." + +"Why, you are really very comfortable here," said he, after scattering +these greetings with a cackle of loud laughter that hardly moved the +rubicund muscles of his broad face. + +He looked at his daughter with some contempt. + +"My dear Celestine, I will make you a present of all my furniture out +of the Rue des Saussayes; it will just do here. Your drawing-room +wants furnishing up.--Ha! there is that little rogue Wenceslas. Well, +and are we very good children, I wonder? You must have pretty manners, +you know." + +"To make up for those who have none," said Lisbeth. + +"That sarcasm, my dear Lisbeth, has lost its sting. I am going, my +dear children, to put an end to the false position in which I have so +long been placed; I have come, like a good father, to announce my +approaching marriage without any circumlocution." + +"You have a perfect right to marry," said Victorin. "And for my part, +I give you back the promise you made me when you gave me the hand of +my dear Celestine--" + +"What promise?" said Crevel. + +"Not to marry," replied the lawyer. "You will do me the justice to +allow that I did not ask you to pledge yourself, that you gave your +word quite voluntarily and in spite of my desire, for I pointed out to +you at the time that you were unwise to bind yourself." + +"Yes, I do remember, my dear fellow," said Crevel, ashamed of himself. +"But, on my honor, if you will but live with Madame Crevel, my +children, you will find no reason to repent.--Your good feeling +touches me, Victorin, and you will find that generosity to me is not +unrewarded.--Come, by the Poker! welcome your stepmother and come to +the wedding." + +"But you have not told us the lady's name, papa," said Celestine. + +"Why, it is an open secret," replied Crevel. "Do not let us play at +guess who can! Lisbeth must have told you." + +"My dear Monsieur Crevel," replied Lisbeth, "there are certain names +we never utter here--" + +"Well, then, it is Madame Marneffe." + +"Monsieur Crevel," said the lawyer very sternly, "neither my wife nor +I can be present at that marriage; not out of interest, for I spoke in +all sincerity just now. Yes, I am most happy to think that you may +find happiness in this union; but I act on considerations of honor and +good feeling which you must understand, and which I cannot speak of +here, as they reopen wounds still ready to bleed----" + +The Baroness telegraphed a signal to Hortense, who tucked her little +one under her arm, saying, "Come Wenceslas, and have your bath! +--Good-bye, Monsieur Crevel." + +The Baroness also bowed to Crevel without a word; and Crevel could not +help smiling at the child's astonishment when threatened with this +impromptu tubbing. + +"You, monsieur," said Victorin, when he found himself alone with +Lisbeth, his wife, and his father-in-law, "are about to marry a woman +loaded with the spoils of my father; it was she who, in cold blood, +brought him down to such depths; a woman who is the son-in-law's +mistress after ruining the father-in-law; who is the cause of constant +grief to my sister!--And you fancy that I shall seem to sanction your +madness by my presence? I deeply pity you, dear Monsieur Crevel; you +have no family feeling; you do not understand the unity of the honor +which binds the members of it together. There is no arguing with +passion--as I have too much reason to know. The slaves of their +passions are as deaf as they are blind. Your daughter Celestine has +too strong a sense of her duty to proffer a word of reproach." + +"That would, indeed, be a pretty thing!" cried Crevel, trying to cut +short this harangue. + +"Celestine would not be my wife if she made the slightest +remonstrance," the lawyer went on. "But I, at least, may try to stop +you before you step over the precipice, especially after giving you +ample proof of my disinterestedness. It is not your fortune, it is you +that I care about. Nay, to make it quite plain to you, I may add, if +it were only to set your mind at ease with regard to your marriage +contract, that I am now in a position which leaves me with nothing to +wish for--" + +"Thanks to me!" exclaimed Crevel, whose face was purple. + +"Thanks to Celestine's fortune," replied Victorin. "And if you regret +having given to your daughter as a present from yourself, a sum which +is not half what her mother left her, I can only say that we are +prepared to give it back." + +"And do you not know, my respected son-in-law," said Crevel, striking +an attitude, "that under the shelter of my name Madame Marneffe is not +called upon to answer for her conduct excepting as my wife--as Madame +Crevel?" + +"That is, no doubt, quite the correct thing," said the lawyer; "very +generous so far as the affections are concerned and the vagaries of +passion; but I know of no name, nor law, nor title that can shelter +the theft of three hundred thousand francs so meanly wrung from my +father!--I tell you plainly, my dear father-in-law, your future wife +is unworthy of you, she is false to you, and is madly in love with my +brother-in-law, Steinbock, whose debts she had paid." + +"It is I who paid them!" + +"Very good," said Hulot; "I am glad for Count Steinbock's sake; he may +some day repay the money. But he is loved, much loved, and often--" + +"Loved!" cried Crevel, whose face showed his utter bewilderment. "It +is cowardly, and dirty, and mean, and cheap, to calumniate a woman! +--When a man says such things, monsieur, he must bring proof." + +"I will bring proof." + +"I shall expect it." + +"By the day after to-morrow, my dear Monsieur Crevel, I shall be able +to tell you the day, the hour, the very minute when I can expose the +horrible depravity of your future wife." + +"Very well; I shall be delighted," said Crevel, who had recovered +himself. + +"Good-bye, my children, for the present; good-bye, Lisbeth." + +"See him out, Lisbeth," said Celestine in an undertone. + +"And is this the way you take yourself off?" cried Lisbeth to Crevel. + +"Ah, ha!" said Crevel, "my son-in-law is too clever by half; he is +getting on. The Courts and the Chamber, judicial trickery and +political dodges, are making a man of him with a vengeance!--So he +knows I am to be married on Wednesday, and on a Sunday my gentleman +proposes to fix the hour, within three days, when he can prove that my +wife is unworthy of me. That is a good story!--Well, I am going back +to sign the contract. Come with me, Lisbeth--yes, come. They will +never know. I meant to have left Celestine forty thousand francs a +year; but Hulot has just behaved in a way to alienate my affection for +ever." + +"Give me ten minutes, Pere Crevel; wait for me in your carriage at the +gate. I will make some excuse for going out." + +"Very well--all right." + +"My dears," said Lisbeth, who found all the family reassembled in the +drawing-room, "I am going with Crevel: the marriage contract is to be +signed this afternoon, and I shall hear what he has settled. It will +probably be my last visit to that woman. Your father is furious; he +will disinherit you--" + +"His vanity will prevent that," said the son-in-law. "He was bent on +owning the estate of Presles, and he will keep it; I know him. Even if +he were to have children, Celestine would still have half of what he +might leave; the law forbids his giving away all his fortune.--Still, +these questions are nothing to me; I am only thinking of our honor. +--Go then, cousin," and he pressed Lisbeth's hand, "and listen +carefully to the contract." + + + +Twenty minutes after, Lisbeth and Crevel reached the house in the Rue +Barbet, where Madame Marneffe was awaiting, in mild impatience, the +result of a step taken by her commands. Valerie had in the end fallen +a prey to the absorbing love which, once in her life, masters a +woman's heart. Wenceslas was its object, and, a failure as an artist, +he became in Madame Marneffe's hands a lover so perfect that he was to +her what she had been to Baron Hulot. + +Valerie was holding a slipper in one hand, and Steinbock clasped the +other, while her head rested on his shoulder. The rambling +conversation in which they had been engaged ever since Crevel went out +may be ticketed, like certain lengthy literary efforts of our day, +"_All rights reserved_," for it cannot be reproduced. This masterpiece +of personal poetry naturally brought a regret to the artist's lips, +and he said, not without some bitterness: + +"What a pity it is that I married; for if I had but waited, as Lisbeth +told me, I might now have married you." + +"Who but a Pole would wish to make a wife of a devoted mistress?" +cried Valerie. "To change love into duty, and pleasure into a bore." + +"I know you to be so fickle," replied Steinbock. "Did I not hear you +talking to Lisbeth of that Brazilian, Baron Montes?" + +"Do you want to rid me of him?" + +"It would be the only way to hinder his seeing you," said the +ex-sculptor. + +"Let me tell you, my darling--for I tell you everything," said Valerie +--"I was saving him up for a husband.--The promises I have made to +that man!--Oh, long before I knew you," said she, in reply to a +movement from Wenceslas. "And those promises, of which he avails +himself to plague me, oblige me to get married almost secretly; for if +he should hear that I am marrying Crevel, he is the sort of man that +--that would kill me." + +"Oh, as to that!" said Steinbock, with a scornful expression, which +conveyed that such a danger was small indeed for a woman beloved by a +Pole. + +And in the matter of valor there is no brag or bravado in a Pole, so +thoroughly and seriously brave are they all. + +"And that idiot Crevel," she went on, "who wants to make a great +display and indulge his taste for inexpensive magnificence in honor of +the wedding, places me in difficulties from which I see no escape." + +Could Valerie confess to this man, whom she adored, that since the +discomfiture of Baron Hulot, this Baron Henri Montes had inherited the +privilege of calling on her at all hours of the day or night; and +that, notwithstanding her cleverness, she was still puzzled to find a +cause of quarrel in which the Brazilian might seem to be solely in the +wrong? She knew the Baron's almost savage temper--not unlike Lisbeth's +--too well not to quake as she thought of this Othello of Rio de +Janeiro. + +As the carriage drove up, Steinbock released Valerie, for his arm was +round her waist, and took up a newspaper, in which he was found +absorbed. Valerie was stitching with elaborate care at the slippers +she was working for Crevel. + +"How they slander her!" whispered Lisbeth to Crevel, pointing to this +picture as they opened the door. "Look at her hair--not in the least +tumbled. To hear Victorin, you might have expected to find two +turtle-doves in a nest." + +"My dear Lisbeth," cried Crevel, in his favorite position, "you see +that to turn Lucretia into Aspasia, you have only to inspire a +passion!" + +"And have I not always told you," said Lisbeth, "that women like a +burly profligate like you?" + +"And she would be most ungrateful, too," said Crevel; "for as to the +money I have spent here, Grindot and I alone can tell!" + +And he waved a hand at the staircase. + +In decorating this house, which Crevel regarded as his own, Grindot +had tried to compete with Cleretti, in whose hands the Duc +d'Herouville had placed Josepha's villa. But Crevel, incapable of +understanding art, had, like all sordid souls, wanted to spend a +certain sum fixed beforehand. Grindot, fettered by a contract, had +found it impossible to embody his architectural dream. + +The difference between Josepha's house and that in the Rue Barbet was +just that between the individual stamp on things and commonness. The +objects you admired at Crevel's were to be bought in any shop. These +two types of luxury are divided by the river Million. A mirror, if +unique, is worth six thousand francs; a mirror designed by a +manufacturer who turns them out by the dozen costs five hundred. A +genuine lustre by Boulle will sell at a public auction for three +thousand francs; the same thing reproduced by casting may be made for +a thousand or twelve hundred; one is archaeologically what a picture +by Raphael is in painting, the other is a copy. At what would you +value a copy of a Raphael? Thus Crevel's mansion was a splendid +example of the luxury of idiots, while Josepha's was a perfect model +of an artist's home. + +"War is declared," said Crevel, going up to Madame Marneffe. + +She rang the bell. + +"Go and find Monsieur Berthier," said she to the man-servant, "and do +not return without him. If you had succeeded," said she, embracing +Crevel, "we would have postponed our happiness, my dear Daddy, and +have given a really splendid entertainment; but when a whole family is +set against a match, my dear, decency requires that the wedding shall +be a quiet one, especially when the lady is a widow." + +"On the contrary, I intend to make a display of magnificence _a la_ +Louis XIV.," said Crevel, who of late had held the eighteenth century +rather cheap. "I have ordered new carriages; there is one for monsieur +and one for madame, two neat coupes; and a chaise, a handsome +traveling carriage with a splendid hammercloth, on springs that +tremble like Madame Hulot." + +"Oh, ho! _You intend?_--Then you have ceased to be my lamb?--No, no, +my friend, you will do what _I_ intend. We will sign the contract +quietly--just ourselves--this afternoon. Then, on Wednesday, we will +be regularly married, really married, in mufti, as my poor mother +would have said. We will walk to church, plainly dressed, and have +only a low mass. Our witnesses are Stidmann, Steinbock, Vignon, and +Massol, all wide-awake men, who will be at the mairie by chance, and +who will so far sacrifice themselves as to attend mass. + +"Your colleague will perform the civil marriage, for once in a way, as +early as half-past nine. Mass is at ten; we shall be at home to +breakfast by half-past eleven. + +"I have promised our guests that we will sit at table till the +evening. There will be Bixiou, your old official chum du Tillet, +Lousteau, Vernisset, Leon de Lora, Vernou, all the wittiest men in +Paris, who will not know that we are married. We will play them a +little trick, we will get just a little tipsy, and Lisbeth must join +us. I want her to study matrimony; Bixiou shall make love to her, and +--and enlighten her darkness." + +For two hours Madame Marneffe went on talking nonsense, and Crevel +made this judicious reflection: + +"How can so light-hearted a creature be utterly depraved? +Feather-brained, yes! but wicked? Nonsense!" + +"Well, and what did the young people say about me?" said Valerie to +Crevel at a moment when he sat down by her on the sofa. "All sorts of +horrors?" + +"They will have it that you have a criminal passion for Wenceslas +--you, who are virtue itself." + +"I love him!--I should think so, my little Wenceslas!" cried Valerie, +calling the artist to her, taking his face in her hands, and kissing +his forehead. "A poor boy with no fortune, and no one to depend on! +Cast off by a carrotty giraffe! What do you expect, Crevel? Wenceslas +is my poet, and I love him as if he were my own child, and make no +secret of it. Bah! your virtuous women see evil everywhere and in +everything. Bless me, could they not sit by a man without doing wrong? +I am a spoilt child who has had all it ever wanted, and bonbons no +longer excite me.--Poor things! I am sorry for them! + +"And who slandered me so?" + +"Victorin," said Crevel. + +"Then why did you not stop his mouth, the odious legal macaw! with the +story of the two hundred thousand francs and his mamma?" + +"Oh, the Baroness had fled," said Lisbeth. + +"They had better take care, Lisbeth," said Madame Marneffe, with a +frown. "Either they will receive me and do it handsomely, and come to +their stepmother's house--all the party!--or I will see them in lower +depths than the Baron has reached, and you may tell them I said so! +--At last I shall turn nasty. On my honor, I believe that evil is the +scythe with which to cut down the good." + +At three o'clock Monsieur Berthier, Cardot's successor, read the +marriage-contract, after a short conference with Crevel, for some of +the articles were made conditional on the action taken by Monsieur and +Madame Victorin Hulot. + +Crevel settled on his wife a fortune consisting, in the first place, +of forty thousand francs in dividends on specified securities; +secondly, of the house and all its contents; and thirdly, of three +million francs not invested. He also assigned to his wife every +benefit allowed by law; he left all the property free of duty; and in +the event of their dying without issue, each devised to the survivor +the whole of their property and real estate. + +By this arrangement the fortune left to Celestine and her husband was +reduced to two millions of francs in capital. If Crevel and his second +wife should have children, Celestine's share was limited to five +hundred thousand francs, as the life-interest in the rest was to +accrue to Valerie. This would be about the ninth part of his whole +real and personal estate. + + + +Lisbeth returned to dine in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, despair written +on her face. She explained and bewailed the terms of the +marriage-contract, but found Celestine and her husband insensible to +the disastrous news. + +"You have provoked your father, my children. Madame Marneffe swears +that you shall receive Monsieur Crevel's wife and go to her house," +said she. + +"Never!" said Victorin. + +"Never!" said Celestine. + +"Never!" said Hortense. + +Lisbeth was possessed by the wish to crush the haughty attitude +assumed by all the Hulots. + +"She seems to have arms that she can turn against you," she replied. +"I do not know all about it, but I shall find out. She spoke vaguely +of some history of two hundred thousand francs in which Adeline is +implicated." + +The Baroness fell gently backward on the sofa she was sitting on in a +fit of hysterical sobbing. + +"Go there, go, my children!" she cried. "Receive the woman! Monsieur +Crevel is an infamous wretch. He deserves the worst punishment +imaginable.--Do as the woman desires you! She is a monster--she knows +all!" + +After gasping out these words with tears and sobs, Madame Hulot +collected her strength to go to her room, leaning on her daughter and +Celestine. + +"What is the meaning of all this?" cried Lisbeth, left alone with +Victorin. + +The lawyer stood rigid, in very natural dismay, and did not hear her. + +"What is the matter, my dear Victorin?" + +"I am horrified!" said he, and his face scowled darkly. "Woe to +anybody who hurts my mother! I have no scruples then. I would crush +that woman like a viper if I could!--What, does she attack my mother's +life, my mother's honor?" + +"She said, but do not repeat it, my dear Victorin--she said you should +all fall lower even than your father. And she scolded Crevel roundly +for not having shut your mouths with this secret that seems to be such +a terror to Adeline." + +A doctor was sent for, for the Baroness was evidently worse. He gave +her a draught containing a large dose of opium, and Adeline, having +swallowed it, fell into a deep sleep; but the whole family were +greatly alarmed. + +Early next morning Victorin went out, and on his way to the Courts +called at the Prefecture of the Police, where he begged Vautrin, the +head of the detective department, to send him Madame de Saint-Esteve. + +"We are forbidden, monsieur, to meddle in your affairs; but Madame de +Saint-Esteve is in business, and will attend to your orders," replied +this famous police officer. + +On his return home, the unhappy lawyer was told that his mother's +reason was in danger. Doctor Bianchon, Doctor Larabit, and Professor +Angard had met in consultation, and were prepared to apply heroic +remedies to hinder the rush of blood to the head. At the moment when +Victorin was listening to Doctor Bianchon, who was giving him, at some +length, his reasons for hoping that the crisis might be got over, the +man-servant announced that a client, Madame de Saint-Esteve, was +waiting to see him. Victorin left Bianchon in the middle of a sentence +and flew downstairs like a madman. + +"Is there any hereditary lunacy in the family?" said Bianchon, +addressing Larabit. + +The doctors departed, leaving a hospital attendant, instructed by +them, to watch Madame Hulot. + +"A whole life of virtue!----" was the only sentence the sufferer had +spoken since the attack. + +Lisbeth never left Adeline's bedside; she sat up all night, and was +much admired by the two younger women. + +"Well, my dear Madame de Saint-Esteve," said Victorin, showing the +dreadful old woman into his study and carefully shutting the doors, +"how are we getting on?" + +"Ah, ha! my dear friend," said she, looking at Victorin with cold +irony. "So you have thought things over?" + +"Have you done anything?" + +"Will you pay fifty thousand francs?" + +"Yes," replied Victorin, "for we must get on. Do you know that by one +single phrase that woman has endangered my mother's life and reason? +So, I say, get on." + +"We have got on!" replied the old woman. + +"Well?" cried Victorin, with a gulp. + +"Well, you do not cry off the expenses?" + +"On the contrary." + +"They run up to twenty-three thousand francs already." + +Victorin looked helplessly at the woman. + +"Well, could we hoodwink you, you, one of the shining lights of the +law?" said she. "For that sum we have secured a maid's conscience and +a picture by Raphael.--It is not dear." + +Hulot, still bewildered, sat with wide open eyes. + +"Well, then," his visitor went on, "we have purchased the honesty of +Mademoiselle Reine Tousard, a damsel from whom Madame Marneffe has no +secrets--" + +"I understand!" + +"But if you shy, say so." + +"I will play blindfold," he replied. "My mother has told me that that +couple deserve the worst torments--" + +"The rack is out of date," said the old woman. + +"You answer for the result?" + +"Leave it all to me," said the woman; "your vengeance is simmering." + +She looked at the clock; it was six. + +"Your avenger is dressing; the fires are lighted at the _Rocher de +Cancale_; the horses are pawing the ground; my irons are getting hot. +--Oh, I know your Madame Marneffe by heart!--Everything is ready. And +there are some boluses in the rat-trap; I will tell you to-morrow +morning if the mouse is poisoned. I believe she will be; good evening, +my son." + +"Good-bye, madame." + +"Do you know English?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, my son, thou shalt be King. That is to say, you shall come into +your inheritance," said the dreadful old witch, foreseen by +Shakespeare, and who seemed to know her Shakespeare. + +She left Hulot amazed at the door of his study. + +"The consultation is for to-morrow!" said she, with the gracious air +of a regular client. + +She saw two persons coming, and wished to pass in their eyes a +pinchbeck countess. + +"What impudence!" thought Hulot, bowing to his pretended client. + + + +Baron Montes de Montejanos was a _lion_, but a lion not accounted for. +Fashionable Paris, Paris of the turf and of the town, admired the +ineffable waistcoats of this foreign gentleman, his spotless +patent-leather boots, his incomparable sticks, his much-coveted horses, +and the negro servants who rode the horses and who were entirely slaves +and most consumedly thrashed. + +His fortune was well known; he had a credit account up to seven +hundred thousand francs in the great banking house of du Tillet; but +he was always seen alone. When he went to "first nights," he was in a +stall. He frequented no drawing-rooms. He had never given his arm to a +girl on the streets. His name would not be coupled with that of any +pretty woman of the world. To pass his time he played whist at the +Jockey-Club. The world was reduced to calumny, or, which it thought +funnier, to laughing at his peculiarities; he went by the name of +Combabus. + +Bixiou, Leon de Lora, Lousteau, Florine, Mademoiselle Heloise +Brisetout, and Nathan, supping one evening with the notorious +Carabine, with a large party of _lions_ and _lionesses_, had invented +this name with an excessively burlesque explanation. Massol, as being +on the Council of State, and Claude Vignon, erewhile Professor of +Greek, had related to the ignorant damsels the famous anecdote, +preserved in Rollin's _Ancient History_, concerning Combabus, that +voluntary Abelard who was placed in charge of the wife of a King of +Assyria, Persia, Bactria, Mesopotamia, and other geographical +divisions peculiar to old Professor du Bocage, who continued the work +of d'Anville, the creator of the East of antiquity. This nickname, +which gave Carabine's guests laughter for a quarter of an hour, gave +rise to a series of over-free jests, to which the Academy could not +award the Montyon prize; but among which the name was taken up, to +rest thenceforth on the curly mane of the handsome Baron, called by +Josepha the splendid Brazilian--as one might say a splendid +_Catoxantha_. + +Carabine, the loveliest of her tribe, whose delicate beauty and +amusing wit had snatched the sceptre of the Thirteenth Arrondissement +from the hands of Mademoiselle Turquet, better known by the name of +Malaga--Mademoiselle Seraphine Sinet (this was her real name) was to +du Tillet the banker what Josepha Mirah was to the Duc d'Herouville. + +Now, on the morning of the very day when Madame de Saint-Esteve had +prophesied success to Victorin, Carabine had said to du Tillet at +about seven o'clock: + +"If you want to be very nice, you will give me a dinner at the _Rocher +de Cancale_ and bring Combabus. We want to know, once for all, whether +he has a mistress.--I bet that he has, and I should like to win." + +"He is still at the Hotel des Princes; I will call," replied du +Tillet. "We will have some fun. Ask all the youngsters--the youngster +Bixiou, the youngster Lora, in short, all the clan." + +At half-past seven that evening, in the handsomest room of the +restaurant where all Europe has dined, a splendid silver service was +spread, made on purpose for entertainments where vanity pays the bill +in bank-notes. A flood of light fell in ripples on the chased rims; +waiters, whom a provincial might have taken for diplomatists but for +their age, stood solemnly, as knowing themselves to be overpaid. + +Five guests had arrived, and were waiting for nine more. These were +first and foremost Bixiou, still flourishing in 1843, the salt of +every intellectual dish, always supplied with fresh wit--a phenomenon +as rare in Paris as virtue is; Leon de Lora, the greatest living +painter of landscape and the sea who has this great advantage over all +his rivals, that he has never fallen below his first successes. The +courtesans could never dispense with these two kings of ready wit. No +supper, no dinner, was possible without them. + +Seraphine Sinet, _dite_ Carabine, as the mistress _en titre_ of the +Amphitryon, was one of the first to arrive; and the brilliant lighting +showed off her shoulders, unrivaled in Paris, her throat, as round as +if turned in a lathe, without a crease, her saucy face, and dress of +satin brocade in two shades of blue, trimmed with Honiton lace enough +to have fed a whole village for a month. + +Pretty Jenny Cadine, not acting that evening, came in a dress of +incredible splendor; her portrait is too well known to need any +description. A party is always a Longchamps of evening dress for these +ladies, each anxious to win the prize for her millionaire by thus +announcing to her rivals: + +"This is the price I am worth!" + +A third woman, evidently at the initial stage of her career, gazed, +almost shamefaced, at the luxury of her two established and wealthy +companions. Simply dressed in white cashmere trimmed with blue, her +head had been dressed with real flowers by a coiffeur of the +old-fashioned school, whose awkward hands had unconsciously given +the charm of ineptitude to her fair hair. Still unaccustomed to any +finery, she showed the timidity--to use a hackneyed phrase +--inseparable from a first appearance. She had come from Valognes to +find in Paris some use for her distracting youthfulness, her innocence +that might have stirred the senses of a dying man, and her beauty, +worthy to hold its own with any that Normandy has ever supplied to the +theatres of the capital. The lines of that unblemished face were the +ideal of angelic purity. Her milk-white skin reflected the light like +a mirror. The delicate pink in her cheeks might have been laid on with +a brush. She was called Cydalise, and, as will be seen, she was an +important pawn in the game played by Ma'ame Nourrisson to defeat +Madame Marneffe. + +"Your arm is not a match for your name, my child," said Jenny Cadine, +to whom Carabine had introduced this masterpiece of sixteen, having +brought her with her. + +And, in fact, Cydalise displayed to public admiration a fine pair of +arms, smooth and satiny, but red with healthy young blood. + +"What do you want for her?" said Jenny Cadine, in an undertone to +Carabine. + +"A fortune." + +"What are you going to do with her?" + +"Well--Madame Combabus!" + +"And what are you to get for such a job?" + +"Guess." + +"A service of plate?" + +"I have three." + +"Diamonds?" + +"I am selling them." + +"A green monkey?" + +"No. A picture by Raphael." + +"What maggot is that in your brain?" + +"Josepha makes me sick with her pictures," said Carabine. "I want some +better than hers." + +Du Tillet came with the Brazilian, the hero of the feast; the Duc +d'Herouville followed with Josepha. The singer wore a plain velvet +gown, but she had on a necklace worth a hundred and twenty thousand +francs, pearls hardly distinguishable from her skin like white +camellia petals. She had stuck one scarlet camellia in her black hair +--a patch--the effect was dazzling, and she had amused herself by +putting eleven rows of pearls on each arm. As she shook hands with +Jenny Cadine, the actress said, "Lend me your mittens!" + +Josepha unclasped them one by one and handed them to her friend on a +plate. + +"There's style!" said Carabine. "Quite the Duchess! You have robbed +the ocean to dress the nymph, Monsieur le Duc," she added turning to +the little Duc d'Herouville. + +The actress took two of the bracelets; she clasped the other twenty on +the singer's beautiful arms, which she kissed. + +Lousteau, the literary cadger, la Palferine and Malaga, Massol, +Vauvinet, and Theodore Gaillard, a proprietor of one of the most +important political newspapers, completed the party. The Duc +d'Herouville, polite to everybody, as a fine gentleman knows how to +be, greeted the Comte de la Palferine with the particular nod which, +while it does not imply either esteem or intimacy, conveys to all the +world, "We are of the same race, the same blood--equals!"--And this +greeting, the shibboleth of the aristocracy, was invented to be the +despair of the upper citizen class. + +Carabine placed Combabus on her left, and the Duc d'Herouville on her +right. Cydalise was next to the Brazilian, and beyond her was Bixiou. +Malaga sat by the Duke. + +Oysters appeared at seven o'clock; at eight they were drinking iced +punch. Every one is familiar with the bill of fare of such a banquet. +By nine o'clock they were talking as people talk after forty-two +bottles of various wines, drunk by fourteen persons. Dessert was on +the table, the odious dessert of the month of April. Of all the party, +the only one affected by the heady atmosphere was Cydalise, who was +humming a tune. None of the party, with the exception of the poor +country girl, had lost their reason; the drinkers and the women were +the experienced _elite_ of the society that sups. Their wits were +bright, their eyes glistened, but with no loss of intelligence, though +the talk drifted into satire, anecdote, and gossip. Conversation, +hitherto confined to the inevitable circle of racing, horses, +hammerings on the Bourse, the different occupations of the _lions_ +themselves, and the scandals of the town, showed a tendency to break +up into intimate _tete-a-tete_, the dialogues of two hearts. + +And at this stage, at a signal from Carabine to Leon de Lora, Bixiou, +la Palferine, and du Tillet, love came under discussion. + +"A doctor in good society never talks of medicine, true nobles never +speak of their ancestors, men of genius do not discuss their works," +said Josepha; "why should we talk business? If I got the opera put off +in order to dine here, it was assuredly not to work.--So let us change +the subject, dear children." + +"But we are speaking of real love, my beauty," said Malaga, "of the +love that makes a man fling all to the dogs--father, mother, wife, +children--and retire to Clichy." + +"Talk away, then, 'don't know yer,'" said the singer. + +The slang words, borrowed from the Street Arab, and spoken by these +women, may be a poem on their lips, helped by the expression of the +eyes and face. + +"What, do not I love you, Josepha?" said the Duke in a low voice. + +"You, perhaps, may love me truly," said she in his ear, and she +smiled. "But I do not love you in the way they describe, with such +love as makes the world dark in the absence of the man beloved. You +are delightful to me, useful--but not indispensable; and if you were +to throw me over to-morrow, I could have three dukes for one." + +"Is true love to be found in Paris?" asked Leon de Lora. "Men have not +even time to make a fortune; how can they give themselves over to true +love, which swamps a man as water melts sugar? A man must be +enormously rich to indulge in it, for love annihilates him--for +instance, like our Brazilian friend over there. As I said long ago, +'Extremes defeat--themselves.' A true lover is like an eunuch; women +have ceased to exist for him. He is mystical; he is like the true +Christian, an anchorite of the desert!--See our noble Brazilian." + +Every one at table looked at Henri Montes de Montejanos, who was shy +at finding every eye centred on him. + +"He has been feeding there for an hour without discovering, any more +than an ox at pasture, that he is sitting next to--I will not say, in +such company, the loveliest--but the freshest woman in all Paris." + +"Everything is fresh here, even the fish; it is what the house is +famous for," said Carabine. + +Baron Montes looked good-naturedly at the painter, and said: + +"Very good! I drink to your very good health," and bowing to Leon de +Lora, he lifted his glass of port wine and drank it with much dignity. + +"Are you then truly in love?" asked Malaga of her neighbor, thus +interpreting his toast. + +The Brazilian refilled his glass, bowed to Carabine, and drank again. + +"To the lady's health then!" said the courtesan, in such a droll tone +that Lora, du Tillet, and Bixiou burst out laughing. + +The Brazilian sat like a bronze statue. This impassibility provoked +Carabine. She knew perfectly well that Montes was devoted to Madame +Marneffe, but she had not expected this dogged fidelity, this +obstinate silence of conviction. + +A woman is as often gauged by the attitude of her lover as a man is +judged from the tone of his mistress. The Baron was proud of his +attachment to Valerie, and of hers to him; his smile had, to these +experienced connoisseurs, a touch of irony; he was really grand to +look upon; wine had not flushed him; and his eyes, with their peculiar +lustre as of tarnished gold, kept the secrets of his soul. Even +Carabine said to herself: + +"What a woman she must be! How she has sealed up that heart!" + +"He is a rock!" said Bixiou in an undertone, imagining that the whole +thing was a practical joke, and never suspecting the importance to +Carabine of reducing this fortress. + +While this conversation, apparently so frivolous, was going on at +Carabine's right, the discussion of love was continued on her left +between the Duc d'Herouville, Lousteau, Josepha, Jenny Cadine, and +Massol. They were wondering whether such rare phenomena were the +result of passion, obstinacy, or affection. Josepha, bored to death by +it all, tried to change the subject. + +"You are talking of what you know nothing about. Is there a man among +you who ever loved a woman--a woman beneath him--enough to squander +his fortune and his children's, to sacrifice his future and blight his +past, to risk going to the hulks for robbing the Government, to kill +an uncle and a brother, to let his eye be so effectually blinded that +he did not even perceive that it was done to hinder his seeing the +abyss into which, as a crowning jest, he was being driven? Du Tillet +has a cash-box under his left breast; Leon de Lora has his wit; Bixiou +would laugh at himself for a fool if he loved any one but himself; +Massol has a minister's portfolio in the place of a heart; Lousteau +can have nothing but viscera, since he could endure to be thrown over +by Madame de Baudraye; Monsieur le Duc is too rich to prove his love +by his ruin; Vauvinet is not in it--I do not regard a bill-broker as +one of the human race; and you have never loved, nor I, nor Jenny +Cadine, nor Malaga. For my part, I never but once even saw the +phenomenon I have described. It was," and she turned to Jenny Cadine, +"that poor Baron Hulot, whom I am going to advertise for like a lost +dog, for I want to find him." + +"Oh, ho!" said Carabine to herself, and looking keenly at Josepha, +"then Madame Nourrisson has two pictures by Raphael, since Josepha is +playing my hand!" + +"Poor fellow," said Vauvinet, "he was a great man! Magnificent! And +what a figure, what a style, the air of Francis I.! What a volcano! +and how full of ingenious ways of getting money! He must be looking +for it now, wherever he is, and I make no doubt he extracts it even +from the walls built of bones that you may see in the suburbs of Paris +near the city gates--" + +"And all that," said Bixiou, "for that little Madame Marneffe! There +is a precious hussy for you!" + +"She is just going to marry my friend Crevel," said du Tillet. + +"And she is madly in love with my friend Steinbock," Leon de Lora put +in. + +These three phrases were like so many pistol-shots fired point-blank +at Montes. He turned white, and the shock was so painful that he rose +with difficulty. + +"You are a set of blackguards!" cried he. "You have no right to speak +the name of an honest woman in the same breath with those fallen +creatures--above all, not to make it a mark for your slander!" + +He was interrupted by unanimous bravos and applause. Bixiou, Leon de +Lora, Vauvinet, du Tillet, and Massol set the example, and there was a +chorus. + +"Hurrah for the Emperor!" said Bixiou. + +"Crown him! crown him!" cried Vauvinet. + +"Three groans for such a good dog! Hurrah for Brazil!" cried Lousteau. + +"So, my copper-colored Baron, it is our Valerie that you love; and you +are not disgusted?" said Leon de Lora. + +"His remark is not parliamentary, but it is grand!" observed Massol. + +"But, my most delightful customer," said du Tillet, "you were +recommended to me; I am your banker; your innocence reflects on my +credit." + +"Yes, tell me, you are a reasonable creature----" said the Brazilian +to the banker. + +"Thanks on behalf of the company," said Bixiou with a bow. + +"Tell me the real facts," Montes went on, heedless of Bixiou's +interjection. + +"Well, then," replied du Tillet, "I have the honor to tell you that I +am asked to the Crevel wedding." + +"Ah, ha! Combabus holds a brief for Madame Marneffe!" said Josepha, +rising solemnly. + +She went round to Montes with a tragic look, patted him kindly on the +head, looked at him for a moment with comical admiration, and nodded +sagely. + +"Hulot was the first instance of love through fire and water," said +she; "this is the second. But it ought not to count, as it comes from +the Tropics." + +Montes had dropped into his chair again, when Josepha gently touched +his forehead, and looked at du Tillet as he said: + +"If I am the victim of a Paris jest, if you only wanted to get at my +secret----" and he sent a flashing look round the table, embracing all +the guests in a flaming glance that blazed with the sun of Brazil,--"I +beg of you as a favor to tell me so," he went on, in a tone of almost +childlike entreaty; "but do not vilify the woman I love." + +"Nay, indeed," said Carabine in a low voice; "but if, on the contrary, +you are shamefully betrayed, cheated, tricked by Valerie, if I should +give you the proof in an hour, in my own house, what then?" + +"I cannot tell you before all these Iagos," said the Brazilian. + +Carabine understood him to say _magots_ (baboons). + +"Well, well, say no more!" she replied, smiling. "Do not make yourself +a laughing-stock for all the wittiest men in Paris; come to my house, +we will talk it over." + +Montes was crushed. "Proofs," he stammered, "consider--" + +"Only too many," replied Carabine; "and if the mere suspicion hits you +so hard, I fear for your reason." + +"Is this creature obstinate, I ask you? He is worse than the late +lamented King of Holland!--I say, Lousteau, Bixiou, Massol, all the +crew of you, are you not invited to breakfast with Madame Marneffe the +day after to-morrow?" said Leon de Lora. + +"_Ya_," said du Tillet; "I have the honor of assuring you, Baron, that +if you had by any chance thought of marrying Madame Marneffe, you are +thrown out like a bill in Parliament, beaten by a blackball called +Crevel. My friend, my old comrade Crevel, has eighty thousand francs a +year; and you, I suppose, did not show such a good hand, for if you +had, you, I imagine, would have been preferred." + +Montes listened with a half-absent, half-smiling expression, which +struck them all with terror. + +At this moment the head-waiter came to whisper to Carabine that a +lady, a relation of hers, was in the drawing-room and wished to speak +to her. + +Carabine rose and went out to find Madame Nourrisson, decently veiled +with black lace. + +"Well, child, am I to go to your house? Has he taken the hook?" + +"Yes, mother; and the pistol is so fully loaded, that my only fear is +that it will burst," said Carabine. + +About an hour later, Montes, Cydalise, and Carabine, returning from +the _Rocher de Cancale_, entered Carabine's little sitting-room in the +Rue Saint-Georges. Madame Nourrisson was sitting in an armchair by the +fire. + +"Here is my worthy old aunt," said Carabine. + +"Yes, child, I came in person to fetch my little allowance. You would +have forgotten me, though you are kind-hearted, and I have some bills +to pay to-morrow. Buying and selling clothes, I am always short of +cash. Who is this at your heels? The gentleman looks very much put out +about something." + +The dreadful Madame Nourrisson, at this moment so completely disguised +as to look like a respectable old body, rose to embrace Carabine, one +of the hundred and odd courtesans she had launched on their horrible +career of vice. + +"He is an Othello who is not to be taken in, whom I have the honor of +introducing to you--Monsieur le Baron Montes de Montejanos." + +"Oh! I have heard him talked about, and know his name.--You are +nicknamed Combabus, because you love but one woman, and in Paris, that +is the same as loving no one at all. And is it by chance the object of +your affections who is fretting you? Madame Marneffe, Crevel's woman? +I tell you what, my dear sir, you may bless your stars instead of +cursing them. She is a good-for-nothing baggage, is that little woman. +I know her tricks!" + +"Get along," said Carabine, into whose hand Madame Nourrisson had +slipped a note while embracing her, "you do not know your Brazilians. +They are wrong-headed creatures that insist on being impaled through +the heart. The more jealous they are, the more jealous they want to +be. Monsieur talks of dealing death all round, but he will kill nobody +because he is in love.--However, I have brought him here to give him +the proofs of his discomfiture, which I have got from that little +Steinbock." + +Montes was drunk; he listened as if the women were talking about +somebody else. + +Carabine went to take off her velvet wrap, and read a facsimile of a +note, as follows:-- + + "DEAR PUSS.--He dines with Popinot this evening, and will come + to fetch me from the Opera at eleven. I shall go out at about + half-past five and count on finding you at our paradise. Order + dinner to be sent in from the _Maison d'or_. Dress, so as to be + able to take me to the Opera. We shall have four hours to ourselves. + Return this note to me; not that your Valerie doubts you--I would + give you my life, my fortune, and my honor, but I am afraid of the + tricks of chance." + +"Here, Baron, this is the note sent to Count Steinbock this morning; +read the address. The original document is burnt." + +Montes turned the note over and over, recognized the writing, and was +struck by a rational idea, which is sufficient evidence of the +disorder of his brain. + +"And, pray," said he, looking at Carabine, "what object have you in +torturing my heart, for you must have paid very dear for the privilege +of having the note in your possession long enough to get it +lithographed?" + +"Foolish man!" said Carabine, at a nod from Madame Nourrisson, "don't +you see that poor child Cydalise--a girl of sixteen, who has been +pining for you these three months, till she has lost her appetite for +food or drink, and who is heart-broken because you have never even +glanced at her?" + +Cydalise put her handkerchief to her eyes with an appearance of +emotion--"She is furious," Carabine went on, "though she looks as if +butter would not melt in her mouth, furious to see the man she adores +duped by a villainous hussy; she would kill Valerie--" + +"Oh, as for that," said the Brazilian, "that is my business!" + +"What, killing?" said old Nourrisson. "No, my son, we don't do that +here nowadays." + +"Oh!" said Montes, "I am not a native of this country. I live in a +parish where I can laugh at your laws; and if you give me proof--" + +"Well, that note. Is that nothing?" + +"No," said the Brazilian. "I do not believe in the writing. I must see +for myself." + +"See!" cried Carabine, taking the hint at once from a gesture of her +supposed aunt. "You shall see, my dear Tiger, all you wish to see--on +one condition." + +"And that is?" + +"Look at Cydalise." + +At a wink from Madame Nourrisson, Cydalise cast a tender look at the +Baron. + +"Will you be good to her? Will you make her a home?" asked Carabine. +"A girl of such beauty is well worth a house and a carriage! It would +be a monstrous shame to leave her to walk the streets. And besides +--she is in debt.--How much do you owe?" asked Carabine, nipping +Cydalise's arm. + +"She is worth all she can get," said the old woman. "The point is that +she can find a buyer." + +"Listen!" cried Montes, fully aware at last of this masterpiece of +womankind "you will show me Valerie--" + +"And Count Steinbock.--Certainly!" said Madame Nourrisson. + +For the past ten minutes the old woman had been watching the +Brazilian; she saw that he was an instrument tuned up to the murderous +pitch she needed; and, above all, so effectually blinded, that he +would never heed who had led him on to it, and she spoke:-- + +"Cydalise, my Brazilian jewel, is my niece, so her concerns are partly +mine. All this catastrophe will be the work of a few minutes, for a +friend of mine lets the furnished room to Count Steinbock where +Valerie is at this moment taking coffee--a queer sort of coffee, but +she calls it her coffee. So let us understand each other, Brazil!--I +like Brazil, it is a hot country.--What is to become of my niece?" + +"You old ostrich," said Montes, the plumes in the woman's bonnet +catching his eye, "you interrupted me.--If you show me--if I see +Valerie and that artist together--" + +"As you would wish to be--" said Carabine; "that is understood." + +"Then I will take this girl and carry her away--" + +"Where?" asked Carabine. + +"To Brazil," replied the Baron. "I will make her my wife. My uncle +left me ten leagues square of entailed estate; that is how I still +have that house and home. I have a hundred negroes--nothing but +negroes and negresses and negro brats, all bought by my uncle--" + +"Nephew to a nigger-driver," said Carabine, with a grimace. "That +needs some consideration.--Cydalise, child, are you fond of the +blacks?" + +"Pooh! Carabine, no nonsense," said the old woman. "The deuce is in +it! Monsieur and I are doing business." + +"If I take up another Frenchwoman, I mean to have her to myself," the +Brazilian went on. "I warn you, mademoiselle, I am king there, and not +a constitutional king. I am Czar; my subjects are mine by purchase, +and no one can escape from my kingdom, which is a hundred leagues from +any human settlement, hemmed in by savages on the interior, and +divided from the sea by a wilderness as wide as France." + +"I should prefer a garret here." + +"So thought I," said Montes, "since I sold all my land and possessions +at Rio to come back to Madame Marneffe." + +"A man does not make such a voyage for nothing," remarked Madame +Nourrisson. "You have a right to look for love for your own sake, +particularly being so good-looking.--Oh, he is very handsome!" said +she to Carabine. + +"Very handsome, handsomer than the _Postillon de Longjumeau_," replied +the courtesan. + +Cydalise took the Brazilian's hand, but he released it as politely as +he could. + +"I came back for Madame Marneffe," the man went on where he had left +off, "but you do not know why I was three years thinking about it." + +"No, savage!" said Carabine. + +"Well, she had so repeatedly told me that she longed to live with me +alone in a desert--" + +"Oh, ho! he is not a savage after all," cried Carabine, with a shout +of laughter. "He is of the highly-civilized tribe of Flats!" + +"She had told me this so often," Montes went on, regardless of the +courtesan's mockery, "that I had a lovely house fitted up in the heart +of that vast estate. I came back to France to fetch Valerie, and the +first evening I saw her--" + +"Saw her is very proper!" said Carabine. "I will remember it." + +"She told me to wait till that wretched Marneffe was dead; and I +agreed, and forgave her for having admitted the attentions of Hulot. +Whether the devil had her in hand I don't know, but from that instant +that woman has humored my every whim, complied with all my demands +--never for one moment has she given me cause to suspect her!--" + +"That is supremely clever!" said Carabine to Madame Nourrisson, who +nodded in sign of assent. + +"My faith in that woman," said Montes, and he shed a tear, "was a +match for my love. Just now, I was ready to fight everybody at +table--" + +"So I saw," said Carabine. + +"And if I am cheated, if she is going to be married, if she is at this +moment in Steinbock's arms, she deserves a thousand deaths! I will +kill her as I would smash a fly--" + +"And how about the gendarmes, my son?" said Madame Nourrisson, with a +smile that made your flesh creep. + +"And the police agents, and the judges, and the assizes, and all the +set-out?" added Carabine. + +"You are bragging, my dear fellow," said the old woman, who wanted to +know all the Brazilian's schemes of vengeance. + +"I will kill her," he calmly repeated. "You called me a savage.--Do +you imagine that I am fool enough to go, like a Frenchman, and buy +poison at the chemist's shop?--During the time while we were driving +her, I thought out my means of revenge, if you should prove to be +right as concerns Valerie. One of my negroes has the most deadly of +animal poisons, and incurable anywhere but in Brazil. I will +administer it to Cydalise, who will give it to me; then by the time +when death is a certainty to Crevel and his wife, I shall be beyond +the Azores with your cousin, who will be cured, and I will marry her. +We have our own little tricks, we savages!--Cydalise," said he, +looking at the country girl, "is the animal I need.--How much does she +owe?" + +"A hundred thousand francs," said Cydalise. + +"She says little--but to the purpose," said Carabine, in a low tone to +Madame Nourrisson. + +"I am going mad!" cried the Brazilian, in a husky voice, dropping on +to a sofa. "I shall die of this! But I must see, for it is impossible! +--A lithographed note! What is to assure me that it is not a forgery? +--Baron Hulot was in love with Valerie?" said he, recalling Josepha's +harangue. "Nay; the proof that he did not love is that she is still +alive--I will not leave her living for anybody else, if she is not +wholly mine." + +Montes was terrible to behold. He bellowed, he stormed; he broke +everything he touched; rosewood was as brittle as glass. + +"How he destroys things!" said Carabine, looking at the old woman. "My +good boy," said she, giving the Brazilian a little slap, "Roland the +Furious is very fine in a poem; but in a drawing-room he is prosaic +and expensive." + +"My son," said old Nourrisson, rising to stand in front of the +crestfallen Baron, "I am of your way of thinking. When you love in +that way, and are joined 'till death does you part,' life must answer +for love. The one who first goes, carries everything away; it is a +general wreck. You command my esteem, my admiration, my consent, +especially for your inoculation, which will make me a Friend of the +Negro.--But you love her! You will hark back?" + +"I?--If she is so infamous, I--" + +"Well, come now, you are talking too much, it strikes me. A man who +means to be avenged, and who says he has the ways and means of a +savage, doesn't do that.--If you want to see your 'object' in her +paradise, you must take Cydalise and walk straight in with her on your +arm, as if the servant had made a mistake. But no scandal! If you mean +to be revenged, you must eat the leek, seem to be in despair, and +allow her to bully you.--Do you see?" said Madame Nourrisson, finding +the Brazilian quite amazed by so subtle a scheme. + +"All right, old ostrich," he replied. "Come along: I understand." + +"Good-bye, little one!" said the old woman to Carabine. + +She signed to Cydalise to go on with Montes, and remained a minute +with Carabine. + +"Now, child, I have but one fear, and that is that he will strangle +her! I should be in a very tight place; we must do everything gently. +I believe you have won your picture by Raphael; but they tell me it is +only a Mignard. Never mind, it is much prettier; all the Raphaels are +gone black, I am told, whereas this one is as bright as a Girodet." + +"All I want is to crow over Josepha; and it is all the same to me +whether I have a Mignard or a Raphael!--That thief had on such pearls +this evening!--you would sell your soul for them." + +Cydalise, Montes, and Madame Nourrisson got into a hackney coach that +was waiting at the door. Madame Nourrisson whispered to the driver the +address of a house in the same block as the Italian Opera House, which +they could have reached in five or six minutes from the Rue +Saint-Georges; but Madame Nourrisson desired the man to drive along +the Rue le Peletier, and to go very slowly, so as to be able to examine +the carriages in waiting. + +"Brazilian," said the old woman, "look out for your angel's carriage +and servants." + +The Baron pointed out Valerie's carriage as they passed it. + +"She has told them to come for her at ten o'clock, and she is gone in +a cab to the house where she visits Count Steinbock. She has dined +there, and will come to the Opera in half an hour.--It is well +contrived!" said Madame Nourrisson. "Thus you see how she has kept you +so long in the dark." + +The Brazilian made no reply. He had become the tiger, and had +recovered the imperturbable cool ferocity that had been so striking at +dinner. He was as calm as a bankrupt the day after he has stopped +payment. + +At the door of the house stood a hackney coach with two horses, of the +kind known as a _Compagnie Generale_, from the Company that runs them. + +"Stay here in the box," said the old woman to Montes. "This is not an +open house like a tavern. I will send for you." + +The paradise of Madame Marneffe and Wenceslas was not at all like that +of Crevel--who, finding it useless now, had just sold his to the Comte +Maxime de Trailles. This paradise, the paradise of all comers, +consisted of a room on the fourth floor opening to the landing, in a +house close to the Italian Opera. On each floor of this house there +was a room which had originally served as the kitchen to the +apartments on that floor. But the house having become a sort of inn, +let out for clandestine love affairs at an exorbitant price, the +owner, the real Madame Nourrisson, an old-clothes buyer in the Rue +Nueve Saint-Marc, had wisely appreciated the great value of these +kitchens, and had turned them into a sort of dining-rooms. Each of +these rooms, built between thick party-walls and with windows to the +street, was entirely shut in by very thick double doors on the +landing. Thus the most important secrets could be discussed over a +dinner, with no risk of being overheard. For greater security, the +windows had shutters inside and out. These rooms, in consequence of +this peculiarity, were let for twelve hundred francs a month. The +whole house, full of such paradises and mysteries was rented by Madame +Nourrisson the First for twenty-eight thousand francs of clear profit, +after paying her housekeeper, Madame Nourrisson the Second, for she +did not manage it herself. + +The paradise let to Count Steinbock had been hung with chintz; the +cold, hard floor, of common tiles reddened with encaustic, was not +felt through a soft thick carpet. The furniture consisted of two +pretty chairs and a bed in an alcove, just now half hidden by a table +loaded with the remains of an elegant dinner, while two bottles with +long necks and an empty champagne-bottle in ice strewed the field of +bacchus cultivated by Venus. + +There were also--the property, no doubt, of Valerie--a low easy-chair +and a man's smoking-chair, and a pretty toilet chest of drawers in +rosewood, the mirror handsomely framed _a la_ Pompadour. A lamp +hanging from the ceiling gave a subdued light, increased by wax +candles on the table and on the chimney-shelf. + +This sketch will suffice to give an idea, _urbi et orbi_, of +clandestine passion in the squalid style stamped on it in Paris in +1840. How far, alas! from the adulterous love, symbolized by Vulcan's +nets, three thousand years ago. + +When Montes and Cydalise came upstairs, Valerie, standing before the +fire, where a log was blazing, was allowing Wenceslas to lace her +stays. + +This is a moment when a woman who is neither too fat nor too thin, but +like Valerie, elegant and slender, displays divine beauty. The rosy +skin, mostly soft, invites the sleepiest eye. The lines of her figure, +so little hidden, are so charmingly outlined by the white pleats of +the shift and the support of the stays, that she is irresistible--like +everything that must be parted from. + +With a happy face smiling at the glass, a foot impatiently marking +time, a hand put up to restore order among the tumbled curls, and eyes +expressive of gratitude; with the glow of satisfaction which, like a +sunset, warms the least details of the countenance--everything makes +such a moment a mine of memories. + +Any man who dares look back on the early errors of his life may, +perhaps, recall some such reminiscences, and understand, though not +excuse, the follies of Hulot and Crevel. Women are so well aware of +their power at such a moment, that they find in it what may be called +the aftermath of the meeting. + +"Come, come; after two years' practice, you do not yet know how to +lace a woman's stays! You are too much a Pole!--There, it is ten +o'clock, my Wenceslas!" said Valerie, laughing at him. + +At this very moment, a mischievous waiting-woman, by inserting a +knife, pushed up the hook of the double doors that formed the whole +security of Adam and Eve. She hastily pulled the door open--for the +servants of these dens have little time to waste--and discovered one +of the bewitching _tableaux de genre_ which Gavarni has so often shown +at the Salon. + +"In here, madame," said the girl; and Cydalise went in, followed by +Montes. + +"But there is some one here.--Excuse me, madame," said the country +girl, in alarm. + +"What?--Why! it is Valerie!" cried Montes, violently slamming the +door. + +Madame Marneffe, too genuinely agitated to dissemble her feelings, +dropped on to the chair by the fireplace. Two tears rose to her eyes, +and at once dried away. She looked at Montes, saw the girl, and burst +into a cackle of forced laughter. The dignity of the insulted woman +redeemed the scantiness of her attire; she walked close up to the +Brazilian, and looked at him so defiantly that her eyes glittered like +knives. + +"So that," said she, standing face to face with the Baron, and +pointing to Cydalise--"that is the other side of your fidelity? You, +who have made me promises that might convert a disbeliever in love! +You, for whom I have done so much--have even committed crimes!--You +are right, monsieur, I am not to compare with a child of her age and +of such beauty! + +"I know what you are going to say," she went on, looking at Wenceslas, +whose undress was proof too clear to be denied. "This is my concern. +If I could love you after such gross treachery--for you have spied +upon me, you have paid for every step up these stairs, paid the +mistress of the house, and the servant, perhaps even Reine--a noble +deed!--If I had any remnant of affection for such a mean wretch, I +could give him reasons that would renew his passion!--But I leave you, +monsieur, to your doubts, which will become remorse.--Wenceslas, my +gown!" + +She took her dress and put it on, looked at herself in the glass, and +finished dressing without heeding the Baron, as calmly as if she had +been alone in the room. + +"Wenceslas, are you ready?--Go first." + +She had been watching Montes in the glass and out of the corner of her +eye, and fancied she could see in his pallor an indication of the +weakness which delivers a strong man over to a woman's fascinations; +she now took his hand, going so close to him that he could not help +inhaling the terrible perfumes which men love, and by which they +intoxicate themselves; then, feeling his pulses beat high, she looked +at him reproachfully. + +"You have my full permission to go and tell your history to Monsieur +Crevel; he will never believe you. I have a perfect right to marry +him, and he becomes my husband the day after to-morrow.--I shall make +him very happy.--Good-bye; try to forget me." + +"Oh! Valerie," cried Henri Montes, clasping her in his arms, "that is +impossible!--Come to Brazil!" + +Valerie looked in his face, and saw him her slave. + +"Well, if you still love me, Henri, two years hence I will be your +wife; but your expression at this moment strikes me as very +suspicious." + +"I swear to you that they made me drink, that false friends threw this +girl on my hands, and that the whole thing is the outcome of chance!" +said Montes. + +"Then I am to forgive you?" she asked, with a smile. + +"But you will marry, all the same?" asked the Baron, in an agony of +jealousy. + +"Eighty thousand francs a year!" said she, with almost comical +enthusiasm. "And Crevel loves me so much that he will die of it!" + +"Ah! I understand," said Montes. + +"Well, then, in a few days we will come to an understanding," said +she. + +And she departed triumphant. + +"I have no scruples," thought the Baron, standing transfixed for a few +minutes. "What! That woman believes she can make use of his passion to +be quit of that dolt, as she counted on Marneffe's decease!--I shall +be the instrument of divine wrath." + +Two days later those of du Tillet's guests who had demolished Madame +Marneffe tooth and nail, were seated round her table an hour after she +has shed her skin and changed her name for the illustrious name of a +Paris mayor. This verbal treason is one of the commonest forms of +Parisian levity. + +Valerie had had the satisfaction of seeing the Brazilian in the +church; for Crevel, now so entirely the husband, had invited him out +of bravado. And the Baron's presence at the breakfast astonished no +one. All these men of wit and of the world were familiar with the +meanness of passion, the compromises of pleasure. + +Steinbock's deep melancholy--for he was beginning to despise the woman +whom he had adored as an angel--was considered to be in excellent +taste. The Pole thus seemed to convey that all was at an end between +Valerie and himself. Lisbeth came to embrace her dear Madame Crevel, +and to excuse herself for not staying to the breakfast on the score of +Adeline's sad state of health. + +"Be quite easy," said she to Valerie, "they will call on you, and you +will call on them. Simply hearing the words _two hundred thousand +francs_ has brought the Baroness to death's door. Oh, you have them +all hard and fast by that tale!--But you must tell it to me." + +Within a month of her marriage, Valerie was at her tenth quarrel with +Steinbock; he insisted on explanations as to Henri Montes, reminding +her of the words spoken in their paradise; and, not content with +speaking to her in terms of scorn, he watched her so closely that she +never had a moment of liberty, so much was she fettered by his +jealousy on one side and Crevel's devotion on the other. + +Bereft now of Lisbeth, whose advice had always been so valuable she +flew into such a rage as to reproach Wenceslas for the money she had +lent him. This so effectually roused Steinbock's pride, that he came +no more to the Crevels' house. So Valerie had gained her point, which +was to be rid of him for a time, and enjoy some freedom. She waited +till Crevel should make a little journey into the country to see Comte +Popinot, with a view to arranging for her introduction to the +Countess, and was then able to make an appointment to meet the Baron, +whom she wanted to have at her command for a whole day to give him +those "reasons" which were to make him love her more than ever. + +On the morning of that day, Reine, who estimated the magnitude of her +crime by that of the bribe she received, tried to warn her mistress, +in whom she naturally took more interest than in strangers. Still, as +she had been threatened with madness, and ending her days in the +Salpetriere in case of indiscretion, she was cautious. + +"Madame, you are so well off now," said she. "Why take on again with +that Brazilian?--I do not trust him at all." + +"You are very right, Reine, and I mean to be rid of him." + +"Oh, madame, I am glad to hear it; he frightens me, does that big +Moor! I believe him to be capable of anything." + +"Silly child! you have more reason to be afraid for him when he is +with me." + +At this moment Lisbeth came in. + +"My dear little pet Nanny, what an age since we met!" cried Valerie. +"I am so unhappy! Crevel bores me to death; and Wenceslas is gone--we +quarreled." + +"I know," said Lisbeth, "and that is what brings me here. Victorin met +him at about five in the afternoon going into an eating-house at +five-and-twenty sous, and he brought him home, hungry, by working on +his feelings, to the Rue Louis-le-Grand.--Hortense, seeing Wenceslas +lean and ill and badly dressed, held out her hand. This is how you +throw me over--" + +"Monsieur Henri, madame," the man-servant announced in a low voice to +Valerie. + +"Leave me now, Lisbeth; I will explain it all to-morrow." But, as will +be seen, Valerie was ere long not in a state to explain anything to +anybody. + + + +Towards the end of May, Baron Hulot's pension was released by +Victorin's regular payment to Baron Nucingen. As everybody knows, +pensions are paid half-yearly, and only on the presentation of a +certificate that the recipient is alive: and as Hulot's residence was +unknown, the arrears unpaid on Vauvinet's demand remained to his +credit in the Treasury. Vauvinet now signed his renunciation of any +further claims, and it was still indispensable to find the pensioner +before the arrears could be drawn. + +Thanks to Bianchon's care, the Baroness had recovered her health; and +to this Josepha's good heart had contributed by a letter, of which the +orthography betrayed the collaboration of the Duc d'Herouville. This +was what the singer wrote to the Baroness, after twenty days of +anxious search:-- + + "MADAME LA BARONNE,--Monsieur Hulot was living, two months since, + in the Rue des Bernardins, with Elodie Chardin, a lace-mender, for + whom he had left Mademoiselle Bijou; but he went away without a + word, leaving everything behind him, and no one knows where he + went. I am not without hope, however, and I have put a man on this + track who believes he has already seen him in the Boulevard + Bourdon. + + "The poor Jewess means to keep the promise she made to the + Christian. Will the angel pray for the devil? That must sometimes + happen in heaven.--I remain, with the deepest respect, always your + humble servant, + + +"JOSEPHA MIRAH." + +The lawyer, Maitre Hulot d'Ervy, hearing no more of the dreadful +Madame Nourrisson, seeing his father-in-law married, having brought +back his brother-in-law to the family fold, suffering from no +importunity on the part of his new stepmother, and seeing his mother's +health improve daily, gave himself up to his political and judicial +duties, swept along by the tide of Paris life, in which the hours +count for days. + +One night, towards the end of the session, having occasion to write up +a report to the Chamber of Deputies, he was obliged to sit at work +till late at night. He had gone into his study at nine o'clock, and, +while waiting till the man-servant should bring in the candles with +green shades, his thoughts turned to his father. He was blaming +himself for leaving the inquiry so much to the singer, and had +resolved to see Monsieur Chapuzot himself on the morrow, when he saw +in the twilight, outside the window, a handsome old head, bald and +yellow, with a fringe of white hair. + +"Would you please to give orders, sir, that a poor hermit is to be +admitted, just come from the Desert, and who is instructed to beg for +contributions towards rebuilding a holy house." + +This apparition, which suddenly reminded the lawyer of a prophecy +uttered by the terrible Nourrisson, gave him a shock. + +"Let in that old man," said he to the servant. + +"He will poison the place, sir," replied the man. "He has on a brown +gown which he has never changed since he left Syria, and he has no +shirt--" + +"Show him in," repeated the master. + +The old man came in. Victorin's keen eye examined this so-called +pilgrim hermit, and he saw a fine specimen of the Neapolitan friars, +whose frocks are akin to the rags of the _lazzaroni_, whose sandals +are tatters of leather, as the friars are tatters of humanity. The +get-up was so perfect that the lawyer, though still on his guard, was +vexed with himself for having believed it to be one of Madame +Nourrisson's tricks. + +"How much to you want of me?" + +"Whatever you feel that you ought to give me." + +Victorin took a five-franc piece from a little pile on his table, and +handed it to the stranger. + +"That is not much on account of fifty thousand francs," said the +pilgrim of the desert. + +This speech removed all Victorin's doubts. + +"And has Heaven kept its word?" he said, with a frown. + +"The question is an offence, my son," said the hermit. "If you do not +choose to pay till after the funeral, you are in your rights. I will +return in a week's time." + +"The funeral!" cried the lawyer, starting up. + +"The world moves on," said the old man, as he withdrew, "and the dead +move quickly in Paris!" + +When Hulot, who stood looking down, was about to reply, the stalwart +old man had vanished. + +"I don't understand one word of all this," said Victorin to himself. +"But at the end of the week I will ask him again about my father, if +we have not yet found him. Where does Madame Nourrisson--yes, that was +her name--pick up such actors?" + +On the following day, Doctor Bianchon allowed the Baroness to go down +into the garden, after examining Lisbeth, who had been obliged to keep +to her room for a month by a slight bronchial attack. The learned +doctor, who dared not pronounce a definite opinion on Lisbeth's case +till he had seen some decisive symptoms, went into the garden with +Adeline to observe the effect of the fresh air on her nervous +trembling after two months of seclusion. He was interested and allured +by the hope of curing this nervous complaint. On seeing the great +physician sitting with them and sparing them a few minutes, the +Baroness and her family conversed with him on general subjects. + +"You life is a very full and a very sad one," said Madame Hulot. "I +know what it is to spend one's days in seeing poverty and physical +suffering." + +"I know, madame," replied the doctor, "all the scenes of which charity +compels you to be a spectator; but you will get used to it in time, as +we all do. It is the law of existence. The confessor, the magistrate, +the lawyer would find life unendurable if the spirit of the State did +not assert itself above the feelings of the individual. Could we live +at all but for that? Is not the soldier in time of war brought face to +face with spectacles even more dreadful than those we see? And every +soldier that has been under fire is kind-hearted. We medical men have +the pleasure now and again of a successful cure, as you have that of +saving a family from the horrors of hunger, depravity, or misery, and +of restoring it to social respectability. But what comfort can the +magistrate find, the police agent, or the attorney, who spend their +lives in investigating the basest schemes of self-interest, the social +monster whose only regret is when it fails, but on whom repentance +never dawns? + +"One-half of society spends its life in watching the other half. A +very old friend of mine is an attorney, now retired, who told me that +for fifteen years past notaries and lawyers have distrusted their +clients quite as much as their adversaries. Your son is a pleader; has +he never found himself compromised by the client for whom he held a +brief?" + +"Very often," said Victorin, with a smile. + +"And what is the cause of this deep-seated evil?" asked the Baroness. + +"The decay of religion," said Bianchon, "and the pre-eminence of +finance, which is simply solidified selfishness. Money used not to be +everything; there were some kinds of superiority that ranked above it +--nobility, genius, service done to the State. But nowadays the law +takes wealth as the universal standard, and regards it as the measure +of public capacity. Certain magistrates are ineligible to the Chamber; +Jean-Jacques Rousseau would be ineligible! The perpetual subdivision +of estate compels every man to take care of himself from the age of +twenty. + +"Well, then, between the necessity for making a fortune and the +depravity of speculation there is no check or hindrance; for the +religious sense is wholly lacking in France, in spite of the laudable +endeavors of those who are working for a Catholic revival. And this is +the opinion of every man who, like me, studies society at the core." + +"And you have few pleasures?" said Hortense. + +"The true physician, madame, is in love with his science," replied the +doctor. "He is sustained by that passion as much as by the sense of +his usefulness to society. + +"At this very time you see in me a sort of scientific rapture, and +many superficial judges would regard me as a man devoid of feeling. I +have to announce a discovery to-morrow to the College of Medicine, for +I am studying a disease that had disappeared--a mortal disease for +which no cure is known in temperate climates, though it is curable in +the West Indies--a malady known here in the Middle Ages. A noble fight +is that of the physician against such a disease. For the last ten days +I have thought of nothing but these cases--for there are two, a +husband and wife.--Are they not connections of yours? For you, madame, +are surely Monsieur Crevel's daughter?" said he, addressing Celestine. + +"What, is my father your patient?" asked Celestine. "Living in the Rue +Barbet-de-Jouy?" + +"Precisely so," said Bianchon. + +"And the disease is inevitably fatal?" said Victorin in dismay. + +"I will go to see him," said Celestine, rising. + +"I positively forbid it, madame," Bianchon quietly said. "The disease +is contagious." + +"But you go there, monsieur," replied the young woman. "Do you think +that a daughter's duty is less binding than a doctor's?" + +"Madame, a physician knows how to protect himself against infection, +and the rashness of your devotion proves to me that you would probably +be less prudent than I." + +Celestine, however, got up and went to her room, where she dressed to +go out. + +"Monsieur," said Victorin to Bianchon, "have you any hope of saving +Monsieur and Madame Crevel?" + +"I hope, but I do not believe that I may," said Bianchon. "The case is +to me quite inexplicable. The disease is peculiar to negroes and the +American tribes, whose skin is differently constituted to that of the +white races. Now I can trace no connection with the copper-colored +tribes, with negroes or half-castes, in Monsieur or Madame Crevel. + +"And though it is a very interesting disease to us, it is a terrible +thing for the sufferers. The poor woman, who is said to have been very +pretty, is punished for her sins, for she is now squalidly hideous if +she is still anything at all. She is losing her hair and teeth, her +skin is like a leper's, she is a horror to herself; her hands are +horrible, covered with greenish pustules, her nails are loose, and the +flesh is eaten away by the poisoned humors." + +"And the cause of such a disease?" asked the lawyer. + +"Oh!" said the doctor, "the cause lies in a form of rapid +blood-poisoning; it degenerates with terrific rapidity. I hope to act +on the blood; I am having it analyzed; and I am now going home to +ascertain the result of the labors of my friend Professor Duval, the +famous chemist, with a view to trying one of those desperate measures +by which we sometimes attempt to defeat death." + +"The hand of God is there!" said Adeline, in a voice husky with +emotion. "Though that woman has brought sorrows on me which have led +me in moments of madness to invoke the vengeance of Heaven, I hope +--God knows I hope--you may succeed, doctor." + +Victorin felt dizzy. He looked at his mother, his sister, and the +physician by turns, quaking lest they should read his thoughts. He +felt himself a murderer. + +Hortense, for her part, thought God was just. + +Celestine came back to beg her husband to accompany her. + +"If you insist on going, madame, and you too, monsieur, keep at least +a foot between you and the bed of the sufferer, that is the chief +precaution. Neither you nor your wife must dream of kissing the dying +man. And, indeed, you ought to go with your wife, Monsieur Hulot, to +hinder her from disobeying my injunctions." + +Adeline and Hortense, when they were left alone, went to sit with +Lisbeth. Hortense had such a virulent hatred of Valerie that she could +not contain the expression of it. + +"Cousin Lisbeth," she exclaimed, "my mother and I are avenged! that +venomous snake is herself bitten--she is rotting in her bed!" + +"Hortense, at this moment you are not a Christian. You ought to pray +to God to vouchsafe repentance to this wretched woman." + +"What are you talking about?" said Betty, rising from her couch. "Are +you speaking of Valerie?" + +"Yes," replied Adeline; "she is past hope--dying of some horrible +disease of which the mere description makes one shudder----" + +Lisbeth's teeth chattered, a cold sweat broke out all over her; the +violence of the shock showed how passionate her attachment to Valerie +had been. + +"I must go there," said she. + +"But the doctor forbids your going out." + +"I do not care--I must go!--Poor Crevel! what a state he must be in; +for he loves that woman." + +"He is dying too," replied Countess Steinbock. "Ah! all our enemies +are in the devil's clutches--" + +"In God's hands, my child--" + +Lisbeth dressed in the famous yellow Indian shawl and her black velvet +bonnet, and put on her boots; in spite of her relations' +remonstrances, she set out as if driven by some irresistible power. + +She arrived in the Rue Barbet a few minutes after Monsieur and Madame +Hulot, and found seven physicians there, brought by Bianchon to study +this unique case; he had just joined them. The physicians, assembled +in the drawing-room, were discussing the disease; now one and now +another went into Valerie's room or Crevel's to take a note, and +returned with an opinion based on this rapid study. + +These princes of science were divided in their opinions. One, who +stood alone in his views, considered it a case of poisoning, of +private revenge, and denied its identity with the disease known in the +Middle Ages. Three others regarded it as a specific deterioration of +the blood and the humors. The rest, agreeing with Bianchon, maintained +that the blood was poisoned by some hitherto unknown morbid infection. +Bianchon produced Professor Duval's analysis of the blood. The +remedies to be applied, though absolutely empirical and without hope, +depended on the verdict in this medical dilemma. + +Lisbeth stood as if petrified three yards away from the bed where +Valerie lay dying, as she saw a priest from Saint-Thomas d'Aquin +standing by her friend's pillow, and a sister of charity in +attendance. Religion could find a soul to save in a mass of rottenness +which, of the five senses of man, had now only that of sight. The +sister of charity who alone had been found to nurse Valerie stood +apart. Thus the Catholic religion, that divine institution, always +actuated by the spirit of self-sacrifice, under its twofold aspect of +the Spirit and the Flesh, was tending this horrible and atrocious +creature, soothing her death-bed by its infinite benevolence and +inexhaustible stores of mercy. + +The servants, in horror, refused to go into the room of either their +master or mistress; they thought only of themselves, and judged their +betters as righteously stricken. The smell was so foul that in spite +of open windows and strong perfumes, no one could remain long in +Valerie's room. Religion alone kept guard there. + +How could a woman so clever as Valerie fail to ask herself to what end +these two representatives of the Church remained with her? The dying +woman had listened to the words of the priest. Repentance had risen on +her darkened soul as the devouring malady had consumed her beauty. The +fragile Valerie had been less able to resist the inroads of the +disease than Crevel; she would be the first to succumb, and, indeed, +had been the first attacked. + +"If I had not been ill myself, I would have come to nurse you," said +Lisbeth at last, after a glance at her friend's sunken eyes. "I have +kept my room this fortnight or three weeks; but when I heard of your +state from the doctor, I came at once." + +"Poor Lisbeth, you at least love me still, I see!" said Valerie. +"Listen. I have only a day or two left to think, for I cannot say to +live. You see, there is nothing left of me--I am a heap of mud! They +will not let me see myself in a glass.--Well, it is no more than I +deserve. Oh, if I might only win mercy, I would gladly undo all the +mischief I have done." + +"Oh!" said Lisbeth, "if you can talk like that, you are indeed a dead +woman." + +"Do not hinder this woman's repentance, leave her in her Christian +mind," said the priest. + +"There is nothing left!" said Lisbeth in consternation. "I cannot +recognize her eyes or her mouth! Not a feature of her is there! And +her wit has deserted her! Oh, it is awful!" + +"You don't know," said Valerie, "what death is; what it is to be +obliged to think of the morrow of your last day on earth, and of what +is to be found in the grave.--Worms for the body--and for the soul, +what?--Lisbeth, I know there is another life! And I am given over to +terrors which prevent my feeling the pangs of my decomposing body.--I, +who could laugh at a saint, and say to Crevel that the vengeance of +God took every form of disaster.--Well, I was a true prophet.--Do not +trifle with sacred things, Lisbeth; if you love me, repent as I do." + +"I!" said Lisbeth. "I see vengeance wherever I turn in nature; insects +even die to satisfy the craving for revenge when they are attacked. +And do not these gentlemen tell us"--and she looked at the priest +--"that God is revenged, and that His vengeance lasts through all +eternity?" + +The priest looked mildly at Lisbeth and said: + +"You, madame, are an atheist!" + +"But look what I have come to," said Valerie. + +"And where did you get this gangrene?" asked the old maid, unmoved +from her peasant incredulity. + +"I had a letter from Henri which leaves me in no doubt as to my fate. +He has murdered me. And--just when I meant to live honestly--to die an +object of disgust! + +"Lisbeth, give up all notions of revenge. Be kind to that family to +whom I have left by my will everything I can dispose of. Go, child, +though you are the only creature who, at this hour, does not avoid me +with horror--go, I beseech you, and leave me.--I have only time to +make my peace with God!" + +"She is wandering in her wits," said Lisbeth to herself, as she left +the room. + +The strongest affection known, that of a woman for a woman, had not +such heroic constancy as the Church. Lisbeth, stifled by the miasma, +went away. She found the physicians still in consultation. But +Bianchon's opinion carried the day, and the only question now was how +to try the remedies. + +"At any rate, we shall have a splendid _post-mortem_," said one of his +opponents, "and there will be two cases to enable us to make +comparisons." + +Lisbeth went in again with Bianchon, who went up to the sick woman +without seeming aware of the malodorous atmosphere. + +"Madame," said he, "we intend to try a powerful remedy which may save +you--" + +"And if you save my life," said she, "shall I be as good-looking as +ever?" + +"Possibly," said the judicious physician. + +"I know your _possibly_," said Valerie. "I shall look like a woman who +has fallen into the fire! No, leave me to the Church. I can please no +one now but God. I will try to be reconciled to Him, and that will be +my last flirtation; yes, I must try to come round God!" + +"That is my poor Valerie's last jest; that is all herself!" said +Lisbeth in tears. + +Lisbeth thought it her duty to go into Crevel's room, where she found +Victorin and his wife sitting about a yard away from the stricken +man's bed. + +"Lisbeth," said he, "they will not tell me what state my wife is in; +you have just seen her--how is she?" + +"She is better; she says she is saved," replied Lisbeth, allowing +herself this play on the word to soothe Crevel's mind. + +"That is well," said the Mayor. "I feared lest I had been the cause of +her illness. A man is not a traveler in perfumery for nothing; I had +blamed myself.--If I should lose her, what would become of me? On my +honor, my children, I worship that woman." + +He sat up in bed and tried to assume his favorite position. + +"Oh, Papa!" cried Celestine, "if only you could be well again, I would +make friends with my stepmother--I make a vow!" + +"Poor little Celestine!" said Crevel, "come and kiss me." + +Victorin held back his wife, who was rushing forward. + +"You do not know, perhaps," said the lawyer gently, "that your disease +is contagious, monsieur." + +"To be sure," replied Crevel. "And the doctors are quite proud of +having rediscovered in me some long lost plague of the Middle Ages, +which the Faculty has had cried like lost property--it is very funny!" + +"Papa," said Celestine, "be brave, and you will get the better of this +disease." + +"Be quite easy, my children; Death thinks twice of it before carrying +off a Mayor of Paris," said he, with monstrous composure. "And if, +after all, my district is so unfortunate as to lose a man it has twice +honored with its suffrages--you see, what a flow of words I have! +--Well, I shall know how to pack up and go. I have been a commercial +traveler; I am experienced in such matters. Ah! my children, I am a +man of strong mind." + +"Papa, promise me to admit the Church--" + +"Never," replied Crevel. "What is to be said? I drank the milk of +Revolution; I have not Baron Holbach's wit, but I have his strength of +mind. I am more _Regence_ than ever, more Musketeer, Abbe Dubois, and +Marechal de Richelieu! By the Holy Poker!--My wife, who is wandering +in her head, has just sent me a man in a gown--to me! the admirer of +Beranger, the friend of Lisette, the son of Voltaire and Rousseau. +--The doctor, to feel my pulse, as it were, and see if sickness had +subdued me--'You saw Monsieur l'Abbe?' said he.--Well, I imitated the +great Montesquieu. Yes, I looked at the doctor--see, like this," and +he turned to show three-quarters face, like his portrait, and extended +his hand authoritatively--"and I said: + + "The slave was here, + He showed his order, but he nothing gained. + +"_His order_ is a pretty jest, showing that even in death Monsieur le +President de Montesquieu preserved his elegant wit, for they had sent +him a Jesuit. I admire that passage--I cannot say of his life, but of +his death--the passage--another joke!--The passage from life to death +--the Passage Montesquieu!" + +Victorin gazed sadly at his father-in-law, wondering whether folly and +vanity were not forces on a par with true greatness of soul. The +causes that act on the springs of the soul seem to be quite +independent of the results. Can it be that the fortitude which upholds +a great criminal is the same as that which a Champcenetz so proudly +walks to the scaffold? + +By the end of the week Madame Crevel was buried, after dreadful +sufferings; and Crevel followed her within two days. Thus the +marriage-contract was annulled. Crevel was heir to Valerie. + +On the very day after the funeral, the friar called again on the +lawyer, who received him in perfect silence. The monk held out his +hand without a word, and without a word Victorin Hulot gave him eighty +thousand-franc notes, taken from a sum of money found in Crevel's +desk. + +Young Madame Hulot inherited the estate of Presles and thirty thousand +francs a year. + +Madame Crevel had bequeathed a sum of three hundred thousand francs to +Baron Hulot. Her scrofulous boy Stanislas was to inherit, at his +majority, the Hotel Crevel and eighty thousand francs a year. + + + +Among the many noble associations founded in Paris by Catholic +charity, there is one, originated by Madame de la Chanterie, for +promoting civil and religious marriages between persons who have +formed a voluntary but illicit union. Legislators, who draw large +revenues from the registration fees, and the Bourgeois dynasty, which +benefits by the notary's profits, affect to overlook the fact that +three-fourths of the poorer class cannot afford fifteen francs for the +marriage-contract. The pleaders, a sufficiently vilified body, +gratuitously defend the cases of the indigent, while the notaries have +not as yet agreed to charge nothing for the marriage-contract of the +poor. As to the revenue collectors, the whole machinery of Government +would have to be dislocated to induce the authorities to relax their +demands. The registrar's office is deaf and dumb. + +Then the Church, too, receives a duty on marriages. In France the +Church depends largely on such revenues; even in the House of God it +traffics in chairs and kneeling stools in a way that offends +foreigners; though it cannot have forgotten the anger of the Saviour +who drove the money-changers out of the Temple. If the Church is so +loath to relinquish its dues, it must be supposed that these dues, +known as Vestry dues, are one of its sources of maintenance, and then +the fault of the Church is the fault of the State. + +The co-operation of these conditions, at a time when charity is too +greatly concerned with the negroes and the petty offenders discharged +from prison to trouble itself about honest folks in difficulties, +results in the existence of a number of decent couples who have never +been legally married for lack of thirty francs, the lowest figure for +which the Notary, the Registrar, the Mayor and the Church will unite +two citizens of Paris. Madame de la Chanterie's fund, founded to +restore poor households to their religious and legal status, hunts up +such couples, and with all the more success because it helps them in +their poverty before attacking their unlawful union. + +As soon as Madame Hulot had recovered, she returned to her +occupations. And then it was that the admirable Madame de la Chanterie +came to beg that Adeline would add the legalization of these voluntary +unions to the other good works of which she was the instrument. + +One of the Baroness' first efforts in this cause was made in the +ominous-looking district, formerly known as la Petite Pologne--Little +Poland--bounded by the Rue du Rocher, Rue de la Pepiniere, and Rue de +Miromenil. There exists there a sort of offshoot of the Faubourg +Saint-Marceau. To give an idea of this part of the town, it is enough +to say that the landlords of some of the houses tenanted by working +men without work, by dangerous characters, and by the very poor +employed in unhealthy toil, dare not demand their rents, and can find +no bailiffs bold enough to evict insolvent lodgers. At the present +time speculating builders, who are fast changing the aspect of this +corner of Paris, and covering the waste ground lying between the Rue +d'Amsterdam and the Rue Faubourg-du-Roule, will no doubt alter the +character of the inhabitants; for the trowel is a more civilizing +agent than is generally supposed. By erecting substantial and handsome +houses, with porters at the doors, by bordering the streets with +footwalks and shops, speculation, while raising the rents, disperses +the squalid class, families bereft of furniture, and lodgers that +cannot pay. And so these districts are cleared of such objectionable +residents, and the dens vanish into which the police never venture but +under the sanction of the law. + +In June 1844, the purlieus of the Place de Laborde were still far from +inviting. The genteel pedestrian, who by chance should turn out of the +Rue de la Pepiniere into one of those dreadful side-streets, would +have been dismayed to see how vile a bohemia dwelt cheek by jowl with +the aristocracy. In such places as these, haunted by ignorant poverty +and misery driven to bay, flourish the last public letter-writers who +are to be found in Paris. Wherever you see the two words "Ecrivain +Public" written in a fine copy hand on a sheet of letter-paper stuck +to the window pane of some low entresol or mud-splashed ground-floor +room, you may safely conclude that the neighborhood is the lurking +place of many unlettered folks, and of much vice and crime, the +outcome of misery; for ignorance is the mother of all sorts of crime. +A crime is, in the first instance, a defect of reasoning powers. + +While the Baroness had been ill, this quarter, to which she was a +minor Providence, had seen the advent of a public writer who settled +in the Passage du Soleil--Sun Alley--a spot of which the name is one +of the antitheses dear to the Parisian, for the passage is especially +dark. This writer, supposed to be a German, was named Vyder, and he +lived on matrimonial terms with a young creature of whom he was so +jealous that he never allowed her to go anywhere excepting to some +honest stove and flue-fitters, in the Rue Saint-Lazare, Italians, as +such fitters always are, but long since established in Paris. These +people had been saved from a bankruptcy, which would have reduced them +to misery, by the Baroness, acting in behalf of Madame de la +Chanterie. In a few months comfort had taken the place of poverty, and +Religion had found a home in hearts which once had cursed Heaven with +the energy peculiar to Italian stove-fitters. So one of Madame Hulot's +first visits was to this family. + +She was pleased at the scene that presented itself to her eyes at the +back of the house where these worthy folks lived in the Rue +Saint-Lazare, not far from the Rue du Rocher. High above the stores +and workshops, now well filled, where toiled a swarm of apprentices and +workmen--all Italians from the valley of Domo d'Ossola--the master's +family occupied a set of rooms, which hard work had blessed with +abundance. The Baroness was hailed like the Virgin Mary in person. + +After a quarter of an hour's questioning, Adeline, having to wait for +the father to inquire how his business was prospering, pursued her +saintly calling as a spy by asking whether they knew of any families +needing help. + +"Ah, dear lady, you who could save the damned from hell!" said the +Italian wife, "there is a girl quite near here to be saved from +perdition." + +"A girl well known to you?" asked the Baroness. + +"She is the granddaughter of a master my husband formerly worked for, +who came to France in 1798, after the Revolution, by name Judici. Old +Judici, in Napoleon's time, was one of the principal stove-fitters in +Paris; he died in 1819, leaving his son a fine fortune. But the +younger Judici wasted all his money on bad women; till, at last, he +married one who was sharper than the rest, and she had this poor +little girl, who is just turned fifteen." + +"And what is wrong with her?" asked Adeline, struck by the resemblance +between this Judici and her husband. + +"Well, madame, this child, named Atala, ran away from her father, and +came to live close by here with an old German of eighty at least, +named Vyder, who does odd jobs for people who cannot read and write. +Now, if this old sinner, who bought the child of her mother, they say +for fifteen hundred francs, would but marry her, as he certainly has +not long to live, and as he is said to have some few thousand of +francs a year--well, the poor thing, who is a sweet little angel, +would be out of mischief, and above want, which must be the ruin of +her." + +"Thank you very much for the information. I may do some good, but I +must act with caution.--Who is the old man?" + +"Oh! madame, he is a good old fellow; he makes the child very happy, +and he has some sense too, for he left the part of town where the +Judicis live, as I believe, to snatch the child from her mother's +clutches. The mother was jealous of her, and I dare say she thought +she could make money out of her beauty and make a _mademoiselle_ of +the girl. + +"Atala remembered us, and advised her gentleman to settle near us; and +as the good man sees how decent we are, he allows her to come here. +But get them married, madame, and you will do an action worthy of you. +Once married, the child will be independent and free from her mother, +who keeps an eye on her, and who, if she could make money by her, +would like to see her on the stage, or successful in the wicked life +she meant her to lead." + +"Why doesn't the old man marry her?" + +"There was no necessity for it, you see," said the Italian. "And +though old Vyder is not a bad old fellow, I fancy he is sharp enough +to wish to remain the master, while if he once got married--why, the +poor man is afraid of the stone that hangs round every old man's +neck." + +"Could you send for the girl to come here?" said Madame Hulot. "I +should see her quietly, and find out what could be done--" + +The stove-fitter's wife signed to her eldest girl, who ran off. Ten +minutes later she returned, leading by the hand a child of fifteen and +a half, a beauty of the Italian type. Mademoiselle Judici inherited +from her father that ivory skin which, rather yellow by day, is by +artificial light of lily-whiteness; eyes of Oriental beauty, form, and +brilliancy, close curling lashes like black feathers, hair of ebony +hue, and that native dignity of the Lombard race which makes the +foreigner, as he walks through Milan on a Sunday, fancy that every +porter's daughter is a princess. + +Atala, told by the stove-fitter's daughter that she was to meet the +great lady of whom she had heard so much, had hastily dressed in a +black silk gown, a smart little cape, and neat boots. A cap with a +cherry-colored bow added to the brilliant effect of her coloring. The +child stood in an attitude of artless curiosity, studying the Baroness +out of the corner of her eye, for her palsied trembling puzzled her +greatly. + +Adeline sighed deeply as she saw this jewel of womanhood in the mire +of prostitution, and determined to rescue her to virtue. + +"What is your name, my dear?" + +"Atala, madame." + +"And can you read and write?" + +"No, madame; but that does not matter, as monsieur can." + +"Did your parents ever take you to church? Have you been to your first +Communion? Do you know your Catechism?" + +"Madame, papa wanted to make me do something of the kind you speak of, +but mamma would not have it--" + +"Your mother?" exclaimed the Baroness. "Is she bad to you, then?" + +"She was always beating me. I don't know why, but I was always being +quarreled over by my father and mother--" + +"Did you ever hear of God?" cried the Baroness. + +The girl looked up wide-eyed. + +"Oh, yes, papa and mamma often said 'Good God,' and 'In God's name,' +and 'God's thunder,'" said she, with perfect simplicity. + +"Then you never saw a church? Did you never think of going into one?" + +"A church?--Notre-Dame, the Pantheon?--I have seen them from a +distance, when papa took me into town; but that was not very often. +There are no churches like those in the Faubourg." + +"Which Faubourg did you live in?" + +"In the Faubourg." + +"Yes, but which?" + +"In the Rue de Charonne, madame." + +The inhabitants of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine never call that +notorious district other than _the_ Faubourg. To them it is the one +and only Faubourg; and manufacturers generally understand the words as +meaning the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. + +"Did no one ever tell you what was right or wrong?" + +"Mamma used to beat me when I did not do what pleased her." + +"But did you not know that it was very wicked to run away from your +father and mother to go to live with an old man?" + +Atala Judici gazed at the Baroness with a haughty stare, but made no +reply. + +"She is a perfect little savage," murmured Adeline. + +"There are a great many like her in the Faubourg, madame," said the +stove-fitter's wife. + +"But she knows nothing--not even what is wrong. Good Heavens!--Why do +you not answer me?" said Madame Hulot, putting out her hand to take +Atala's. + +Atala indignantly withdrew a step. + +"You are an old fool!" said she. "Why, my father and mother had had +nothing to eat for a week. My mother wanted me to do much worse than +that, I think, for my father thrashed her and called her a thief! +However, Monsieur Vyder paid all their debts, and gave them some money +--oh, a bagful! And he brought me away, and poor papa was crying. But +we had to part!--Was it wicked?" she asked. + +"And are you very fond of Monsieur Vyder?" + +"Fond of him?" said she. "I should think so! He tells me beautiful +stories, madame, every evening; and he has given me nice gowns, and +linen, and a shawl. Why, I am figged out like a princess, and I never +wear sabots now. And then, I have not known what it is to be hungry +these two months past. And I don't live on potatoes now. He brings me +bonbons and burnt almonds, and chocolate almonds.--Aren't they good? +--I do anything he pleases for a bag of chocolate.--Then my old Daddy +is very kind; he takes such care of me, and is so nice; I know now what +my mother ought to have been.--He is going to get an old woman to help +me, for he doesn't like me to dirty my hands with cooking. For the +past month, too, he has been making a little money, and he gives me +three francs every evening that I put into a money-box. Only he will +never let me out except to come here--and he calls me his little +kitten! Mamma never called me anything but bad names--and thief, and +vermin!" + +"Well, then, my child, why should not Daddy Vyder be your husband?" + +"But he is, madame," said the girl, looking at Adeline with calm +pride, without a blush, her brow smooth, her eyes steady. "He told me +that I was his little wife; but it is a horrid bore to be a man's wife +--if it were not for the burnt almonds!" + +"Good Heaven!" said the Baroness to herself, "what monster can have +had the heart to betray such perfect, such holy innocence? To restore +this child to the ways of virtue would surely atone for many sins.--I +knew what I was doing." thought she, remembering the scene with +Crevel. "But she--she knows nothing." + +"Do you know Monsieur Samanon?" asked Atala, with an insinuating look. + +"No, my child; but why do you ask?" + +"Really and truly?" said the artless girl. + +"You have nothing to fear from this lady," said the Italian woman. +"She is an angel." + +"It is because my good old boy is afraid of being caught by Samanon. +He is hiding, and I wish he could be free--" + +"Why?" + +"On! then he would take me to Bobino, perhaps to the Ambigu." + +"What a delightful creature!" said the Baroness, kissing the girl. + +"Are you rich?" asked Atala, who was fingering the Baroness' lace +ruffles. + +"Yes, and No," replied Madame Hulot. "I am rich for dear little girls +like you when they are willing to be taught their duties as Christians +by a priest, and to walk in the right way." + +"What way is that?" said Atala; "I walk on my two feet." + +"The way of virtue." + +Atala looked at the Baroness with a crafty smile. + +"Look at madame," said the Baroness, pointing to the stove-fitter's +wife, "she has been quite happy because she was received into the +bosom of the Church. You married like the beasts that perish." + +"I?" said Atala. "Why, if you will give me as much as Daddy Vyder +gives me, I shall be quite happy unmarried again. It is a grind.--Do +you know what it is to--?" + +"But when once you are united to a man as you are," the Baroness put +in, "virtue requires you to remain faithful to him." + +"Till he dies," said Atala, with a knowing flash. "I shall not have to +wait long. If you only knew how Daddy Vyder coughs and blows.--Poof, +poof," and she imitated the old man. + +"Virtue and morality require that the Church, representing God, and +the Mayor, representing the law, should consecrate your marriage," +Madame Hulot went on. "Look at madame; she is legally married--" + +"Will it make it more amusing?" asked the girl. + +"You will be happier," said the Baroness, "for no one could then blame +you. You would satisfy God! Ask her if she was married without the +sacrament of marriage!" + +Atala looked at the Italian. + +"How is she any better than I am?" she asked. "I am prettier than she +is." + +"Yes, but I am an honest woman," said the wife, "and you may be called +by a bad name." + +"How can you expect God to protect you if you trample every law, human +and divine, under foot?" said the Baroness. "Don't you know that God +has Paradise in store for those who obey the injunctions of His +Church?" + +"What is there in Paradise? Are there playhouses?" + +"Paradise!" said Adeline, "is every joy you can conceive of. It is +full of angels with white wings. You see God in all His glory, you +share His power, you are happy for every minute of eternity!" + +Atala listened to the lady as she might have listened to music; but +Adeline, seeing that she was incapable of understanding her, thought +she had better take another line of action and speak to the old man. + +"Go home, then, my child, and I will go to see Monsieur Vyder. Is he a +Frenchman?" + +"He is an Alsatian, madame. But he will be quite rich soon. If you +would pay what he owes to that vile Samanon, he would give you back +your money, for in a few months he will be getting six thousand francs +a year, he says, and we are to go to live in the country a long way +off, in the Vosges." + +At the word _Vosges_ the Baroness sat lost in reverie. It called up +the vision of her native village. She was roused from her melancholy +meditation by the entrance of the stove-fitter, who came to assure her +of his prosperity. + +"In a year's time, madame, I can repay the money you lent us, for it +is God's money, the money of the poor and wretched. If ever I make a +fortune, come to me for what you want, and I will render through you +the help to others which you first brought us." + +"Just now," said Madame Hulot, "I do not need your money, but I ask +your assistance in a good work. I have just seen that little Judici, +who is living with an old man, and I mean to see them regularly and +legally married." + +"Ah! old Vyder; he is a very worthy old fellow, with plenty of good +sense. The poor old man has already made friends in the neighborhood, +though he has been here but two months. He keeps my accounts for me. +He is, I believe, a brave Colonel who served the Emperor well. And how +he adores Napoleon!--He has some orders, but he never wears them. He +is waiting till he is straight again, for he is in debt, poor old boy! +In fact, I believe he is hiding, threatened by the law--" + +"Tell him that I will pay his debts if he will marry the child." + +"Oh, that will soon be settled.--Suppose you were to see him, madame; +it is not two steps away, in the Passage du Soleil." + +So the lady and the stove-fitter went out. + +"This way, madame," said the man, turning down the Rue de la +Pepiniere. + +The alley runs, in fact, from the bottom of this street through to the +Rue du Rocher. Halfway down this passage, recently opened through, +where the shops let at a very low rent, the Baroness saw on a window, +screened up to a height with a green, gauze curtain, which excluded +the prying eyes of the passer-by, the words: + + +"ECRIVAIN PUBLIC"; and on the door the announcement: + + BUSINESS TRANSACTED. + + _Petitions Drawn Up, Accounts Audited, Etc._ + + _With Secrecy and Dispatch._ + + +The shop was like one of those little offices where travelers by +omnibus wait the vehicles to take them on to their destination. A +private staircase led up, no doubt, to the living-rooms on the +entresol which were let with the shop. Madame Hulot saw a dirty +writing-table of some light wood, some letter-boxes, and a wretched +second-hand chair. A cap with a peak and a greasy green shade for the +eyes suggested either precautions for disguise, or weak eyes, which +was not unlikely in an old man. + +"He is upstairs," said the stove-fitter. "I will go up and tell him to +come down." + +Adeline lowered her veil and took a seat. A heavy step made the narrow +stairs creak, and Adeline could not restrain a piercing cry when she +saw her husband, Baron Hulot, in a gray knitted jersey, old gray +flannel trousers, and slippers. + +"What is your business, madame?" said Hulot, with a flourish. + +She rose, seized Hulot by the arm, and said in a voice hoarse with +emotion: + +"At last--I have found you!" + +"Adeline!" exclaimed the Baron in bewilderment, and he locked the shop +door. "Joseph, go out the back way," he added to the stove-fitter. + +"My dear!" she said, forgetting everything in her excessive joy, "you +can come home to us all; we are rich. Your son draws a hundred and +sixty thousand francs a year! Your pension is released; there are +fifteen thousand francs of arrears you can get on showing that you are +alive. Valerie is dead, and left you three hundred thousand francs. + +"Your name is quite forgotten by this time; you may reappear in the +world, and you will find a fortune awaiting you at your son's house. +Come; our happiness will be complete. For nearly three years I have +been seeking you, and I felt so sure of finding you that a room is +ready waiting for you. Oh! come away from this, come away from the +dreadful state I see you in!" + +"I am very willing," said the bewildered Baron, "but can I take the +girl?" + +"Hector, give her up! Do that much for your Adeline, who has never +before asked you to make the smallest sacrifice. I promise you I will +give the child a marriage portion; I will see that she marries well, +and has some education. Let it be said of one of the women who have +given you happiness that she too is happy; and do not relapse into +vice, into the mire." + +"So it was you," said the Baron, with a smile, "who wanted to see me +married?--Wait a few minutes," he added; "I will go upstairs and +dress; I have some decent clothes in a trunk." + +Adeline, left alone, and looking round the squalid shop, melted into +tears. + +"He has been living here, and we rolling in wealth!" said she to +herself. "Poor man, he has indeed been punished--he who was elegance +itself." + +The stove-fitter returned to make his bow to his benefactress, and she +desired him to fetch a coach. When he came back, she begged him to +give little Atala Judici a home, and to take her away at once. + +"And tell her that if she will place herself under the guidance of +Monsieur the Cure of the Madeleine, on the day when she attends her +first Communion I will give her thirty thousand francs and find her a +good husband, some worthy young man." + +"My eldest son, then madame! He is two-and-twenty, and he worships the +child." + +The Baron now came down; there were tears in his eyes. + +"You are forcing me to desert the only creature who had ever begun to +love me at all as you do!" said he in a whisper to his wife. "She is +crying bitterly, and I cannot abandon her so--" + +"Be quite easy, Hector. She will find a home with honest people, and I +will answer for her conduct." + +"Well, then, I can go with you," said the Baron, escorting his wife to +the cab. + +Hector, the Baron d'Ervy once more, had put on a blue coat and +trousers, a white waistcoat, a black stock, and gloves. When the +Baroness had taken her seat in the vehicle, Atala slipped in like an +eel. + +"Oh, madame," she said, "let me go with you. I will be so good, so +obedient; I will do whatever you wish; but do not part me from my +Daddy Vyder, my kind Daddy who gives me such nice things. I shall be +beaten--" + +"Come, come, Atala," said the Baron, "this lady is my wife--we must +part--" + +"She! As old as that! and shaking like a leaf!" said the child. "Look +at her head!" and she laughingly mimicked the Baroness' palsy. + +The stove-fitter, who had run after the girl, came to the carriage +door. + +"Take her away!" said Adeline. The man put his arms round Atala and +fairly carried her off. + +"Thanks for such a sacrifice, my dearest," said Adeline, taking the +Baron's hand and clutching it with delirious joy. "How much you are +altered! you must have suffered so much! What a surprise for Hortense +and for your son!" + +Adeline talked as lovers talk who meet after a long absence, of a +hundred things at once. + +In ten minutes the Baron and his wife reached the Rue Louis-le-Grand, +and there Adeline found this note awaiting her:-- + + "MADAME LA BARONNE,-- + + "Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy lived for one month in the Rue de + Charonne under the name of Thorec, an anagram of Hector. He is now + in the Passage du Soleil by the name of Vyder. He says he is an + Alsatian, and does writing, and he lives with a girl named Atala + Judici. Be very cautious, madame, for search is on foot; the Baron + is wanted, on what score I know not. + + "The actress has kept her word, and remains, as ever, + +"Madame la Baronne, your humble servant, +"J. M." + + +The Baron's return was hailed with such joy as reconciled him to +domestic life. He forgot little Atala Judici, for excesses of +profligacy had reduced him to the volatility of feeling that is +characteristic of childhood. But the happiness of the family was +dashed by the change that had come over him. He had been still hale +when he had gone away from his home; he had come back almost a +hundred, broken, bent, and his expression even debased. + +A splendid dinner, improvised by Celestine, reminded the old man of +the singer's banquets; he was dazzled by the splendor of his home. + +"A feast in honor of the return of the prodigal father?" said he in a +murmur to Adeline. + +"Hush!" said she, "all is forgotten." + +"And Lisbeth?" he asked, not seeing the old maid. + +"I am sorry to say that she is in bed," replied Hortense. "She can +never get up, and we shall have the grief of losing her ere long. She +hopes to see you after dinner." + +At daybreak next morning Victorin Hulot was informed by the porter's +wife that soldiers of the municipal guard were posted all round the +premises; the police demanded Baron Hulot. The bailiff, who had +followed the woman, laid a summons in due form before the lawyer, and +asked him whether he meant to pay his father's debts. The claim was +for ten thousand francs at the suit of an usurer named Samanon, who +had probably lent the Baron two or three thousand at most. Victorin +desired the bailiff to dismiss his men, and paid. + +"But is it the last?" he anxiously wondered. + +Lisbeth, miserable already at seeing the family so prosperous, could +not survive this happy event. She grew so rapidly worse that Bianchon +gave her but a week to live, conquered at last in the long struggle in +which she had scored so many victories. + +She kept the secret of her hatred even through a painful death from +pulmonary consumption. And, indeed, she had the supreme satisfaction +of seeing Adeline, Hortense, Hulot, Victorin, Steinbock, Celestine, +and their children standing in tears round her bed and mourning for +her as the angel of the family. + +Baron Hulot, enjoying a course of solid food such as he had not known +for nearly three years, recovered flesh and strength, and was almost +himself again. This improvement was such a joy to Adeline that her +nervous trembling perceptibly diminished. + +"She will be happy after all," said Lisbeth to herself on the day +before she died, as she saw the veneration with which the Baron +regarded his wife, of whose sufferings he had heard from Hortense and +Victorin. + +And vindictiveness hastened Cousin Betty's end. The family followed +her, weeping, to the grave. + +The Baron and Baroness, having reached the age which looks for perfect +rest, gave up the handsome rooms on the first floor to the Count and +Countess Steinbock, and took those above. The Baron by his son's +exertions found an official position in the management of a railroad, +in 1845, with a salary of six thousand francs, which, added to the six +thousand of his pension and the money left to him by Madame Crevel, +secured him an income of twenty-four thousand francs. Hortense having +enjoyed her independent income during the three years of separation +from Wenceslas, Victorin now invested the two hundred thousand francs +he had in trust, in his sister's name and he allowed her twelve +thousand francs. + +Wenceslas, as the husband of a rich woman, was not unfaithful, but he +was an idler; he could not make up his mind to begin any work, however +trifling. Once more he became the artist _in partibus_; he was popular +in society, and consulted by amateurs; in short, he became a critic, +like all the feeble folk who fall below their promise. + +Thus each household, though living as one family, had its own fortune. +The Baroness, taught by bitter experience, left the management of +matters to her son, and the Baron was thus reduced to his salary, in +hope that the smallness of his income would prevent his relapsing into +mischief. And by some singular good fortune, on which neither the +mother nor the son had reckoned, Hulot seemed to have foresworn the +fair sex. His subdued behaviour, ascribed to the course of nature, so +completely reassured the family, that they enjoyed to the full his +recovered amiability and delightful qualities. He was unfailingly +attentive to his wife and children, escorted them to the play, +reappeared in society, and did the honors to his son's house with +exquisite grace. In short, this reclaimed prodigal was the joy of his +family. + +He was a most agreeable old man, a ruin, but full of wit, having +retained no more of his vice than made it an added social grace. + +Of course, everybody was quite satisfied and easy. The young people +and the Baroness lauded the model father to the skies, forgetting the +death of the two uncles. Life cannot go on without much forgetting! + +Madame Victorin, who managed this enormous household with great skill, +due, no doubt, to Lisbeth's training, had found it necessary to have a +man-cook. This again necessitated a kitchen-maid. Kitchen-maids are in +these days ambitious creatures, eager to detect the _chef's_ secrets, +and to become cooks as soon as they have learnt to stir a sauce. +Consequently, the kitchen-maid is liable to frequent change. + +At the beginning of 1845 Celestine engaged as kitchen-maid a sturdy +Normandy peasant come from Isigny--short-waisted, with strong red +arms, a common face, as dull as an "occasional piece" at the play, and +hardly to be persuaded out of wearing the classical linen cap peculiar +to the women of Lower Normandy. This girl, as buxom as a wet-nurse, +looked as if she would burst the blue cotton check in which she +clothed her person. Her florid face might have been hewn out of stone, +so hard were its tawny outlines. + +Of course no attention was paid to the advent in the house of this +girl, whose name was Agathe--an ordinary, wide-awake specimen, such as +is daily imported from the provinces. Agathe had no attractions for +the cook, her tongue was too rough, for she had served in a suburban +inn, waiting on carters; and instead of making a conquest of her chief +and winning from him the secrets of the high art of the kitchen, she +was the object of his great contempt. The _chef's_ attentions were, in +fact, devoted to Louise, the Countess Steinbock's maid. The country +girl, thinking herself ill-used, complained bitterly that she was +always sent out of the way on some pretext when the _chef_ was +finishing a dish or putting the crowning touch to a sauce. + +"I am out of luck," said she, "and I shall go to another place." + +And yet she stayed though she had twice given notice to quit. + +One night, Adeline, roused by some unusual noise, did not see Hector +in the bed he occupied near hers; for they slept side by side in two +beds, as beseemed an old couple. She lay awake an hour, but he did not +return. Seized with a panic, fancying some tragic end had overtaken +him--an apoplectic attack, perhaps--she went upstairs to the floor +occupied by the servants, and then was attracted to the room where +Agathe slept, partly by seeing a light below the door, and partly by +the murmur of voices. She stood still in dismay on recognizing the +voice of her husband, who, a victim to Agathe's charms, to vanquish +this strapping wench's not disinterested resistance, went to the +length of saying: + +"My wife has not long to live, and if you like you may be a Baroness." + +Adeline gave a cry, dropped her candlestick, and fled. + +Three days later the Baroness, who had received the last sacraments, +was dying, surrounded by her weeping family. + +Just before she died, she took her husband's hand and pressed it, +murmuring in his ear: + +"My dear, I had nothing left to give up to you but my life. In a +minute or two you will be free, and can make another Baronne Hulot." + +And, rare sight, tears oozed from her dead eyes. + +This desperateness of vice had vanquished the patience of the angel, +who, on the brink of eternity, gave utterance to the only reproach she +had ever spoken in her life. + +The Baron left Paris three days after his wife's funeral. Eleven +months after Victorin heard indirectly of his father's marriage to +Mademoiselle Agathe Piquetard, solemnized at Isigny, on the 1st +February 1846. + +"Parents may hinder their children's marriage, but children cannot +interfere with the insane acts of their parents in their second +childhood," said Maitre Hulot to Maitre Popinot, the second son of the +Minister of Commerce, who was discussing this marriage. + + + +ADDENDUM + +The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. + +Beauvisage, Phileas + The Member for Arcis + +Berthier (Parisian notary) + Cousin Pons + +Bianchon, Horace + Father Goriot + The Atheist's Mass + Cesar Birotteau + The Commission in Lunacy + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + A Bachelor's Establishment + The Secrets of a Princess + The Government Clerks + Pierrette + A Study of Woman + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + Honorine + The Seamy Side of History + The Magic Skin + A Second Home + A Prince of Bohemia + Letters of Two Brides + The Muse of the Department + The Imaginary Mistress + The Middle Classes + The Country Parson +In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following: + Another Study of Woman + La Grande Breteche + +Bixiou, Jean-Jacques + The Purse + A Bachelor's Establishment + The Government Clerks + Modeste Mignon + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + The Firm of Nucingen + The Muse of the Department + The Member for Arcis + Beatrix + A Man of Business + Gaudissart II. + The Unconscious Humorists + Cousin Pons + +Braulard + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Cousin Pons + +Bridau, Joseph + The Purse + A Bachelor's Establishment + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + A Start in Life + Modeste Mignon + Another Study of Woman + Pierre Grassou + Letters of Two Brides + The Member for Arcis + +Brisetout, Heloise + Cousin Pons + The Middle Classes + +Cadine, Jenny + Beatrix + The Unconscious Humorists + The Member for Arcis + +Chanor + Cousin Pons + +Chocardelle, Mademoiselle + Beatrix + A Prince of Bohemia + A Man of Business + The Member for Arcis + +Colleville, Flavie Minoret, Madame + The Government Clerks + The Middle Classes + +Collin, Jacqueline + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + The Unconscious Humorists + +Crevel, Celestin + Cesar Birotteau + Cousin Pons + +Esgrignon, Victurnien, Comte (then Marquis d') + Jealousies of a Country Town + Letters of Two Brides + A Man of Business + The Secrets of a Princess + +Falcon, Jean + The Chouans + The Muse of the Department + +Graff, Wolfgang + Cousin Pons + +Grassou, Pierre + Pierre Grassou + A Bachelor's Establishment + The Middle Classes + Cousin Pons + +Grindot + Cesar Birotteau + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + A Start in Life + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + Beatrix + The Middle Classes + +Hannequin, Leopold + Albert Savarus + Beatrix + Cousin Pons + +Herouville, Duc d' + The Hated Son + Jealousies of a Country Town + Modeste Mignon + +Hulot (Marshal) + The Chouans + The Muse of the Department + +Hulot, Victorin + The Member for Arcis + +La Bastie la Briere, Madame Ernest de + Modeste Mignon + The Member for Arcis + +La Baudraye, Madame Polydore Milaud de + The Muse of the Department + A Prince of Bohemia + +La Chanterie, Baronne Henri le Chantre de + The Seamy Side of History + +Laginski, Comte Adam Mitgislas + Another Study of Woman + The Imaginary Mistress + +La Palferine, Comte de + A Prince of Bohemia + A Man of Business + Beatrix + The Imaginary Mistress + +La Roche-Hugon, Martial de + Domestic Peace + The Peasantry + A Daughter of Eve + The Member for Arcis + The Middle Classes + +Lebas, Joseph + At the Sign of the Cat and Racket + Cesar Birotteau + +Lebas, Madame Joseph (Virginie) + At the Sign of the Cat and Racket + Cesar Birotteau + +Lebas + The Muse of the Department + +Lefebvre, Robert + The Gondreville Mystery + +Lenoncourt-Givry, Duc de + Letters of Two Brides + The Member for Arcis + +Lora, Leon de + The Unconscious Humorists + A Bachelor's Establishment + A Start in Life + Pierre Grassou + Honorine + Beatrix + +Lousteau, Etienne + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + A Bachelor's Establishment + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + A Daughter of Eve + Beatrix + The Muse of the Department + A Prince of Bohemia + A Man of Business + The Middle Classes + The Unconscious Humorists + +Massol + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + The Magic Skin + A Daughter of Eve + The Unconscious Humorists + +Montauran, Marquis de (younger brother of Alphonse de) + The Chouans + The Seamy Side of History + +Montcornet, Marechal, Comte de + Domestic Peace + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + The Peasantry + A Man of Business + +Navarreins, Duc de + A Bachelor's Establishment + Colonel Chabert + The Muse of the Department + The Thirteen + Jealousies of a Country Town + The Peasantry + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + The Country Parson + The Magic Skin + The Gondreville Mystery + The Secrets of a Princess + +Nourrisson, Madame + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + The Unconscious Humorists + +Nucingen, Baron Frederic de + The Firm of Nucingen + Father Goriot + Pierrette + Cesar Birotteau + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + Another Study of Woman + The Secrets of a Princess + A Man of Business + The Muse of the Department + The Unconscious Humorists + +Paz, Thaddee + The Imaginary Mistress + +Popinot, Anselme + Cesar Birotteau + Gaudissart the Great + Cousin Pons + +Popinot, Madame Anselme + Cesar Birotteau + A Prince of Bohemia + Cousin Pons + +Popinot, Vicomte + Cousin Pons + +Rastignac, Eugene de + Father Goriot + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + The Ball at Sceaux + The Commission in Lunacy + A Study of Woman + Another Study of Woman + The Magic Skin + The Secrets of a Princess + A Daughter of Eve + The Gondreville Mystery + The Firm of Nucingen + The Member for Arcis + The Unconscious Humorists + +Rivet, Achille + Cousin Pons + +Rochefide, Marquis Arthur de + Beatrix + +Ronceret, Madame Fabien du + Beatrix + The Muse of the Department + The Unconscious Humorists + +Samanon + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + The Government Clerks + A Man of Business + +Sinet, Seraphine + The Unconscious Humorists + +Steinbock, Count Wenceslas + The Imaginary Mistress + +Stidmann + Modeste Mignon + Beatrix + The Member for Arcis + Cousin Pons + The Unconscious Humorists + +Tillet, Ferdinand du + Cesar Birotteau + The Firm of Nucingen + The Middle Classes + A Bachelor's Establishment + Pierrette + Melmoth Reconciled + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + The Secrets of a Princess + A Daughter of Eve + The Member for Arcis + The Unconscious Humorists + +Trailles, Comte Maxime de + Cesar Birotteau + Father Goriot + Gobseck + Ursule Mirouet + A Man of Business + The Member for Arcis + The Secrets of a Princess + The Member for Arcis + Beatrix + The Unconscious Humorists + +Turquet, Marguerite + The Imaginary Mistress + The Muse of the Department + A Man of Business + +Vauvinet + The Unconscious Humorists + +Vernisset, Victor de + The Seamy Side of History + Beatrix + +Vernou, Felicien + A Bachelor's Establishment + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + A Daughter of Eve + +Vignon, Claude + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + A Daughter of Eve + Honorine + Beatrix + The Unconscious Humorists + + + + + II + + + + + COUSIN PONS + + BY + + HONORE DE BALZAC + + + + Translated by + + Ellen Marriage + + + + COUSIN PONS + + + +Towards three o'clock in the afternoon of one October day in the year +1844, a man of sixty or thereabouts, whom anybody might have credited +with more than his actual age, was walking along the Boulevard des +Italiens with his head bent down, as if he were tracking some one. +There was a smug expression about the mouth--he looked like a merchant +who has just done a good stroke of business, or a bachelor emerging +from a boudoir in the best of humors with himself; and in Paris this +is the highest degree of self-satisfaction ever registered by a human +countenance. + +As soon as the elderly person appeared in the distance, a smile broke +out over the faces of the frequenters of the boulevard, who daily, +from their chairs, watch the passers-by, and indulge in the agreeable +pastime of analyzing them. That smile is peculiar to Parisians; it +says so many things--ironical, quizzical, pitying; but nothing save +the rarest of human curiosities can summon that look of interest to +the faces of Parisians, sated as they are with every possible sight. + +A saying recorded of Hyacinthe, an actor celebrated for his repartees, +will explain the archaeological value of the old gentleman, and the +smile repeated like an echo by all eyes. Somebody once asked Hyacinthe +where the hats were made that set the house in a roar as soon as he +appeared. "I don't have them made," he said; "I keep them!" So also +among the million actors who make up the great troupe of Paris, there +are unconscious Hyacinthes who "keep" all the absurd freaks of +vanished fashions upon their backs; and the apparition of some bygone +decade will startle you into laughter as you walk the streets in +bitterness of soul over the treason of one who was your friend in the +past. + +In some respects the passer-by adhered so faithfully to the fashions +of the year 1806, that he was not so much a burlesque caricature as a +reproduction of the Empire period. To an observer, accuracy of detail +in a revival of this sort is extremely valuable, but accuracy of +detail, to be properly appreciated, demands the critical attention of +an expert _flaneur_; while the man in the street who raises a laugh as +soon as he comes in sight is bound to be one of those outrageous +exhibitions which stare you in the face, as the saying goes, and +produce the kind of effect which an actor tries to secure for the +success of his entry. The elderly person, a thin, spare man, wore a +nut-brown spencer over a coat of uncertain green, with white metal +buttons. A man in a spencer in the year 1844! it was as if Napoleon +himself had vouchsafed to come to life again for a couple of hours. + +The spencer, as its name indicates, was the invention of an English +lord, vain, doubtless, of his handsome shape. Some time before the +Peace of Amiens, this nobleman solved the problem of covering the bust +without destroying the outlines of the figure and encumbering the +person with the hideous boxcoat, now finishing its career on the backs +of aged hackney cabmen; but, elegant figures being in the minority, +the success of the spencer was short-lived in France, English though +it was. + +At the sight of the spencer, men of forty or fifty mentally invested +the wearer with top-boots, pistachio-colored kerseymere small clothes +adorned with a knot of ribbon; and beheld themselves in the costumes +of their youth. Elderly ladies thought of former conquests; but the +younger men were asking each other why the aged Alcibiades had cut off +the skirts of his overcoat. The rest of the costume was so much in +keeping with the spencer, that you would not have hesitated to call +the wearer "an Empire man," just as you call a certain kind of +furniture "Empire furniture;" yet the newcomer only symbolized the +Empire for those who had known that great and magnificent epoch at any +rate _de visu_, for a certain accuracy of memory was needed for the +full appreciation of the costume, and even now the Empire is so far +away that not every one of us can picture it in its Gallo-Grecian +reality. + +The stranger's hat, for instance, tipped to the back of his head so as +to leave almost the whole forehead bare, recalled a certain jaunty +air, with which civilians and officials attempted to swagger it with +military men; but the hat itself was a shocking specimen of the +fifteen-franc variety. Constant friction with a pair of enormous ears +had left their marks which no brush could efface from the underside of +the brim; the silk tissue (as usual) fitted badly over the cardboard +foundation, and hung in wrinkles here and there; and some skin-disease +(apparently) had attacked the nap in spite of the hand which rubbed it +down of a morning. + +Beneath the hat, which seemed ready to drop off at any moment, lay an +expanse of countenance grotesque and droll, as the faces which the +Chinese alone of all people can imagine for their quaint curiosities. +The broad visage was as full of holes as a colander, honeycombed with +the shadows of the dints, hollowed out like a Roman mask. It set all +the laws of anatomy at defiance. Close inspection failed to detect the +substructure. Where you expected to find a bone, you discovered a +layer of cartilaginous tissue, and the hollows of an ordinary human +face were here filled out with flabby bosses. A pair of gray eyes, +red-rimmed and lashless, looked forlornly out of a countenance which +was flattened something after the fashion of a pumpkin, and surmounted +by a Don Quixote nose that rose out of it like a monolith above a +plain. It was the kind of nose, as Cervantes must surely have +explained somewhere, which denotes an inborn enthusiasm for all things +great, a tendency which is apt to degenerate into credulity. + +And yet, though the man's ugliness was something almost ludicrous, it +aroused not the slightest inclination to laugh. The exceeding +melancholy which found an outlet in the poor man's faded eyes reached +the mocker himself and froze the gibes on his lips; for all at once +the thought arose that this was a human creature to whom Nature had +forbidden any expression of love or tenderness, since such expression +could only be painful or ridiculous to the woman he loved. In the +presence of such misfortune a Frenchman is silent; to him it seems the +most cruel of all afflictions--to be unable to please! + +The man so ill-favored was dressed after the fashion of shabby +gentility, a fashion which the rich not seldom try to copy. He wore +low shoes beneath gaiters of the pattern worn by the Imperial Guard, +doubtless for the sake of economy, because they kept the socks clean. +The rusty tinge of his black breeches, like the cut and the white or +shiny line of the creases, assigned the date of the purchase some +three years back. The roomy garments failed to disguise the lean +proportions of the wearer, due apparently rather to constitution than +to a Pythagorean regimen, for the worthy man was endowed with thick +lips and a sensual mouth; and when he smiled, displayed a set of white +teeth which would have done credit to a shark. + +A shawl-waistcoat, likewise of black cloth, was supplemented by a +white under-waistcoat, and yet again beneath this gleamed the edge of +a red knitted under-jacket, to put you in mind of Garat's five +waistcoats. A huge white muslin stock with a conspicuous bow, invented +by some exquisite to charm "the charming sex" in 1809, projected so +far above the wearer's chin that the lower part of his face was lost, +as it were, in a muslin abyss. A silk watch-guard, plaited to resemble +the keepsakes made of hair, meandered down the shirt front and secured +his watch from the improbable theft. The greenish coat, though older +by some three years than the breeches, was remarkably neat; the black +velvet collar and shining metal buttons, recently renewed, told of +carefulness which descended even to trifles. + +The particular manner of fixing the hat on the occiput, the triple +waistcoat, the vast cravat engulfing the chin, the gaiters, the metal +buttons on the greenish coat,--all these reminiscences of Imperial +fashions were blended with a sort of afterwaft and lingering perfume +of the coquetry of the Incroyable--with an indescribable finical +something in the folds of the garments, a certain air of stiffness and +correctness in the demeanor that smacked of the school of David, that +recalled Jacob's spindle-legged furniture. + +At first sight, moreover, you set him down either for the gentleman by +birth fallen a victim to some degrading habit, or for the man of small +independent means whose expenses are calculated to such a nicety that +the breakage of a windowpane, a rent in a coat, or a visit from the +philanthropic pest who asks you for subscriptions to a charity, +absorbs the whole of a month's little surplus of pocket-money. If you +had seen him that afternoon, you would have wondered how that +grotesque face came to be lighted up with a smile; usually, surely, it +must have worn the dispirited, passive look of the obscure toiler +condemned to labor without ceasing for the barest necessaries of life. +Yet when you noticed that the odd-looking old man was carrying some +object (evidently precious) in his right hand with a mother's care; +concealing it under the skirts of his coat to keep it from collisions +in the crowd, and still more, when you remarked that important air +always assumed by an idler when intrusted with a commission, you would +have suspected him of recovering some piece of lost property, some +modern equivalent of the marquise's poodle; you would have recognized +the assiduous gallantry of the "man of the Empire" returning in +triumph from his mission to some charming woman of sixty, reluctant as +yet to dispense with the daily visit of her elderly _attentif_. + +In Paris only among great cities will you see such spectacles as this; +for of her boulevards Paris makes a stage where a never-ending drama +is played gratuitously by the French nation in the interests of Art. + +In spite of the rashly assumed spencer, you would scarcely have +thought, after a glance at the contours of the man's bony frame, that +this was an artist--that conventional type which is privileged, in +something of the same way as a Paris gamin, to represent riotous +living to the bourgeois and philistine mind, the most _mirific_ +joviality, in short (to use the old Rabelaisian word newly taken into +use). Yet this elderly person had once taken the medal and the +traveling scholarship; he had composed the first cantata crowned by +the Institut at the time of the re-establishment of the Academie de +Rome; he was M. Sylvain Pons, in fact--M. Sylvain Pons, whose name +appears on the covers of well-known sentimental songs trilled by our +mothers, to say nothing of a couple of operas, played in 1815 and +1816, and divers unpublished scores. The worthy soul was now ending +his days as the conductor of an orchestra in a boulevard theatre, and +a music master in several young ladies' boarding-schools, a post for +which his face particularly recommended him. He was entirely dependent +upon his earnings. Running about to give private lessons at his age! +--Think of it. How many a mystery lies in that unromantic situation! + +But the last man to wear the spencer carried something about him +besides his Empire Associations; a warning and a lesson was written +large over that triple waistcoat. Wherever he went, he exhibited, +without fee or charge, one of the many victims of the fatal system of +competition which still prevails in France in spite of a century of +trial without result; for Poisson de Marigny, brother of the Pompadour +and Director of Fine Arts, somewhere about 1746 invented this method +of applying pressure to the brain. That was a hundred years ago. Try +if you can count upon your fingers the men of genius among the +prizemen of those hundred years. + +In the first place, no deliberate effort of schoolmaster or +administrator can replace the miracles of chance which produce great +men: of all the mysteries of generation, this most defies the +ambitious modern scientific investigator. In the second--the ancient +Egyptians (we are told) invented incubator-stoves for hatching eggs; +what would be thought of Egyptians who should neglect to fill the +beaks of the callow fledglings? Yet this is precisely what France is +doing. She does her utmost to produce artists by the artificial heat +of competitive examination; but, the sculptor, painter, engraver, or +musician once turned out by this mechanical process, she no more +troubles herself about them and their fate than the dandy cares for +yesterday's flower in his buttonhole. And so it happens that the +really great man is a Greuze, a Watteau, a Felicien David, a Pagnesi, +a Gericault, a Decamps, an Auber, a David d'Angers, an Eugene +Delacroix, or a Meissonier--artists who take but little heed of +_grande prix_, and spring up in the open field under the rays of that +invisible sun called Vocation. + +To resume. The Government sent Sylvain Pons to Rome to make a great +musician of himself; and in Rome Sylvain Pons acquired a taste for the +antique and works of art. He became an admirable judge of those +masterpieces of the brain and hand which are summed up by the useful +neologism "bric-a-brac;" and when the child of Euterpe returned to +Paris somewhere about the year 1810, it was in the character of a +rabid collector, loaded with pictures, statuettes, frames, +wood-carving, ivories, enamels, porcelains, and the like. He had sunk +the greater part of his patrimony, not so much in the purchases +themselves as on the expenses of transit; and every penny inherited +from his mother had been spent in the course of a three-years' travel +in Italy after the residence in Rome came to an end. He had seen +Venice, Milan, Florence, Bologna, and Naples leisurely, as he wished +to see them, as a dreamer of dreams, and a philosopher; careless of +the future, for an artist looks to his talent for support as the +_fille de joie_ counts upon her beauty. + +All through those splendid years of travel Pons was as happy as was +possible to a man with a great soul, a sensitive nature, and a face so +ugly that any "success with the fair" (to use the stereotyped formula +of 1809) was out of the question; the realities of life always fell +short of the ideals which Pons created for himself; the world without +was not in tune with the soul within, but Pons had made up his mind to +the dissonance. Doubtless the sense of beauty that he had kept pure +and living in his inmost soul was the spring from which the delicate, +graceful, and ingenious music flowed and won him reputation between +1810 and 1814. + +Every reputation founded upon the fashion or the fancy of the hour, or +upon the short-lived follies of Paris, produces its Pons. No place in +the world is so inexorable in great things; no city of the globe so +disdainfully indulgent in small. Pons' notes were drowned before long +in floods of German harmony and the music of Rossini; and if in 1824 +he was known as an agreeable musician, a composer of various +drawing-room melodies, judge if he was likely to be famous in 183l! +In 1844, the year in which the single drama of this obscure life began, +Sylvain Pons was of no more value than an antediluvian semiquaver; +dealers in music had never heard of his name, though he was still +composing, on scanty pay, for his own orchestra or for neighboring +theatres. + +And yet, the worthy man did justice to the great masters of our day; a +masterpiece finely rendered brought tears to his eyes; but his +religion never bordered on mania, as in the case of Hoffmann's +Kreislers; he kept his enthusiasm to himself; his delight, like the +paradise reached by opium or hashish, lay within his own soul. + +The gift of admiration, of comprehension, the single faculty by which +the ordinary man becomes the brother of the poet, is rare in the city +of Paris, that inn whither all ideas, like travelers, come to stay for +awhile; so rare is it, that Pons surely deserves our respectful +esteem. His personal failure may seem anomalous, but he frankly +admitted that he was weak in harmony. He had neglected the study of +counterpoint; there was a time when he might have begun his studies +afresh and held his own among modern composers, when he might have +been, not certainly a Rossini, but a Herold. But he was alarmed by the +intricacies of modern orchestration; and at length, in the pleasures +of collecting, he found such ever-renewed compensation for his +failure, that if he had been made to choose between his curiosities +and the fame of Rossini--will it be believed?--Pons would have +pronounced for his beloved collection. + +Pons was of the opinion of Chenavard, the print-collector, who laid it +down as an axiom--that you only fully enjoy the pleasure of looking at +your Ruysdael, Hobbema, Holbein, Raphael, Murillo, Greuze, Sebastian +del Piombo, Giorgione, Albrecht Durer, or what not, when you have paid +less than sixty francs for your picture. Pons never gave more than a +hundred francs for any purchase. If he laid out as much as fifty +francs, he was careful to assure himself beforehand that the object +was worth three thousand. The most beautiful thing in the world, if it +cost three hundred francs, did not exist for Pons. Rare had been his +bargains; but he possessed the three qualifications for success--a +stag's legs, an idler's disregard of time, and the patience of a Jew. + +This system, carried out for forty years, in Rome or Paris alike, had +borne its fruits. Since Pons returned from Italy, he had regularly +spent about two thousand francs a year upon a collection of +masterpieces of every sort and description, a collection hidden away +from all eyes but his own; and now his catalogue had reached the +incredible number of 1907. Wandering about Paris between 1811 and +1816, he had picked up many a treasure for ten francs, which would +fetch a thousand or twelve hundred to-day. Some forty-five thousand +canvases change hands annually in Paris picture sales, and these Pons +had sifted through year by year. Pons had Sevres porcelain, _pate +tendre_, bought of Auvergnats, those satellites of the Black Band who +sacked chateaux and carried off the marvels of Pompadour France in +their tumbril carts; he had, in fact, collected the drifted wreck of +the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; he recognized the genius of +the French school, and discerned the merit of the Lepautres and +Lavallee-Poussins and the rest of the great obscure creators of the +Genre Louis Quinze and the Genre Louis Seize. Our modern craftsmen now +draw without acknowledgment from them, pore incessantly over the +treasures of the Cabinet des Estampes, borrow adroitly, and give out +their _pastiches_ for new inventions. Pons had obtained many a piece +by exchange, and therein lies the ineffable joy of the collector. The +joy of buying bric-a-brac is a secondary delight; in the give-and-take +of barter lies the joy of joys. Pons had begun by collecting +snuff-boxes and miniatures; his name was unknown in bric-a-bracology, +for he seldom showed himself in salesrooms or in the shops of +well-known dealers; Pons was not aware that his treasures had any +commercial value. + +The late lamented Dusommerard tried his best to gain Pons' confidence, +but the prince of bric-a-brac died before he could gain an entrance to +the Pons museum, the one private collection which could compare with +the famous Sauvageot museum. Pons and M. Sauvageot indeed resembled +each other in more ways than one. M. Sauvageot, like Pons, was a +musician; he was likewise a comparatively poor man, and he had +collected his bric-a-brac in much the same way, with the same love of +art, the same hatred of rich capitalists with well-known names who +collect for the sake of running up prices as cleverly as possible. +There was yet another point of resemblance between the pair; Pons, +like his rival competitor and antagonist, felt in his heart an +insatiable craving after specimens of the craftsman's skill and +miracles of workmanship; he loved them as a man might love a fair +mistress; an auction in the salerooms in the Rue des Jeuneurs, with +its accompaniments of hammer strokes and brokers' men, was a crime of +_lese-bric-a-brac_ in Pons' eyes. Pons' museum was for his own delight +at every hour; for the soul created to know and feel all the beauty of +a masterpiece has this in common with the lover--to-day's joy is as +great as the joy of yesterday; possession never palls; and a +masterpiece, happily, never grows old. So the object that he held in +his hand with such fatherly care could only be a "find," carried off +with what affection amateurs alone know! + +After the first outlines of this biographical sketch, every one will +cry at once, "Why! this is the happiest man on earth, in spite of his +ugliness!" And, in truth, no spleen, no dullness can resist the +counter-irritant supplied by a "craze," the intellectual moxa of a +hobby. You who can no longer drink of "the cup of pleasure," as it has +been called through all ages, try to collect something, no matter what +(people have been known to collect placards), so shall you receive the +small change for the gold ingot of happiness. Have you a hobby? You +have transferred pleasure to the plane of ideas. And yet, you need not +envy the worthy Pons; such envy, like all kindred sentiments, would be +founded upon a misapprehension. + +With a nature so sensitive, with a soul that lived by tireless +admiration of the magnificent achievements of art, of the high rivalry +between human toil and the work of Nature--Pons was a slave to that +one of the Seven Deadly Sins with which God surely will deal least +hardly; Pons was a glutton. A narrow income, combined with a passion +for bric-a-brac, condemned him to a regimen so abhorrent to a +discriminating palate, that, bachelor as he was, he had cut the knot +of the problem by dining out every day. + +Now, in the time of the Empire, celebrities were more sought after +than at present, perhaps because there were so few of them, perhaps +because they made little or no political pretension. In those days, +besides, you could set up for a poet, a musician, or a painter, with +so little expense. Pons, being regarded as the probable rival of +Nicolo, Paer, and Berton, used to receive so many invitations, that he +was forced to keep a list of engagements, much as barristers note down +the cases for which they are retained. And Pons behaved like an +artist. He presented his amphitryons with copies of his songs, he +"obliged" at the pianoforte, he brought them orders for boxes at the +Feydeau, his own theatre, he organized concerts, he was not above +taking the fiddle himself sometimes in a relation's house, and getting +up a little impromptu dance. In those days, all the handsome men in +France were away at the wars exchanging sabre-cuts with the handsome +men of the Coalition. Pons was said to be, not ugly, but +"peculiar-looking," after the grand rule laid down by Moliere in +Eliante's famous couplets; but if he sometimes heard himself described +as a "charming man" (after he had done some fair lady a service), his +good fortune went no further than words. + +It was between the years 1810 and 1816 that Pons contracted the +unlucky habit of dining out; he grew accustomed to see his hosts +taking pains over the dinner, procuring the first and best of +everything, bringing out their choicest vintages, seeing carefully to +the dessert, the coffee, the liqueurs, giving him of their best, in +short; the best, moreover, of those times of the Empire when Paris was +glutted with kings and queens and princes, and many a private house +emulated royal splendours. + +People used to play at Royalty then as they play nowadays at +parliament, creating a whole host of societies with presidents, +vice-presidents, secretaries and what not--agricultural societies, +industrial societies, societies for the promotion of sericulture, +viticulture, the growth of flax, and so forth. Some have even gone so +far as to look about them for social evils in order to start a society +to cure them. + +But to return to Pons. A stomach thus educated is sure to react upon +the owner's moral fibre; the demoralization of the man varies directly +with his progress in culinary sapience. Voluptuousness, lurking in +every secret recess of the heart, lays down the law therein. Honor and +resolution are battered in breach. The tyranny of the palate has never +been described; as a necessity of life it escapes the criticism of +literature; yet no one imagines how many have been ruined by the +table. The luxury of the table is indeed, in this sense, the +courtesan's one competitor in Paris, besides representing in a manner +the credit side in another account, where she figures as the +expenditure. + +With Pons' decline and fall as an artist came his simultaneous +transformation from invited guest to parasite and hanger-on; he could +not bring himself to quit dinners so excellently served for the +Spartan broth of a two-franc ordinary. Alas! alas! a shudder ran +through him at the mere thought of the great sacrifices which +independence required him to make. He felt that he was capable of +sinking to even lower depths for the sake of good living, if there +were no other way of enjoying the first and best of everything, of +guzzling (vulgar but expressive word) nice little dishes carefully +prepared. Pons lived like a bird, pilfering his meal, flying away when +he had taken his fill, singing a few notes by way of return; he took a +certain pleasure in the thought that he lived at the expense of +society, which asked of him--what but the trifling toll of grimaces? +Like all confirmed bachelors, who hold their lodgings in horror, and +live as much as possible in other people's houses, Pons was accustomed +to the formulas and facial contortions which do duty for feeling in +the world; he used compliments as small change; and as far as others +were concerned, he was satisfied with the labels they bore, and never +plunged a too-curious hand into the sack. + +This not intolerable phase lasted for another ten years. Such years! +Pons' life was closing with a rainy autumn. All through those years he +contrived to dine without expense by making himself necessary in the +houses which he frequented. He took the first step in the downward +path by undertaking a host of small commissions; many and many a time +Pons ran on errands instead of the porter or the servant; many a +purchase he made for his entertainers. He became a kind of harmless, +well-meaning spy, sent by one family into another; but he gained no +credit with those for whom he trudged about, and so often sacrificed +self-respect. + +"Pons is a bachelor," said they; "he is at a loss to know what to do +with his time; he is only too glad to trot about for us.--What else +would he do?" + +Very soon the cold which old age spreads about itself began to set in; +the communicable cold which sensibly lowers the social temperature, +especially if the old man is ugly and poor. Old and ugly and poor--is +not this to be thrice old? Pons' winter had begun, the winter which +brings the reddened nose, and frost-nipped cheeks, and the numbed +fingers, numb in how many ways! + +Invitations very seldom came for Pons now. So far from seeking the +society of the parasite, every family accepted him much as they +accepted the taxes; they valued nothing that Pons could do for them; +real services from Pons counted for nought. The family circles in +which the worthy artist revolved had no respect for art or letters; +they went down on their knees to practical results; they valued +nothing but the fortune or social position acquired since the year +1830. The bourgeoisie is afraid of intellect and genius, but Pons' +spirit and manner were not haughty enough to overawe his relations, +and naturally he had come at last to be accounted less than nothing +with them, though he was not altogether despised. + +He had suffered acutely among them, but, like all timid creatures, he +kept silence as to his pain; and so by degrees schooled himself to +hide his feelings, and learned to take sanctuary in his inmost self. +Many superficial persons interpret this conduct by the short word +"selfishness;" and, indeed, the resemblance between the egoist and the +solitary human creature is strong enough to seem to justify the +harsher verdict; and this is especially true in Paris, where nobody +observes others closely, where all things pass swift as waves, and +last as little as a Ministry. + +So Cousin Pons was accused of selfishness (behind his back); and if +the world accuses any one, it usually finds him guilty and condemns +him into the bargain. Pons bowed to the decision. Do any of us know +how such a timid creature is cast down by an unjust judgment? Who will +ever paint all that the timid suffer? This state of things, now +growing daily worse, explains the sad expression on the poor old +musician's face; he lived by capitulations of which he was ashamed. +Every time we sin against self-respect at the bidding of the ruling +passion, we rivet its hold upon us; the more that passion requires of +us, the stronger it grows, every sacrifice increasing, as it were, the +value of a satisfaction for which so much has been given up, till the +negative sum-total of renouncements looms very large in a man's +imagination. Pons, for instance, after enduring the insolently +patronizing looks of some bourgeois, incased in buckram of stupidity, +sipped his glass of port or finished his quail with breadcrumbs, and +relished something of the savor of revenge, besides. "It is not too +dear at the price!" he said to himself. + +After all, in the eyes of the moralist, there were extenuating +circumstances in Pons' case. Man only lives, in fact, by some personal +satisfaction. The passionless, perfectly righteous man is not human; +he is a monster, an angel wanting wings. The angel of Christian +mythology has nothing but a head. On earth, the righteous person is +the sufficiently tiresome Grandison, for whom the very Venus of the +Crosswords is sexless. + +Setting aside one or two commonplace adventures in Italy, in which +probably the climate accounted for his success, no woman had ever +smiled upon Pons. Plenty of men are doomed to this fate. Pons was an +abnormal birth; the child of parents well stricken in years, he bore +the stigma of his untimely genesis; his cadaverous complexion might +have been contracted in the flask of spirit-of-wine in which science +preserves some extraordinary foetus. Artist though he was, with his +tender, dreamy, sensitive soul, he was forced to accept the character +which belonged to his face; it was hopeless to think of love, and he +remained a bachelor, not so much of choice as of necessity. Then +Gluttony, the sin of the continent monk, beckoned to Pons; he rushed +upon temptation, as he had thrown his whole soul into the adoration of +art and the cult of music. Good cheer and bric-a-brac gave him the +small change for the love which could spend itself in no other way. As +for music, it was his profession, and where will you find the man who +is in love with his means of earning a livelihood? For it is with a +profession as with marriage: in the long length you are sensible of +nothing but the drawbacks. + +Brillat-Savarin has deliberately set himself to justify the +gastronome, but perhaps even he has not dwelt sufficiently on the +reality of the pleasures of the table. The demands of digestion upon +the human economy produce an internal wrestling-bout of human forces +which rivals the highest degree of amorous pleasure. The gastronome is +conscious of an expenditure of vital power, an expenditure so vast +that the brain is atrophied (as it were), that a second brain, located +in the diaphragm, may come into play, and the suspension of all the +faculties is in itself a kind of intoxication. A boa constrictor +gorged with an ox is so stupid with excess that the creature is easily +killed. What man, on the wrong side of forty, is rash enough to work +after dinner? And remark in the same connection, that all great men +have been moderate eaters. The exhilarating effect of the wing of a +chicken upon invalids recovering from serious illness, and long +confined to a stinted and carefully chosen diet, has been frequently +remarked. The sober Pons, whose whole enjoyment was concentrated in +the exercise of his digestive organs, was in the position of chronic +convalescence; he looked to his dinner to give him the utmost degree +of pleasurable sensation, and hitherto he had procured such sensations +daily. Who dares to bid farewell to old habit? Many a man on the brink +of suicide has been plucked back on the threshold of death by the +thought of the cafe where he plays his nightly game of dominoes. + +In the year 1835, chance avenged Pons for the indifference of +womankind by finding him a prop for his declining years, as the saying +goes; and he, who had been old from his cradle, found a support in +friendship. Pons took to himself the only life-partner permitted to +him among his kind--an old man and a fellow-musician. + +But for La Fontaine's fable, _Les Deux Amis_, this sketch should have +borne the title of _The Two Friends_; but to take the name of this +divine story would surely be a deed of violence, a profanation from +which every true man of letters would shrink. The title ought to be +borne alone and for ever by the fabulist's masterpiece, the revelation +of his soul, and the record of his dreams; those three words were set +once and for ever by the poet at the head of a page which is his by a +sacred right of ownership; for it is a shrine before which all +generations, all over the world, will kneel so long as the art of +printing shall endure. + +Pons' friend gave lessons on the pianoforte. They met and struck up an +acquaintance in 1834, one prize day at a boarding-school; and so +congenial were their ways of thinking and living, that Pons used to +say that he had found his friend too late for his happiness. Never, +perhaps, did two souls, so much alike, find each other in the great +ocean of humanity which flowed forth, in disobedience to the will of +God, from its source in the Garden of Eden. Before very long the two +musicians could not live without each other. Confidences were +exchanged, and in a week's time they were like brothers. Schmucke (for +that was his name) had not believed that such a man as Pons existed, +nor had Pons imagined that a Schmucke was possible. Here already you +have a sufficient description of the good couple; but it is not every +mind that takes kindly to the concise synthetic method, and a certain +amount of demonstration is necessary if the credulous are to accept +the conclusion. + +This pianist, like all other pianists, was a German. A German, like +the eminent Liszt and the great Mendelssohn, and Steibelt, and Dussek, +and Meyer, and Mozart, and Doelher, and Thalberg, and Dreschok, and +Hiller, and Leopold Hertz, Woertz, Karr, Wolff, Pixis, and Clara Wieck +--and all Germans, generally speaking. Schmucke was a great musical +composer doomed to remain a music master, so utterly did his character +lack the audacity which a musical genius needs if he is to push his +way to the front. A German's naivete does not invariably last him +through his life; in some cases it fails after a certain age; and even +as a cultivator of the soil brings water from afar by means of +irrigation channels, so, from the springs of his youth, does the +Teuton draw the simplicity which disarms suspicion--the perennial +supplies with which he fertilizes his labors in every field of +science, art, or commerce. A crafty Frenchman here and there will turn +a Parisian tradesman's stupidity to good account in the same way. But +Schmucke had kept his child's simplicity much as Pons continued to +wear his relics of the Empire--all unsuspectingly. The true and +noble-hearted German was at once the theatre and the audience, making +music within himself for himself alone. In this city of Paris he lived +as a nightingale lives among the thickets; and for twenty years he sang +on, mateless, till he met with a second self in Pons. [See _Une Fille +d'Eve_.] + +Both Pons and Schmucke were abundantly given, both by heart and +disposition, to the peculiarly German sentimentality which shows +itself alike in childlike ways--in a passion for flowers, in that form +of nature-worship which prompts a German to plant his garden-beds with +big glass globes for the sake of seeing miniature pictures of the view +which he can behold about him of a natural size; in the inquiring turn +of mind that sets a learned Teuton trudging three hundred miles in his +gaiters in search of a fact which smiles up in his face from a wayside +spring, or lurks laughing under the jessamine leaves in the back-yard; +or (to take a final instance) in the German craving to endow every +least detail in creation with a spiritual significance, a craving +which produces sometimes Hoffmann's tipsiness in type, sometimes the +folios with which Germany hedges the simplest questions round about, +lest haply any fool should fall into her intellectual excavations; +and, indeed, if you fathom these abysses, you find nothing but a +German at the bottom. + +Both friends were Catholics. They went to Mass and performed the +duties of religion together; and, like children, found nothing to tell +their confessors. It was their firm belief that music is to feeling +and thought as thought and feeling are to speech; and of their +converse on this system there was no end. Each made response to the +other in orgies of sound, demonstrating their convictions, each for +each, like lovers. + +Schmucke was as absent-minded as Pons was wide-awake. Pons was a +collector, Schmucke a dreamer of dreams; Schmucke was a student of +beauty seen by the soul, Pons a preserver of material beauty. Pons +would catch sight of a china cup and buy it in the time that Schmucke +took to blow his nose, wondering the while within himself whether the +musical phrase that was ringing in his brain--the _motif_ from Rossini +or Bellini or Beethoven or Mozart--had its origin or its counterpart +in the world of human thought and emotion. Schmucke's economies were +controlled by an absent mind, Pons was a spendthrift through passion, +and for both the result was the same--they had not a penny on Saint +Sylvester's day. + +Perhaps Pons would have given way under his troubles if it had not +been for this friendship; but life became bearable when he found some +one to whom he could pour out his heart. The first time that he +breathed a word of his difficulties, the good German had advised him +to live as he himself did, and eat bread and cheese at home sooner +than dine abroad at such a cost. Alas! Pons did not dare to confess +that heart and stomach were at war within him, that he could digest +affronts which pained his heart, and, cost what it might, a good +dinner that satisfied his palate was a necessity to him, even as your +gay Lothario must have a mistress to tease. + +In time Schmucke understood; not just at once, for he was too much of +a Teuton to possess that gift of swift perception in which the French +rejoice; Schmucke understood and loved poor Pons the better. Nothing +so fortifies a friendship as a belief on the part of one friend that +he is superior to the other. An angel could not have found a word to +say to Schmucke rubbing his hands over the discovery of the hold that +gluttony had gained over Pons. Indeed, the good German adorned their +breakfast-table next morning with delicacies of which he went in +search himself; and every day he was careful to provide something new +for his friend, for they always breakfasted together at home. + +If any one imagines that the pair could not escape ridicule in Paris, +where nothing is respected, he cannot know that city. When Schmucke +and Pons united their riches and poverty, they hit upon the economical +expedient of lodging together, each paying half the rent of the very +unequally divided second-floor of a house in the Rue de Normandie in +the Marais. And as it often happened that they left home together and +walked side by side along their beat of boulevard, the idlers of the +quarter dubbed them "the pair of nutcrackers," a nickname which makes +any portrait of Schmucke quite superfluous, for he was to Pons as the +famous statue of the Nurse of Niobe in the Vatican is to the Tribune +Venus. + +Mme. Cibot, portress of the house in the Rue de Normandie, was the +pivot on which the domestic life of the nutcrackers turned; but Mme. +Cibot plays so large a part in the drama which grew out of their +double existence, that it will be more appropriate to give her +portrait on her first appearance in this Scene of Parisian Life. + +One thing remains to be said of the characters of the pair of friends; +but this one thing is precisely the hardest to make clear to +ninety-nine readers out of a hundred in this forty-seventh year of the +nineteenth century, perhaps by reason of the prodigious financial +development brought about by the railway system. It is a little thing, +and yet it is so much. It is a question, in fact, of giving an idea of +the extreme sensitiveness of their natures. Let us borrow an +illustration from the railways, if only by way of retaliation, as it +were, for the loans which they levy upon us. The railway train of +to-day, tearing over the metals, grinds away fine particles of dust, +grains so minute that a traveler cannot detect them with the eye; but +let a single one of those invisible motes find its way into the +kidneys, it will bring about that most excruciating, and sometimes +fatal, disease known as gravel. And our society, rushing like a +locomotive along its metaled track, is heedless of the all but +imperceptible dust made by the grinding of the wheels; but it was +otherwise with the two musicians; the invisible grains of sand sank +perpetually into the very fibres of their being, causing them +intolerable anguish of heart. Tender exceedingly to the pain of +others, they wept for their own powerlessness to help; and their own +susceptibilities were almost morbidly acute. Neither age nor the +continual spectacle of the drama of Paris life had hardened two souls +still young and childlike and pure; the longer they lived, indeed, the +more keenly they felt their inward suffering; for so it is, alas! with +natures unsullied by the world, with the quiet thinker, and with such +poets among the poets as have never fallen into any excess. + +Since the old men began housekeeping together, the day's routine was +very nearly the same for them both. They worked together in harness in +the fraternal fashion of the Paris cab-horse; rising every morning, +summer and winter, at seven o'clock, and setting out after breakfast +to give music lessons in the boarding-schools, in which, upon +occasion, they would take lessons for each other. Towards noon Pons +repaired to his theatre, if there was a rehearsal on hand; but all his +spare moments were spent in sauntering on the boulevards. Night found +both of them in the orchestra at the theatre, for Pons had found a +place for Schmucke, and upon this wise. + +At the time of their first meeting, Pons had just received that +marshal's baton of the unknown musical composer--an appointment as +conductor of an orchestra. It had come to him unasked, by a favor of +Count Popinot, a bourgeois hero of July, at that time a member of the +Government. Count Popinot had the license of a theatre in his gift, +and Count Popinot had also an old acquaintance of the kind that the +successful man blushes to meet. As he rolls through the streets of +Paris in his carriage, it is not pleasant to see his boyhood's chum +down at heel, with a coat of many improbable colors and trousers +innocent of straps, and a head full of soaring speculations on too +grand a scale to tempt shy, easily scared capital. Moreover, this +friend of his youth, Gaudissart by name, had done not a little in the +past towards founding the fortunes of the great house of Popinot. +Popinot, now a Count and a peer of France, after twice holding a +portfolio had no wish to shake off "the Illustrious Gaudissart." Quite +otherwise. The pomps and vanities of the Court of the Citizen-King had +not spoiled the sometime druggist's kind heart; he wished to put his +ex-commercial traveler in the way of renewing his wardrobe and +replenishing his purse. So when Gaudissart, always an enthusiastic +admirer of the fair sex, applied for the license of a bankrupt +theatre, Popinot granted it on condition that Pons (a parasite of the +Hotel Popinot) should be engaged as conductor of the orchestra; and at +the same time, the Count was careful to send certain elderly amateurs +of beauty to the theatre, so that the new manager might be strongly +supported financially by wealthy admirers of feminine charms revealed +by the costume of the ballet. + +Gaudissart and Company, who, be it said, made their fortune, hit upon +the grand idea of operas for the people, and carried it out in a +boulevard theatre in 1834. A tolerable conductor, who could adapt or +even compose a little music upon occasion, was a necessity for ballets +and pantomimes; but the last management had so long been bankrupt, +that they could not afford to keep a transposer and copyist. Pons +therefore introduced Schmucke to the company as copier of music, a +humble calling which requires no small musical knowledge; and +Schmucke, acting on Pons' advice, came to an understanding with the +_chef-de-service_ at the Opera-Comique, so saving himself the clerical +drudgery. + +The partnership between Pons and Schmucke produced one brilliant +result. Schmucke being a German, harmony was his strong point; he +looked over the instrumentation of Pons' compositions, and Pons +provided the airs. Here and there an amateur among the audience +admired the new pieces of music which served as accompaniment to two +or three great successes, but they attributed the improvement vaguely +to "progress." No one cared to know the composer's name; like +occupants of the _baignoires_, lost to view of the house, to gain a +view of the stage, Pons and Schmucke eclipsed themselves by their +success. In Paris (especially since the Revolution of July) no one can +hope to succeed unless he will push his way _quibuscumque viis_ and +with all his might through a formidable host of competitors; but for +this feat a man needs thews and sinews, and our two friends, be it +remembered, had that affection of the heart which cripples all +ambitious effort. + +Pons, as a rule, only went to his theatre towards eight o'clock, when +the piece in favor came on, and overtures and accompaniments needed +the strict ruling of the baton; most minor theatres are lax in such +matters, and Pons felt the more at ease because he himself had been by +no means grasping in all his dealings with the management; and +Schmucke, if need be, could take his place. Time went by, and Schmucke +became an institution in the orchestra; the Illustrious Gaudissart +said nothing, but he was well aware of the value of Pons' +collaborator. He was obliged to include a pianoforte in the orchestra +(following the example of the leading theatres); the instrument was +placed beside the conductor's chair, and Schmucke played without +increase of salary--a volunteer supernumerary. As Schmucke's +character, his utter lack of ambition or pretence became known, the +orchestra recognized him as one of themselves; and as time went on, he +was intrusted with the often needed miscellaneous musical instruments +which form no part of the regular band of a boulevard theatre. For a +very small addition to his stipend, Schmucke played the viola d'amore, +hautboy, violoncello, and harp, as well as the piano, the castanets +for the _cachucha_, the bells, saxhorn, and the like. If the Germans +cannot draw harmony from the mighty instruments of Liberty, yet to +play all instruments of music comes to them by nature. + +The two old artists were exceedingly popular at the theatre, and took +its ways philosophically. They had put, as it were, scales over their +eyes, lest they should see the offences that needs must come when a +_corps de ballet_ is blended with actors and actresses, one of the +most trying combinations ever created by the laws of supply and demand +for the torment of managers, authors, and composers alike. + +Every one esteemed Pons with his kindness and his modesty, his great +self-respect and respect for others; for a pure and limpid life wins +something like admiration from the worst nature in every social +sphere, and in Paris a fair virtue meets with something of the success +of a large diamond, so great a rarity it is. No actor, no dancer +however brazen, would have indulged in the mildest practical joke at +the expense of either Pons or Schmucke. + +Pons very occasionally put in an appearance in the _foyer_; but all +that Schmucke knew of the theatre was the underground passage from the +street door to the orchestra. Sometimes, however, during an interval, +the good German would venture to make a survey of the house and ask a +few questions of the first flute, a young fellow from Strasbourg, who +came of a German family at Kehl. Gradually under the flute's tuition +Schmucke's childlike imagination acquired a certain amount of +knowledge of the world; he could believe in the existence of that +fabulous creature the _lorette_, the possibility of "marriages at the +Thirteenth Arrondissement," the vagaries of the leading lady, and the +contraband traffic carried on by box-openers. In his eyes the more +harmless forms of vice were the lowest depths of Babylonish iniquity; +he did not believe the stories, he smiled at them for grotesque +inventions. The ingenious reader can see that Pons and Schmucke were +exploited, to use a word much in fashion; but what they lost in money +they gained in consideration and kindly treatment. + +It was after the success of the ballet with which a run of success +began for the Gaudissart Company that the management presented Pons +with a piece of plate--a group of figures attributed to Benvenuto +Cellini. The alarming costliness of the gift caused talk in the +green-room. It was a matter of twelve hundred francs! Pons, poor +honest soul, was for returning the present, and Gaudissart had a +world of trouble to persuade him to keep it. + +"Ah!" said the manager afterwards, when he told his partner of the +interview, "if we could only find actors up to that sample." + +In their joint life, outwardly so quiet, there was the one disturbing +element--the weakness to which Pons sacrificed, the insatiable craving +to dine out. Whenever Schmucke happened to be at home while Pons was +dressing for the evening, the good German would bewail this deplorable +habit. + +"Gif only he vas ony fatter vor it!" he many a time cried. + +And Schmucke would dream of curing his friend of his degrading vice, +for a true friend's instinct in all that belongs to the inner life is +unerring as a dog's sense of smell; a friend knows by intuition the +trouble in his friend's soul, and guesses at the cause and ponders it +in his heart. + +Pons, who always wore a diamond ring on the little finger of his right +hand, an ornament permitted in the time of the Empire, but ridiculous +to-day--Pons, who belonged to the "troubadour time," the sentimental +periods of the first Empire, was too much a child of his age, too much +of a Frenchman to wear the expression of divine serenity which +softened Schmucke's hideous ugliness. From Pons' melancholy looks +Schmucke knew that the profession of parasite was growing daily more +difficult and painful. And, in fact, in that month of October 1844, +the number of houses at which Pons dined was naturally much +restricted; reduced to move round and round the family circle, he had +used the word family in far too wide a sense, as will shortly be seen. + +M. Camusot, the rich silk mercer of the Rue des Bourdonnais, had +married Pons' first cousin, Mlle. Pons, only child and heiress of one +of the well-known firm of Pons Brothers, court embroiderers. Pons' own +father and mother retired from a firm founded before the Revolution of +1789, leaving their capital in the business until Mlle. Pons' father +sold it in 1815 to M. Rivet. M. Camusot had since lost his wife and +married again, and retired from business some ten years, and now in +1844 he was a member of the Board of Trade, a deputy, and what not. +But the Camusot clan were friendly; and Pons, good man, still +considered that he was some kind of cousin to the children of the +second marriage, who were not relations, or even connected with him in +any way. + +The second Mme. Camusot being a Mlle. Cardot, Pons introduced himself +as a relative into the tolerably numerous Cardot family, a second +bourgeois tribe which, taken with its connections, formed quite as +strong a clan as the Camusots; for Cardot the notary (brother of the +second Mme. Camusot) had married a Mlle. Chiffreville; and the +well-known family of Chiffreville, the leading firm of manufacturing +chemists, was closely connected with the whole drug trade, of which M. +Anselme Popinot was for many years the undisputed head, until the +Revolution of July plunged him into the very centre of the dynastic +movement, as everybody knows. So Pons, in the wake of the Camusots and +Cardots, reached the Chiffrevilles, and thence the Popinots, always in +the character of a cousin's cousin. + +The above concise statement of Pons' relations with his entertainers +explains how it came to pass that an old musician was received in 1844 +as one of the family in the houses of four distinguished persons--to +wit, M. le Comte Popinot, peer of France, and twice in office; M. +Cardot, retired notary, mayor and deputy of an arrondissement in +Paris; M. Camusot senior, a member of the Board of Trade and the +Municipal Chamber and a peerage; and lastly, M. Camusot de Marville, +Camusot's son by his first marriage, and Pons' one genuine relation, +albeit even he was a first cousin once removed. + +This Camusot, President of a Chamber of the Court of Appeal in Paris, +had taken the name of his estate at Marville to distinguish himself +from his father and a younger half brother. + +Cardot the retired notary had married his daughter to his successor, +whose name was Berthier; and Pons, transferred as part of the +connection, acquired a right to dine with the Berthiers "in the +presence of a notary," as he put it. + +This was the bourgeois empyrean which Pons called his "family," that +upper world in which he so painfully reserved his right to a knife and +fork. + +Of all these houses, some ten in all, the one in which Pons ought to +have met with the kindest reception should by rights have been his own +cousin's; and, indeed, he paid most attention to President Camusot's +family. But, alas! Mme. Camusot de Marville, daughter of the Sieur +Thirion, usher of the cabinet to Louis XVIII. and Charles X., had +never taken very kindly to her husband's first cousin, once removed. +Pons had tried to soften this formidable relative; he wasted his time; +for in spite of the pianoforte lessons which he gave gratuitously to +Mlle. Camusot, a young woman with hair somewhat inclined to red, it +was impossible to make a musician of her. + +And now, at this very moment, as he walked with that precious object +in his hand, Pons was bound for the President's house, where he always +felt as if he were at the Tuileries itself, so heavily did the solemn +green curtains, the carmelite-brown hangings, thick piled carpets, +heavy furniture, and general atmosphere of magisterial severity +oppress his soul. Strange as it may seem, he felt more at home in the +Hotel Popinot, Rue Basse-du-Rempart, probably because it was full of +works of art; for the master of the house, since he entered public +life, had acquired a mania for collecting beautiful things, by way of +contrast no doubt, for a politician is obliged to pay for secret +services of the ugliest kind. + +President de Marville lived in the Rue de Hanovre, in a house which +his wife had bought ten years previously, on the death of her parents, +for the Sieur and Dame Thirion left their daughter about a hundred and +fifty thousand francs, the savings of a lifetime. With its north +aspect, the house looks gloomy enough seen from the street, but the +back looks towards the south over the courtyard, with a rather pretty +garden beyond it. As the President occupied the whole of the first +floor, once the abode of a great financier of the time of Louis XIV., +and the second was let to a wealthy old lady, the house wore a look of +dignified repose befitting a magistrate's residence. President Camusot +had invested all that he inherited from his mother, together with the +savings of twenty years, in the purchase of the splendid Marville +estate; a chateau (as fine a relic of the past as you will find to-day +in Normandy) standing in a hundred acres of park land, and a fine +dependent farm, nominally bringing in twelve thousand francs per +annum, though, as it cost the President at least a thousand crowns to +keep up a state almost princely in our days, his yearly revenue, "all +told," as the saying is, was a bare nine thousand francs. With this +and his salary, the President's income amounted to about twenty +thousand francs; but though to all appearance a wealthy man, +especially as one-half of his father's property would one day revert +to him as the only child of the first marriage, he was obliged to live +in Paris as befitted his official position, and M. and Mme. de +Marville spent almost the whole of their incomes. Indeed, before the +year 1834 they felt pinched. + +This family schedule sufficiently explains why Mlle. de Marville, aged +three-and-twenty, was still unwed, in spite of a hundred thousand +francs of dowry and tempting prospects, frequently, skilfully, but so +far vainly, held out. For the past five years Pons had listened to +Mme. la Presidente's lamentations as she beheld one young lawyer after +another led to the altar, while all the newly appointed judges at the +Tribunal were fathers of families already; and she, all this time, had +displayed Mlle. de Marville's brilliant expectations before the +undazzled eyes of young Vicomte Popinot, eldest son of the great man +of the drug trade, he of whom it was said by the envious tongues of +the neighborhood of the Rue des Lombards, that the Revolution of July +had been brought about at least as much for his particular benefit as +for the sake of the Orleans branch. + +Arrived at the corner of the Rue de Choiseul and the Rue de Hanovre, +Pons suffered from the inexplicable emotions which torment clear +consciences; for a panic terror such as the worst of scoundrels might +feel at sight of a policeman, an agony caused solely by a doubt as to +Mme. de Marville's probable reception of him. That grain of sand, +grating continually on the fibres of his heart, so far from losing its +angles, grew more and more jagged, and the family in the Rue de +Hanovre always sharpened the edges. Indeed, their unceremonious +treatment and Pons' depreciation in value among them had affected the +servants; and while they did not exactly fail in respect, they looked +on the poor relation as a kind of beggar. + +Pons' arch-enemy in the house was the ladies'-maid, a thin and wizened +spinster, Madeleine Vivet by name. This Madeleine, in spite of, nay, +perhaps on the strength of, a pimpled complexion and a viper-like +length of spine, had made up her mind that some day she would be Mme. +Pons. But in vain she dangled twenty thousand francs of savings before +the old bachelor's eyes; Pons had declined happiness accompanied by so +many pimples. From that time forth the Dido of the ante-chamber, who +fain had called her master and mistress "cousin," wreaked her spite in +petty ways upon the poor musician. She heard him on the stairs, and +cried audibly, "Oh! here comes the sponger!" She stinted him of wine +when she waited at dinner in the footman's absence; she filled the +water-glass to the brim, to give him the difficult task of lifting it +without spilling a drop; or she would pass the old man over +altogether, till the mistress of the house would remind her (and in +what a tone!--it brought the color to the poor cousin's face); or she +would spill the gravy over his clothes. In short, she waged petty war +after the manner of a petty nature, knowing that she could annoy an +unfortunate superior with impunity. + +Madeleine Vivet was Mme. de Marville's maid and housekeeper. She had +lived with M. and Mme. Camusot de Marville since their marriage; she +had shared the early struggles in the provinces when M. Camusot was a +judge at Alencon; she had helped them to exist when M. Camusot, +President of the Tribunal of Mantes, came to Paris, in 1828, to be an +examining magistrate. She was, therefore, too much one of the family +not to wish, for reasons of her own, to revenge herself upon them. +Beneath her desire to pay a trick upon her haughty and ambitious +mistress, and to call her master her cousin, there surely lurked a +long-stifled hatred, built up like an avalanche, upon the pebble of +some past grievance. + +"Here comes your M. Pons, madame, still wearing that spencer of his!" +Madeleine came to tell the Presidente. "He really might tell me how he +manages to make it look the same for five-and-twenty years together." + +Mme. Camusot de Marville, hearing a man's footstep in the little +drawing-room between the large drawing-room and her bedroom, looked at +her daughter and shrugged her shoulders. + +"You always make these announcements so cleverly that you leave me no +time to think, Madeleine." + +"Jean is out, madame, I was all alone; M. Pons rang the bell, I opened +the door; and as he is almost one of the family, I could not prevent +him from coming after me. There he is, taking off his spencer." + +"Poor little puss!" said the Presidente, addressing her daughter, "we +are caught. We shall have to dine at home now.--Let us see," she +added, seeing that the "dear puss" wore a piteous face; "must we get +rid of him for good?" + +"Oh! poor man!" cried Mlle. Camusot, "deprive him of one of his +dinners?" + +Somebody coughed significantly in the next room by way of warning that +he could hear. + +"Very well, let him come in!" said Mme. Camusot, looking at Madeleine +with another shrug. + +"You are here so early, cousin, that you have come in upon us just as +mother was about to dress," said Cecile Camusot in a coaxing tone. But +Cousin Pons had caught sight of the Presidente's shrug, and felt so +cruelly hurt that he could not find a compliment, and contented +himself with the profound remark, "You are always charming, my little +cousin." + +Then, turning to the mother, he continued with a bow: + +"You will not take it amiss, I think, if I have come a little earlier +than usual, dear cousin; I have brought something for you; you once +did me the pleasure of asking me for it." + +Poor Pons! Every time he addressed the President, the President's +wife, or Cecile as "cousin," he gave them excruciating annoyance. As +he spoke, he draw a long, narrow cherry-wood box, marvelously carved, +from his coat-pocket. + +"Oh, did I?--I had forgotten," the lady answered drily. + +It was a heartless speech, was it not? Did not those few words deny +all merit to the pains taken for her by the cousin whose one offence +lay in the fact that he was a poor relation? + +"But it is very kind of you, cousin," she added. "How much to I owe +you for this little trifle?" + +Pons quivered inwardly at the question. He had meant the trinket as a +return for his dinners. + +"I thought that you would permit me to offer it you----" he faltered +out. + +"What?" said Mme. Camusot. "Oh! but there need be no ceremony between +us; we know each other well enough to wash our linen among ourselves. +I know very well that you are not rich enough to give more than you +get. And to go no further, it is quite enough that you should have +spent a good deal of time in running among the dealers--" + +"If you were asked to pay the full price of the fan, my dear cousin, +you would not care to have it," answered poor Pons, hurt and insulted; +"it is one of Watteau's masterpieces, painted on both sides; but you +may be quite easy, cousin, I did not give one-hundredth part of its +value as a work of art." + +To tell a rich man that he is poor! you might as well tell the +Archbishop of Granada that his homilies show signs of senility. Mme. +la Presidente, proud of her husband's position, of the estate of +Marville, and her invitations to court balls, was keenly susceptible +on this point; and what was worse, the remark came from a +poverty-stricken musician to whom she had been charitable. + +"Then the people of whom you buy things of this kind are very stupid, +are they?" she asked quickly. + +"Stupid dealers are unknown in Paris," Pons answered almost drily. + +"Then you must be very clever," put in Cecile by way of calming the +dispute. + +"Clever enough to know a Lancret, a Watteau, a Pater, or Greuze when I +see it, little cousin; but anxious, most of all, to please your dear +mamma." + +Mme. de Marville, ignorant and vain, was unwilling to appear to +receive the slightest trifle from the parasite; and here her ignorance +served her admirably, she did not even know the name of Watteau. And, +on the other hand, if anything can measure the extent of the +collector's passion, which, in truth, is one of the most deeply seated +of all passions, rivaling the very vanity of the author--if anything +can give an idea of the lengths to which a collector will go, it is +the audacity which Pons displayed on this occasion, as he held his own +against his lady cousin for the first time in twenty years. He was +amazed at his own boldness. He made Cecile see the beauties of the +delicate carving on the sticks of this wonder, and as he talked to her +his face grew serene and gentle again. But without some sketch of the +Presidente, it is impossible fully to understand the perturbation of +heart from which Pons suffered. + +Mme. de Marville had been short and fair, plump and fresh; at +forty-six she was as short as ever, but she looked dried up. An arched +forehead and thin lips, that had been softly colored once, lent a +soured look to a face naturally disdainful, and now grown hard and +unpleasant with a long course of absolute domestic rule. Time had +deepened her fair hair to a harsh chestnut hue; the pride of office, +intensified by suppressed envy, looked out of eyes that had lost none +of their brightness nor their satirical expression. As a matter of +fact, Mme. Camusot de Marville felt almost poor in the society of +self-made wealthy bourgeois with whom Pons dined. She could not +forgive the rich retail druggist, ex-president of the Commercial +Court, for his successive elevations as deputy, member of the +Government, count and peer of France. She could not forgive her +father-in-law for putting himself forward instead of his eldest son as +deputy of his arrondissement after Popinot's promotion to the peerage. +After eighteen years of services in Paris, she was still waiting for +the post of Councillor of the Court of Cassation for her husband. It +was Camusot's own incompetence, well known at the Law Courts, which +excluded him from the Council. The Home Secretary of 1844 even +regretted Camusot's nomination to the presidency of the Court of +Indictments in 1834, though, thanks to his past experience as an +examining magistrate, he made himself useful in drafting decrees. + +These disappointments had told upon Mme. de Marville, who, moreover, +had formed a tolerably correct estimate of her husband. A temper +naturally shrewish was soured till she grew positively terrible. She +was not old, but she had aged; she deliberately set herself to extort +by fear all that the world was inclined to refuse her, and was harsh +and rasping as a file. Caustic to excess she had few friends among +women; she surrounded herself with prim, elderly matrons of her own +stamp, who lent each other mutual support, and people stood in awe of +her. As for poor Pons, his relations with this fiend in petticoats +were very much those of a schoolboy with the master whose one idea of +communication is the ferule. + +The Presidente had no idea of the value of the gift. She was puzzled +by her cousin's sudden access of audacity. + +"Then, where did you find this?" inquired Cecile, as she looked +closely at the trinket. + +"In the Rue de Lappe. A dealer in second-hand furniture there had just +brought it back with him from a chateau that is being pulled down near +Dreux, Aulnay. Mme. de Pompadour used to spend part of her time there +before she built Menars. Some of the most splendid wood-carving ever +known has been saved from destruction; Lienard (our most famous living +wood-carver) had kept a couple of oval frames for models, as the _ne +plus ultra_ of the art, so fine it is.--There were treasures in that +place. My man found the fan in the drawer of an inlaid what-not, which +I should certainly have bought if I were collecting things of the +kind, but it is quite out of the question--a single piece of +Riesener's furniture is worth three or four thousand francs! People +here in Paris are just beginning to find out that the famous French +and German marquetry workers of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and +eighteenth centuries composed perfect pictures in wood. It is a +collector's business to be ahead of the fashion. Why, in five years' +time, the Frankenthal ware, which I have been collecting these twenty +years, will fetch twice the price of Sevres _pata tendre_." + +"What is Frankenthal ware?" asked Cecile. + +"That is the name of the porcelain made by the Elector of the +Palatinate; it dates further back than our manufactory at Sevres; just +as the famous gardens at Heidelberg, laid waste by Turenne, had the +bad luck to exist before the garden of Versailles. Sevres copied +Frankenthal to a large extent.--In justice to the Germans, it must be +said that they have done admirable work in Saxony and in the +Palatinate." + +Mother and daughter looked at one another as if Pons were speaking +Chinese. No one can imagine how ignorant and exclusive Parisians are; +they only learn what they are taught, and that only when they choose. + +"And how do you know the Frankenthal ware when you see it?" + +"Eh! by the mark!" cried Pons with enthusiasm. "There is a mark on +every one of those exquisite masterpieces. Frankenthal ware is marked +with a C and T (for Charles Theodore) interlaced and crowned. On old +Dresden china there are two crossed swords and the number of the order +in gilt figures. Vincennes bears a hunting-horn; Vienna, a V closed +and barred. You can tell Berlin by the two bars, Mayence by the wheel, +and Sevres by the two crossed L's. The queen's porcelain is marked A +for Antoinette, with a royal crown above it. In the eighteenth +century, all the crowned heads of Europe had rival porcelain +factories, and workmen were kidnaped. Watteau designed services for +the Dresden factory; they fetch frantic prices at the present day. One +has to know what one is about with them too, for they are turning out +imitations now at Dresden. Wonderful things they used to make; they +will never make the like again--" + +"Oh! pshaw!" + +"No, cousin. Some inlaid work and some kinds of porcelain will never +be made again, just as there will never be another Raphael, nor +Titian, nor Rembrandt, nor Van Eyck, nor Cranach. . . . Well, now! +there are the Chinese; they are very ingenious, very clever; they make +modern copies of their 'grand mandarin' porcelain, as it is called. +But a pair of vases of genuine 'grand mandarin' vases of the largest +size, are worth, six, eight, and ten thousand francs, while you can +buy the modern replicas for a couple of hundred!" + +"You are joking." + +"You are astonished at the prices, but that is nothing, cousin. A +dinner service of Sevres _pate tendre_ (and _pate tendre_ is not +porcelain)--a complete dinner service of Sevres _pate tendre_ for +twelve persons is not merely worth a hundred thousand francs, but that +is the price charged on the invoice. Such a dinner-service cost +fifteen thousand francs at Sevres in 1750; I have seen the original +invoices." + +"But let us go back to this fan," said Cecile. Evidently in her +opinion the trinket was an old-fashioned thing. + +"You can understand that as soon as your dear mamma did me the honor +of asking for a fan, I went round of all the curiosity shops in Paris, +but I found nothing fine enough. I wanted nothing less than a +masterpiece for the dear Presidente, and thought of giving her one +that once belonged to Marie Antoinette, the most beautiful of all +celebrated fans. But yesterday I was dazzled by this divine +_chef-d'oeuvre_, which certainly must have been ordered by Louis XV. +himself. Do you ask how I came to look for fans in the Rue de Lappe, +among an Auvergnat's stock of brass and iron and ormolu furniture? +Well, I myself believe that there is an intelligence in works of art; +they know art-lovers, they call to them--'Cht-tt!'" + +Mme. de Marville shrugged her shoulders and looked at her daughter; +Pons did not notice the rapid pantomime. + +"I know all those sharpers," continued Pons, "so I asked him, +'Anything fresh to-day, Daddy Monistrol?'--(for he always lets me look +over his lots before the big buyers come)--and at that he began to +tell me how Lienard, that did such beautiful work for the Government +in the Chapelle de Dreux, had been at the Aulnay sale and rescued the +carved panels out of the clutches of the Paris dealers, while their +heads were running on china and inlaid furniture.--'I did not do much +myself,' he went on, 'but I may make my traveling expenses out of +_this_,' and he showed me a what-not; a marvel! Boucher's designs +executed in marquetry, and with such art!--One could have gone down on +one's knees before it.--'Look, sir,' he said, 'I have just found this +fan in a little drawer; it was locked, I had to force it open. You +might tell me where I can sell it'--and with that he brings out this +little carved cherry-wood box.--'See,' says he, 'it is the kind of +Pompadour that looks like decorated Gothic.'--'Yes,' I told him, 'the +box is pretty; the box might suit me; but as for the fan, Monistrol, I +have no Mme. Pons to give the old trinket to, and they make very +pretty new ones nowadays; you can buy miracles of painting on vellum +cheaply enough. There are two thousand painters in Paris, you know.' +--And I opened out the fan carelessly, keeping down my admiration, +looked indifferently at those two exquisite little pictures, touched +off with an ease fit to send you into raptures. I held Mme. de +Pompadour's fan in my hand! Watteau had done his utmost for this. +--'What do you want for the what-not?'--'Oh! a thousand francs; I have +had a bid already.'--I offered him a price for the fan corresponding +with the probable expenses of the journey. We looked each other in the +eyes, and I saw that I had my man. I put the fan back into the box +lest my Auvergnat should begin to look at it, and went into ecstasies +over the box; indeed, it is a jewel.--'If I take it,' said I, 'it is +for the sake of the box; the box tempts me. As for the what-not, you +will get more than a thousand francs for that. Just see how the brass +is wrought; it is a model. There is business in it. . . . It has never +been copied; it is a unique specimen, made solely for Mme. de +Pompadour'--and so on, till my man, all on fire for his what-not, +forgets the fan, and lets me have it for a mere trifle, because I have +pointed out the beauties of his piece of Riesener's furniture. So here +it is; but it needs a great deal of experience to make such a bargain +as that. It is a duel, eye to eye; and who has such eyes as a Jew or +an Auvergnat?" + +The old artist's wonderful pantomime, his vivid, eager way of telling +the story of the triumph of his shrewdness over the dealer's +ignorance, would have made a subject for a Dutch painter; but it was +all thrown away upon the audience. Mother and daughter exchanged cold, +contemptuous glances.--"What an oddity!" they seemed to say. + +"So it amuses you?" remarked Mme. de Marville. The question sent a +cold chill through Pons; he felt a strong desire to slap the +Presidente. + +"Why, my dear cousin, that is the way to hunt down a work of art. You +are face to face with antagonists that dispute the game with you. It +is craft against craft! A work of art in the hands of a Norman, an +Auvergnat, or a Jew, is like a princess guarded by magicians in a +fairy tale." + +"And how can you tell that this is by Wat--what do you call him?" + +"Watteau, cousin. One of the greatest eighteenth century painters in +France. Look! do you not see that it is his work?" (pointing to a +pastoral scene, court-shepherd swains and shepherdesses dancing in a +ring). "The movement! the life in it! the coloring! There it is--see! +--painted with a stroke of the brush, as a writing-master makes a +flourish with a pen. Not a trace of effort here! And, turn it over, +look!--a ball in a drawing-room. Summer and Winter! And what +ornaments! and how well preserved it is! The hinge-pin is gold, you +see, and on cleaning it, I found a tiny ruby at either side." + +"If it is so, cousin, I could not think of accepting such a valuable +present from you. It would be better to lay up the money for +yourself," said Mme. de Marville; but all the same, she asked no +better than to keep the splendid fan. + +"It is time that it should pass from the service of Vice into the +hands of Virtue," said the good soul, recovering his assurance. "It +has taken a century to work the miracle. No princess at Court, you may +be sure, will have anything to compare with it; for, unfortunately, +men will do more for a Pompadour than for a virtuous queen, such is +human nature." + +"Very well," Mme. de Marville said, laughing, "I will accept your +present.--Cecile, my angel, go to Madeleine and see that dinner is +worthy of your cousin." + +Mme. de Marville wished to make matters even. Her request, made aloud, +in defiance of all rules of good taste, sounded so much like an +attempt to repay at once the balance due to the poor cousin, that Pons +flushed red, like a girl found out in fault. The grain of sand was a +little too large; for some moments he could only let it work in his +heart. Cecile, a red-haired young woman, with a touch of pedantic +affectation, combined her father's ponderous manner with a trace of +her mother's hardness. She went and left poor Pons face to face with +the terrible Presidente. + +"How nice she is, my little Lili!" said the mother. She still called +her Cecile by this baby name. + +"Charming!" said Pons, twirling his thumbs. + +"I _cannot_ understand these times in which we live," broke out the +Presidente. "What is the good of having a President of the Court of +Appeal in Paris and a Commander of the Legion of Honor for your +father, and for a grandfather the richest wholesale silk merchant in +Paris, a deputy, and a millionaire that will be a peer of France some +of these days?" + +The President's zeal for the new Government had, in fact, recently +been rewarded with a commander's ribbon--thanks to his friendship with +Popinot, said the envious. Popinot himself, modest though he was, had, +as has been seen, accepted the title of count, "for his son's sake," +he told his numerous friends. + +"Men look for nothing but money nowadays," said Cousin Pons. "No one +thinks anything of you unless you are rich, and--" + +"What would it have been if Heaven had spared my poor little +Charles!--" cried the lady. + +"Oh, with two children you would be poor," returned the cousin. "It +practically means the division of the property. But you need not +trouble yourself, cousin; Cecile is sure to marry sooner or later. She +is the most accomplished girl I know." + +To such depths had Pons fallen by adapting himself to the company of +his entertainers! In their houses he echoed their ideas, and said the +obvious thing, after the manner of a chorus in a Greek play. He did +not dare to give free play to the artist's originality, which had +overflowed in bright repartee when he was young; he had effaced +himself, till he had almost lost his individuality; and if the real +Pons appeared, as he had done a moment ago, he was immediately +repressed. + +"But I myself was married with only twenty thousand francs for my +portion--" + +"In 1819, cousin. And it was _you_, a woman with a head on your +shoulders, and the royal protection of Louis XVIII." + +"Be still, my child is a perfect angel. She is clever, she has a warm +heart, she will have a hundred thousand francs on her wedding day, to +say nothing of the most brilliant expectations; and yet she stays on +our hands," and so on and so on. For twenty minutes, Mme. de Marville +talked on about herself and her Cecile, pitying herself after the +manner of mothers in bondage to marriageable daughters. + +Pons had dined at the house every week for twenty years, and Camusot +de Marville was the only cousin he had in the world; but he had yet to +hear the first word spoken as to his own affairs--nobody cared to know +how he lived. Here and elsewhere the poor cousin was a kind of sink +down which his relatives poured domestic confidences. His discretion +was well known; indeed, was he not bound over to silence when a single +imprudent word would have shut the door of ten houses upon him? And he +must combine his role of listener with a second part; he must applaud +continually, smile on every one, accuse nobody, defend nobody; from +his point of view, every one must be in the right. And so, in the +house of his kinsman, Pons no longer counted as a man; he was a +digestive apparatus. + +In the course of a long tirade, Mme. Camusot de Marville avowed with +due circumspection that she was prepared to take almost any son-in-law +with her eyes shut. She was even disposed to think that at +eight-and-forty or so a man with twenty thousand francs a year was a +good match. + +"Cecile is in her twenty-third year. If it should fall out so +unfortunately that she is not married before she is five or +six-and-twenty, it will be extremely hard to marry her at all. When a +girl reaches that age, people want to know why she has been so long on +hand. We are a good deal talked about in our set. We have come to the +end of all the ordinary excuses--'She is so young.--She is so fond of +her father and mother that she doesn't like to leave them.--She is so +happy at home.--She is hard to please, she would like a good name--' +We are beginning to look silly; I feel that distinctly. And besides, +Cecile is tired of waiting, poor child, she suffers--" + +"In what way?" Pons was noodle enough to ask. + +"Why, because it is humiliating to her to see all her girl friends +married before her," replied the mother, with a duenna's air. + +"But, cousin, has anything happened since the last time that I had the +pleasure of dining here? Why do you think of men of eight-and-forty?" +Pons inquired humbly. + +"This has happened," returned the Presidente. "We were to have had an +interview with a Court Councillor; his son is thirty years old and +very well-to-do, and M. de Marville would have obtained a post in the +audit-office for him and paid the money. The young man is a +supernumerary there at present. And now they tell us that he has taken +it into his head to rush off to Italy in the train of a duchess from +the Bal Mabille. . . . It is nothing but a refusal in disguise. The +fact is, the young man's mother is dead; he has an income of thirty +thousand francs, and more to come at his father's death, and they +don't care about the match for him. You have just come in in the +middle of all this, dear cousin, so you must excuse our bad temper." + +While Pons was casting about for the complimentary answer which +invariably occurred to him too late when he was afraid of his host, +Madeleine came in, handed a folded note to the Presidente, and waited +for an answer. The note ran as follows: + + "DEAR MAMMA,--If we pretend that this note comes to you from papa + at the Palais, and that he wants us both to dine with his friend + because proposals have been renewed--then the cousin will go, and + we can carry out our plan of going to the Popinots." + +"Who brought the master's note?" the Presidente asked quickly. + +"A lad from the Salle du Palais," the withered waiting woman +unblushingly answered, and her mistress knew at once that Madeleine +had woven the plot with Cecile, now at the end of her patience. + +"Tell him that we will both be there at half-past five." + +Madeleine had no sooner left the room than the Presidente turned to +Cousin Pons with that insincere friendliness which is about as +grateful to a sensitive soul as a mixture of milk and vinegar to the +palate of an epicure. + +"Dinner is ordered, dear cousin; you must dine without us; my husband +has just sent word from the court that the question of the marriage +has been reopened, and we are to dine with the Councillor. We need not +stand on ceremony at all. Do just as if you were at home. I have no +secrets from you; I am perfectly open with you, as you see. I am sure +you would not wish to break off the little darling's marriage." + +"_I_, cousin? On the contrary, I should like to find some one for her; +but in my circle--" + +"Oh, that is not at all likely," said the Presidente, cutting him +short insolently. "Then you will stay, will you not? Cecile will keep +you company while I dress. + +"Oh! I can dine somewhere else, cousin." + +Cruelly hurt though he was by her way of casting up his poverty to +him, the prospect of being left alone with the servants was even more +alarming. + +"But why should you? Dinner is ready; you may just as well have it; if +you do not, the servants will eat it." + +At that atrocious speech Pons started up as if he had received a shock +from a galvanic battery, bowed stiffly to the lady, and went to find +his spencer. Now, it so happened that the door of Cecile's bedroom, +beyond the little drawing-room, stood open, and looking into the +mirror, he caught sight of the girl shaking with laughter as she +gesticulated and made signs to her mother. The old artist understood +beyond a doubt that he had been the victim of some cowardly hoax. Pons +went slowly down the stairs; he could not keep back the tears. He +understood that he had been turned out of the house, but why and +wherefore he did not know. + +"I am growing too old," he told himself. "The world has a horror of +old age and poverty--two ugly things. After this I will not go +anywhere unless I am asked." + +Heroic resolve! + +Downstairs the great gate was shut, as it usually is in houses +occupied by the proprietor; the kitchen stood exactly opposite the +porter's lodge, and the door was open. Pons was obliged to listen +while Madeleine told the servants the whole story amid the laughter of +the servants. She had not expected him to leave so soon. The footman +loudly applauded a joke at the expense of a visitor who was always +coming to the house and never gave you more than three francs at the +year's end. + +"Yes," put in the cook; "but if he cuts up rough and does not come +back, there will be three francs the less for some of us on New Year's +day." + +"Eh! How is he to know?" retorted the footman. + +"Pooh!" said Madeleine, "a little sooner or a little later--what +difference does it make? The people at the other houses where he dines +are so tired of him that they are going to turn him out." + +"The gate, if you please!" + +Madeleine had scarcely uttered the words when they heard the old +musician's call to the porter. It sounded like a cry of pain. There +was a sudden silence in the kitchen. + +"He heard!" the footman said. + +"Well, and if he did, so much the worser, or rather so much the +better," retorted Madeleine. "He is an arrant skinflint." + +Poor Pons had lost none of the talk in the kitchen; he heard it all, +even to the last word. He made his way home along the boulevards, in +the same state, physical and mental, as an old woman after a desperate +struggle with burglars. As he went he talked to himself in quick +spasmodic jerks; his honor had been wounded, and the pain of it drove +him on as a gust of wind whirls away a straw. He found himself at last +in the Boulevard du Temple; how he had come thither he could not tell. +It was five o'clock, and, strange to say, he had completely lost his +appetite. + +But if the reader is to understand the revolution which Pons' +unexpected return at that hour was to work in the Rue de Normandie, +the promised biography of Mme. Cibot must be given in this place. + +Any one passing along the Rue de Normandie might be pardoned for +thinking that he was in some small provincial town. Grass runs to seed +in the street, everybody knows everybody else, and the sight of a +stranger is an event. The houses date back to the reign of Henry IV., +when there was a scheme afoot for a quarter in which every street was +to be named after a French province, and all should converge in a +handsome square to which La France should stand godmother. The +Quartier de l'Europe was a revival of the same idea; history repeats +itself everywhere in the world, and even in the world of speculation. + +The house in which the two musicians used to live is an old mansion +with a courtyard in front and a garden at the back; but the front part +of the house which gives upon the street is comparatively modern, +built during the eighteenth century when the Marais was a fashionable +quarter. The friends lived at the back, on the second floor of the old +part of the house. The whole building belongs to M. Pillerault, an old +man of eighty, who left matters very much in the hands of M. and Mme. +Cibot, his porters for the past twenty-six years. + +Now, as a porter cannot live by his lodge alone, the aforesaid Cibot +had other means of gaining a livelihood; and supplemented his five per +cent on the rental and his faggot from every cartload of wood by his +own earnings as a tailor. In time Cibot ceased to work for the master +tailors; he made a connection among the little trades-people of the +quarter, and enjoyed a monopoly of the repairs, renovations, and fine +drawing of all the coats and trousers in three adjacent streets. The +lodge was spacious and wholesome, and boasted a second room; wherefore +the Cibot couple were looked upon as among the luckiest porters in the +arrondissement. + +Cibot, small and stunted, with a complexion almost olive-colored by +reason of sitting day in day out in Turk-fashion on a table level with +the barred window, made about twelve or fourteen francs a week. He +worked still, though he was fifty-eight years old, but fifty-eight is +the porter's golden age; he is used to his lodge, he and his room fit +each other like the shell and the oyster, and "he is known in the +neighborhood." + +Mme. Cibot, sometime opener of oysters at the _Cadran Bleu_, after all +the adventures which come unsought to the belle of an oyster-bar, left +her post for love of Cibot at the age of twenty-eight. The beauty of a +woman of the people is short-lived, especially if she is planted +espalier fashion at a restaurant door. Her features are hardened by +puffs of hot air from the kitchen; the color of the heeltaps of +customers' bottles, finished in the company of the waiters, gradually +filters into her complexion--no beauty is full blown so soon as the +beauty of an oyster-opener. Luckily for Mme. Cibot, lawful wedlock and +a portress' life were offered to her just in time; while she still +preserved a comeliness of a masculine order slandered by rivals of the +Rue de Normandie, who called her "a great blowsy thing," Mme. Cibot +might have sat as a model to Rubens. Those flesh tints reminded you of +the appetizing sheen on a pat of Isigny butter; but plump as she was, +no woman went about her work with more agility. Mme. Cibot had +attained the time of life when women of her stamp are obliged to shave +--which is as much as to say that she had reached the age of +forty-eight. A porter's wife with a moustache is one of the best +possible guarantees of respectability and security that a landlord can +have. If Delacroix could have seen Mme. Cibot leaning proudly on her +broom handle, he would assuredly have painted her as Bellona. + +Strange as it may seem, the circumstances of the Cibots, man and wife +(in the style of an indictment), were one day to affect the lives of +the two friends; wherefore the chronicler, as in duty bound, must give +some particulars as to the Cibots' lodge. + +The house brought in about eight thousand francs for there were three +complete sets of apartments--back and front, on the side nearest the +Rue de Normandie, as well as the three floors in the older mansion +between the courtyard and the garden, and a shop kept by a marine +store-dealer named Remonencq, which fronted on the street. During the +past few months this Remonencq had begun to deal in old curiosities, +and knew the value of Pons' collection so well that he took off his +hat whenever the musician came in or went out. + +A sou in the livre on eight thousand francs therefore brought in about +four hundred francs to the Cibots. They had no rent to pay and no +expenses for firing; Cibot's earnings amounted on an average to seven +or eight hundred francs, add tips at New Year, and the pair had +altogether in income of sixteen hundred francs, every penny of which +they spent, for the Cibots lived and fared better than working people +usually do. "One can only live once," La Cibot used to say. She was +born during the Revolution, you see, and had never learned her +Catechism. + +The husband of this portress with the unblenching tawny eyes was an +object of envy to the whole fraternity, for La Cibot had not forgotten +the knowledge of cookery picked up at the _Cadran Bleu_. So it had +come to pass that the Cibots had passed the prime of life, and saw +themselves on the threshold of old age without a hundred francs put by +for the future. Well clad and well fed, they enjoyed among the +neighbors, it is true, the respect due to twenty-six years of strict +honesty; for if they had nothing of their own, they "hadn't nothing +belonging to nobody else," according to La Cibot, who was a prodigal +of negatives. "There wasn't never such a love of a man," she would say +to her husband. Do you ask why? You might as well ask the reason of +her indifference in matters of religion. + +Both of them were proud of a life lived in open day, of the esteem in +which they were held for six or seven streets round about, and of the +autocratic rule permitted to them by the proprietor ("perprietor," +they called him); but in private they groaned because they had no +money lying at interest. Cibot complained of pains in his hands and +legs, and his wife would lament that her poor, dear Cibot should be +forced to work at his age; and, indeed, the day is not far distant +when a porter after thirty years of such a life will cry shame upon +the injustice of the Government and clamor for the ribbon of the +Legion of Honor. Every time that the gossip of the quarter brought +news of such and such a servant-maid, left an annuity of three or four +hundred francs after eight or ten years of service, the porters' +lodges would resound with complaints, which may give some idea of the +consuming jealousies in the lowest walks of life in Paris. + +"Oh, indeed! It will never happen to the like of us to have our names +mentioned in a will! We have no luck, but we do more than servants, +for all that. We fill a place of trust; we give receipts, we are on +the lookout for squalls, and yet we are treated like dogs, neither +more nor less, and that's the truth!" + +"Some find fortune and some miss fortune," said Cibot, coming in with +a coat. + +"If I had left Cibot here in his lodge and taken a place as cook, we +should have our thirty thousand francs out at interest," cried Mme. +Cibot, standing chatting with a neighbor, her hands on her prominent +hips. "But I didn't understand how to get on in life; housed inside of +a snug lodge and firing found and want for nothing, but that is all." + +In 1836, when the friends took up their abode on the second floor, +they brought about a sort of revolution in the Cibot household. It +befell on this wise. Schmucke, like his friend Pons, usually arranged +that the porter or the porter's wife should undertake the cares of +housekeeping; and being both of one mind on this point when they came +to live in the Rue de Normandie, Mme. Cibot became their housekeeper +at the rate of twenty-five francs per month--twelve francs fifty +centimes for each of them. Before the year was out, the emeritus +portress reigned in the establishment of the two old bachelors, as she +reigned everywhere in the house belonging to M. Pillerault, great +uncle of Mme. le Comtesse Popinot. Their business was her business; +she called them "my gentlemen." And at last, finding the pair of +nutcrackers as mild as lambs, easy to live with, and by no means +suspicious--perfect children, in fact--her heart, the heart of a woman +of the people, prompted her to protect, adore, and serve them with +such thorough devotion, that she read them a lecture now and again, +and saved them from the impositions which swell the cost of living in +Paris. For twenty-five francs a month, the two old bachelors +inadvertently acquired a mother. + +As they became aware of Mme. Cibot's full value, they gave her +outspoken praises, and thanks, and little presents which strengthened +the bonds of the domestic alliance. Mme. Cibot a thousand times +preferred appreciation to money payments; it is a well-known fact that +the sense that one is appreciated makes up for a deficiency in wages. +And Cibot did all that he could for his wife's two gentlemen, and ran +errands and did repairs at half-price for them. + +The second year brought a new element into the friendship between the +lodge and the second floor, and Schmucke concluded a bargain which +satisfied his indolence and desire for a life without cares. For +thirty sous per day, or forty-five francs per month, Mme. Cibot +undertook to provide Schmucke with breakfast and dinner; and Pons, +finding his friend's breakfast very much to his mind, concluded a +separate treaty for that meal only at the rate of eighteen francs. +This arrangement, which added nearly ninety francs every month to the +takings of the porter and his wife, made two inviolable beings of the +lodgers; they became angels, cherubs, divinities. It is very doubtful +whether the King of the French, who is supposed to understand economy, +is as well served as the pair of nutcrackers used to be in those days. + +For them the milk issued pure from the can; they enjoyed a free +perusal of all the morning papers taken by other lodgers, later +risers, who were told, if need be, that the newspapers had not come +yet. Mme. Cibot, moreover, kept their clothes, their rooms, and the +landing as clean as a Flemish interior. As for Schmucke, he enjoyed +unhoped-for happiness; Mme. Cibot had made life easy for him; he paid +her about six francs a month, and she took charge of his linen, +washing, and mending. Altogether, his expenses amounted to sixty-six +francs per month (for he spent fifteen francs on tobacco), and +sixty-six francs multiplied by twelve produces the sum total of seven +hundred and ninety-two francs. Add two hundred and twenty francs for +rent, rates, and taxes, and you have a thousand and twelve francs. +Cibot was Schmucke's tailor; his clothes cost him on average a hundred +and fifty francs, which further swells the total to the sum of twelve +hundred. On twelve hundred francs per annum this profound philosopher +lived. How many people in Europe, whose one thought it is to come to +Paris and live there, will be agreeably surprised to learn that you +may exist in comfort upon an income of twelve hundred francs in the +Rue de Normandie in the Marais, under the wing of a Mme. Cibot. + +Mme. Cibot, to resume the story, was amazed beyond expression to see +Pons, good man, return at five o'clock in the evening. Such a thing +had never happened before; and not only so, but "her gentleman" had +given her no greeting--had not so much as seen her! + +"Well, well, Cibot," said she to her spouse, "M. Pons has come in for +a million, or gone out of his mind!" + +"That is how it looks to me," said Cibot, dropping the coat-sleeve in +which he was making a "dart," in tailor's language. + +The savory odor of a stew pervaded the whole courtyard, as Pons +returned mechanically home. Mme. Cibot was dishing up Schmucke's +dinner, which consisted of scraps of boiled beef from a little +cook-shop not above doing a little trade of this kind. These morsels +were fricasseed in brown butter, with thin slices of onion, until the +meat and vegetables had absorbed the gravy and this true porter's dish +was browned to the right degree. With that fricassee, prepared with +loving care for Cibot and Schmucke, and accompanied by a bottle of beer +and a piece of cheese, the old German music-master was quite content. +Not King Solomon in all his glory, be sure, could dine better than +Schmucke. A dish of boiled beef fricasseed with onions, scraps of +_saute_ chicken, or beef and parsley, or venison, or fish served with +a sauce of La Cibot's own invention (a sauce with which a mother might +unsuspectingly eat her child),--such was Schmucke's ordinary, varying +with the quantity and quality of the remnants of food supplied by +boulevard restaurants to the cook-shop in the Rue Boucherat. Schmucke +took everything that "goot Montame Zipod" gave him, and was content, +and so from day to day "goot Montame Zipod" cut down the cost of his +dinner, until it could be served for twenty sous. + +"It won't be long afore I find out what is the matter with him, poor +dear," said Mme. Cibot to her husband, "for here is M. Schmucke's +dinner all ready for him." + +As she spoke she covered the deep earthenware dish with a plate; and, +notwithstanding her age, she climbed the stair and reached the door +before Schmucke opened it to Pons. + +"Vat is de matter mit you, mein goot friend?" asked the German, scared +by the expression of Pons' face. + +"I will tell you all about it; but I have come home to have dinner +with you--" + +"Tinner! tinner!" cried Schmucke in ecstasy; "but it is impossible!" +the old German added, as he thought of his friend's gastronomical +tastes; and at that very moment he caught sight of Mme. Cibot +listening to the conversation, as she had a right to do as his lawful +housewife. Struck with one of those happy inspirations which only +enlighten a friend's heart, he marched up to the portress and drew her +out to the stairhead. + +"Montame Zipod," he said, "der goot Pons is fond of goot dings; shoost +go rount to der _Catran Pleu_ und order a dainty liddle tinner, mit +anjovies und maggaroni. Ein tinner for Lugullus, in vact." + +"What is that?" inquired La Cibot. + +"Oh! ah!" returned Schmucke, "it is veal _a la pourcheoise_" +(_bourgeoise_, he meant), "a nice fisch, ein pottle off Porteaux, und +nice dings, der fery best dey haf, like groquettes of rice und shmoked +pacon! Bay for it, und say nodings; I vill gif you back de monny +to-morrow morning." + +Back went Schmucke, radiant and rubbing his hands; but his expression +slowly changed to a look of bewildered astonishment as he heard Pons' +story of the troubles that had but just now overwhelmed him in a +moment. He tried to comfort Pons by giving him a sketch of the world +from his own point of view. Paris, in his opinion, was a perpetual +hurly-burly, the men and women in it were whirled away by a +tempestuous waltz; it was no use expecting anything of the world, +which only looked at the outsides of things, "und not at der +inderior." For the hundredth time he related how that the only three +pupils for whom he had really cared, for whom he was ready to die, the +three who had been fond of him, and even allowed him a little pension +of nine hundred francs, each contributing three hundred to the amount +--his favorite pupils had quite forgotten to come to see him; and so +swift was the current of Parisian life which swept them away, that if +he called at their houses, he had not succeeded in seeing them once in +three years--(it is a fact, however, that Schmucke had always thought +fit to call on these great ladies at ten o'clock in the morning!) +--still, his pension was paid quarterly through the medium of +solicitors. + +"Und yet, dey are hearts of gold," he concluded. "Dey are my liddle +Saint Cecilias, sharming vimmen, Montame de Bordentuere, Montame de +Fantenesse, und Montame du Dilet. Gif I see dem at all, it is at die +Jambs Elusees, und dey do not see me . . . yet dey are ver' fond of +me, und I might go to dine mit dem, und dey vould be ver' bleased to +see me; und I might go to deir country-houses, but I vould much rader +be mit mine friend Bons, because I kann see him venefer I like, und +efery tay." + +Pons took Schmucke's hand and grasped it between his own. All that was +passing in his inmost soul was communicated in that tight pressure. +And so for awhile the friends sat like two lovers, meeting at last +after a long absence. + +"Tine here, efery tay!" broke out Schmucke, inwardly blessing Mme. de +Marville for her hardness of heart. "Look here! Ve shall go a +prick-a-pracking togeders, und der teufel shall nefer show his tail +here." + +"Ve shall go prick-a-pracking togeders!" for the full comprehension of +those truly heroic words, it must be confessed that Schmucke's +ignorance of bric-a-brac was something of the densest. It required all +the strength of his friendship to keep him from doing heedless damage +in the sitting-room and study which did duty as a museum for Pons. +Schmucke, wholly absorbed in music, a composer for love of his art, +took about as much interest in his friend's little trifles as a fish +might take in a flower-show at the Luxembourg, supposing that it had +received a ticket of admission. A certain awe which he certainly felt +for the marvels was simply a reflection of the respect which Pons +showed his treasures when he dusted them. To Pons' exclamations of +admiration, he was wont to reply with a "Yes, it is ver' bretty," as a +mother answers baby-gestures with meaningless baby-talk. Seven times +since the friends had lived together, Pons had exchanged a good clock +for a better one, till at last he possessed a timepiece in Boule's +first and best manner, for Boule had two manners, as Raphael had +three. In the first he combined ebony and copper; in the second +--contrary to his convictions--he sacrificed to tortoise-shell inlaid +work. In spite of Pons' learned dissertations, Schmucke never could +see the slightest difference between the magnificent clock in Boule's +first manner and its six predecessors; but, for Pons' sake, Schmucke +was even more careful among the "chimcracks" than Pons himself. So it +should not be surprising that Schmucke's sublime words comforted Pons +in his despair; for "Ve shall go prick-a-pracking togeders," meant, +being interpreted, "I will put money into bric-a-brac, if you will +only dine here." + +"Dinner is ready," Mme. Cibot announced, with astonishing +self-possession. + +It is not difficult to imagine Pons' surprise when he saw and relished +the dinner due to Schmucke's friendship. Sensations of this kind, that +came so rarely in a lifetime, are never the outcome of the constant, +close relationship by which friend daily says to friend, "You are a +second self to me"; for this, too, becomes a matter of use and wont. +It is only by contact with the barbarism of the world without that the +happiness of that intimate life is revealed to us as a sudden glad +surprise. It is the outer world which renews the bond between friend +and friend, lover and lover, all their lives long, wherever two great +souls are knit together by friendship or by love. + +Pons brushed away two big tears, Schmucke himself wiped his eyes; and +though nothing was said, the two were closer friends than before. +Little friendly nods and glances exchanged across the table were like +balm to Pons, soothing the pain caused by the sand dropped in his +heart by the President's wife. As for Schmucke, he rubbed his hands +till they were sore; for a new idea had occurred to him, one of those +great discoveries which cause a German no surprise, unless they sprout +up suddenly in a Teuton brain frost-bound by the awe and reverence due +to sovereign princes. + +"Mine goot Bons?" began Schmucke. + +"I can guess what you mean; you would like us both to dine together +here, every day--" + +"Gif only I vas rich enof to lif like dis efery tay--" began the good +German in a melancholy voice. But here Mme. Cibot appeared upon the +scene. Pons had given her an order for the theatre from time to time, +and stood in consequence almost as high in her esteem and affection as +her boarder Schmucke. + +"Lord love you," said she, "for three francs and wine extra I can give +you both such a dinner every day that you will be ready to lick the +plates as clean as if they were washed." + +"It is a fact," Schmucke remarked, "dat die dinners dat Montame Zipod +cooks for me are better as de messes dey eat at der royal dable!" In +his eagerness, Schmucke, usually so full of respect for the powers +that be, so far forgot himself as to imitate the irreverent newspapers +which scoffed at the "fixed-price" dinners of Royalty. + +"Really?" said Pons. "Very well, I will try to-morrow." + +And at that promise Schmucke sprang from one end of the table to the +other, sweeping off tablecloth, bottles, and dishes as he went, and +hugged Pons to his heart. So might gas rush to combine with gas. + +"Vat happiness!" cried he. + +Mme. Cibot was quite touched. "Monsieur is going to dine here every +day!" she cried proudly. + +That excellent woman departed downstairs again in ignorance of the +event which had brought about this result, entered her room like +Josepha in _William Tell_, set down the plates and dishes on the table +with a bang, and called aloud to her husband: + +"Cibot! run to the _Cafe Turc_ for two small cups of coffee, and tell +the man at the stove that it is for me." + +Then she sat down and rested her hands on her massive knees, and gazed +out of the window at the opposite wall. + +"I will go to-night and see what Ma'am Fontaine says," she thought. +(Madame Fontaine told fortunes on the cards for all the servants in +the quarter of the Marais.) "Since these two gentlemen came here, we +have put two thousand francs in the savings bank. Two thousand francs +in eight years! What luck! Would it be better to make no profit out of +M. Pons' dinner and keep him here at home? Ma'am Fontaine's hen will +tell me that." + +Three years ago Mme. Cibot had begun to cherish a hope that her name +might be mentioned in "her gentlemen's" wills; she had redoubled her +zeal since that covetous thought tardily sprouted up in the midst of +that so honest moustache. Pons hitherto had dined abroad, eluding her +desire to have both of "her gentlemen" entirely under her management; +his "troubadour" collector's life had scared away certain vague ideas +which hovered in La Cibot's brain; but now her shadowy projects +assumed the formidable shape of a definite plan, dating from that +memorable dinner. Fifteen minutes later she reappeared in the +dining-room with two cups of excellent coffee, flanked by a couple of +tiny glasses of _kirschwasser_. + +"Long lif Montame Zipod!" cried Schmucke; "she haf guessed right!" + +The diner-out bemoaned himself a little, while Schmucke met his +lamentations with coaxing fondness, like a home pigeon welcoming back +a wandering bird. Then the pair set out for the theatre. + +Schmucke could not leave his friend in the condition to which he had +been brought by the Camusots--mistresses and servants. He knew Pons so +well; he feared lest some cruel, sad thought should seize on him at +his conductor's desk, and undo all the good done by his welcome home +to the nest. + +And Schmucke brought his friend back on his arm through the streets at +midnight. A lover could not be more careful of his lady. He pointed +out the edges of the curbstones, he was on the lookout whenever they +stepped on or off the pavement, ready with a warning if there was a +gutter to cross. Schmucke could have wished that the streets were +paved with cotton-down; he would have had a blue sky overhead, and +Pons should hear the music which all the angels in heaven were making +for him. He had won the lost province in his friend's heart! + +For nearly three months Pons and Schmucke dined together every day. +Pons was obliged to retrench at once; for dinner at forty-five francs +a month and wine at thirty-five meant precisely eighty francs less to +spend on bric-a-brac. And very soon, in spite of all that Schmucke +could do, in spite of his little German jokes, Pons fell to regretting +the delicate dishes, the liqueurs, the good coffee, the table talk, +the insincere politeness, the guests, and the gossip, and the houses +where he used to dine. On the wrong side of sixty a man cannot break +himself of a habit of thirty-six years' growth. Wine at a hundred and +thirty francs per hogshead is scarcely a generous liquid in a +_gourmet's_ glass; every time that Pons raised it to his lips he +thought, with infinite regret, of the exquisite wines in his +entertainers' cellars. + +In short, at the end of three months, the cruel pangs which had gone +near to break Pons' sensitive heart had died away; he forgot +everything but the charms of society; and languished for them like +some elderly slave of a petticoat compelled to leave the mistress who +too repeatedly deceives him. In vain he tried to hide his profound and +consuming melancholy; it was too plain that he was suffering from one +of the mysterious complaints which the mind brings upon the body. + +A single symptom will throw light upon this case of nostalgia (as it +were) produced by breaking away from an old habit; in itself it is +trifling, one of the myriad nothings which are as rings in a coat of +chain-mail enveloping the soul in a network of iron. One of the +keenest pleasures of Pons' old life, one of the joys of the +dinner-table parasite at all times, was the "surprise," the thrill +produced by the extra dainty dish added triumphantly to the bill of +fare by the mistress of a bourgeois house, to give a festal air to the +dinner. Pons' stomach hankered after that gastronomical satisfaction. +Mme. Cibot, in the pride of her heart, enumerated every dish beforehand; +a salt and savor once periodically recurrent, had vanished utterly from +daily life. Dinner proceeded without _le plat couvert_, as our +grandsires called it. This lay beyond the bounds of Schmucke's powers +of comprehension. + +Pons had too much delicacy to grumble; but if the case of +unappreciated genius is hard, it goes harder still with the stomach +whose claims are ignored. Slighted affection, a subject of which too +much has been made, is founded upon an illusory longing; for if the +creature fails, love can turn to the Creator who has treasures to +bestow. But the stomach! . . . Nothing can be compared to its +sufferings; for, in the first place, one must live. + +Pons thought wistfully of certain creams--surely the poetry of +cookery!--of certain white sauces, masterpieces of the art; of +truffled chickens, fit to melt your heart; and above these, and more +than all these, of the famous Rhine carp, only known at Paris, served +with what condiments! There were days when Pons, thinking upon Count +Popinot's cook, would sigh aloud, "Ah, Sophie!" Any passer-by hearing +the exclamation might have thought that the old man referred to a lost +mistress; but his fancy dwelt upon something rarer, on a fat Rhine +carp with a sauce, thin in the sauce-boat, creamy upon the palate, a +sauce that deserved the Montyon prize! The conductor of the orchestra, +living on memories of past dinners, grew visibly leaner; he was pining +away, a victim to gastric nostalgia. + +By the beginning of the fourth month (towards the end of January, +1845), Pons' condition attracted attention at the theatre. The flute, +a young man named Wilhelm, like almost all Germans; and Schwab, to +distinguish him from all other Wilhelms, if not from all other +Schwabs, judged it expedient to open Schmucke's eyes to his friend's +state of health. It was a first performance of a piece in which +Schmucke's instruments were all required. + +"The old gentleman is failing," said the flute; "there is something +wrong somewhere; his eyes are heavy, and he doesn't beat time as he +used to do," added Wilhelm Schwab, indicating Pons as he gloomily took +his place. + +"Dat is alvays de vay, gif a man is sixty years old," answered +Schmucke. + +The Highland widow, in _The Chronicles of the Canongate_, sent her son +to his death to have him beside her for twenty-four hours; and +Schmucke could have sacrificed Pons for the sake of seeing his face +every day across the dinner-table. + +"Everybody in the theatre is anxious about him," continued the flute; +"and, as the _premiere danseuse_, Mlle. Brisetout, says, 'he makes +hardly any noise now when he blows his nose.'" + +And, indeed, a peal like a blast of a horn used to resound through the +old musician's bandana handkerchief whenever he raised it to that +lengthy and cavernous feature. The President's wife had more +frequently found fault with him on that score than on any other. + +"I vould gif a goot teal to amuse him," said Schmucke, "he gets so +dull." + +"M. Pons always seems so much above the like of us poor devils, that, +upon my word, I didn't dare to ask him to my wedding," said Wilhelm +Schwab. "I am going to be married--" + +"How?" demanded Schmucke. + +"Oh! quite properly," returned Wilhelm Schwab, taking Schmucke's +quaint inquiry for a gibe, of which that perfect Christian was quite +incapable. + +"Come, gentlemen, take your places!" called Pons, looking round at his +little army, as the stage manager's bell rang for the overture. + +The piece was a dramatized fairy tale, a pantomime called _The Devil's +Betrothed_, which ran for two hundred nights. In the interval, after +the first act, Wilhelm Schwab and Schmucke were left alone in the +orchestra, with a house at a temperature of thirty-two degrees +Reaumur. + +"Tell me your hishdory," said Schmucke. + +"Look there! Do you see that young man in the box yonder? . . . Do you +recognize him?" + +"Nefer a pit--" + +"Ah! That is because he is wearing yellow gloves and shines with all +the radiance of riches, but that is my friend Fritz Brunner out of +Frankfort-on-the-Main." + +"Dat used to komm to see du blav und sit peside you in der orghestra?" + +"The same. You would not believe he could look so different, would +you?" + +The hero of the promised story was a German of that particular type in +which the sombre irony of Goethe's Mephistopheles is blended with a +homely cheerfulness found in the romances of August Lafontaine of +pacific memory; but the predominating element in the compound of +artlessness and guile, of shopkeeper's shrewdness, and the studied +carelessness of a member of the Jockey Club, was that form of disgust +which set a pistol in the hands of a young Werther, bored to death +less by Charlotte than by German princes. It was a thoroughly German +face, full of cunning, full of simplicity, stupidity, and courage; the +knowledge which brings weariness, the worldly wisdom which the veriest +child's trick leaves at fault, the abuse of beer and tobacco,--all +these were there to be seen in it, and to heighten the contrast of +opposed qualities, there was a wild diabolical gleam in the fine blue +eyes with the jaded expression. + +Dressed with all the elegance of a city man, Fritz Brunner sat in full +view of the house displaying a bald crown of the tint beloved by +Titian, and a few stray fiery red hairs on either side of it; a +remnant spared by debauchery and want, that the prodigal might have a +right to spend money with the hairdresser when he should come into his +fortune. A face, once fair and fresh as the traditional portrait of +Jesus Christ, had grown harder since the advent of a red moustache; a +tawny beard lent it an almost sinister look. The bright blue eyes had +lost something of their clearness in the struggle with distress. The +countless courses by which a man sells himself and his honor in Paris +had left their traces upon his eyelids and carved lines about the +eyes, into which a mother once looked with a mother's rapture to find +a copy of her own fashioned by God's hand. + +This precocious philosopher, this wizened youth was the work of a +stepmother. + +Herewith begins the curious history of a prodigal son of +Frankfort-on-the-Main--the most extraordinary and astounding portent +ever beheld by that well-conducted, if central, city. + +Gideon Brunner, father of the aforesaid Fritz, was one of the famous +innkeepers of Frankfort, a tribe who make law-authorized incisions in +travelers' purses with the connivance of the local bankers. An +innkeeper and an honest Calvinist to boot, he had married a converted +Jewess and laid the foundations of his prosperity with the money she +brought him. + +When the Jewess died, leaving a son Fritz, twelve years of age, under +the joint guardianship of his father and maternal uncle, a furrier at +Leipsic, head of the firm of Virlaz and Company, Brunner senior was +compelled by his brother-in-law (who was by no means as soft as his +peltry) to invest little Fritz's money, a goodly quantity of current +coin of the realm, with the house of Al-Sartchild. Not a penny of it +was he allowed to touch. So, by way of revenge for the Israelite's +pertinacity, Brunner senior married again. It was impossible, he said, +to keep his huge hotel single-handed; it needed a woman's eye and +hand. Gideon Brunner's second wife was an innkeeper's daughter, a very +pearl, as he thought; but he had had no experience of only daughters +spoiled by father and mother. + +The second Mme. Brunner behaved as German girls may be expected to +behave when they are frivolous and wayward. She squandered her +fortune, she avenged the first Mme. Brunner by making her husband as +miserable a man as you could find in the compass of the free city of +Frankfort-on-the-Main, where the millionaires, it is said, are about +to pass a law compelling womankind to cherish and obey them alone. She +was partial to all the varieties of vinegar commonly called Rhine wine +in Germany; she was fond of _articles Paris_, of horses and dress; +indeed, the one expensive taste which she had not was a liking for +women. She took a dislike to little Fritz, and would perhaps have +driven him mad if that young offspring of Calvinism and Judaism had +not had Frankfort for his cradle and the firm of Virlaz at Leipsic for +his guardian. Uncle Virlaz, however, deep in his furs, confined his +guardianship to the safe-keeping of Fritz's silver marks, and left the +boy to the tender mercies of this stepmother. + +That hyena in woman's form was the more exasperated against the pretty +child, the lovely Jewess' son, because she herself could have no +children in spite of efforts worthy of a locomotive engine. A +diabolical impulse prompted her to plunge her young stepson, at +twenty-one years of age, into dissipations contrary to all German +habits. The wicked German hoped that English horses, Rhine vinegar, +and Goethe's Marguerites would ruin the Jewess' child and shorten his +days; for when Fritz came of age, Uncle Virlaz had handed over a very +pretty fortune to his nephew. But while roulette at Baden and +elsewhere, and boon companions (Wilhelm Schwab among them) devoured +the substance accumulated by Uncle Virlaz, the prodigal son himself +remained by the will of Providence to point a moral to younger +brothers in the free city of Frankfort; parents held him up as a +warning and an awful example to their offspring to scare them into +steady attendance in their cast-iron counting houses, lined with +silver marks. + +But so far from perishing in the flower of his age, Fritz Brunner had +the pleasure of laying his stepmother in one of those charming little +German cemeteries, in which the Teuton indulges his unbridled passion +for horticulture under the specious pretext of honoring his dead. And +as the second Mme. Brunner expired while the authors of her being were +yet alive, Brunner senior was obliged to bear the loss of the sums of +which his wife had drained his coffers, to say nothing of other ills, +which had told upon a Herculean constitution, till at the age of +sixty-seven the innkeeper had wizened and shrunk as if the famous +Borgia's poison had undermined his system. For ten whole years he had +supported his wife, and now he inherited nothing! The innkeeper was a +second ruin of Heidelberg, repaired continually, it is true, by +travelers' hotel bills, much as the remains of the castle of +Heidelberg itself are repaired to sustain the enthusiasm of the +tourists who flock to see so fine and well-preserved a relic of +antiquity. + +At Frankfort the disappointment caused as much talk as a failure. +People pointed out Brunner, saying, "See what a man may come to with a +bad wife that leaves him nothing and a son brought up in the French +fashion." + +In Italy and Germany the French nation is the root of all evil, the +target for all bullets. "But the god pursuing his way----" (For the +rest, see Lefranc de Pompignan's Ode.) + +The wrath of the proprietor of the Grand Hotel de Hollande fell on +others besides the travelers, whose bills were swelled with his +resentment. When his son was utterly ruined, Gideon, regarding him as +the indirect cause of all his misfortunes, refused him bread and salt, +fire, lodging, and tobacco--the force of the paternal malediction in a +German and an innkeeper could no farther go. Whereupon the local +authorities, making no allowance for the father's misdeeds, regarded +him as one of the most ill-used persons in Frankfort-on-the-Main, came +to his assistance, fastened a quarrel on Fritz (_une querelle +d'Allemand_), and expelled him from the territory of the free city. +Justice in Frankfort is no whit wiser nor more humane than elsewhere, +albeit the city is the seat of the German Diet. It is not often that a +magistrate traces back the stream of wrongdoing and misfortune to the +holder of the urn from which the first beginnings trickled forth. If +Brunner forgot his son, his son's friends speedily followed the old +innkeeper's example. + +Ah! if the journalists, the dandies, and some few fair Parisians among +the audience wondered how that German with the tragical countenance +had cropped up on a first night to occupy a side box all to himself +when fashionable Paris filled the house,--if these could have seen the +history played out upon the stage before the prompter's box, they +would have found it far more interesting than the transformation +scenes of _The Devil's Betrothed_, though indeed it was the two +hundred thousandth representation of a sublime allegory performed +aforetime in Mesopotamia three thousand years before Christ was born. + +Fritz betook himself on foot to Strasbourg, and there found what the +prodigal son of the Bible failed to find--to wit, a friend. And herein +is revealed the superiority of Alsace, where so many generous hearts +beat to show Germany the beauty of a combination of Gallic wit and +Teutonic solidity. Wilhelm Schwab, but lately left in possession of a +hundred thousand francs by the death of both parents, opened his arms, +his heart, his house, his purse to Fritz. As for describing Fritz's +feelings, when dusty, down on his luck, and almost like a leper, he +crossed the Rhine and found a real twenty-franc piece held out by the +hand of a real friend,--that moment transcends the powers of the prose +writer; Pindar alone could give it forth to humanity in Greek that +should rekindle the dying warmth of friendship in the world. + +Put the names of Fritz and Wilheim beside those of Damon and Pythias, +Castor and Pollux, Orestes and Pylades, Dubreuil and Pmejah, Schmucke +and Pons, and all the names that we imagine for the two friends of +Monomotapa, for La Fontaine (man of genius though he was) has made of +them two disembodied spirits--they lack reality. The two new names may +join the illustrious company, and with so much the more reason, since +that Wilhelm who had helped to drink Fritz's inheritance now +proceeded, with Fritz's assistance, to devour his own substance; +smoking, needless to say, every known variety of tobacco. + +The pair, strange to relate, squandered the property in the dullest, +stupidest, most commonplace fashion, in Strasbourg _brasseries_, in +the company of ballet-girls of the Strasbourg theatres, and little +Alsaciennes who had not a rag of a tattered reputation left. + +Every morning they would say, "We really must stop this, and make up +our minds and do something or other with the money that is left." + +"Pooh!" Fritz would retort, "just one more day, and to-morrow" . . . +ah! to-morrow. + +In the lives of Prodigal Sons, _To-day_ is a prodigious coxcomb, but +_To-morrow_ is a very poltroon, taking fright at the big words of his +predecessor. _To-day_ is the truculent captain of old world comedy, +_To-morrow_ the clown of modern pantomime. + +When the two friends had reached their last thousand-franc note, they +took places in the mail-coach, styled Royal, and departed for Paris, +where they installed themselves in the attics of the Hotel du Rhin, in +the Rue du Mail, the property of one Graff, formerly Gideon Brunner's +head-waiter. Fritz found a situation as clerk in the Kellers' bank (on +Graff's recommendation), with a salary of six hundred francs. And a +place as book-keeper was likewise found for Wilhelm, in the business +of Graff the fashionable tailor, brother of Graff of the Hotel du +Rhin, who found the scantily-paid employment for the pair of +prodigals, for the sake of old times, and his apprenticeship at the +Hotel de Hollande. These two incidents--the recognition of a ruined +man by a well-to-do friend, and a German innkeeper interesting himself +in two penniless fellow-countrymen--give, no doubt, an air of +improbability to the story, but truth is so much the more like +fiction, since modern writers of fiction have been at such untold +pains to imitate truth. + +It was not long before Fritz, a clerk with six hundred francs, and +Wilhelm, a book-keeper with precisely the same salary, discovered the +difficulties of existence in a city so full of temptations. In 1837, +the second year of their abode, Wilhelm, who possessed a pretty talent +for the flute, entered Pons' orchestra, to earn a little occasional +butter to put on his dry bread. As to Fritz, his only way to an +increase of income lay through the display of the capacity for +business inherited by a descendant of the Virlaz family. Yet, in spite +of his assiduity, in spite of abilities which possibly may have stood +in his way, his salary only reached the sum of two thousand francs in +1843. Penury, that divine stepmother, did for the two men all that +their mothers had not been able to do for them; Poverty taught them +thrift and worldly wisdom; Poverty gave them her grand rough +education, the lessons which she drives with hard knocks into the +heads of great men, who seldom know a happy childhood. Fritz and +Wilhelm, being but ordinary men, learned as little as they possibly +could in her school; they dodged the blows, shrank from her hard +breast and bony arms, and never discovered the good fairy lurking +within, ready to yield to the caresses of genius. One thing, however, +they learned thoroughly--they discovered the value of money, and vowed +to clip the wings of riches if ever a second fortune should come to +their door. + +This was the history which Wilhelm Schwab related in German, at much +greater length, to his friend the pianist, ending with; + +"Well, Papa Schmucke, the rest is soon explained. Old Brunner is dead. +He left four millions! He made an immense amount of money out of Baden +railways, though neither his son nor M. Graff, with whom we lodge, had +any idea that the old man was one of the original shareholders. I am +playing the flute here for the last time this evening; I would have +left some days ago, but this was a first performance, and I did not +want to spoil my part." + +"Goot, mine friend," said Schmucke. "But who is die prite?" + +"She is Mlle. Graff, the daughter of our host, the landlord of the +Hotel du Rhin. I have loved Mlle. Emilie these seven years; she has +read so many immoral novels, that she refused all offers for me, +without knowing what might come of it. She will be a very wealthy +young lady; her uncles, the tailors in the Rue de Richelieu, will +leave her all their money. Fritz is giving me the money we squandered +at Strasbourg five times over! He is putting a million francs in a +banking house, M. Graff the tailor is adding another five hundred +thousand francs, and Mlle. Emilie's father not only allows me to +incorporate her portion--two hundred and fifty thousand francs--with +the capital, but he himself will be a shareholder with as much again. +So the firm of Brunner, Schwab and Company will start with two +millions five hundred thousand francs. Fritz has just bought fifteen +hundred thousand francs' worth of shares in the Bank of France to +guarantee our account with them. That is not all Fritz's fortune. He +has his father's house property, supposed to be worth another million, +and he has let the Grand Hotel de Hollande already to a cousin of the +Graffs." + +"You look sad ven you look at your friend," remarked Schmucke, who had +listened with great interest. "Kann you pe chealous of him?" + +"I am jealous for Fritz's happiness," said Wilhelm. "Does that face +look as if it belonged to a happy man? I am afraid of Paris; I should +like to see him do as I am doing. The old tempter may awake again. Of +our two heads, his carries the less ballast. His dress, and the +opera-glass and the rest of it make me anxious. He keeps looking at +the lorettes in the house. Oh! if you only knew how hard it is to +marry Fritz. He has a horror of 'going a-courting,' as you say; you +would have to give him a drop into a family, just as in England they +give a man a drop into the next world." + +During the uproar that usually marks the end of a first night, the +flute delivered his invitation to the conductor. Pons accepted +gleefully; and, for the first time in three months, Schmucke saw a +smile on his friend's face. They went back to the Rue de Normandie in +perfect silence; that sudden flash of joy had thrown a light on the +extent of the disease which was consuming Pons. Oh, that a man so +truly noble, so disinterested, so great in feeling, should have such a +weakness! . . . This was the thought that struck the stoic Schmucke +dumb with amazement. He grew woefully sad, for he began to see that +there was no help for it; he must even renounce the pleasure of seeing +"his goot Bons" opposite him at the dinner-table, for the sake of +Pons' welfare; and he did not know whether he could give him up; the +mere thought of it drove him distracted. + +Meantime, Pons' proud silence and withdrawal to the Mons Aventinus of +the Rue de Normandie had, as might be expected, impressed the +Presidente, not that she troubled herself much about her parasite, now +that she was freed from him. She thought, with her charming daughter, +that Cousin Pons had seen through her little "Lili's" joke. But it was +otherwise with her husband the President. + +Camusot de Marville, a short and stout man, grown solemn since his +promotion at the Court, admired Cicero, preferred the Opera-Comique to +the Italiens, compared the actors one with another, and followed the +multitude step by step. He used to recite all the articles in the +Ministerialist journals, as if he were saying something original, and +in giving his opinion at the Council Board he paraphrased the remarks +of the previous speaker. His leading characteristics were sufficiently +well known; his position compelled him to take everything seriously; +and he was particularly tenacious of family ties. + +Like most men who are ruled by their wives, the President asserted his +independence in trifles, in which his wife was very careful not to +thwart him. For a month he was satisfied with the Presidente's +commonplace explanations of Pons' disappearance; but at last it struck +him as singular that the old musician, a friend of forty years' +standing, should first make them so valuable a present as a fan that +belonged to Mme. de Pompadour, and then immediately discontinue his +visits. Count Popinot had pronounced the trinket a masterpiece; when +its owner went to Court, the fan had been passed from hand to hand, +and her vanity was not a little gratified by the compliments it +received; others had dwelt on the beauties of the ten ivory sticks, +each one covered with delicate carving, the like of which had never +been seen. A Russian lady (Russian ladies are apt to forget that they +are not in Russia) had offered her six thousand francs for the marvel +one day at Count Popinot's house, and smiled to see it in such hands. +Truth to tell, it was a fan for a Duchess. + +"It cannot be denied that poor Cousin Pons understands rubbish of that +sort--" said Cecile, the day after the bid. + +"Rubbish!" cried her parent. "Why, Government is just about to buy the +late M. le Conseiller Dusommerard's collection for three hundred +thousand francs; and the State and the Municipality of Paris between +them are spending nearly a million francs over the purchase and repair +of the Hotel de Cluny to house the 'rubbish,' as you call it.--Such +'rubbish,' dear child," he resumed, "is frequently all that remains of +vanished civilizations. An Etruscan jar, and a necklace, which +sometimes fetch forty and fifty thousand francs, is 'rubbish' which +reveals the perfection of art at the time of the siege of Troy, +proving that the Etruscans were Trojan refugees in Italy." + +This was the President's cumbrous way of joking; the short, fat man +was heavily ironical with his wife and daughter. + +"The combination of various kinds of knowledge required to understand +such 'rubbish,' Cecile," he resumed, "is a science in itself, called +archaeology. Archaeology comprehends architecture, sculpture, +painting, goldsmiths' work, ceramics, cabinetmaking (a purely modern +art), lace, tapestry--in short, human handiwork of every sort and +description." + +"Then Cousin Pons is learned?" said Cecile. + +"Ah! by the by, why is he never to be seen nowadays?" asked the +President. He spoke with the air of a man in whom thousands of +forgotten and dormant impressions have suddenly begun to stir, and +shaping themselves into one idea, reach consciousness with a ricochet, +as sportsmen say. + +"He must have taken offence at nothing at all," answered his wife. "I +dare say I was not as fully sensible as I might have been of the value +of the fan that he gave me. I am ignorant enough, as you know, of--" + +"_You!_ One of Servin's best pupils, and you don't know Watteau?" +cried the President. + +"I know Gerard and David and Gros and Griodet, and M. de Forbin and M. +Turpin de Crisse--" + +"You ought--" + +"Ought what, sir?" demanded the lady, gazing at her husband with the +air of a Queen of Sheba. + +"To know a Watteau when you see it, my dear. Watteau is very much in +fashion," answered the President with meekness, that told plainly how +much he owed to his wife. + +This conversation took place a few days before that night of first +performance of _The Devil's Betrothed_, when the whole orchestra +noticed how ill Pons was looking. But by that time all the circle of +dinner-givers who were used to seeing Pons' face at their tables, and +to send him on errands, had begun to ask each other for news of him, +and uneasiness increased when it was reported by some who had seen him +that he was always in his place at the theatre. Pons had been very +careful to avoid his old acquaintances whenever he met them in the +streets; but one day it so fell out that he met Count Popinot, the +ex-cabinet minister, face to face in the bric-a-brac dealer's shop in +the new Boulevard Beaumarchais. The dealer was none other than that +Monistrol of whom Pons had spoken to the Presidente, one of the famous +and audacious vendors whose cunning enthusiasm leads them to set more +and more value daily on their wares; for curiosities, they tell you, +are growing so scarce that they are hardly to be found at all +nowadays. + +"Ah, my dear Pons, how comes it that we never see you now? We miss you +very much, and Mme. Popinot does not know what to think of your +desertion." + +"M. le Comte," said the good man, "I was made to feel in the house of +a relative that at my age one is not wanted in the world. I have never +had much consideration shown me, but at any rate I had not been +insulted. I have never asked anything of any man," he broke out with +an artist's pride. "I have often made myself useful in return for +hospitality. But I have made a mistake, it seems; I am indefinitely +beholden to those who honor me by allowing me to sit at table with +them; my friends, and my relatives. . . . Well and good; I have sent +in my resignation as smellfeast. At home I find daily something which +no other house has offered me--a real friend." + +The old artist's power had not failed him; with tone and gesture he +put such bitterness into the words, that the peer of France was struck +by them. He drew Pons aside. + +"Come, now, my old friend, what is it? What has hurt you? Could you +not tell me in confidence? You will permit me to say that at my house +surely you have always met with consideration--" + +"You are the one exception," said the artist. "And besides, you are a +great lord and a statesman, you have so many things to think about. +That would excuse anything, if there were need for it." + +The diplomatic skill that Popinot had acquired in the management of +men and affairs was brought to bear upon Pons, till at length the +story of his misfortunes in the President's house was drawn from him. + +Popinot took up the victim's cause so warmly that he told the story to +Mme. Popinot as soon as he went home, and that excellent and +noble-natured woman spoke to the Presidente on the subject at the +first opportunity. As Popinot himself likewise said a word or two to +the President, there was a general explanation in the family of Camusot +de Marville. + +Camusot was not exactly master in his own house; but this time his +remonstrance was so well founded in law and in fact, that his wife and +daughter were forced to acknowledge the truth. They both humbled +themselves and threw the blame on the servants. The servants, first +bidden, and then chidden, only obtained pardon by a full confession, +which made it clear to the President's mind that Pons had done rightly +to stop away. The President displayed himself before the servants in +all his masculine and magisterial dignity, after the manner of men who +are ruled by their wives. He informed his household that they should +be dismissed forthwith, and forfeit any advantages which their long +term of service in his house might have brought them, unless from that +time forward his cousin and all those who did him the honor of coming +to his house were treated as he himself was. At which speech Madeleine +was moved to smile. + +"You have only one chance of salvation as it is," continued the +President. "Go to my cousin, make your excuses to him, and tell him +that you will lose your situations unless he forgives you, for I shall +turn you all away if he does not." + +Next morning the President went out fairly early to pay a call on his +cousin before going down to the court. The apparition of M. le +President de Marville, announced by Mme. Cibot, was an event in the +house. Pons, thus honored for the first time in his life saw +reparation ahead. + +"At last, my dear cousin," said the President after the ordinary +greetings; "at last I have discovered the cause of your retreat. Your +behavior increases, if that were possible, my esteem for you. I have +but one word to say in that connection. My servants have all been +dismissed. My wife and daughter are in despair; they want to see you +to have an explanation. In all this, my cousin, there is one innocent +person, and he is an old judge; you will not punish me, will you, for +the escapade of a thoughtless child who wished to dine with the +Popinots? especially when I come to beg for peace, admitting that all +the wrong has been on our side? . . . An old friendship of thirty-six +years, even suppose that there had been a misunderstanding, has still +some claims. Come, sign a treaty of peace by dining with us +to-night--" + +Pons involved himself in a diffuse reply, and ended by informing his +cousin that he was to sign a marriage contract that evening; how that +one of the orchestra was not only going to be married, but also about +to fling his flute to the winds to become a banker. + +"Very well. To-morrow." + +"Mme. la Comtesse Popinot has done me the honor of asking me, cousin. +She was so kind as to write--" + +"The day after to-morrow then." + +"M. Brunner, a German, my first flute's future partner, returns the +compliment paid him to-day by the young couple--" + +"You are such pleasant company that it is not surprising that people +dispute for the honor of seeing you. Very well, next Sunday? Within a +week, as we say at the courts?" + +"On Sunday we are to dine with M. Graff, the flute's father-in-law." + +"Very well, on Saturday. Between now and then you will have time to +reassure a little girl who has shed tears already over her fault. God +asks no more than repentance; you will not be more severe than the +Eternal father with poor little Cecile?--" + +Pons, thus reached on his weak side, again plunged into formulas more +than polite, and went as far as the stairhead with the President. + +An hour later the President's servants arrived in a troop on poor +Pons' second floor. They behaved after the manner of their kind; they +cringed and fawned; they wept. Madeleine took M. Pons aside and flung +herself resolutely at his feet. + +"It is all my fault; and monsieur knows quite well that I love him," +here she burst into tears. "It was vengeance boiling in my veins; +monsieur ought to throw all the blame of the unhappy affair on that. +We are all to lose our pensions. . . . Monsieur, I was mad, and I +would not have the rest suffer for my fault. . . . I can see now well +enough that fate did not make me for monsieur. I have come to my +senses, I aimed too high, but I love you still, monsieur. These ten +years I have thought of nothing but the happiness of making you happy +and looking after things here. What a lot! . . . Oh! if monsieur but +knew how much I love him! But monsieur must have seen it through all +my mischief-making. If I were to die to-morrow, what would they find? +--A will in your favor, monsieur. . . . Yes, monsieur, in my trunk +under my best things." + +Madeleine had set a responsive chord vibrating; the passion inspired +in another may be unwelcome, but it will always be gratifying to +self-love; this was the case with the old bachelor. After generously +pardoning Madeleine, he extended his forgiveness to the other +servants, promising to use his influence with his cousin the +Presidente on their behalf. + +It was unspeakably pleasant to Pons to find all his old enjoyments +restored to him without any loss of self-respect. The world had come +to Pons, he had risen in the esteem of his circle; but Schmucke looked +so downcast and dubious when he heard the story of the triumph, that +Pons felt hurt. When, however, the kind-hearted German saw the sudden +change wrought in Pons' face, he ended by rejoicing with his friend, +and made a sacrifice of the happiness that he had known during those +four months that he had had Pons all to himself. Mental suffering has +this immense advantage over physical ills--when the cause is removed +it ceases at once. Pons was not like the same man that morning. The +old man, depressed and visibly failing, had given place to the +serenely contented Pons, who entered the Presidente's house that +October afternoon with the Marquise de Pompadour's fan in his pocket. +Schmucke, on the other hand, pondered deeply over this phenomenon, and +could not understand it; your true stoic never can understand the +courtier that dwells in a Frenchman. Pons was a born Frenchman of the +Empire; a mixture of eighteenth century gallantry and that devotion to +womankind so often celebrated in songs of the type of _Partant pour la +Syrie_. + +So Schmucke was fain to bury his chagrin beneath the flowers of his +German philosophy; but a week later he grew so yellow that Mme. Cibot +exerted her ingenuity to call in the parish doctor. The leech had +fears of icterus, and left Mme. Cibot frightened half out of her wits +by the Latin word for an attack of the jaundice. + +Meantime the two friends went out to dinner together, perhaps for the +first time in their lives. For Schmucke it was a return to the +Fatherland; for Johann Graff of the Hotel du Rhin and his daughter +Emilie, Wolfgang Graff the tailor and his wife, Fritz Brunner and +Wilhelm Schwab, were Germans, and Pons and the notary were the only +Frenchmen present at the banquet. The Graffs of the tailor's business +owned a splendid house in the Rue de Richelieu, between the Rue +Neuve-des-Petits-Champs and the Rue Villedo; they had brought up their +niece, for Emilie's father, not without reason, had feared contact +with the very mixed society of an inn for his daughter. The good +tailor Graffs, who loved Emilie as if she had been their own daughter, +were giving up the ground floor of their great house to the young +couple, and here the bank of Brunner, Schwab and Company was to be +established. The arrangements for the marriage had been made about a +month ago; some time must elapse before Fritz Brunner, author of all +this felicity, could settle his deceased father's affairs, and the +famous firm of tailors had taken advantage of the delay to redecorate +the first floor and to furnish it very handsomely for the bride and +bridegroom. The offices of the bank had been fitted into the wing +which united a handsome business house with the hotel at the back, +between courtyard and garden. + +On the way from the Rue de Normandie to the Rue de Richelieu, Pons +drew from the abstracted Schmucke the details of the story of the +modern prodigal son, for whom Death had killed the fatted innkeeper. +Pons, but newly reconciled with his nearest relatives, was immediately +smitten with a desire to make a match between Fritz Brunner and Cecile +de Marville. Chance ordained that the notary was none other than +Berthier, old Cardot's son-in-law and successor, the sometime second +clerk with whom Pons had been wont to dine. + +"Ah! M. Berthier, you here!" he said, holding out a hand to his host +of former days. + +"We have not had the pleasure of seeing you at dinner lately; how is +it?" returned the notary. "My wife has been anxious about you. We saw +you at the first performance of _The Devil's Betrothed_, and our +anxiety became curiosity?" + +"Old folk are sensitive," replied the worthy musician; "they make the +mistake of being a century behind the times, but how can it be helped? +It is quite enough to represent one century--they cannot entirely +belong to the century which sees them die." + +"Ah!" said the notary, with a shrewd look, "one cannot run two +centuries at once." + +"By the by," continued Pons, drawing the young lawyer into a corner, +"why do you not find some one for my cousin Cecile de Marville--" + +"Ah! why--?" answered Berthier. "In this century, when luxury has +filtered down to our very porters' lodges, a young fellow hesitates +before uniting his lot with the daughter of a President of the Court +of Appeal in Paris if she brings him only a hundred thousand francs. +In the rank of life in which Mlle. de Marville's husband would take, +the wife was never yet known that did not cost her husband three +thousand francs a year; the interest on a hundred thousand francs +would scarcely find her in pin-money. A bachelor with an income of +fifteen or twenty thousand francs can live on an entre-sol; he is not +expected to cut any figure; he need not keep more than one servant, +and all his surplus income he can spend on his amusements; he puts +himself in the hands of a good tailor, and need not trouble any +further about keeping up appearances. Far-sighted mothers make much of +him; he is one of the kings of fashion in Paris. + +"But a wife changes everything. A wife means a properly furnished +house," continued the lawyer; "she wants the carriage for herself; if +she goes to the play, she wants a box, while the bachelor has only a +stall to pay for; in short, a wife represents the whole of the income +which the bachelor used to spend on himself. Suppose that husband and +wife have thirty thousand francs a year between them--practically, the +sometime bachelor is a poor devil who thinks twice before he drives +out to Chantilly. Bring children on the scene--he is pinched for money +at once. + +"Now, as M. and Mme. de Marville are scarcely turned fifty, Cecile's +expectations are bills that will not fall due for fifteen or twenty +years to come; and no young fellow cares to keep them so long in his +portfolio. The young featherheads who are dancing the polka with +lorettes at the Jardin Mabille, are so cankered with self-interest, +that they don't stand in need of us to explain both sides of the +problem to them. Between ourselves, I may say that Mlle. de Marville +scarcely sets hearts throbbing so fast but that their owners can +perfectly keep their heads, and they are full of these +anti-matrimonial reflections. If any eligible young man, in full +possession of his senses and an income of twenty thousand francs, +happens to be sketching out a programme of marriage that will satisfy +his ambitions, Mlle. de Marville does not altogether answer the +description--" + +"And why not?" asked the bewildered musician. + +"Oh!--" said the notary, "well--a young man nowadays may be as ugly as +you and I, my dear Pons, but he is almost sure to have the +impertinence to want six hundred thousand francs, a girl of good +family, with wit and good looks and good breeding--flawless perfection +in short." + +"Then it will not be easy to marry her?" + +"She will not be married so long as M. and Mme. de Marville cannot +make up their minds to settle Marville on her when she marries; if +they had chosen, she might have been the Vicomtesse Popinot by now. +But here comes M. Brunner.--We are about to read the deed of +partnership and the marriage contract." + +Greetings and introductions over, the relations made Pons promise to +sign the contract. He listened to the reading of the documents, and +towards half-past five the party went into the dining-room. The dinner +was magnificent, as a city merchant's dinner can be, when he allows +himself a respite from money-making. Graff of the Hotel du Rhin was +acquainted with the first provision dealers in Paris; never had Pons +nor Schmucke fared so sumptuously. The dishes were a rapture to think +of! Italian paste, delicate of flavor, unknown to the public; smelts +fried as never smelts were fried before; fish from Lake Leman, with a +real Genevese sauce, and a cream for plum-pudding which would have +astonished the London doctor who is said to have invented it. It was +nearly ten o'clock before they rose from table. The amount of wine, +German and French, consumed at that dinner would amaze the +contemporary dandy; nobody knows the amount of liquor that a German +can imbibe and yet keep calm and quiet; to have even an idea of the +quantity, you must dine in Germany and watch bottle succeed to bottle, +like wave rippling after wave along the sunny shores of the +Mediterranean, and disappear as if the Teuton possessed the absorbing +power of sponges or sea sand. Perfect harmony prevails meanwhile; +there is none of the racket that there would be over the liquor in +France; the talk is as sober as a money-lender's extempore speech; +countenances flush, like the faces of the brides in frescoes by +Cornelius or Schnorr (imperceptibly, that is to say), and +reminiscences are poured out slowly while the smoke puffs from the +pipes. + +About half-past ten that evening Pons and Schmucke found themselves +sitting on a bench out in the garden, with the ex-flute between them; +they were explaining their characters, opinions, and misfortunes, with +no very clear idea as to why or how they had come to this point. In +the thick of a potpourri of confidences, Wilhelm spoke of his strong +desire to see Fritz married, expressing himself with vehement and +vinous eloquence. + +"What do you say to this programme for your friend Brunner?" cried +Pons in confidential tones. "A charming and sensible young lady of +twenty-four, belonging to a family of the highest distinction. The +father holds a very high position as a judge; there will be a hundred +thousand francs paid down and a million to come." + +"Wait!" answered Schwab; "I will speak to Fritz this instant." + +The pair watched Brunner and his friend as they walked round and round +the garden; again and again they passed the bench, sometimes one +spoke, sometimes the other. + +Pons was not exactly intoxicated; his head was a little heavy, but his +thoughts, on the contrary, seemed all the lighter; he watched Fritz +Brunner's face through the rainbow mist of fumes of wine, and tried to +read auguries favorable to his family. Before very long Schwab +introduced his friend and partner to M. Pons; Fritz Brunner expressed +his thanks for the trouble which Pons had been so good as to take. + +In the conversation which followed, the two old bachelors Schmucke and +Pons extolled the estate of matrimony, going so far as to say, without +any malicious intent, "that marriage was the end of man." Tea and +ices, punches and cakes, were served in the future home of the +betrothed couple. The wine had begun to tell upon the honest +merchants, and the general hilarity reached its height when it was +announced that Schwab's partner thought of following his example. + +At two o'clock that morning, Schmucke and Pons walked home along the +boulevards, philosophizing _a perte de raison_ as they went on the +harmony pervading the arrangements of this our world below. + +On the morrow of the banquet, Cousin Pons betook himself to his fair +cousin the Presidente, overjoyed--poor dear noble soul!--to return +good for evil. Surely he had attained to a sublime height, as every +one will allow, for we live in an age when the Montyon prize is given +to those who do their duty by carrying out the precepts of the Gospel. + +"Ah!" said Pons to himself, as he turned the corner of the Rue de +Choiseul, "they will lie under immense obligations to their parasite." + +Any man less absorbed in his contentment, any man of the world, any +distrustful nature would have watched the President's wife and +daughter very narrowly on this first return to the house. But the poor +musician was a child, he had all the simplicity of an artist, +believing in goodness as he believed in beauty; so he was delighted +when Cecile and her mother made much of him. After all the +vaudevilles, tragedies, and comedies which had been played under the +worthy man's eyes for twelve long years, he could not detect the +insincerity and grimaces of social comedy, no doubt because he had +seen too much of it. Any one who goes into society in Paris, and knows +the type of woman, dried up, body and soul, by a burning thirst for +social position, and a fierce desire to be thought virtuous, any one +familiar with the sham piety and the domineering character of a woman +whose word is law in her own house, may imagine the lurking hatred she +bore this husband's cousin whom she had wronged. + +All the demonstrative friendliness of mother and daughter was lined +with a formidable longing for revenge, evidently postponed. For the +first time in Amelie de Marville's life she had been put in the wrong, +and that in the sight of the husband over whom she tyrannized; and not +only so--she was obliged to be amiable to the author of her defeat! +You can scarcely find a match for this position save in the +hypocritical dramas which are sometimes kept up for years in the +sacred college of cardinals, or in chapters of certain religious +orders. + +At three o'clock, when the President came back from the law-courts, +Pons had scarcely made an end of the marvelous history of his +acquaintance, M. Frederic Brunner. Cecile had gone straight to the +point. She wanted to know how Frederic Brunner was dressed, how he +looked, his height and figure, the color of his hair and eyes; and +when she had conjectured a distinguished air for Frederic, she admired +his generosity of character. + +"Think of his giving five hundred thousand francs to his companion in +misfortune! Oh! mamma, I shall have a carriage and a box at the +Italiens----" Cecile grew almost pretty as she thought that all her +mother's ambitions for her were about to be realized, that the hopes +which had almost left her were to come to something after all. + +As for the Presidente, all that she said was, "My dear little girl, +you may perhaps be married within the fortnight." + +All mothers with daughters of three-and-twenty address them as "little +girl." + +"Still," added the President, "in any case, we must have time to make +inquiries; never will I give my daughter to just anybody--" + +"As to inquiries," said Pons, "Berthier is drawing up the deeds. As to +the young man himself, my dear cousin, you remember what you told me? +Well, he is quite forty years old; he is bald. He wishes to find in +family life a haven after a storm; I did not dissuade him; every man +has his tastes--" + +"One reason the more for a personal interview," returned the +President. "I am not going to give my daughter to a valetudinarian." + +"Very good, cousin, you shall see my suitor in five days if you like; +for, with your views, a single interview would be enough"--(Cecile and +her mother signified their rapture)--"Frederic is decidedly a +distinguished amateur; he begged me to allow him to see my little +collection at his leisure. You have never seen my pictures and +curiosities; come and see them," he continued, looking at his +relatives. "You can come simply as two ladies, brought by my friend +Schmucke, and make M. Brunner's acquaintance without betraying +yourselves. Frederic need not in the least know who you are." + +"Admirable!" cried the President. + +The attention they paid to the once scorned parasite may be left to +the imagination! Poor Pons that day became the Presidente's cousin. +The happy mother drowned her dislike in floods of joy; her looks, her +smiles, her words sent the old man into ecstasies over the good that +he had done, over the future that he saw by glimpses. Was he not sure +to find dinners such as yesterday's banquet over the signing of the +contract, multiplied indefinitely by three, in the houses of Brunner, +Schwab, and Graff? He saw before him a land of plenty--a _vie de +cocagne_, a miraculous succession of _plats couverts_, of delicate +surprise dishes, of exquisite wines. + +"If Cousin Pons brings this through," said the President, addressing +his wife after Pons had departed, "we ought to settle an income upon +him equal to his salary at the theatre." + +"Certainly," said the lady; and Cecile was informed that if the +proposed suitor found favor in her eyes, she must undertake to induce +the old musician to accept a munificence in such bad taste. + +Next day the President went to Berthier. He was anxious to make sure +of M. Frederic Brunner's financial position. Berthier, forewarned by +Mme. de Marville, had asked his new client Schwab to come. Schwab the +banker was dazzled by the prospect of such a match for his friend +(everybody knows how deeply a German venerates social distinctions, so +much so, that in Germany a wife takes her husband's (official) title, +and is the Frau General, the Frau Rath, and so forth)--Schwab +therefore was as accommodating as a collector who imagines that he is +cheating a dealer. + +"In the first place," said Cecile's father, "as I shall make over my +estate of Marville to my daughter, I should wish the contract to be +drawn up on the dotal system. In that case, M. Brunner would invest a +million francs in land to increase the estate, and by settling the +land on his wife he would secure her and his children from any share +in the liabilities of the bank." + +Berthier stroked his chin. "He is coming on well, is M. le President," +thought he. + +When the dotal system had been explained to Schwab, he seemed much +inclined that way for his friend. He had heard Fritz say that he +wished to find some way of insuring himself against another lapse into +poverty. + +"There is a farm and pasture land worth twelve hundred thousand francs +in the market at this moment," remarked the President. + +"If we take up shares in the Bank of France to the amount of a million +francs, that will be quite enough to guarantee our account," said +Schwab. "Fritz does not want to invest more than two million francs in +business; he will do as you wish, I am sure, M. le President." + +The President's wife and daughter were almost wild with joy when he +brought home this news. Never, surely, did so rich a capture swim so +complacently into the nets of matrimony. + +"You will be Mme. Brunner de Marville," said the parent, addressing +his child; "I will obtain permission for your husband to add the name +to his, and afterwards he can take out letters of naturalization. If I +should be a peer of France some day, he will succeed me!" + +The five days were spent by Mme. de Marville in preparations. On the +great day she dressed Cecile herself, taking as much pains as the +admiral of the British fleet takes over the dressing of the pleasure +yacht for Her Majesty of England when she takes a trip to Germany. + +Pons and Schmucke, on their side, cleaned, swept, and dusted Pons' +museum rooms and furniture with the agility of sailors cleaning down a +man-of-war. There was not a speck of dust on the carved wood; not an +inch of brass but it glistened. The glasses over the pastels obscured +nothing of the work of Latour, Greuze, and Liotard (illustrious +painter of _The Chocolate Girl_), miracles of an art, alas! so +fugitive. The inimitable lustre of Florentine bronze took all the +varying hues of the light; the painted glass glowed with color. Every +line shone out brilliantly, every object threw in its phrase in a +harmony of masterpieces arranged by two musicians--both of whom alike +had attained to be poets. + +With a tact which avoided the difficulties of a late appearance on the +scene of action, the women were the first to arrive; they wished to be +on their own ground. Pons introduced his friend Schmucke, who seemed +to his fair visitors to be an idiot; their heads were so full of the +eligible gentleman with the four millions of francs, that they paid +but little attention to the worthy Pons' dissertations upon matters of +which they were completely ignorant. + +They looked with indifferent eyes at Petitot's enamels, spaced over +crimson velvet, set in three frames of marvelous workmanship. Flowers +by Van Huysum, David, and Heim; butterflies painted by Abraham Mignon; +Van Eycks, undoubted Cranachs and Albrecht Durers; the Giorgione, the +Sebastian del Piombo; Backhuijzen, Hobbema, Gericault, the rarities of +painting--none of these things so much as aroused their curiosity; +they were waiting for the sun to arise and shine upon these treasures. +Still, they were surprised by the beauty of some of the Etruscan +trinkets and the solid value of the snuff-boxes, and out of politeness +they went into ecstasies over some Florentine bronzes which they held +in their hands when Mme. Cibot announced M. Brunner! They did not +turn; they took advantage of a superb Venetian mirror framed in huge +masses of carved ebony to scan this phoenix of eligible young men. + +Frederic, forewarned by Wilhelm, had made the most of the little hair +that remained to him. He wore a neat pair of trousers, a soft shade of +some dark color, a silk waistcoat of superlative elegance and the very +newest cut, a shirt with open-work, its linen hand-woven by a +Friesland woman, and a blue-and-white cravat. His watch chain, like +the head of his cane, came from Messrs. Florent and Chanor; and the +coat, cut by old Graff himself, was of the very finest cloth. The +Suede gloves proclaimed the man who had run through his mother's +fortune. You could have seen the banker's neat little brougham and +pair of horses mirrored in the surface of his speckless varnished +boots, even if two pairs of sharp ears had not already caught the +sound of wheels outside in the Rue de Normandie. + +When the prodigal of twenty years is a kind of chrysalis from which a +banker emerges at the age of forty, the said banker is usually an +observer of human nature; and so much the more shrewd if, as in +Brunner's case, he understands how to turn his German simplicity to +good account. He had assumed for the occasion the abstracted air of a +man who is hesitating between family life and the dissipations of +bachelorhood. This expression in a Frenchified German seemed to Cecile +to be in the highest degree romantic; the descendant of the Virlaz was +a second Werther in her eyes--where is the girl who will not allow +herself to weave a little novel about her marriage? Cecile thought +herself the happiest of women when Brunner, looking round at the +magnificent works of art so patiently collected during forty years, +waxed enthusiastic, and Pons, to his no small satisfaction, found an +appreciative admirer of his treasures for the first time in his life. + +"He is poetical," the young lady said to herself; "he sees millions in +the things. A poet is a man that cannot count and leaves his wife to +look after his money--an easy man to manage and amuse with trifles." + +Every pane in the two windows was a square of Swiss painted glass; the +least of them was worth a thousand francs; and Pons possessed sixteen +of these unrivaled works of art for which amateurs seek so eagerly +nowadays. In 1815 the panes could be bought for six or ten francs +apiece. The value of the glorious collection of pictures, flawless +great works, authentic, untouched since they left the master's hands, +could only be proved in the fiery furnace of a saleroom. Not a picture +but was set in a costly frame; there were frames of every kind +--Venetians, carved with heavy ornaments, like English plate of the +present day; Romans, distinguishable among the others for a certain +dash that artists call _flafla_; Spanish wreaths in bold relief; +Flemings and Germans with quaint figures, tortoise-shell frames inlaid +with copper and brass and mother-of-pearl and ivory; frames of ebony +and boxwood in the styles of Louis Treize, Louis Quatorze, Louis +Quinze, and Louis Seize--in short, it was a unique collection of the +finest models. Pons, luckier than the art museums of Dresden and +Vienna, possessed a frame by the famous Brustoloni--the Michael Angelo +of wood-carvers. + +Mlle. de Marville naturally asked for explanations of each new +curiosity, and was initiated into the mysteries of art by Brunner. Her +exclamations were so childish, she seemed so pleased to have the value +and beauty of the paintings, carvings, or bronzes pointed out to her, +that the German gradually thawed and looked quite young again, and +both were led on further than they intended at this (purely +accidental) first meeting. + +The private view lasted for three hours. Brunner offered his arm when +Cecile went downstairs. As they descended slowly and discreetly, +Cecile, still talking fine art, wondered that M. Brunner should admire +her cousin's gimcracks so much. + +"Do you really think that these things that we have just seen are +worth a great deal of money?" + +"Mademoiselle, if your cousin would sell his collection, I would give +eight hundred thousand francs for it this evening, and I should not +make a bad bargain. The pictures alone would fetch more than that at a +public sale." + +"Since you say so, I believe it," returned she; "the things took up so +much of your attention that it must be so." + +"On! mademoiselle!" protested Brunner. "For all answer to your +reproach, I will ask your mother's permission to call, so that I may +have the pleasure of seeing you again." + +"How clever she is, that 'little girl' of mine!" thought the +Presidente, following closely upon her daughter's heels. Aloud she +said, "With the greatest pleasure, monsieur. I hope that you will come +at dinner-time with our Cousin Pons. The President will be delighted +to make your acquaintance.--Thank you, cousin." + +The lady squeezed Pons' arm with deep meaning; she could not have said +more if she had used the consecrated formula, "Let us swear an eternal +friendship." The glance which accompanied that "Thank you, cousin," +was a caress. + +When the young lady had been put into the carriage, and the jobbed +brougham had disappeared down the Rue Charlot, Brunner talked +bric-a-brac to Pons, and Pons talked marriage. + +"Then you see no obstacle?" said Pons. + +"Oh!" said Brunner, "she is an insignificant little thing, and the +mother is a trifle prim.--We shall see." + +"A handsome fortune one of these days. . . . More than a million--" + +"Good-bye till Monday!" interrupted the millionaire. "If you should +care to sell your collection of pictures, I would give you five or six +hundred thousand francs--" + +"Ah!" said Pons; he had no idea that he was so rich. "But they are my +great pleasure in life, and I could not bring myself to part with +them. I could only sell my collection to be delivered after my death." + +"Very well. We shall see." + +"Here we have two affairs afoot!" said Pons; he was thinking only of +the marriage. + +Brunner shook hands and drove away in his splendid carriage. Pons +watched it out of sight. He did not notice that Remonencq was smoking +his pipe in the doorway. + +That evening Mme. de Marville went to ask advice of her father-in-law, +and found the whole Popinot family at the Camusots' house. It was only +natural that a mother who had failed to capture an eldest son should +be tempted to take her little revenge; so Mme. de Marville threw out +hints of the splendid marriage that her Cecile was about to make. +--"Whom can Cecile be going to marry?" was the question upon all lips. +And Cecile's mother, without suspecting that she was betraying her +secret, let fall words and whispered confidences, afterwards +supplemented by Mme. Berthier, till gossip circulating in the +bourgeois empyrean where Pons accomplished his gastronomical +evolutions took something like the following form: + +"Cecile de Marville is engaged to be married to a young German, a +banker from philanthropic motives, for he has four millions; he is +like a hero in a novel, a perfect Werther, charming and kind-hearted. +He has sown his wild oats, and he is distractedly in love with Cecile; +it is a case of love at first sight; and so much the more certain, +since Cecile had all Pons' paintings of Madonnas for rivals," and so +forth and so forth. + +Two or three of the set came to call on the Presidente, ostensibly to +congratulate, but really to find out whether or not the marvelous tale +were true. For their benefit Mme. de Marville executed the following +admirable variations on the theme of son-in-law which mothers may +consult, as people used to refer to the _Complete Letter Writer_. + +"A marriage is not an accomplished fact," she told Mme. Chiffreville, +"until you have been in the mayor's office and the church. We have +only come as far as a personal interview; so I count upon your +friendship to say nothing of our hopes." + +"You are very fortunate, madame; marriages are so difficult to arrange +in these days." + +"What can one do? It was chance; but marriages are often made in that +way." + +"Ah! well. So you are going to marry Cecile?" said Mme. Cardot. + +"Yes," said Cecile's mother, fully understanding the meaning of the +"so." "We were very particular, or Cecile would have been established +before this. But now we have found everything we wish: money, good +temper, good character, and good looks; and my sweet little girl +certainly deserves nothing less. M. Brunner is a charming young man, +most distinguished; he is fond of luxury, he knows life; he is wild +about Cecile, he loves her sincerely; and in spite of his three or +four millions, Cecile is going to accept him.--We had not looked so +high for her; still, store is no sore." + +"It was not so much the fortune as the affection inspired by my +daughter which decided us," the Presidente told Mme. Lebas. "M. +Brunner is in such a hurry that he wants the marriage to take place +with the least possible delay." + +"Is he a foreigner?" + +"Yes, madame; but I am very fortunate, I confess. No, I shall not have +a son-in-law, but a son. M. Brunner's delicacy has quite won our +hearts. No one would imagine how anxious he was to marry under the +dotal system. It is a great security for families. He is going to +invest twelve hundred thousand francs in grazing land, which will be +added to Marville some day." + +More variations followed on the morrow. For instance--M. Brunner was a +great lord, doing everything in lordly fashion; he did not haggle. If +M. de Marville could obtain letters of naturalization, qualifying M. +Brunner for an office under Government (and the Home Secretary surely +could strain a point for M. de Marville), his son-in-law would be a +peer of France. Nobody knew how much money M. Brunner possessed; "he +had the finest horses and the smartest carriages in Paris!" and so on +and so on. + +From the pleasure with which the Camusots published their hopes, it +was pretty clear that this triumph was unexpected. + +Immediately after the interview in Pons' museum, M. de Marville, at +his wife's instance, begged the Home Secretary, his chief, and the +attorney for the crown to dine with him on the occasion of the +introduction of this phoenix of a son-in-law. + +The three great personages accepted the invitation, albeit it was +given on short notice; they all saw the part that they were to play in +the family politics, and readily came to the father's support. In +France we are usually pretty ready to assist the mother of +marriageable daughters to hook an eligible son-in-law. The Count and +Countess Popinot likewise lent their presence to complete the splendor +of the occasion, although they thought the invitation in questionable +taste. + +There were eleven in all. Cecile's grandfather, old Camusot, came, of +course, with his wife to a family reunion purposely arranged to elicit +a proposal from M. Brunner. + +The Camusot de Marvilles had given out that the guest of the evening +was one of the richest capitalists in Germany, a man of taste (he was +in love with "the little girl"), a future rival of the Nucingens, +Kellers, du Tillets, and their like. + +"It is our day," said the Presidente with elaborate simplicity, when +she had named her guests one by one for the German whom she already +regarded as her son-in-law. "We have only a few intimate friends +--first, my husband's father, who, as you know, is sure to be raised +to the peerage; M. le Comte and Mme. la Comtesse Popinot, whose son +was not thought rich enough for Cecile; the Home Secretary; our First +President; our attorney for the crown; our personal friends, in short. +--We shall be obliged to dine rather late to-night, because the +Chamber is sitting, and people cannot get away before six." + +Brunner looked significantly at Pons, and Pons rubbed his hands as if +to say, "Our friends, you see! _My_ friends!" + +Mme. de Marville, as a clever tactician, had something very particular +to say to her cousin, that Cecile and her Werther might be left +together for a moment. Cecile chattered away volubly, and contrived +that Frederic should catch sight of a German dictionary, a German +grammar, and a volume of Goethe hidden away in a place where he was +likely to find them. + +"Ah! are you learning German?" asked Brunner, flushing red. + +(For laying traps of this kind the Frenchwoman has not her match!) + +"Oh! how naughty you are!" she cried; "it is too bad of you, monsieur, +to explore my hiding-places like this. I want to read Goethe in the +original," she added; "I have been learning German for two years." + +"Then the grammar must be very difficult to learn, for scarcely ten +pages have been cut--" Brunner remarked with much candor. + +Cecile, abashed, turned away to hide her blushes. A German cannot +resist a display of this kind; Brunner caught Cecile's hand, made her +turn, and watched her confusion under his gaze, after the manner of +the heroes of the novels of Auguste Lafontaine of chaste memory. + +"You are adorable," said he. + +Cecile's petulant gesture replied, "So are you--who could help liking +you?" + +"It is all right, mamma," she whispered to her parent, who came up at +that moment with Pons. + +The sight of a family party on these occasions is not to be described. +Everybody was well satisfied to see a mother put her hand on an +eligible son-in-law. Compliments, double-barreled and double-charged, +were paid to Brunner (who pretended to understand nothing); to Cecile, +on whom nothing was lost; and to the Presidente, who fished for them. +Pons heard the blood singing in his ears, the light of all the blazing +gas-jets of the theatre footlights seemed to be dazzling his eyes, +when Cecile, in a low voice and with the most ingenious +circumspection, spoke of her father's plan of the annuity of twelve +hundred francs. The old artist positively declined the offer, bringing +forward the value of his fortune in furniture, only now made known to +him by Brunner. + +The Home Secretary, the First President, the attorney for the crown, +the Popinots, and those who had other engagements, all went; and +before long no one was left except M. Camusot senior, and Cardot the +old notary, and his assistant and son-in-law Berthier. Pons, worthy +soul, looking round and seeing no one but the family, blundered out a +speech of thanks to the President and his wife for the proposal which +Cecile had just made to him. So it is with those who are guided by +their feelings; they act upon impulse. Brunner, hearing of an annuity +offered in this way, thought that it had very much the look of a +commission paid to Pons; he made an Israelite's return upon himself, +his attitude told of more than cool calculation. + +Meanwhile Pons was saying to his astonished relations, "My collection +or its value will, in any case, go to your family, whether I come to +terms with our friend Brunner or keep it." The Camusots were amazed to +hear that Pons was so rich. + +Brunner, watching, saw how all these ignorant people looked favorably +upon a man once believed to be poor so soon as they knew that he had +great possessions. He had seen, too, already that Cecile was spoiled +by her father and mother; he amused himself, therefore, by astonishing +the good bourgeois. + +"I was telling mademoiselle," said he, "that M. Pons' pictures were +worth that sum to _me_; but the prices of works of art have risen so +much of late, that no one can tell how much the collection might sell +for at public auction. The sixty pictures might fetch a million +francs; several that I saw the other day were worth fifty thousand +apiece." + +"It is a fine thing to be your heir!" remarked old Cardot, looking at +Pons. + +"My heir is my Cousin Cecile here," answered Pons, insisting on the +relationship. There was a flutter of admiration at this. + +"She will be a very rich heiress," laughed old Cardot, as he took his +departure. + +Camusot senior, the President and his wife, Cecile, Brunner, Berthier, +and Pons were now left together; for it was assumed that the formal +demand for Cecile's hand was about to be made. No sooner was Cardot +gone, indeed, than Brunner began with an inquiry which augured well. + +"I think I understood," he said, turning to Mme. de Marville, "that +mademoiselle is your only daughter." + +"Certainly," the lady said proudly. + +"Nobody will make any difficulties," Pons, good soul, put in by way of +encouraging Brunner to bring out his proposal. + +But Brunner grew thoughtful, and an ominous silence brought on a +coolness of the strangest kind. The Presidente might have admitted +that her "little girl" was subject to epileptic fits. The President, +thinking that Cecile ought not to be present, signed to her to go. She +went. Still Brunner said nothing. They all began to look at one +another. The situation was growing awkward. + +Camusot senior, a man of experience, took the German to Mme. de +Marville's room, ostensibly to show him Pons' fan. He saw that some +difficulty had arisen, and signed to the rest to leave him alone with +Cecile's suitor-designate. + +"Here is the masterpiece," said Camusot, opening out the fan. + +Brunner took it in his hand and looked at it. "It is worth five +thousand francs," he said after a moment. + +"Did you not come here, sir, to ask for my granddaughter?" inquired +the future peer of France. + +"Yes, sir," said Brunner; "and I beg you to believe that no possible +marriage could be more flattering to my vanity. I shall never find any +one more charming nor more amiable, nor a young lady who answers to my +ideas like Mlle. Cecile; but--" + +"Oh, no _buts_!" old Camusot broke in; "or let us have the translation +of your 'buts' at once, my dear sir." + +"I am very glad, sir, that the matter has gone no further on either +side," Brunner answered gravely. "I had no idea that Mlle. Cecile was +an only daughter. Anybody else would consider this an advantage; but +to me, believe me, it is an insurmountable obstacle to--" + +"What, sir!" cried Camusot, amazed beyond measure. "Do you find a +positive drawback in an immense advantage? Your conduct is really +extraordinary; I should very much like to hear the explanation of it." + +"I came here this evening, sir," returned the German phlegmatically, +"intending to ask M. le President for his daughter's hand. It was my +desire to give Mlle. Cecile a brilliant future by offering her so much +of my fortune as she would consent to accept. But an only daughter is +a child whose will is law to indulgent parents, who has never been +contradicted. I have had the opportunity of observing this in many +families, where parents worship divinities of this kind. And your +granddaughter is not only the idol of the house, but Mme. la +Presidente . . . you know what I mean. I have seen my father's house +turned into a hell, sir, from this very cause. My stepmother, the +source of all my misfortunes, an only daughter, idolized by her +parents, the most charming betrothed imaginable, after marriage became +a fiend incarnate. I do not doubt that Mlle. Cecile is an exception to +the rule; but I am not a young man, I am forty years old, and the +difference between our ages entails difficulties which would put it +out of my power to make the young lady happy, when Mme. la Presidente +always carried out her daughter's every wish and listened to her as if +Mademoiselle was an oracle. What right have I to expect Mlle. Cecile +to change her habits and ideas? Instead of a father and mother who +indulge her every whim, she would find an egotistic man of forty; if +she should resist, the man of forty would have the worst of it. So, as +an honest man--I withdraw. If there should be any need to explain my +visit here, I desire to be entirely sacrificed--" + +"If these are your motives, sir," said the future peer of France, +"however singular they may be, they are plausible--" + +"Do not call my sincerity in question, sir," Brunner interrupted +quickly. "If you know of a penniless girl, one of a large family, well +brought up but without fortune, as happens very often in France; and +if her character offers me security, I will marry her." + +A pause followed; Frederic Brunner left Cecile's grandfather and +politely took leave of his host and hostess. When he was gone, Cecile +appeared, a living commentary upon her Werther's leave-taking; she was +ghastly pale. She had hidden in her mother's wardrobe and overheard +the whole conversation. + +"Refused! . . ." she said in a low voice for her mother's ear. + +"And why?" asked the Presidente, fixing her eyes upon her embarrassed +father-in-law. + +"Upon the fine pretext that an only daughter is a spoilt child," +replied that gentleman. "And he is not altogether wrong there," he +added, seizing an opportunity of putting the blame on the +daughter-in-law, who had worried him not a little for twenty years. + +"It will kill my child!" cried the Presidente, "and it is your doing!" +she exclaimed, addressing Pons, as she supported her fainting +daughter, for Cecile thought well to make good her mother's words by +sinking into her arms. The President and his wife carried Cecile to an +easy-chair, where she swooned outright. The grandfather rang for the +servants. + +"It is a plot of his weaving; I see it all now," said the infuriated +mother. + +Pons sprang up as if the trump of doom were sounding in his ears. + +"Yes!" said the lady, her eyes like two springs of green bile, "this +gentleman wished to repay a harmless joke by an insult. Who will +believe that that German was right in his mind? He is either an +accomplice in a wicked scheme of revenge, or he is crazy. I hope, M. +Pons, that in future you will spare us the annoyance of seeing you in +the house where you have tried to bring shame and dishonor." + +Pons stood like a statue, with his eyes fixed on the pattern of the +carpet. + +"Well! Are you still here, monster of ingratitude?" cried she, turning +round on Pons, who was twirling his thumbs.--"Your master and I are +never at home, remember, if this gentleman calls," she continued, +turning to the servants.--"Jean, go for the doctor; and bring +hartshorn, Madeleine." + +In the Presidente's eyes, the reason given by Brunner was simply an +excuse, there was something else behind; but, at the same time, the +fact that the marriage was broken off was only the more certain. A +woman's mind works swiftly in great crises, and Mme. de Marville had +hit at once upon the one method of repairing the check. She chose to +look upon it as a scheme of revenge. This notion of ascribing a +fiendish scheme to Pons satisfied family honor. Faithful to her +dislike of the cousin, she treated a feminine suspicion as a fact. +Women, generally speaking, hold a creed peculiar to themselves, a code +of their own; to them anything which serves their interests or their +passions is true. The Presidente went a good deal further. In the +course of the evening she talked the President into her belief, and +next morning found the magistrate convinced of his cousin's +culpability. + +Every one, no doubt, will condemn the lady's horrible conduct; but +what mother in Mme. Camusot's position will not do the same? Put the +choice between her own daughter and an alien, she will prefer to +sacrifice the honor of the latter. There are many ways of doing this, +but the end in view is the same. + +The old musician fled down the staircase in haste; but he went slowly +along the boulevards to his theatre, he turned in mechanically at the +door, and mechanically he took his place and conducted the orchestra. +In the interval he gave such random answers to Schmucke's questions, +that his old friend dissembled his fear that Pons' mind had given way. +To so childlike a nature, the recent scene took the proportions of a +catastrophe. He had meant to make every one happy, and he had aroused +a terrible slumbering feeling of hate; everything had been turned +topsy-turvy. He had at last seen mortal hate in the Presidente's eyes, +tones, and gesture. + +On the morrow, Mme. Camusot de Marville made a great resolution; the +President likewise sanctioned the step now forced upon them by +circumstances. It was determined that the estate of Marville should be +settled upon Cecile at the time of her marriage, as well as the house +in the Rue de Hanovre and a hundred thousand francs. In the course of +the morning, the Presidente went to call upon the Comtesse Popinot; +for she saw plainly that nothing but a settled marriage could enable +them to recover after such a check. To the Comtesse Popinot she told +the shocking story of Pons' revenge, Pons' hideous hoax. It all seemed +probable enough when it came out that the marriage had been broken off +simply on the pretext that Cecile was an only daughter. The Presidente +next dwelt artfully upon the advantage of adding "de Marville" to the +name of Popinot; and the immense dowry. At the present price fetched +by land in Normandy, at two per cent, the property represented nine +hundred thousand francs, and the house in the Rue de Hanovre about two +hundred and fifty thousand. No reasonable family could refuse such an +alliance. The Comte and Comtesse Popinot accepted; and as they were +now touched by the honor of the family which they were about to enter, +they promised to help explain away yesterday evening's mishap. + +And now in the house of the elder Camusot, before the very persons who +had heard Mme. de Marville singing Frederic Brunner's praises but a +few days ago, that lady, to whom nobody ventured to speak on the +topic, plunged courageously into explanations. + +"Really, nowadays" (she said), "one could not be too careful if a +marriage was in question, especially if one had to do with +foreigners." + +"And why, madame?" + +"What has happened to you?" asked Mme. Chiffreville. + +"Do you not know about our adventure with that Brunner, who had the +audacity to aspire to marry Cecile? His father was a German that kept +a wine-shop, and his uncle is a dealer in rabbit-skins!" + +"Is it possible? So clear-sighted as you are! . . ." murmured a lady. + +"These adventurers are so cunning. But we found out everything through +Berthier. His friend is a beggar that plays the flute. He is friendly +with a person who lets furnished lodgings in the Rue du Mail and some +tailor or other. . . . We found out that he had led a most +disreputable life, and no amount of fortune would be enough for a +scamp that has run through his mother's property." + +"Why, Mlle. de Marville would have been wretched!" said Mme. Berthier. + +"How did he come to your house?" asked old Mme. Lebas. + +"It was M. Pons. Out of revenge, he introduced this fine gentleman to +us, to make us ridiculous. . . . This Brunner (it is the same name as +Fontaine in French)--this Brunner, that was made out to be such a +grandee, has poor enough health, he is bald, and his teeth are bad. +The first sight of him was enough for me; I distrusted him from the +first." + +"But how about the great fortune that you spoke of?" a young married +woman asked shyly. + +"The fortune was not nearly so large as they said. These tailors and +the landlord and he all scraped the money together among them, and put +all their savings into this bank that they are starting. What is a +bank for those that begin in these days? Simply a license to ruin +themselves. A banker's wife may lie down at night a millionaire and +wake up in the morning with nothing but her settlement. At first word, +at the very first sight of him, we made up our minds about this +gentleman--he is not one of us. You can tell by his gloves, by his +waistcoat, that he is a working man, the son of a man that kept a +pot-house somewhere in Germany; he has not the instincts of a +gentleman; he drinks beer, and he smokes--smokes? ah! madame, +_twenty-five pipes a day!_ . . . What would have become of poor Lili? +. . . It makes me shudder even now to think of it. God has indeed +preserved us! And besides, Cecile never liked him. . . . Who would +have expected such a trick from a relative, an old friend of the house +that had dined with us twice a week for twenty years? We have loaded +him with benefits, and he played his game so well, that he said Cecile +was his heir before the Keeper of the Seals and the Attorney General +and the Home Secretary! . . . That Brunner and M. Pons had their story +ready, and each of them said that the other was worth millions! . . . +No, I do assure you, all of you would have been taken in by an +artist's hoax like that." + +In a few weeks' time, the united forces of the Camusot and Popinot +families gained an easy victory in the world, for nobody undertook to +defend the unfortunate Pons, that parasite, that curmudgeon, that +skinflint, that smooth-faced humbug, on whom everybody heaped scorn; +he was a viper cherished in the bosom of the family, he had not his +match for spite, he was a dangerous mountebank whom nobody ought to +mention. + + + +About a month after the perfidious Werther's withdrawal, poor Pons +left his bed for the first time after an attack of nervous fever, and +walked along the sunny side of the street leaning on Schmucke's arm. +Nobody in the Boulevard du Temple laughed at the "pair of +nutcrackers," for one of the old men looked so shattered, and the +other so touchingly careful of his invalid friend. By the time that +they reached the Boulevard Poissonniere, a little color came back to +Pons' face; he was breathing the air of the boulevards, he felt the +vitalizing power of the atmosphere of the crowded street, the +life-giving property of the air that is noticeable in quarters where +human life abounds; in the filthy Roman Ghetto, for instance, with +its swarming Jewish population, where malaria is unknown. Perhaps, +too, the sight of the streets, the great spectacle of Paris, the daily +pleasure of his life, did the invalid good. They walked on side by +side, though Pons now and again left his friend to look at the shop +windows. Opposite the Theatre des Varietes he saw Count Popinot, and +went up to him very respectfully, for of all men Pons esteemed and +venerated the ex-Minister. + +The peer of France answered him severely: + +"I am at a loss to understand, sir, how you can have no more tact than +to speak to a near connection of a family whom you tried to brand with +shame and ridicule by a trick which no one but an artist could devise. +Understand this, sir, that from to-day we must be complete strangers +to each other. Mme. la Comtesse Popinot, like every one else, feels +indignant at your behavior to the Marvilles." + +And Count Popinot passed on, leaving Pons thunderstruck. Passion, +justice, policy, and great social forces never take into account the +condition of the human creature whom they strike down. The statesman, +driven by family considerations to crush Pons, did not so much as see +the physical weakness of his redoubtable enemy. + +"Vat is it, mine boor friend?" exclaimed Schmucke, seeing how white +Pons had grown. + +"It is a fresh stab in the heart," Pons replied, leaning heavily on +Schmucke's arm. "I think that no one, save God in heaven, can have any +right to do good, and that is why all those who meddle in His work are +so cruelly punished." + +The old artist's sarcasm was uttered with a supreme effort; he was +trying, excellent creature, to quiet the dismay visible in Schmucke's +face. + +"So I dink," Schmucke replied simply. + +Pons could not understand it. Neither the Camusots nor the Popinots +had sent him notice of Cecile's wedding. + +On the Boulevard des Italiens Pons saw M. Cardot coming towards them. +Warned by Count Popinot's allocution, Pons was very careful not to +accost the old acquaintance with whom he had dined once a fortnight +for the last year; he lifted his hat, but the other, mayor and deputy +of Paris, threw him an indignant glance and went by. Pons turned to +Schmucke. + +"Do go and ask him what it is that they all have against me," he said +to the friend who knew all the details of the catastrophe that Pons +could tell him. + +"Mennseir," Schmucke began diplomatically, "mine friend Bons is chust +recofering from an illness; you haf no doubt fail to rekognize him?" + +"Not in the least." + +"But mit vat kann you rebroach him?" + +"You have a monster of ingratitude for a friend, sir; if he is still +alive, it is because nothing kills ill weeds. People do well to +mistrust artists; they are as mischievous and spiteful as monkeys. +This friend of yours tried to dishonor his own family, and to blight a +young girl's character, in revenge for a harmless joke. I wish to have +nothing to do with him; I shall do my best to forget that I have known +him, or that such a man exists. All the members of his family and my +own share the wish, sir, so do all the persons who once did the said +Pons the honor of receiving him." + +"Boot, mennseir, you are a reasonaple mann; gif you vill bermit me, I +shall exblain die affair--" + +"You are quite at liberty to remain his friend, sir, if you are minded +that way," returned Cardot, "but you need go no further; for I must +give you warning that in my opinion those who try to excuse or defend +his conduct are just as much to blame." + +"To chustify it?" + +"Yes, for his conduct can neither be justified nor qualified." And +with that word, the deputy for the Seine went his way; he would not +hear another syllable. + +"I have two powers in the State against me," smiled poor Pons, when +Schmucke had repeated these savage speeches. + +"Eferpody is against us," Schmucke answered dolorously. "Let us go +avay pefore we shall meed oder fools." + +Never before in the course of a truly ovine life had Schmucke uttered +such words as these. Never before had his almost divine meekness been +ruffled. He had smiled childlike on all the mischances that befell +him, but he could not look and see his sublime Pons maltreated; his +Pons, his unknown Aristides, the genius resigned to his lot, the +nature that knew no bitterness, the treasury of kindness, the heart of +gold! . . . Alceste's indignation filled Schmucke's soul--he was moved +to call Pons' amphitryons "fools." For his pacific nature that impulse +equaled the wrath of Roland. + +With wise foresight, Schmucke turned to go home by the way of the +Boulevard du Temple, Pons passively submitting like a fallen fighter, +heedless of blows; but chance ordered that he should know that all his +world was against him. The House of Peers, the Chamber of Deputies, +strangers and the family, the strong, the weak, and the innocent, all +combined to send down the avalanche. + +In the Boulevard Poissonniere, Pons caught sight of that very M. +Cardot's daughter, who, young as she was, had learned to be charitable +to others through trouble of her own. Her husband knew a secret by +which he kept her in bondage. She was the only one among Pons' +hostesses whom he called by her Christian name; he addressed Mme. +Berthier as "Felicie," and he thought that she understood him. The +gentle creature seemed to be distressed by the sight of Cousin Pons, +as he was called (though he was in no way related to the family of the +second wife of a cousin by marriage). There was no help for it, +however; Felicie Berthier stopped to speak to the invalid. + +"I did not think you were cruel, cousin," she said; "but if even a +quarter of all that I hear of you is true, you are very false. . . . +Oh! do not justify yourself," she added quickly, seeing Pons' +significant gesture, "it is useless, for two reasons. In the first +place, I have no right to accuse or judge or condemn anybody, for I +myself know so well how much may be said for those who seem to be most +guilty; secondly, your explanation would do no good. M. Berthier drew +up the marriage contract for Mlle. de Marville and the Vicomte +Popinot; he is so exasperated, that if he knew that I had so much as +spoken one word to you, one word for the last time, he would scold me. +Everybody is against you." + +"So it seems indeed, madame," Pons said, his voice shaking as he +lifted his hat respectfully. + +Painfully he made his way back to the Rue de Normandie. The old German +knew from the heavy weight on his arm that his friend was struggling +bravely against failing physical strength. That third encounter was +like the verdict of the Lamb at the foot of the throne of God; and the +anger of the Angel of the Poor, the symbol of the Peoples, is the last +word of Heaven. They reached home without another word. + +There are moments in our lives when the sense that our friend is near +is all that we can bear. Our wounds smart under the consoling words +that only reveal the depths of pain. The old pianist, you see, +possessed a genius for friendship, the tact of those who, having +suffered much, knew the customs of suffering. + +Pons was never to take a walk again. From one illness he fell into +another. He was of a sanguine-bilious temperament, the bile passed +into his blood, and a violent liver attack was the result. He had +never known a day's illness in his life till a month ago; he had never +consulted a doctor; so La Cibot, with almost motherly care and +intentions at first of the very best, called in "the doctor of the +quarter." + +In every quarter of Paris there is a doctor whose name and address are +only known to the working classes, to the little tradespeople and the +porters, and in consequence he is called "the doctor of the quarter." +He undertakes confinement cases, he lets blood, he is in the medical +profession pretty much what the "general servant" of the advertising +column is in the scale of domestic service. He must perforce be kind +to the poor, and tolerably expert by reason of much practice, and he +is generally popular. Dr. Poulain, called in by Mme. Cibot, gave an +inattentive ear to the old musician's complainings. Pons groaned out +that his skin itched; he had scratched himself all night long, till he +could scarcely feel. The look of his eyes, with the yellow circles +about them, corroborated the symptoms. + +"Had you some violent shock a couple of days ago?" the doctor asked +the patient. + +"Yes, alas!" + +"You have the same complaint that this gentleman was threatened with," +said Dr. Poulain, looking at Schmucke as he spoke; "it is an attack of +jaundice, but you will soon get over it," he added, as he wrote a +prescription. + +But in spite of that comfortable phrase, the doctor's eyes had told +another tale as he looked professionally at the patient; and the +death-sentence, though hidden under stereotyped compassion, can always +be read by those who wish to know the truth. Mme. Cibot gave a spy's +glance at the doctor, and read his thought; his bedside manner did not +deceive her; she followed him out of the room. + +"Do you think he will get over it?" asked Mme. Cibot, at the +stairhead. + +"My dear Mme. Cibot, your lodger is a dead man; not because of the +bile in the system, but because his vitality is low. Still, with great +care, your patient may pull through. Somebody ought to take him away +for a change--" + +"How is he to go?" asked Mme. Cibot. "He has nothing to live upon but +his salary; his friend has just a little money from some great ladies, +very charitable ladies, in return for his services, it seems. They are +two children. I have looked after them for nine years." + +"I spend my life watching people die, not of their disease, but of +another bad and incurable complaint--the want of money," said the +doctor. "How often it happens that so far from taking a fee, I am +obliged to leave a five-franc piece on the mantel-shelf when I go--" + +"Poor, dear M. Poulain!" cried Mme. Cibot. "Ah, if you hadn't only the +hundred thousand livres a year, what some stingy folks has in the +quarter (regular devils from hell they are), you would be like +Providence on earth." + +Dr. Poulain had made the little practice, by which he made a bare +subsistence, chiefly by winning the esteem of the porters' lodges in +his district. So he raised his eyes to heaven and thanked Mme. Cibot +with a solemn face worthy of Tartuffe. + +"Then you think that with careful nursing our dear patient will get +better, my dear M. Poulain?" + +"Yes, if this shock has not been too much for him." + +"Poor man! who can have vexed him? There isn't nobody like him on +earth except his friend M. Schmucke. I will find out what is the +matter, and I will undertake to give them that upset my gentleman a +hauling over the coals--" + +"Look here, my dear Mme. Cibot," said the doctor as they stood in the +gateway, "one of the principal symptoms of his complaint is great +irritability; and as it is hardly to be supposed that he can afford a +nurse, the task of nursing him will fall to you. So--" + +"Are you talking of Mouchieu Ponsh?" asked the marine store-dealer. He +was sitting smoking on the curb-post in the gateway, and now he rose +to join in the conversation. + +"Yes, Daddy Remonencq." + +"All right," said Remonencq, "ash to moneysh, he ish better off than +Mouchieu Monishtrol and the big men in the curioshity line. I know +enough in the art line to tell you thish--the dear man has treasursh!" +he spoke with a broad Auvergne dialect. + +"Look here, I thought you were laughing at me the other day when my +gentlemen were out and I showed you the old rubbish upstairs," said +Mme. Cibot. + +In Paris, where walls have ears, where doors have tongues, and window +bars have eyes, there are few things more dangerous than the practice +of standing to chat in a gateway. Partings are like postscripts to a +letter--indiscreet utterances that do as much mischief to the speaker +as to those who overhear them. A single instance will be sufficient as +a parallel to an event in this history. + +In the time of the Empire, when men paid considerable attention to +their hair, one of the first coiffeurs of the day came out of a house +where he had just been dressing a pretty woman's head. This artist in +question enjoyed the custom of all the lower floor inmates of the +house; and among these, there flourished an elderly bachelor guarded +by a housekeeper who detested her master's next-of-kin. The +_ci-devant_ young man, falling seriously ill, the most famous of +doctors of the day (they were not as yet styled the "princes of +science") had been called in to consult upon his case; and it so +chanced that the learned gentlemen were taking leave of one another +in the gateway just as the hairdresser came out. They were talking as +doctors usually talk among themselves when the farce of a consultation +is over. "He is a dead man," quoth Dr. Haudry.--"He had not a month +to live," added Desplein, "unless a miracle takes place."--These were +the words overheard by the hairdresser. + +Like all hairdressers, he kept up a good understanding with his +customers' servants. Prodigious greed sent the man upstairs again; he +mounted to the _ci-devant_ young man's apartment, and promised the +servant-mistress a tolerably handsome commission to persuade her +master to sink a large portion of his money in an annuity. The dying +bachelor, fifty-six by count of years, and twice as old as his age by +reason of amorous campaigns, owned, among other property, a splendid +house in the Rue de Richelieu, worth at that time about two hundred +and fifty thousand francs. It was this house that the hairdresser +coveted; and on agreement to pay an annuity of thirty thousand francs +so long as the bachelor lived, it passed into his hands. This happened +in 1806. And in this year 1846 the hairdresser is still paying that +annuity. He has retired from business, he is seventy years old; the +_ci-devant_ young man is in his dotage; and as he has married his Mme. +Evrard, he may last for a long while yet. As the hairdresser gave the +woman thirty thousand francs, his bit of real estate has cost him, +first and last, more than a million, and the house at this day is +worth eight or nine hundred thousand francs. + +Like the hairdresser, Remonencq the Auvergnat had overheard Brunner's +parting remark in the gateway on the day of Cecile's first interview +with that phoenix of eligible men. Remonencq at once longed to gain a +sight of Pons' museum; and as he lived on good terms with his +neighbors the Cibots, it was not very long before the opportunity came +one day when the friends were out. The sight of such treasures dazzled +him; he saw a "good haul," in dealers' phrase, which being interpreted +means a chance to steal a fortune. He had been meditating this for +five or six days. + +"I am sho far from joking," he said, in reply to Mme. Cibot's remark, +"that we will talk the thing over; and if the good shentleman will +take an annuity, of fifty thousand francsh, I will shtand a hamper of +wine, if--" + +"Fifty thousand francs!" interrupted the doctor; "what are you +thinking about? Why, if the good man is so well off as that, with me +in attendance, and Mme. Cibot to nurse him, he may get better--for +liver complaint is a disease that attacks strong constitutions." + +"Fifty, did I shay? Why, a shentleman here, on your very doorshtep, +offered him sheven hundred thoushand francsh, shimply for the +pictursh, _fouchtra_!" + +While Remonencq made this announcement, Mme. Cibot was looking at Dr. +Poulain. There was a strange expression in her eyes; the devil might +have kindled that sinister glitter in their tawny depths. + +"Oh, come! we must not pay any attention to such idle tales," said the +doctor, well pleased, however, to find that his patient could afford +to pay for his visits. + +"If my dear Mme. Cibot, here, would let me come and bring an ekshpert +(shinsh the shentleman upshtairs ish in bed), I will shertainly find +the money in a couple of hoursh, even if sheven hundred thousand +francsh ish in queshtion--" + +"All right, my friend," said the doctor. "Now, Mme. Cibot, be careful +never to contradict the invalid. You must be prepared to be very +patient with him, for he will find everything irritating and +wearisome, even your services; nothing will please him; you must +expect grumbling--" + +"He will be uncommonly hard to please," said La Cibot. + +"Look here, mind what I tell you," the doctor said in a tone of +authority, "M. Pons' life is in the hands of those that nurse him; I +shall come perhaps twice a day. I shall take him first on my round." + +The doctor's profound indifference to the fate of a poor patient had +suddenly given place to a most tender solicitude when he saw that the +speculator was serious, and that there was a possible fortune in +question. + +"He will be nursed like a king," said Madame Cibot, forcing up +enthusiasm. She waited till the doctor turned the corner into the Rue +Charlot; then she fell to talking again with the dealer in old iron. +Remonencq had finished smoking his pipe, and stood in the doorway of +his shop, leaning against the frame; he had purposely taken this +position; he meant the portress to come to him. + +The shop had once been a cafe. Nothing had been changed there since +the Auvergnat discovered it and took over the lease; you could still +read "Cafe de Normandie" on the strip left above the windows in all +modern shops. Remonencq had found somebody, probably a housepainter's +apprentice, who did the work for nothing, to paint another inscription +in the remaining space below--"REMONENCQ," it ran, "DEALER IN MARINE +STORES, FURNITURE BOUGHT"--painted in small black letters. All the +mirrors, tables, seats, shelves, and fittings of the Cafe de Normandie +had been sold, as might have been expected, before Remonencq took +possession of the shop as it stood, paying a yearly rent of six +hundred francs for the place, with a back shop, a kitchen, and a +single room above, where the head-waiter used to sleep, for the house +belonging to the Cafe de Normandie was let separately. Of the former +splendor of the cafe, nothing now remained save the plain light green +paper on the walls, and the strong iron bolts and bars of the +shop-front. + +When Remonencq came hither in 1831, after the Revolution of July, he +began by displaying a selection of broken doorbells, cracked plates, +old iron, and the obsolete scales and weights abolished by a +Government which alone fails to carry out its own regulations, for +pence and half pence of the time of Louis XVI. are still in +circulation. After a time this Auvergnat, a match for five ordinary +Auvergnats, bought up old saucepans and kettles, old picture-frames, +old copper, and chipped china. Gradually, as the shop was emptied and +filled, the quality of the stock-in-trade improved, like Nicolet's +farces. Remonencq persisted in an unfailing and prodigiously +profitable martingale, a "system" which any philosophical idler may +study as he watches the increasing value of the stock kept by this +intelligent class of trader. Picture-frames and copper succeed to +tin-ware, argand lamps, and damaged crockery; china marks the next +transition; and after no long tarriance in the "omnium gatherum" +stage, the shop becomes a museum. Some day or other the dusty windows +are cleaned, the interior is restored, the Auvergnat relinquishes +velveteen and jackets for a great-coat, and there he sits like a +dragon guarding his treasure, surrounded by masterpieces! He is a +cunning connoisseur by this time; he has increased his capital +tenfold; he is not to be cheated; he knows the tricks of the trade. +The monster among his treasures looks like some old hag among a score +of young girls that she offers to the public. Beauty and miracles of +art are alike indifferent to him; subtle and dense as he is, he has a +keen eye to profits, he talks roughly to those who know less than he +does; he has learned to act a part, he pretends to love his pictures, +or again he lets you know the price he himself gave for the things, he +offers to let you see the memoranda of the sale. He is a Proteus; in +one hour he can be Jocrisse, Janot, _Queue-rouge_, Mondor, Hapagon, or +Nicodeme. + +The third year found armor, and old pictures, and some tolerably fine +clocks in Remonencq's shop. He sent for his sister, and La Remonencq +came on foot all the way from Auvergne to take charge of the shop +while her brother was away. A big and very ugly woman, dressed like a +Japanese idol, a half-idiotic creature with a vague, staring gaze she +would not bate a centime of the prices fixed by her brother. In the +intervals of business she did the work of the house, and solved the +apparently insoluble problem--how to live on "the mists of the Seine." +The Remonencqs' diet consisted of bread and herrings, with the outside +leaves of lettuce or vegetable refuse selected from the heaps +deposited in the kennel before the doors of eating-houses. The two +between them did not spend more than fivepence a day on food (bread +included), and La Remonencq earned the money by sewing or spinning. + +Remonencq came to Paris in the first instance to work as an +errand-boy. Between the years 1825 and 1831 he ran errands for dealers +in curiosities in the Boulevard Beaumarchais or coppersmiths in the Rue +de Lappe. It is the usual start in life in his line of business. Jews, +Normans, Auvergnats, and Savoyards, those four different races of men +all have the same instincts, and make their fortunes in the same way; +they spend nothing, make small profits, and let them accumulate at +compound interest. Such is their trading charter, and _that_ charter +is no delusion. + +Remonencq at this moment had made it up with his old master Monistrol; +he did business with wholesale dealers, he was a _chineur_ (the +technical word), plying his trade in the _banlieue_, which, as +everybody knows, extends for some forty leagues round Paris. + +After fourteen years of business, he had sixty thousand francs in hand +and a well-stocked shop. He lived in the Rue de Normandie because the +rent was low, but casual customers were scarce, most of his goods were +sold to other dealers, and he was content with moderate gains. All his +business transactions were carried on in the Auvergue dialect or +_charabia_, as people call it. + +Remonencq cherished a dream! He wished to establish himself on a +boulevard, to be a rich dealer in curiosities, and do a direct trade +with amateurs some day. And, indeed, within him there was a formidable +man of business. His countenance was the more inscrutable because it +was glazed over by a deposit of dust and particles of metal glued +together by the sweat of his brow; for he did everything himself, and +the use and wont of bodily labor had given him something of the +stoical impassibility of the old soldiers of 1799. + +In personal appearance Remonencq was short and thin; his little eyes +were set in his head in porcine fashion; a Jew's slyness and +concentrated greed looked out of those dull blue circles, though in +his case the false humility that masks the Hebrew's unfathomed +contempt for the Gentile was lacking. + +The relations between the Cibots and the Remonencqs were those of +benefactors and recipients. Mme. Cibot, convinced that the Auvergnats +were wretchedly poor, used to let them have the remainder of "her +gentlemen's" dinners at ridiculous prices. The Remonencqs would buy a +pound of broken bread, crusts and crumbs, for a farthing, a +porringer-full of cold potatoes for something less, and other scraps +in proportion. Remonencq shrewdly allowed them to believe that he was +not in business on his own account, he worked for Monistrol, the rich +shopkeepers preyed upon him, he said, and the Cibots felt sincerely +sorry for Remonencq. The velveteen jacket, waistcoat, and trousers, +particularly affected by Auvergnats, were covered with patches of +Cibot's making, and not a penny had the little tailor charged for +repairs which kept the three garments together after eleven years of +wear. + +Thus we see that all Jews are not in Israel. + +"You are not laughing at me, Remonencq, are you?" asked the portress. +"Is it possible that M. Pons has such a fortune, living as he does? +There is not a hundred francs in the place--" + +"Amateursh are all like that," Remonencq remarked sententiously. + +"Then do you think that my gentleman has worth of seven hundred +thousand francs, eh?--" + +"In pictures alone," continued Remonencq (it is needless, for the sake +of clearness in the story, to give any further specimens of his +frightful dialect). "If he would take fifty thousand francs for one up +there that I know of, I would find the money if I had to hang myself. +Do you remember those little frames full of enameled copper on crimson +velvet, hanging among the portraits? . . . Well, those are Petitot's +enamels; and there is a cabinet minister as used to be a druggist that +will give three thousand francs apiece for them." + +La Cibot's eyes opened wide. "There are thirty of them in the pair of +frames!" she said. + +"Very well, you can judge for yourself how much he is worth." + +Mme. Cibot's head was swimming; she wheeled round. In a moment came +the thought that she would have a legacy, _she_ would sleep sound on +old Pons' will, like the other servant-mistresses whose annuities had +aroused such envy in the Marais. Her thoughts flew to some commune in +the neighborhood of Paris; she saw herself strutting proudly about her +house in the country, looking after her garden and poultry yard, +ending her days, served like a queen, along with her poor dear Cibot, +who deserved such good fortune, like all angelic creatures whom nobody +knows nor appreciates. + +Her abrupt, unthinking movement told Remonencq that success was sure. +In the _chineur's_ way of business--the _chineur_, be it explained, +goes about the country picking up bargains at the expense of the +ignorant--in the _chineur's_ way of business, the one real difficulty +is the problem of gaining an entrance to a house. No one can imagine +the Scapin's roguery, the tricks of a Sganarelle, the wiles of a +Dorine by which the _chineur_ contrives to make a footing for himself. +These comedies are as good as a play, and founded indeed on the old +stock theme of the dishonesty of servants. For thirty francs in money +or goods, servants, and especially country servants, will sometimes +conclude a bargain on which the _chineur_ makes a profit of a thousand +or two thousand francs. If we could but know the history of such and +such a service of Sevres porcelain, _pate tendre_, we should find that +all the intellect, all the diplomatic subtlety displayed at Munster, +Nimeguen, Utrecht, Ryswick, and Vienna was surpassed by the _chineur_. +His is the more frank comedy; his methods of action fathom depths of +personal interest quite as profound as any that plenipotentiaries can +explore in their difficult search for any means of breaking up the +best cemented alliances. + +"I have set La Cibot nicely on fire," Remonencq told his sister, when +she came to take up her position again on the ramshackle chair. "And +now," he continued, "I shall go to consult the only man that knows, +our Jew, a good sort of Jew that did not ask more than fifteen per +cent of us for his money." + +Remonencq had read La Cibot's heart. To will is to act with women of +her stamp. Let them see the end in view; they will stick at nothing to +gain it, and pass from scrupulous honesty to the last degree of +scoundrelism in the twinkling of an eye. Honesty, like most +dispositions of mind, is divided into two classes--negative and +positive. La Cibot's honesty was of the negative order; she and her +like are honest until they see their way clear to gain money belonging +to somebody else. Positive honesty, the honesty of the bank collector, +can wade knee-deep through temptations. + +A torrent of evil thoughts invaded La Cibot's heart and brain so soon +as Remonencq's diabolical suggestion opened the flood-gates of +self-interest. La Cibot climbed, or, to be more accurate, fled up the +stairs, opened the door on the landing, and showed a face disguised in +false solicitude in the doorway of the room where Pons and Schmucke +were bemoaning themselves. As soon as she came in, Schmucke made her a +warning sign; for, true friend and sublime German that he was, he too +had read the doctor's eyes, and he was afraid that Mme. Cibot might +repeat the verdict. Mme. Cibot answered by a shake of the head +indicative of deep woe. + +"Well, my dear monsieur," asked she, "how are you feeling?" She sat +down on the foot of the bed, hands on hips, and fixed her eyes +lovingly upon the patient; but what a glitter of metal there was in +them, a terrible, tiger-like gleam if any one had watched her. + +"I feel very ill," answered poor Pons. "I have not the slightest +appetite left.--Oh! the world, the world!" he groaned, squeezing +Schmucke's hand. Schmucke was sitting by his bedside, and doubtless +the sick man was talking of the causes of his illness.--"I should have +done far better to follow your advice, my good Schmucke, and dined +here every day, and given up going into this society, that has fallen +on me with all its weight, like a tumbril cart crushing an egg! And +why?" + +"Come, come, don't complain, M. Pons," said La Cibot; "the doctor told +me just how it is--" + +Schmucke tugged at her gown.--"And you will pull through," she +continued, "only we must take great care of you. Be easy, you have a +good friend beside you, and without boasting, a woman as will nurse +you like a mother nurses her first child. I nursed Cibot round once +when Dr. Poulain had given him over; he had the shroud up to his eyes, +as the saying is, and they gave him up for dead. Well, well, you have +not come to that yet, God be thanked, ill though you may be. Count on +me; I would pull you through all by myself, I would! Keep still, don't +you fidget like that." + +She pulled the coverlet over the patient's hands as she spoke. + +"There, sonny! M. Schmucke and I will sit up with you of nights. A +prince won't be no better nursed . . . and besides, you needn't refuse +yourself nothing that's necessary, you can afford it.--I have just +been talking things over with Cibot, for what would he do without me, +poor dear?--Well, and I talked him round; we are both so fond of you, +that he will let me stop up with you of a night. And that is a good +deal to ask of a man like him, for he is as fond of me as ever he was +the day we were married. I don't know how it is. It is the lodge, you +see; we are always there together! Don't you throw off the things like +that!" she cried, making a dash for the bedhead to draw the coverlet +over Pons' chest. "If you are not good, and don't do just as Dr. +Poulain says--and Dr. Poulain is the image of Providence on earth--I +will have no more to do with you. You must do as I tell you--" + +"Yes, Montame Zipod, he vill do vat you dell him," put in Schmucke; +"he vants to lif for his boor friend Schmucke's sake, I'll pe pound." + +"And of all things, don't fidget yourself," continued La Cibot, "for +your illness makes you quite bad enough without your making it worse +for want of patience. God sends us our troubles, my dear good +gentlemen; He punishes us for our sins. Haven't you nothing to +reproach yourself with? some poor little bit of a fault or other?" + +The invalid shook his head. + +"Oh! go on! You were young once, you had your fling, there is some +love-child of yours somewhere--cold, and starving, and homeless. . . . +What monsters men are! Their love doesn't last only for a day, and +then in a jiffy they forget, they don't so much as think of the child +at the breast for months. . . . Poor women!" + +"But no one has ever loved me except Schmucke and my mother," poor +Pons broke in sadly. + +"Oh! come, you aren't no saint! You were young in your time, and a +fine-looking young fellow you must have been at twenty. I should have +fallen in love with you myself, so nice as you are--" + +"I always was as ugly as a toad," Pons put in desperately. + +"You say that because you are modest; nobody can't say that you aren't +modest." + +"My dear Mme. Cibot, _no_, I tell you. I always was ugly, and I never +was loved in my life." + +"You, indeed!" cried the portress. "You want to make me believe at +this time of day that you are as innocent as a young maid at your time +of life. Tell that to your granny! A musician at a theatre too! Why, +if a woman told me that, I wouldn't believe her." + +"Montame Zipod, you irritate him!" cried Schmucke, seeing that Pons +was writhing under the bedclothes. + +"You hold your tongue too! You are a pair of old libertines. If you +were ugly, it don't make no difference; there was never so ugly a +saucepan-lid but it found a pot to match, as the saying is. There is +Cibot, he got one of the handsomest oyster-women in Paris to fall in +love with him, and you are infinitely better looking than him! You are +a nice pair, you are! Come, now, you have sown your wild oats, and God +will punish you for deserting your children, like Abraham--" + +Exhausted though he was, the invalid gathered up all his strength to +make a vehement gesture of denial. + +"Do lie quiet; if you have, it won't prevent you from living as long +as Methuselah." + +"Then, pray let me be quiet!" groaned Pons. "I have never known what +it is to be loved. I have had no child; I am alone in the world." + +"Really, eh?" returned the portress. "You are so kind, and that is +what women like, you see--it draws them--and it looked to me +impossible that when you were in your prime--" + +"Take her away," Pons whispered to Schmucke; "she sets my nerves on +edge." + +"Then there's M. Schmucke, he has children. You old bachelors are not +all like that--" + +"_I!_" cried Schmucke, springing to his feet, "vy!--" + +"Come, then, you have none to come after you either, eh? You both +sprung up out of the earth like mushrooms--" + +"Look here, komm mit me," said Schmucke. The good German manfully took +Mme. Cibot by the waist and carried her off into the next room, in +spite of her exclamations. + +"At your age, you would not take advantage of a defenceless woman!" +cried La Cibot, struggling in his arms. + +"Don't make a noise!" + +"You too, the better one of the two!" returned La Cibot. "Ah! it is my +fault for talking about love to two old men who have never had nothing +to do with women. I have roused your passions," cried she, as +Schmucke's eyes glittered with wrath. "Help! help! police!" + +"You are a stoopid!" said the German. "Look here, vat tid de toctor +say?" + +"You are a ruffian to treat me so," wept La Cibot, now released,--"me +that would go through fire and water for you both! Ah! well, well, +they say that that is the way with men--and true it is! There is my +poor Cibot, _he_ would not be rough with me like this. . . . And I +treated you like my children, for I have none of my own; and +yesterday, yes, only yesterday I said to Cibot, 'God knew well what He +was doing, dear,' I said, 'when He refused us children, for I have two +children there upstairs.' By the holy crucifix and the soul of my +mother, that was what I said to him--" + +"Eh! but vat did der doctor say?" Schmucke demanded furiously, +stamping on the floor for the first time in his life. + +"Well," said Mme. Cibot, drawing Schmucke into the dining-room, "he +just said this--that our dear, darling love lying ill there would die +if he wasn't carefully nursed; but I am here, in spite of all your +brutality, for brutal you were, you that I thought so gentle. And you +are one of that sort! Ah! now, you would not abuse a woman at your +age, great blackguard--" + +"Placard? I? Vill you not oonderstand that I lof nopody but Bons?" + +"Well and good, you will let me alone, won't you?" said she, smiling +at Schmucke. "You had better; for if Cibot knew that anybody had +attempted his honor, he would break every bone in his skin." + +"Take crate care of him, dear Montame Zipod," answered Schmucke, and +he tried to take the portress' hand. + +"Oh! look here now, _again_." + +"Chust listen to me. You shall haf all dot I haf, gif ve safe him." + +"Very well; I will go round to the chemist's to get the things that +are wanted; this illness is going to cost a lot, you see, sir, and +what will you do?" + +"I shall vork; Bons shall be nursed like ein brince." + +"So he shall, M. Schmucke; and look here, don't you trouble about +nothing. Cibot and I, between us, have saved a couple of thousand +francs; they are yours; I have been spending money on you this long +time, I have." + +"Goot voman!" cried Schmucke, brushing the tears from his eyes. "Vat +ein heart!" + +"Wipe your tears; they do me honor; this is my reward," said La Cibot, +melodramatically. "There isn't no more disinterested creature on earth +than me; but don't you go into the room with tears in your eyes, or M. +Pons will be thinking himself worse than he is." + +Schmucke was touched by this delicate feeling. He took La Cibot's hand +and gave it a final squeeze. + +"Spare me!" cried the ex-oysterseller, leering at Schmucke. + +"Bons," the good German said when he returned "Montame Zipod is an +anchel; 'tis an anchel dat brattles, but an anchel all der same." + +"Do you think so? I have grown suspicious in the past month," said the +invalid, shaking his head. "After all I have been through, one comes +to believe in nothing but God and my friend--" + +"Get bedder, and ve vill lif like kings, all tree of us," exclaimed +Schmucke. + + + +"Cibot!" panted the portress as she entered the lodge. "Oh, my dear, +our fortune is made. My two gentlemen haven't nobody to come after +them, no natural children, no nothing, in short! Oh, I shall go round +to Ma'am Fontaine's and get her to tell my fortune on the cards, then +we shall know how much we are going to have--" + +"Wife," said the little tailor, "it's ill counting on dead men's +shoes." + +"Oh, I say, are _you_ going to worry me?" asked she, giving her spouse +a playful tap. "I know what I know! Dr. Poulain has given up M. Pons. +And we are going to be rich! My name will be down in the will. . . . +I'll see to that. Draw your needle in and out, and look after the +lodge; you will not do it for long now. We will retire, and go into +the country, out at Batignolles. A nice house and a fine garden; you +will amuse yourself with gardening, and I shall keep a servant!" + +"Well, neighbor, and how are things going on upstairs?" The words were +spoken with the thick Auvergnat accent, and Remonencq put his head in +at the door. "Do you know what the collection is worth?" + +"No, no, not yet. One can't go at that rate, my good man. I have +begun, myself, by finding out more important things--" + +"More important!" exclaimed Remonencq; "why, what things can be more +important?" + +"Come, let me do the steering, ragamuffin," said La Cibot +authoritatively. + +"But thirty per cent on seven hundred thousand francs," persisted the +dealer in old iron; "you could be your own mistress for the rest of +your days on that." + +"Be easy, Daddy Remonencq; when we want to know the value of the +things that the old man has got together, then we will see." + +La Cibot went for the medicine ordered by Dr. Poulain, and put off her +consultation with Mme. Fontaine until the morrow; the oracle's +faculties would be fresher and clearer in the morning, she thought; +and she would go early, before everybody else came, for there was +often a crowd at Mme. Fontaine's. + +Mme. Fontaine was at this time the oracle of the Marais; she had +survived the rival of forty years, the celebrated Mlle. Lenormand. No +one imagines the part that fortune-tellers play among Parisians of the +lower classes, nor the immense influence which they exert over the +uneducated; general servants, portresses, kept women, workmen, all the +many in Paris who live on hope, consult the privileged beings who +possess the mysterious power of reading the future. + +The belief of the occult science is far more widely spread than +scholars, lawyers, doctors, magistrates, and philosophers imagine. The +instincts of the people are ineradicable. One among those instincts, +so foolishly styled "superstition," runs in the blood of the populace, +and tinges no less the intellects of better educated folk. More than +one French statesman has been known to consult the fortune-teller's +cards. For sceptical minds, astrology, in French, so oddly termed +_astrologie judiciare_, is nothing more than a cunning device for +making a profit out of one of the strongest of all the instincts of +human nature--to wit, curiosity. The sceptical mind consequently +denies that there is any connection between human destiny and the +prognostications obtained by the seven or eight principal methods +known to astrology; and the occult sciences, like many natural +phenomena, are passed over by the freethinker or the materialist +philosopher, _id est_, by those who believe in nothing but visible and +tangible facts, in the results given by the chemist's retort and the +scales of modern physical science. The occult sciences still exist; +they are at work, but they make no progress, for the greatest +intellects of two centuries have abandoned the field. + +If you only look at the practical side of divination, it seems absurd +to imagine that events in a man's past life and secrets known only to +himself can be represented on the spur of the moment by a pack of +cards which he shuffles and cuts for the fortune-teller to lay out in +piles according to certain mysterious rules; but then the steam-engine +was condemned as absurd, aerial navigation is still said to be absurd, +so in their time were the inventions of gunpowder, printing, +spectacles, engraving, and that latest discovery of all--the +daguerreotype. If any man had come to Napoleon to tell him that a +building or a figure is at all times and in all places represented by +an image in the atmosphere, that every existing object has a spectral +intangible double which may become visible, the Emperor would have +sent his informant to Charenton for a lunatic, just as Richelieu +before his day sent that Norman martyr, Salomon de Caux, to the +Bicetre for announcing his immense triumph, the idea of navigation by +steam. Yet Daguerre's discovery amounts to nothing more nor less than +this. + +And if for some clairvoyant eyes God has written each man's destiny +over his whole outward and visible form, if a man's body is the record +of his fate, why should not the hand in a manner epitomize the body? +--since the hand represents the deed of man, and by his deeds he is +known. + +Herein lies the theory of palmistry. Does not Society imitate God? At +the sight of a soldier we can predict that he will fight; of a lawyer, +that he will talk; of a shoemaker, that he shall make shoes or boots; +of a worker of the soil, that he shall dig the ground and dung it; and +is it a more wonderful thing that such an one with the "seer's" gift +should foretell the events of a man's life from his hand? + +To take a striking example. Genius is so visible in a man that a great +artist cannot walk about the streets of Paris but the most ignorant +people are conscious of his passing. He is a sun, as it were, in the +mental world, shedding light that colors everything in its path. And +who does not know an idiot at once by an impression the exact opposite +of the sensation of the presence of genius? Most observers of human +nature in general, and Parisian nature in particular, can guess the +profession or calling of the man in the street. + +The mysteries of the witches' Sabbath, so wonderfully painted in the +sixteenth century, are no mysteries for us. The Egyptian ancestors of +that mysterious people of Indian origin, the gypsies of the present +day, simply used to drug their clients with hashish, a practice that +fully accounts for broomstick rides and flights up the chimney, the +real-seeming visions, so to speak, of old crones transformed into +young damsels, the frantic dances, the exquisite music, and all the +fantastic tales of devil-worship. + +So many proven facts have been first discovered by occult science, +that some day we shall have professors of occult science, as we +already have professors of chemistry and astronomy. It is even +singular that here in Paris, where we are founding chairs of Mantchu +and Slave and literatures so little professable (to coin a word) as +the literatures of the North (which, so far from providing lessons, +stand very badly in need of them); when the curriculum is full of the +everlasting lectures on Shakespeare and the sixteenth century,--it is +strange that some one has not restored the teaching of the occult +philosophies, once the glory of the University of Paris, under the +title of anthropology. Germany, so childlike and so great, has +outstripped France in this particular; in Germany they have professors +of a science of far more use than a knowledge of the heterogeneous +philosophies, which all come to the same thing at bottom. + +Once admit that certain beings have the power of discerning the future +in its germ-form of the Cause, as the great inventor sees a glimpse of +the industry latent in his invention, or a science in something that +happens every day unnoticed by ordinary eyes--once allow this, and +there is nothing to cause an outcry in such phenomena, no violent +exception to nature's laws, but the operation of a recognized faculty; +possibly a kind of mental somnambulism, as it were. If, therefore, the +hypothesis upon which the various ways of divining the future are +based seem absurd, the facts remain. Remark that it is not really more +wonderful that the seer should foretell the chief events of the future +than that he should read the past. Past and future, on the sceptic's +system, equally lie beyond the limits of knowledge. If the past has +left traces behind it, it is not improbable that future events have, +as it were, their roots in the present. + +If a fortune-teller gives you minute details of past facts known only +to yourself, why should he not foresee the events to be produced by +existing causes? The world of ideas is cut out, so to speak, on the +pattern of the physical world; the same phenomena should be +discernible in both, allowing for the difference of the medium. As, +for instance, a corporeal body actually projects an image upon the +atmosphere--a spectral double detected and recorded by the +daguerreotype; so also ideas, having a real and effective existence, +leave an impression, as it were, upon the atmosphere of the spiritual +world; they likewise produce effects, and exist spectrally (to coin a +word to express phenomena for which no words exist), and certain human +beings are endowed with the faculty of discerning these "forms" or +traces of ideas. + +As for the material means employed to assist the seer--the objects +arranged by the hands of the consultant that the accidents of his life +may be revealed to him,--this is the least inexplicable part of the +process. Everything in the material world is part of a series of +causes and effects. Nothing happens without a cause, every cause is a +part of a whole, and consequently the whole leaves its impression on +the slightest accident. Rabelais, the greatest mind among moderns, +resuming Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Aristophanes, and Dante, pronounced +three centuries ago that "man is a microcosm"--a little world. Three +hundred years later, the great seer Swedenborg declared that "the +world was a man." The prophet and the precursor of incredulity meet +thus in the greatest of all formulas. + +Everything in human life is predestined, so it is also with the +existence of the planet. The least event, the most futile phenomena, +are all subordinate parts of a scheme. Great things, therefore, great +designs, and great thoughts are of necessity reflected in the smallest +actions, and that so faithfully, that should a conspirator shuffle and +cut a pack of playing-cards, he will write the history of his plot for +the eyes of the seer styled gypsy, fortune-teller, charlatan, or what +not. If you once admit fate, which is to say, the chain of links of +cause and effect, astrology has a _locus standi_, and becomes what it +was of yore, a boundless science, requiring the same faculty of +deduction by which Cuvier became so great, a faculty to be exercised +spontaneously, however, and not merely in nights of study in the +closet. + +For seven centuries astrology and divination have exercised an +influence not only (as at present) over the uneducated, but over the +greatest minds, over kings and queens and wealthy people. Animal +magnetism, one of the great sciences of antiquity, had its origin in +occult philosophy; chemistry is the outcome of alchemy; phrenology and +neurology are no less the fruit of similar studies. The first +illustrious workers in these, to all appearance, untouched fields, +made one mistake, the mistake of all inventors; that is to say, they +erected an absolute system on a basis of isolated facts for which +modern analysis as yet cannot account. The Catholic Church, the law of +the land, and modern philosophy, in agreement for once, combined to +prescribe, persecute, and ridicule the mysteries of the Cabala as well +as the adepts; the result is a lamentable interregnum of a century in +occult philosophy. But the uneducated classes, and not a few +cultivated people (women especially), continue to pay a tribute to the +mysterious power of those who can raise the veil of the future; they +go to buy hope, strength, and courage of the fortune-teller; in other +words, to ask of him all that religion alone can give. So the art is +still practised in spite of a certain amount of risk. The eighteenth +century encyclopaedists procured tolerance for the sorcerer; he is no +longer amenable to a court of law, unless, indeed, he lends himself to +fraudulent practices, and frightens his "clients" to extort money from +them, in which case he may be prosecuted on a charge of obtaining +money under false pretences. Unluckily, the exercise of the sublime +art is only too often used as a method of obtaining money under false +pretences, and for the following reasons. + +The seer's wonderful gifts are usually bestowed upon those who are +described by the epithets rough and uneducated. The rough and +uneducated are the chosen vessels into which God pours the elixirs at +which we marvel. From among the rough and uneducated, prophets arise +--an Apostle Peter, or St. Peter the Hermit. Wherever mental power is +imprisoned, and remains intact and entire for want of an outlet in +conversation, in politics, in literature, in the imaginings of the +scholar, in the efforts of the statesman, in the conceptions of the +inventor, or the soldier's toils of war; the fire within is apt to +flash out in gleams of marvelously vivid light, like the sparks hidden +in an unpolished diamond. Let the occasion come, and the spirit within +kindles and glows, finds wings to traverse space, and the god-like +power of beholding all things. The coal of yesterday under the play of +some mysterious influence becomes a radiant diamond. Better educated +people, many-sided and highly polished, continually giving out all +that is in them, can never exhibit this supreme power, save by one of +the miracles which God sometimes vouchsafes to work. For this reason +the soothsayer is almost always a beggar, whose mind is virgin soil, a +creature coarse to all appearance, a pebble borne along the torrent of +misery and left in the ruts of life, where it spends nothing of itself +save in mere physical suffering. + +The prophet, the seer, in short, is some _Martin le Laboureur_ making +a Louis XVIII. tremble by telling him a secret known only to the king +himself; or it is a Mlle. Lenormand, or a domestic servant like Mme. +Fontaine, or again, perhaps it is some half-idiotic negress, some +herdsman living among his cattle, who receives the gift of vision; +some Hindoo fakir, seated by a pagoda, mortifying the flesh till the +spirit gains the mysterious power of the somnambulist. + +Asia, indeed, through all time, has been the home of the heroes of +occult science. Persons of this kind, recovering their normal state, +are usually just as they were before. They fulfil, in some sort, the +chemical and physical functions of bodies which conduct electricity; +at times inert metal, at other times a channel filled with a +mysterious current. In their normal condition they are given to +practices which bring them before the magistrate, yea, verily, like +the notorious Balthazar, even unto the criminal court, and so to the +hulks. You could hardly find a better proof of the immense influence +of fortune-telling upon the working classes than the fact that poor +Pons' life and death hung upon the prediction that Mme. Fontaine was +to make from the cards. + +Although a certain amount of repetition is inevitable in a canvas so +considerable and so full of detail as a complete picture of French +society in the nineteenth century, it is needless to repeat the +description of Mme. Fontaine's den, already given in _Les Comediens +sans le savoir_; suffice it to say that Mme. Cibot used to go to Mme. +Fontaine's house in the Rue Vieille-du-Temple as regularly as +frequenters of the Cafe Anglais drop in at that restaurant for lunch. +Mme. Cibot, being a very old customer, often introduced young persons +and old gossips consumed with curiosity to the wise woman. + +The old servant who acted as provost marshal flung open the door of +the sanctuary with no further ceremony than the remark, "It's Mme. +Cibot.--Come in, there's nobody here." + +"Well, child, what can bring you here so early of a morning?" asked +the sorceress, as Mme. Fontaine might well be called, for she was +seventy-eight years old, and looked like one of the Parcae. + +"Something has given me a turn," said La Cibot; "I want the _grand +jeu_; it is a question of my fortune." Therewith she explained her +position, and wished to know if her sordid hopes were likely to be +realized. + +"Do you know what the _grand jeu_ means?" asked Mme. Fontaine, with +much solemnity. + +"No, I haven't never seen the trick, I am not rich enough.--A hundred +francs! It's not as if it cost so much! Where was the money to come +from? But now I can't help myself, I must have it." + +"I don't do it often, child," returned Mme. Fontaine; "I only do it +for rich people on great occasions, and they pay me twenty-five louis +for doing it; it tires me, you see, it wears me out. The 'Spirit' +rives my inside, here. It is like going to the 'Sabbath,' as they used +to say." + +"But when I tell you that it means my whole future, my dear good Ma'am +Fontaine--" + +"Well, as it is you that have come to consult me so often, I will +submit myself to the Spirit!" replied Mme. Fontaine, with a look of +genuine terror on her face. + +She rose from her filthy old chair by the fireside, and went to a +table covered with a green cloth so worn that you could count the +threads. A huge toad sat dozing there beside a cage inhabited by a +black disheveled-looking fowl. + +"Astaroth! here, my son!" she said, and the creature looked up +intelligently at her as she rapped him on the back with a long +knitting-needle.--"And you, Mademoiselle Cleopatre!--attention!" she +continued, tapping the ancient fowl on the beak. + +Then Mme. Fontaine began to think; for several seconds she did not +move; she looked like a corpse, her eyes rolled in their sockets and +grew white; then she rose stiff and erect, and a cavernous voice +cried: + +"Here I am!" + +Automatically she scattered millet for Cleopatre, took up the pack of +cards, shuffled them convulsively, and held them out to Mme. Cibot to +cut, sighing heavily all the time. At the sight of that image of Death +in the filthy turban and uncanny-looking bed-jacket, watching the +black fowl as it pecked at the millet-grains, calling to the toad +Astaroth to walk over the cards that lay out on the table, a cold +thrill ran through Mme. Cibot; she shuddered. Nothing but strong +belief can give strong emotions. An assured income, to be or not to +be, that was the question. + +The sorceress opened a magical work and muttered some unintelligible +words in a sepulchral voice, looked at the remaining millet-seeds, and +watched the way in which the toad retired. Then after seven or eight +minutes, she turned her white eyes on the cards and expounded them. + +"You will succeed, although nothing in the affair will fall out as you +expect. You will have many steps to take, but you will reap the fruits +of your labors. You will behave very badly; it will be with you as it +is with all those who sit by a sick-bed and covet part of the +inheritance. Great people will help you in this work of wrongdoing. +Afterwards in the death agony you will repent. Two escaped convicts, a +short man with red hair and an old man with a bald head, will murder +you for the sake of the money you will be supposed to have in the +village whither you will retire with your second husband. Now, my +daughter, it is still open to you to choose your course." + +The excitement which seemed to glow within, lighting up the bony +hollows about the eyes, was suddenly extinguished. As soon as the +horoscope was pronounced, Mme. Fontaine's face wore a dazed +expression; she looked exactly like a sleep-walker aroused from sleep, +gazed about her with an astonished air, recognized Mme. Cibot, and +seemed surprised by her terrified face. + +"Well, child," she said, in a totally different voice, "are you +satisfied?" + +Mme. Cibot stared stupidly at the sorceress, and could not answer. + +"Ah! you would have the _grand jeu_; I have treated you as an old +acquaintance. I only want a hundred francs--" + +"Cibot,--going to die?" gasped the portress. + +"So I have been telling you very dreadful things, have I?" asked Mme. +Fontaine, with an extremely ingenuous air. + +"Why, yes!" said La Cibot, taking a hundred francs from her pocket and +laying them down on the edge of the table. "Going to be murdered, +think of it--" + +"Ah! there it is! You would have the _grand jeu_; but don't take on +so, all the folk that are murdered on the cards don't die." + +"But is it possible, Ma'am Fontaine?" + +"Oh, _I_ know nothing about it, my pretty dear! You would rap at the +door of the future; I pull the cord, and it came." + +"_It_, what?" asked Mme. Cibot. + +"Well, then, the Spirit!" cried the sorceress impatiently. + +"Good-bye, Ma'am Fontaine," exclaimed the portress. "I did not know +what the _grand jeu_ was like. You have given me a good fright, that +you have." + +"The mistress will not put herself in that state twice in a month," +said the servant, as she went with La Cibot to the landing. "She would +do herself to death if she did, it tires her so. She will eat cutlets +now and sleep for three hours afterwards." + +Out in the street La Cibot took counsel of herself as she went along, +and, after the manner of all who ask for advice of any sort or +description, she took the favorable part of the prediction and +rejected the rest. The next day found her confirmed in her resolutions +--she would set all in train to become rich by securing a part of +Pons' collection. Nor for some time had she any other thought than the +combination of various plans to this end. The faculty of +self-concentration seen in rough, uneducated persons, explained on a +previous page, the reserve power accumulated in those whose mental +energies are unworn by the daily wear and tear of social life, and +brought into action so soon as that terrible weapon the "fixed idea" +is brought into play,--all this was pre-eminently manifested in La +Cibot. Even as the "fixed idea" works miracles of evasion, and brings +forth prodigies of sentiment, so greed transformed the portress till +she became as formidable as a Nucingen at bay, as subtle beneath her +seeming stupidity as the irresistible La Palferine. + +About seven o'clock one morning, a few days afterwards, she saw +Remonencq taking down his shutters. She went across to him. + +"How could one find out how much the things yonder in my gentlemen's +rooms are worth?" she asked in a wheedling tone. + +"Oh! that is quite easy," replied the owner of the old curiosity shop. +"If you will play fair and above board with me, I will tell you of +somebody, a very honest man, who will know the value of the pictures +to a farthing--" + +"Who?" + +"M. Magus, a Jew. He only does business to amuse himself now." + +Elie Magus has appeared so often in the _Comedie Humaine_, that it is +needless to say more of him here. Suffice it to add that he had +retired from business, and as a dealer was following the example set +by Pons the amateur. Well-known valuers like Henry, Messrs. Pigeot and +Moret, Theret, Georges, and Roehn, the experts of the Musee, in fact, +were but children compared with Elie Magus. He could see a masterpiece +beneath the accumulated grime of a century; he knew all schools, and +the handwriting of all painters. + +He had come to Paris from Bordeaux, and so long ago as 1835 he had +retired from business without making any change for the better in his +dress, so faithful is the race to old tradition. The persecutions of +the Middle Ages compelled them to wear rags, to snuffle and whine and +groan over their poverty in self-defence, till the habits induced by +the necessities of other times have come to be, as usual, instinctive, +a racial defect. + +Elie Magus had amassed a vast fortune by buying and selling diamonds, +pictures, lace, enamels, delicate carvings, old jewelry, and rarities +of all kinds, a kind of commerce which has developed enormously of +late, so much so indeed that the number of dealers has increased +tenfold during the last twenty years in this city of Paris, whither +all the curiosities in the world come to rub against one another. And +for pictures there are but three marts in the world--Rome, London, and +Paris. + +Elie Magus lived in the Chausee des Minimes, a short, broad street +leading to the Place Royale. He had bought the house, an old-fashioned +mansion, for a song, as the saying is, in 1831. Yet there were +sumptuous apartments within it, decorated in the time of Louis XV.; +for it had once been the Hotel Maulaincourt, built by the great +President of the Cour des Aides, and its remote position had saved it +at the time of the Revolution. + +You may be quite sure that the old Jew had sound reasons for buying +house property, contrary to the Hebrew law and custom. He had ended, +as most of us end, with a hobby that bordered on a craze. He was as +miserly as his friend, the late lamented Gobseck; but he had been +caught by the snare of the eyes, by the beauty of the pictures in +which he dealt. As his taste grew more and more fastidious, it became +one of the passions which princes alone can indulge when they are +wealthy and art-lovers. As the second King of Prussia found nothing +that so kindled enthusiasm as the spectacle of a grenadier over six +feet high, and gave extravagant sums for a new specimen to add to his +living museum of a regiment, so the retired picture-dealer was roused +to passion-pitch only by some canvas in perfect preservation, +untouched since the master laid down the brush; and what was more, it +must be a picture of the painter's best time. No great sales, +therefore, took place but Elie Magus was there; every mart knew him; +he traveled all over Europe. The ice-cold, money-worshiping soul in +him kindled at the sight of a perfect work of art, precisely as a +libertine, weary of fair women, is roused from apathy by the sight of +a beautiful girl, and sets out afresh upon the quest of flawless +loveliness. A Don Juan among fair works of art, a worshiper of the +Ideal, Elie Magus had discovered joys that transcend the pleasure of a +miser gloating over his gold--he lived in a seraglio of great +paintings. + +His masterpieces were housed as became the children of princes; the +whole first floor of the great old mansion was given up to them. The +rooms had been restored under Elie Magus' orders, and with what +magnificence! + +The windows were hung with the richest Venetian brocade; the most +splendid carpets from the Savonnerie covered the parquetry flooring. +The frames of the pictures, nearly a hundred in number, were +magnificent specimens, regilded cunningly by Servais, the one gilder +in Paris whom Elie Magus thought sufficiently painstaking; the old Jew +himself had taught him to use the English leaf, which is infinitely +superior to that produced by French gold-beaters. Servais is among +gilders as Thouvenin among bookbinders--an artist among craftsmen, +making his work a labor of love. Every window in that gallery was +protected by iron-barred shutters. Elie Magus himself lived in a +couple of attics on the floor above; the furniture was wretched, the +rooms were full of rags, and the whole place smacked of the Ghetto; +Elie Magus was finishing his days without any change in his life. + +The whole of the ground floor was given up to the picture trade (for +the Jew still dealt in works of art). Here he stored his canvases, +here also packing-cases were stowed on their arrival from other +countries; and still there was room for a vast studio, where Moret, +most skilful of restorers of pictures, a craftsman whom the Musee +ought to employ, was almost always at work for Magus. The rest of the +rooms on the ground floor were given up to Magus' daughter, the child +of his old age, a Jewess as beautiful as a Jewess can be when the +Semitic type reappears in its purity and nobility in a daughter of +Israel. Noemi was guarded by two servants, fanatical Jewesses, to say +nothing of an advanced-guard, a Polish Jew, Abramko by name, once +involved in a fabulous manner in political troubles, from which Elie +Magus saved him as a business speculation. Abramko, porter of the +silent, grim, deserted mansion, divided his office and his lodge with +three remarkably ferocious animals--an English bull-dog, a +Newfoundland dog, and another of the Pyrenean breed. + +Behold the profound observations of human nature upon which Elie Magus +based his feeling of security, for secure he felt; he left home +without misgivings, slept with both ears shut, and feared no attempt +upon his daughter (his chief treasure), his pictures, or his money. In +the first place, Abramko's salary was increased every year by two +hundred francs so long as his master should live; and Magus, moreover, +was training Abramko as a money-lender in a small way. Abramko never +admitted anybody until he had surveyed them through a formidable +grated opening. He was a Hercules for strength, he worshiped Elie +Magus, as Sancho Panza worshiped Don Quixote. All day long the dogs +were shut up without food; at nightfall Abramko let them loose; and by +a cunning device the old Jew kept each animal at his post in the +courtyard or the garden by hanging a piece of meat just out of reach +on the top of a pole. The animals guarded the house, and sheer hunger +guarded the dogs. No odor that reached their nostrils could tempt them +from the neighborhood of that piece of meat; they would not have left +their places at the foot of the poles for the most engaging female of +the canine species. If a stranger by any chance intruded, the dogs +suspected him of ulterior designs upon their rations, which were only +taken down in the morning by Abramko himself when he awoke. The +advantages of this fiendish scheme are patent. The animals never +barked, Magus' ingenuity had made savages of them; they were +treacherous as Mohicans. And now for the result. + +One night burglars, emboldened by the silence, decided too hastily +that it would be easy enough to "clean out" the old Jew's strong box. +One of their number told off to advance to the assault scrambled up +the garden wall and prepared to descend. This the bull-dog allowed him +to do. The animal, knowing perfectly well what was coming, waited for +the burglar to reach the ground; but when that gentleman directed a +kick at him, the bull-dog flew at the visitor's shins, and, making but +one bite of it, snapped the ankle-bone clean in two. The thief had the +courage to tear him away, and returned, walking upon the bare bone of +the mutilated stump till he reached the rest of the gang, when he fell +fainting, and they carried him off. The _Police News_, of course, did +not fail to report this delightful night incident, but no one believed +in it. + +Magus at this time was seventy-five years old, and there was no reason +why he should not live to a hundred. Rich man though he was, he lived +like the Remonencqs. His necessary expenses, including the money he +lavished on his daughter, did not exceed three thousand francs. No +life could be more regular; the old man rose as soon as it was light, +breakfasted on bread rubbed with a clove of garlic, and ate no more +food until dinner-time. Dinner, a meal frugal enough for a convent, he +took at home. All the forenoons he spent among his treasures, walking +up and down the gallery where they hung in their glory. He would dust +everything himself, furniture and pictures; he never wearied of +admiring. Then he would go downstairs to his daughter, drink deep of a +father's happiness, and start out upon his walks through Paris, to +attend sales or visit exhibitions and the like. + +If Elie Magus found a great work of art under the right conditions, +the discovery put new life into the man; here was a bit of sharp +practice, a bargain to make, a battle of Marengo to win. He would pile +ruse on ruse to buy the new sultana as cheaply as possible. Magus had +a map of Europe on which all great pictures were marked; his +co-religionists in every city spied out business for him, and received +a commission on the purchase. And then, what rewards for all his +pains! The two lost Raphaels so earnestly sought after by Raphael +lovers are both in his collection. Elie Magus owns the original +portrait of _Giorgione's Mistress_, the woman for whom the painter +died; the so-called originals are merely copies of the famous picture, +which is worth five hundred thousand francs, according to its owner's +estimation. This Jew possesses Titian's masterpiece, an _Entombment_ +painted for Charles V., sent by the great man to the great Emperor +with a holograph letter, now fastened down upon the lower part of the +canvas. And Magus has yet another Titian, the original sketch from +which all the portraits of Philip II. were painted. His remaining +ninety-seven pictures are all of the same rank and distinction. +Wherefore Magus laughs at our national collection, raked by the +sunlight which destroys the fairest paintings, pouring in through +panes of glass that act as lenses. Picture galleries can only be +lighted from above; Magus opens and closes his shutters himself; he is +as careful of his pictures as of his daughter, his second idol. And +well the old picture-fancier knows the laws of the lives of pictures. +To hear him talk, a great picture has a life of its own; it is +changeable, it takes its beauty from the color of the light. Magus +talks of his paintings as Dutch fanciers used to talk of their tulips; +he will come home on purpose to see some one picture in the hour of +its glory, when the light is bright and clean. + +And Magus himself was a living picture among the motionless figures on +the wall--a little old man, dressed in a shabby overcoat, a silk +waistcoat, renewed twice in a score of years, and a very dirty pair of +trousers, with a bald head, a face full of deep hollows, a wrinkled, +callous skin, a beard that had a trick of twitching its long white +bristles, a menacing pointed chin, a toothless mouth, eyes bright as +the eyes of his dogs in the yard, and a nose like an obelisk--there he +stood in his gallery smiling at the beauty called into being by +genius. A Jew surrounded by his millions will always be one of the +finest spectacles which humanity can give. Robert Medal, our great +actor, cannot rise to this height of poetry, sublime though he is. + +Paris of all the cities of the world holds most of such men as Magus, +strange beings with a strange religion in their heart of hearts. The +London "eccentric" always finds that worship, like life, brings +weariness and satiety in the end; the Parisian monomaniac lives +cheerfully in concubinage with his crotchet to the last. + +Often shall you meet in Paris some Pons, some Elie Magus, dressed +badly enough, with his face turned from the rising sun (like the +countenance of the perpetual secretary of the Academie), apparently +heeding nothing, conscious of nothing, paying no attention to +shop-windows nor to fair passers-by, walking at random, so to speak, +with nothing in his pockets, and to all appearance an equally empty +head. Do you ask to what Parisian tribe this manner of man belongs? He +is a collector, a millionaire, one of the most impassioned souls upon +earth; he and his like are capable of treading the miry ways that lead +to the police-court if so they may gain possession of a cup, a +picture, or some such rare unpublished piece as Elie Magus once picked +up one memorable day in Germany. + +This was the expert to whom Remonencq with much mystery conducted La +Cibot. Remonencq always asked advice of Elie Magus when he met him in +the streets; and more than once Magus had lent him money through +Abramko, knowing Remonencq's honesty. The Chaussee des Minimes is +close to the Rue de Normandie, and the two fellow-conspirators reached +the house in ten minutes. + +"You will see the richest dealer in curiosities, the greatest +connoisseur in Paris," Remonencq had said. And Mme. Cibot, therefore, +was struck dumb with amazement to be confronted with a little old man +in a great-coat too shabby for Cibot to mend, standing watching a +painter at work upon an old picture in the chilly room on the vast +ground floor. The old man's eyes, full of cold feline malignance, were +turned upon her, and La Cibot shivered. + +"What do you want, Remonencq?" asked this person. + +"It is a question of valuing some pictures; there is nobody but you in +Paris who can tell a poor tinker-fellow like me how much he may give +when he has not thousands to spend, like you." + +"Where is it?" + +"Here is the portress of the house where the gentleman lives; she does +for him, and I have arranged with her--" + +"Who is the owner?" + +"M. Pons!" put in La Cibot. + +"Don't know the name," said Magus, with an innocent air, bringing down +his foot very gently upon his artist's toes. + +Moret the painter, knowing the value of Pons' collection, had looked +up suddenly at the name. It was a move too hazardous to try with any +one but Remonencq and La Cibot, but the Jew had taken the woman's +measure at sight, and his eye was as accurate as a jeweler's scales. +It was impossible that either of the couple should know how often +Magus and old Pons had matched their claws. And, in truth, both rabid +amateurs were jealous of each other. The old Jew had never hoped for a +sight of a seraglio so carefully guarded; it seemed to him that his +head was swimming. Pons' collection was the one private collection in +Paris which could vie with his own. Pons' idea had occurred to Magus +twenty years later; but as a dealer-amateur the door of Pons' museum +had been closed to him, as for Dusommerard. Pons and Magus had at +heart the same jealousy. Neither of them cared about the kind of +celebrity dear to the ordinary collector. And now for Elie Magus came +his chance to see the poor musician's treasures! An amateur of beauty +hiding in a boudoir or a stolen glance at a mistress concealed from +him by his friend might feel as Elie Magus felt at that moment. + +La Cibot was impressed by Remonencq's respect for this singular +person; real power, moreover, even when it cannot be explained, is +always felt; the portress was supple and obedient, she dropped the +autocratic tone which she was wont to use in her lodge and with the +tenants, accepted Magus' conditions, and agreed to admit him into +Pons' museum that very day. + +So the enemy was to be brought into the citadel, and a stab dealt to +Pons' very heart. For ten years Pons had carried his keys about with +him; he had forbidden La Cibot to allow any one, no matter whom, to +cross his threshold; and La Cibot had so far shared Schmucke's +opinions of _bric-a-brac_, that she had obeyed him. The good Schmucke, +by speaking of the splendors as "chimcracks," and deploring his +friend's mania, had taught La Cibot to despise the old rubbish, and so +secured Pons' museum from invasion for many a long year. + +When Pons took to his bed, Schmucke filled his place at the theatre +and gave lessons for him at his boarding-schools. He did his utmost to +do the work of two; but Pons' sorrows weighing heavily upon his mind, +the task took all his strength. He only saw his friend in the morning, +and again at dinnertime. His pupils and the people at the theatre, +seeing the poor German look so unhappy, used to ask for news of Pons; +and so great was his grief, that the indifferent would make the +grimaces of sensibility which Parisians are wont to reserve for the +greatest calamities. The very springs of life had been attacked, the +good German was suffering from Pons' pain as well as from his own. +When he gave a music lesson, he spent half the time in talking of +Pons, interrupting himself to wonder whether his friend felt better +to-day, and the little school-girls listening heard lengthy +explanations of Pons' symptoms. He would rush over to the Rue de +Normandie in the interval between two lessons for the sake of a +quarter of an hour with Pons. + +When at last he saw that their common stock was almost exhausted, when +Mme. Cibot (who had done her best to swell the expenses of the +illness) came to him and frightened him; then the old music-master +felt that he had courage of which he never thought himself capable +--courage that rose above his anguish. For the first time in his life +he set himself to earn money; money was needed at home. One of the +school-girl pupils, really touched by their troubles, asked Schmucke +how he could leave his friend alone. "Montemoiselle," he answered, +with the sublime smile of those who think no evil, "ve haf Montame +Zipod, ein dreasure, montemoiselle, ein bearl! Bons is nursed like ein +brince." + +So while Schmucke trotted about the streets, La Cibot was mistress of +the house and ruled the invalid. How should Pons superintend his +self-appointed guardian angel, when he had taken no solid food for a +fortnight, and lay there so weak and helpless that La Cibot was +obliged to lift him up and carry him to the sofa while she made the +bed? + +La Cibot's visit to Elie Magus was paid (as might be expected) while +Schmucke breakfasted. She came in again just as the German was bidding +his friend good-bye; for since she learned that Pons possessed a +fortune, she never left the old bachelor; she brooded over him and his +treasures like a hen. From the depths of a comfortable easy-chair at +the foot of the bed she poured forth for Pons' delectation the gossip +in which women of her class excel. With Machiavelian skill, she had +contrived to make Pons think that she was indispensable to him; she +coaxed and she wheedled, always uneasy, always on the alert. Mme. +Fontaine's prophecy had frightened La Cibot; she vowed to herself that +she would gain her ends by kindness. She would sleep secure on M. +Pons' legacy, but her rascality should keep within the limits of the +law. For ten years she had not suspected the value of Pons' +collection; she had a clear record behind her of ten years of +devotion, honesty, and disinterestedness; it was a magnificent +investment, and now she proposed to realize. In one day, Remonencq's +hint of money had hatched the serpent's egg, the craving for riches +that had lain dormant within her for twenty years. Since she had +cherished that craving, it had grown in force with the ferment of all +the evil that lurks in the corners of the heart. How she acted upon +the counsels whispered by the serpent will presently be seen. + +"Well?" she asked of Schmucke, "has this cherub of ours had plenty to +drink? Is he better?" + +"He is not doing fery vell, tear Montame Zipod, not fery vell," said +poor Schmucke, brushing away the tears from his eyes. + +"Pooh! you make too much of it, my dear M. Schmucke; we must take +things as we find them; Cibot might be at death's door, and I should +not take it to heart as you do. Come! the cherub has a good +constitution. And he has been steady, it seems, you see; you have no +idea what an age sober people live. He is very ill, it is true, but +with all the care I take of him, I shall bring him round. Be easy, +look after your affairs, I will keep him company and see that he +drinks his pints of barley water." + +"Gif you vere not here, I should die of anxiety--" said Schmucke, +squeezing his kind housekeeper's hand in both his own to express his +confidence in her. + +La Cibot wiped her eyes as she went back to the invalid's room. + +"What is the matter, Mme. Cibot?" asked Pons. + +"It is M. Schmucke that has upset me; he is crying as if you were +dead," said she. "If you are not well, you are not so bad yet that +nobody need cry over you; but it has given me such a turn! Oh dear! oh +dear! how silly it is of me to get so fond of people, and to think +more of you than of Cibot! For, after all, you aren't nothing to me, +you are only my brother by Adam's side; and yet, whenever you are in +the question, it puts me in such a taking, upon my word it does! I +would cut off my hand--my left hand, of course--to see you coming and +going, eating your meals, and screwing bargains out of dealers as +usual. If I had had a child of my own, I think I should have loved it +as I love you, eh! There, take a drink, dearie; come now, empty the +glass. Drink it off, monsieur, I tell you! The first thing Dr. Poulain +said was, 'If M. Pons has no mind to go to Pere Lachaise, he ought to +drink as many buckets full of water in a day as an Auvergnat will +sell.' So, come now, drink--" + +"But I do drink, Cibot, my good woman; I drink and drink till I am +deluged--" + +"That is right," said the portress, as she took away the empty glass. +"That is the way to get better. Dr. Poulain had another patient ill of +your complaint; but he had nobody to look after him, his children left +him to himself, and he died because he didn't drink enough--so you +must drink, honey, you see--he died and they buried him two months +ago. And if you were to die, you know, you would drag down old M. +Schmucke with you, sir. He is like a child. Ah! he loves you, he does, +the dear lamb of a man; no woman never loved a man like that! He +doesn't care for meat nor drink; he has grown as thin as you are in +the last fortnight, and you are nothing but skin and bones.--It makes +me jealous to see it, for I am very fond of you; but not to that +degree; I haven't lost my appetite, quite the other way; always going +up and down stairs, till my legs are so tired that I drop down of an +evening like a lump of lead. Here am I neglecting my poor Cibot for +you; Mlle. Remonencq cooks his victuals for him, and he goes on about +it and says that nothing is right! At that I tell him that one ought +to put up with something for the sake of other people, and that you +are so ill that I cannot leave you. In the first place, you can't +afford a nurse. And before I would have a nurse here!--I have done for +you these ten years; they want wine and sugar, and foot-warmers, and +all sorts of comforts. And they rob their patients unless the patients +leave them something in their wills. Have a nurse in here to-day, and +to-morrow we should find a picture or something or other gone--" + +"Oh! Mme. Cibot!" cried Pons, quite beside himself, "do not leave me! +No one must touch anything--" + +"I am here," said La Cibot; "so long as I have the strength I shall be +here.--Be easy. There was Dr. Poulain wanting to get a nurse for you; +perhaps he has his eye on your treasures. I just snubbed him, I did. +'The gentleman won't have any one but me,' I told him. 'He is used to +me, and I am used to him.' So he said no more. A nurse, indeed! They +are all thieves; I hate that sort of woman, I do. Here is a tale that +will show you how sly they are. There was once an old gentleman--it +was Dr. Poulain himself, mind you, who told me this--well, a Mme. +Sabatier, a woman of thirty-six that used to sell slippers at the +Palais Royal--you remember the Galerie at the Palais that they pulled +down?" + +Pons nodded. + +"Well, at that time she had not done very well; her husband used to +drink, and died of spontaneous imbustion; but she had been a fine +woman in her time, truth to tell, not that it did her any good, though +she had friends among the lawyers. So, being hard up, she became a +monthly nurse, and lived in the Rue Barre-du-Bec. Well, she went out +to nurse an old gentleman that had a disease of the lurinary guts +(saving your presence); they used to tap him like an artesian well, +and he needed such care that she used to sleep on a truckle-bed in the +same room with him. You would hardly believe such a thing!--'Men +respect nothing,' you'll tell me, 'so selfish as they are.' Well, she +used to talk with him, you understand; she never left him, she amused +him, she told him stories, she drew him on to talk (just as we are +chatting away together now, you and I, eh?), and she found out that +his nephews--the old gentleman had nephews--that his nephews were +wretches; they had worried him, and final end of it, they had brought +on this illness. Well, my dear sir, she saved his life, he married +her, and they have a fine child; Ma'am Bordevin, the butcher's wife in +the Rue Charlot, a relative of hers, stood godmother. There is luck +for you! + +"As for me, I am married; and if I have no children, I don't mind +saying that it is Cibot's fault; he is too fond of me, but if I cared +--never mind. What would have become of me and my Cibot if we had had +a family, when we have not a penny to bless ourselves with after +thirty years' of faithful service? I have not a farthing belonging to +nobody else, that is what comforts me. I have never wronged nobody. +--Look here, suppose now (there is no harm in supposing when you will be +out and about again in six weeks' time, and sauntering along the +boulevard); well, suppose that you had put me down in your will; very +good, I shouldn't never rest till I had found your heirs and given the +money back. Such is my horror of anything that is not earned by the +sweat of my brow. + +"You will say to me, 'Why, Mme. Cibot, why should you worry yourself +like that? You have fairly earned the money; you looked after your two +gentlemen as if they had been your children; you saved them a thousand +francs a year--' (for there are plenty, sir, you know, that would have +had their ten thousand francs put out to interest by now if they had +been in my place)--'so if the worthy gentleman leaves you a trifle of +an annuity, it is only right.'--Suppose they told me that. Well, now; +I am not thinking of myself.--I cannot think how some women can do a +kindness thinking of themselves all the time. It is not doing good, +sir, is it? I do not go to church myself, I haven't the time; but my +conscience tells me what is right. . . . Don't you fidget like that, +my lamb!--Don't scratch yourself! . . . Dear me, how yellow you grow! +So yellow you are--quite brown. How funny it is that one can come to +look like a lemon in three weeks! . . . Honesty is all that poor folk +have, and one must surely have something! Suppose that you were just +at death's door, I should be the first to tell you that you ought to +leave all that you have to M. Schmucke. It is your duty, for he is all +the family you have. He loves you, he does, as a dog loves his +master." + +"Ah! yes," said Pons; "nobody else has ever loved me all my life +long--" + +"Ah! that is not kind of you, sir," said Mme. Cibot; "then I do not +love you, I suppose?" + +"I do not say so, my dear Mme. Cibot." + +"Good. You take me for a servant, do you, a common servant, as if I +hadn't no heart! Goodness me! for eleven years you do for two old +bachelors, you think of nothing but their comfort. I have turned half +a score of greengrocers' shops upside down for you, I have talked +people round to get you good Brie cheese; I have gone down as far as +the market for fresh butter for you; I have taken such care of things +that nothing of yours hasn't been chipped nor broken in all these ten +years; I have just treated you like my own children; and then to hear +a 'My dear Mme. Cibot,' that shows that there is not a bit of feeling +for you in the heart of an old gentleman that you have cared for like +a king's son! for the little King of Rome was not so well looked +after. He died in his prime; there is proof for you. . . . Come, sir, +you are unjust! You are ungrateful! It is because I am only a poor +portress. Goodness me! are _you_ one of those that think we are +dogs?--" + +"But, my dear Mme. Cibot--" + +"Indeed, you that know so much, tell me why we porters are treated +like this, and are supposed to have no feelings; people look down on +us in these days when they talk of Equality!--As for me, am I not as +good as another woman, I that was one of the finest women in Paris, +and was called _La belle Ecaillere_, and received declarations seven +or eight times a day? And even now if I liked--Look here, sir, you +know that little scrubby marine store-dealer downstairs? Very well, he +would marry me any day, if I were a widow that is, with his eyes shut; +he has had them looking wide open in my direction so often; he is +always saying, 'Oh! what fine arms you have, Ma'am Cibot!--I dreamed +last night that it was bread and I was butter, and I was spread on the +top.' Look, sir, there is an arm!" + +She rolled up her sleeve and displayed the shapeliest arm imaginable, +as white and fresh as her hand was red and rough; a plump, round, +dimpled arm, drawn from its merino sheath like a blade from the +scabbard to dazzle Pons, who looked away. + +"For every oyster the knife opened, the arm has opened a heart! Well, +it belongs to Cibot, and I did wrong when I neglected him, poor dear, +HE would throw himself over a precipice at a word from me; while you, +sir, that call me 'My dear Mme. Cibot' when I do impossible things for +you--" + +"Do just listen to me," broke in the patient; "I cannot call you my +mother, nor my wife--" + +"No, never in all my born days will I take again to anybody--" + +"Do let me speak!" continued Pons. "Let me see; I put M. Schmucke +first--" + +"M. Schmucke! there is a heart for you," cried La Cibot. "Ah! he loves +me, but then he is poor. It is money that deadens the heart; and you +are rich! Oh, well, take a nurse, you will see what a life she will +lead you; she will torment you, you will be like a cockchafer on a +string. The doctor will say that you must have plenty to drink, and +she will do nothing but feed you. She will bring you to your grave and +rob you. You do not deserve to have a Mme. Cibot!--there! When Dr. +Poulain comes, ask him for a nurse." + +"Oh fiddlestickend!" the patient cried angrily. "_Will_ you listen to +me? When I spoke of my friend Schmucke, I was not thinking of women. I +know quite well that no one cares for me so sincerely as you do, you +and Schmucke--" + +"Have the goodness not to irritate yourself in this way!" exclaimed La +Cibot, plunging down upon Pons and covering him by force with the +bedclothes. + +"How should I not love you?" said poor Pons. + +"You love me, really? . . . There, there, forgive me, sir!" she said, +crying and wiping her eyes. "Ah, yes, of course, you love me, as you +love a servant, that is the way!--a servant to whom you throw an +annuity of six hundred francs like a crust you fling into a dog's +kennel--" + +"Oh! Mme. Cibot," cried Pons, "for what do you take me? You do not +know me." + +"Ah! you will care even more than that for me," she said, meeting +Pons' eyes. "You will love your kind old Cibot like a mother, will you +not? A mother, that is it! I am your mother; you are both of you my +children. . . . Ah, if I only knew them that caused you this sorrow, I +would do that which would bring me into the police-courts, and even to +prison; I would tear their eyes out! Such people deserve to die at the +Barriere Saint-Jacques, and that is too good for such scoundrels. +. . . So kind, so good as you are (for you have a heart of +gold), you were sent into the world to make some woman happy! . . . +Yes, you would have her happy, as anybody can see; you were cut out +for that. In the very beginning, when I saw how you were with M. +Schmucke, I said to myself, 'M. Pons has missed the life he was meant +for; he was made to be a good husband.' Come, now, you like women." + +"Ah, yes," said Pons, "and no woman has been mine." + +"Really?" exclaimed La Cibot, with a provocative air as she came +nearer and took Pons' hand in hers. "Do you not know what it is to +love a woman that will do anything for her lover? Is it possible? If I +were in your place, I should not wish to leave this world for another +until I had known the greatest happiness on earth! . . . Poor dear! If +I was now what I was once, I would leave Cibot for you! upon my word, +I would! Why, with a nose shaped like that--for you have a fine nose +--how did you manage it, poor cherub? . . . You will tell me that 'not +every woman knows a man when she sees him'; and a pity it is that they +marry so at random as they do, it makes you sorry to see it.--Now, for +my own part, I should have thought that you had had mistresses by the +dozen--dancers, actresses, and duchesses, for you went out so much. +. . . When you went out, I used to say to Cibot, 'Look! there is M. +Pons going a-gallivanting,' on my word, I did, I was so sure that +women ran after you. Heaven made you for love. . . . Why, my dear sir, +I found that out the first day that you dined at home, and you were so +touched with M. Schmucke's pleasure. And next day M. Schmucke kept +saying to me, 'Montame Zipod, he haf tined hier,' with the tears in +his eyes, till I cried along with him like a fool, as I am. And how +sad he looked when you took to gadding abroad again and dining out! +Poor man, you never saw any one so disconsolate! Ah! you are quite +right to leave everything to him. Dear worthy man, why he is as good +as a family to you, he is! Do not forget him; for if you do, God will +not receive you into his Paradise, for those that have been ungrateful +to their friends and left them no _rentes_ will not go to heaven." + +In vain Pons tried to put in a word; La Cibot talked as the wind +blows. Means of arresting steam-engines have been invented, but it +would tax a mechanician's genius to discover any plan for stopping a +portress' tongue. + +"I know what you mean," continued she. "But it does not kill you, my +dear gentleman, to make a will when you are out of health; and in your +place I might not leave that poor dear alone, for fear that something +might happen; he is like God Almighty's lamb, he knows nothing about +nothing, and I should not like him to be at the mercy of those sharks +of lawyers and a wretched pack of relations. Let us see now, has one +of them come here to see you in twenty years? And would you leave your +property to _them_? Do you know, they say that all these things here +are worth something." + +"Why, yes," said Pons. + +"Remonencq, who deals in pictures, and knows that you are an amateur, +says that he would be quite ready to pay you an annuity of thirty +thousand francs so long as you live, to have the pictures afterwards. +. . . There is a change! If I were you, I should take it. Why, I +thought he said it for a joke when he told me that. You ought to let +M. Schmucke know the value of all those things, for he is a man that +could be cheated like a child. He has not the slightest idea of the +value of these fine things that you have! He so little suspects it, +that he would give them away for a morsel of bread if he did not keep +them all his life for love of you, always supposing that he lives +after you, for he will die of your death. But _I_ am here; I will take +his part against anybody and everybody! . . . I and Cibot will defend +him." + +"Dear Mme. Cibot!" said Pons, "what would have become of me if it had +not been for you and Schmucke?" He felt touched by this horrible +prattle; the feeling in it seemed to be ingenuous, as it usually is in +the speech of the people. + +"Ah! we really are your only friends on earth, that is very true, that +is. But two good hearts are worth all the families in the world. +--Don't talk of families to me! A family, as the old actor said of the +tongue, is the best and the worst of all things. . . . Where are those +relations of yours now? Have you any? I have never seen them--" + +"They have brought me to lie here," said Pons, with intense +bitterness. + +"So you have relations! . . ." cried La Cibot, springing up as if her +easy-chair had been heated red-hot. "Oh, well, they are a nice lot, +are your relations! What! these three weeks--for this is the twentieth +day, to-day, that you have been ill and like to die--in these three +weeks they have not come once to ask for news of you? That's a trifle +too strong, that is! . . . Why, in your place, I would leave all I had +to the Foundling Hospital sooner than give them one farthing!" + +"Well, my dear Mme. Cibot, I meant to leave all that I had to a cousin +once removed, the daughter of my first cousin, President Camusot, you +know, who came here one morning nearly two months ago." + +"Oh! a little stout man who sent his servants to beg your pardon--for +his wife's blunder?--The housemaid came asking me questions about you, +an affected old creature she is, my fingers itched to give her velvet +tippet a dusting with my broom handle! A servant wearing a velvet +tippet! did anybody ever see the like? No, upon my word, the world is +turned upside down; what is the use of making a Revolution? Dine twice +a day if you can afford it, you scamps of rich folk! But laws are no +good, I tell you, and nothing will be safe if Louis-Philippe does not +keep people in their places; for, after all, if we are all equal, eh, +sir? a housemaid didn't ought to have a velvet tippet, while I, Mme. +Cibot, haven't one, after thirty years of honest work.--There is a +pretty thing for you! People ought to be able to tell who you are. A +housemaid is a housemaid, just as I myself am a portress. Why do they +have silk epaulettes in the army? Let everybody keep their place. Look +here, do you want me to tell you what all this comes to? Very well, +France is going to the dogs. . . . If the Emperor had been here, +things would have been very different, wouldn't they, sir? . . . So I +said to Cibot, I said, 'See here, Cibot, a house where the servants +wear velvet tippets belongs to people that have no heart in them--'" + +"No heart in them, that is just it," repeated Pons. And with that he +began to tell Mme. Cibot about his troubles and mortifications, she +pouring out abuse of the relations the while and showing exceeding +tenderness on every fresh sentence in the sad history. She fairly wept +at last. + +To understand the sudden intimacy between the old musician and Mme. +Cibot, you have only to imagine the position of an old bachelor lying +on his bed of pain, seriously ill for the first time in his life. Pons +felt that he was alone in the world; the days that he spent by himself +were all the longer because he was struggling with the indefinable +nausea of a liver complaint which blackens the brightest life. Cut off +from all his many interests, the sufferer falls a victim to a kind of +nostalgia; he regrets the many sights to be seen for nothing in Paris. +The isolation, the darkened days, the suffering that affects the mind +and spirits even more than the body, the emptiness of the life,--all +these things tend to induce him to cling to the human being who waits +on him as a drowned man clings to a plank; and this especially if the +bachelor patient's character is as weak as his nature is sensitive and +incredulous. + +Pons was charmed to hear La Cibot's tittle-tattle. Schmucke, Mme. +Cibot, and Dr. Poulain meant all humanity to him now, when his +sickroom became the universe. If invalid's thoughts, as a rule, never +travel beyond in the little space over which his eyes can wander; if +their selfishness, in its narrow sphere, subordinates all creatures +and all things to itself, you can imagine the lengths to which an old +bachelor may go. Before three weeks were out he had even gone so far +as to regret, once and again, that he had not married Madeleine Vivet! +Mme. Cibot, too, had made immense progress in his esteem in those +three weeks; without her he felt that he should have been utterly +lost; for as for Schmucke, the poor invalid looked upon him as a +second Pons. La Cibot's prodigious art consisted in expressing Pons' +own ideas, and this she did quite unconsciously. + +"Ah! here comes the doctor!" she exclaimed, as the bell rang, and away +she went, knowing very well that Remonencq had come with the Jew. + +"Make no noise, gentlemen," said she, "he must not know anything. He +is all on the fidget when his precious treasures are concerned." + +"A walk round will be enough," said the Hebrew, armed with a +magnifying-glass and a lorgnette. + +The greater part of Pons' collection was installed in a great +old-fashioned salon such as French architects used to build for the +old _noblesse_; a room twenty-five feet broad, some thirty feet in +length, and thirteen in height. Pons' pictures to the number of +sixty-seven hung upon the white-and-gold paneled walls; time, however, +had reddened the gold and softened the white to an ivory tint, so that +the whole was toned down, and the general effect subordinated to the +effect of the pictures. Fourteen statues stood on pedestals set in the +corners of the room, or among the pictures, or on brackets inlaid by +Boule; sideboards of carved ebony, royally rich, surrounded the walls +to elbow height, all the shelves filled with curiosities; in the +middle of the room stood a row of carved credence-tables, covered with +rare miracles of handicraft--with ivories and bronzes, wood-carvings +and enamels, jewelry and porcelain. + +As soon as Elie Magus entered the sanctuary, he went straight to the +four masterpieces; he saw at a glance that these were the gems of +Pons' collection, and masters lacking in his own. For Elie Magus these +were the naturalist's _desiderata_ for which men undertake long +voyages from east to west, through deserts and tropical countries, +across southern savannahs, through virgin forests. + +The first was a painting by Sebastian del Piombo, the second a Fra +Bartolommeo della Porta, the third a Hobbema landscape, and the fourth +and last a Durer--a portrait of a woman. Four diamonds indeed! In the +history of art, Sebastian del Piombo is like a shining point in which +three schools meet, each bringing its pre-eminent qualities. A +Venetian painter, he came to Rome to learn the manner of Raphael under +the direction of Michael Angelo, who would fain oppose Raphael on his +own ground by pitting one of his own lieutenants against the reigning +king of art. And so it came to pass that in Del Piombo's indolent +genius Venetian color was blended with Florentine composition and a +something of Raphael's manner in the few pictures which he deigned to +paint, and the sketches were made for him, it is said, by Michael +Angelo himself. + +If you would see the perfection to which the painter attained (armed +as he was with triple power), go to the Louvre and look at the Baccio +Bandinelli portrait; you might place it beside Titian's _Man with a +Glove_, or by that other _Portrait of an Old Man_ in which Raphael's +consummate skill blends with Correggio's art; or, again, compare it +with Leonardo da Vinci's _Charles VIII._, and the picture would +scarcely lose. The four pearls are equal; there is the same lustre and +sheen, the same rounded completeness, the same brilliancy. Art can go +no further than this. Art has risen above Nature, since Nature only +gives her creatures a few brief years of life. + +Pons possessed one example of this immortal great genius and incurably +indolent painter; it was a _Knight of Malta_, a Templar kneeling in +prayer. The picture was painted on slate, and in its unfaded color and +its finish was immeasurably finer than the _Baccio Bandinelli_. + +Fra Bartolommeo was represented by a _Holy Family_, which many +connoisseurs might have taken for a Raphael. The Hobbema would have +fetched sixty thousand francs at a public sale; and as for the Durer, +it was equal to the famous _Holzschuer_ portrait at Nuremberg for +which the kings of Bavaria, Holland, and Prussia have vainly offered +two hundred thousand francs again and again. Was it the portrait of +the wife or the daughter of Holzschuer, Albrecht Durer's personal +friend?--The hypothesis seems to be a certainty, for the attitude of +the figure in Pons' picture suggests that it is meant for a pendant, +the position of the coat-of-arms is the same as in the Nuremberg +portrait; and, finally, the _oetatis suoe XLI._ accords perfectly with +the age inscribed on the picture religiously kept by the Holzschuers +of Nuremberg, and but recently engraved. + +The tears stood in Elie Magus' eyes as he looked from one masterpiece +to another. He turned round to La Cibot, "I will give you a commission +of two thousand francs on each of the pictures if you can arrange that +I shall have them for forty thousand francs," he said. La Cibot was +amazed at this good fortune dropped from the sky. Admiration, or, to +be more accurate, delirious joy, had wrought such havoc in the Jew's +brain, that it had actually unsettled his habitual greed, and he fell +headlong into enthusiasm, as you see. + +"And I?----" put in Remonencq, who knew nothing about pictures. + +"Everything here is equally good," the Jew said cunningly, lowering +his voice for Remonencq's ears; "take ten pictures just as they come +and on the same conditions. Your fortune will be made." + +Again the three thieves looked each other in the face, each one of +them overcome with the keenest of all joys--sated greed. All of a +sudden the sick man's voice rang through the room; the tones vibrated +like the strokes of a bell: + +"Who is there?" called Pons. + +"Monsieur! just go back to bed!" exclaimed La Cibot, springing upon +Pons and dragging him by main force. "What next! Have you a mind to +kill yourself?--Very well, then, it is not Dr. Poulain, it is +Remonencq, good soul, so anxious that he has come to ask after you! +--Everybody is so fond of you that the whole house is in a flutter. +So what is there to fear?" + +"It seems to me that there are several of you," said Pons. + +"Several? that is good! What next! Are you dreaming!--You will go off +your head before you have done, upon my word!--Here, look!"--and La +Cibot flung open the door, signed to Magus to go, and beckoned to +Remonencq. + +"Well, my dear sir," said the Auvergnat, now supplied with something +to say, "I just came to ask after you, for the whole house is alarmed +about you.--Nobody likes Death to set foot in a house!--And lastly, +Daddy Monistrol, whom you know very well, told me to tell you that if +you wanted money he was at your service----" + +"He sent you here to take a look round at my knick-knacks!" returned +the old collector from his bed; and the sour tones of his voice were +full of suspicion. + +A sufferer from liver complaint nearly always takes momentary and +special dislikes to some person or thing, and concentrates all his +ill-humor upon the object. Pons imagined that some one had designs +upon his precious collection; the thought of guarding it became a +fixed idea with him; Schmucke was continually sent to see if any one +had stolen into the sanctuary. + +"Your collection is fine enough to attract the attention of +_chineurs_," Remonencq answered astutely. "I am not much in the art +line myself; but you are supposed to be such a great connoisseur, sir, +that with my eyes shut--supposing, for instance, that you should need +money some time or other, for nothing costs so much as these +confounded illnesses; there was my sister now, when she would have got +better again just as well without. Doctors are rascals that take +advantage of your condition to--" + +"Thank you, good-day, good-day," broke in Pons, eying the marine +store-dealer uneasily. + +"I will go to the door with him, for fear he should touch something," +La Cibot whispered to her patient. + +"Yes, yes," answered the invalid, thanking her by a glance. + +La Cibot shut the bedroom door behind her, and Pons' suspicions awoke +again at once. + +She found Magus standing motionless before the four pictures. His +immobility, his admiration, can only be understood by other souls open +to ideal beauty, to the ineffable joy of beholding art made perfect; +such as these can stand for whole hours before the _Antiope_ +--Correggio's masterpiece--before Leonardo's _Gioconda_, Titian's +_Mistress_, Andrea del Sarto's _Holy Family_, Domenichino's _Children +Among the Flowers_, Raphael's little cameo, or his _Portrait of an Old +Man_--Art's greatest masterpieces. + +"Be quick and go, and make no noise," said La Cibot. + +The Jew walked slowly backwards, giving the pictures such a farewell +gaze as a lover gives his love. Outside on the landing, La Cibot +tapped his bony arm. His rapt contemplations had put an idea into her +head. + +"Make it _four_ thousand francs for each picture," said she, "or I do +nothing." + +"I am so poor! . . ." began Magus. "I want the pictures simply for +their own sake, simply and solely for the love of art, my dear lady." + +"I can understand that love, sonny, you are so dried up. But if you do +not promise me sixteen thousand francs now, before Remonencq here, I +shall want twenty to-morrow." + +"Sixteen; I promise," returned the Jew, frightened by the woman's +rapacity. + +La Cibot turned to Remonencq. + +"What oath can a Jew swear?" she inquired. + +"You may trust him," replied the marine store-dealer. "He is as honest +as I am." + +"Very well; and you?" asked she, "if I get him to sell them to you, +what will you give me?" + +"Half-share of profits," Remonencq answered briskly. + +"I would rather have a lump sum," returned La Cibot; "I am not in +business myself." + +"You understand business uncommonly well!" put in Elie Magus, smiling; +"a famous saleswoman you would make!" + +"I want her to take me into partnership, me and my goods," said the +Auvergnat, as he took La Cibot's plump arm and gave it playful taps +like hammer-strokes. "I don't ask her to bring anything into the firm +but her good looks! You are making a mistake when your stick to your +Turk of a Cibot and his needle. Is a little bit of a porter the man to +make a woman rich--a fine woman like you? Ah, what a figure you would +make in a shop on the boulevard, all among the curiosities, gossiping +with amateurs and twisting them round your fingers! Just you leave +your lodge as soon as you have lined your purse here, and you shall +see what will become of us both." + +"Lined my purse!" cried Cibot. "I am incapable of taking the worth of +a single pin; you mind that, Remonencq! I am known in the neighborhood +for an honest woman, I am." + +La Cibot's eyes flashed fire. + +"There, never mind," said Elie Magus; "this Auvergnat seems to be too +fond of you to mean to insult you." + +"How she would draw on the customers!" cried the Auvergnat. + +Mme. Cibot softened at this. + +"Be fair, sonnies," quoth she, "and judge for yourselves how I am +placed. These ten years past I have been wearing my life out for these +two old bachelors yonder, and neither or them has given me anything +but words. Remonencq will tell you that I feed them by contract, and +lose twenty or thirty sous a day; all my savings have gone that way, +by the soul of my mother (the only author of my days that I ever +knew), this is as true as that I live, and that this is the light of +day, and may my coffee poison me if I lie about a farthing. Well, +there is one up there that will die soon, eh? and he the richer of the +two that I have treated like my own children. Would you believe it, my +dear sir, I have told him over and over again for days past that he is +at death's door (for Dr. Poulain has given him up), he could not say +less about putting my name down in his will. We shall only get our due +by taking it, upon my word, as an honest woman, for as for trusting to +the next-of-kin!--No fear! There! look you here, words don't stink; it +is a bad world!" + +"That is true," Elie Magus answered cunningly, "that is true; and it +is just the like of us that are among the best," he added, looking at +Remonencq. + +"Just let me be," returned La Cibot; "I am not speaking of you. +'Pressing company is always accepted,' as the old actor said. I swear +to you that the two gentlemen already owe me nearly three thousand +francs; the little I have is gone by now in medicine and things on +their account; and now suppose they refuse to recognize my advances? I +am so stupidly honest that I did not dare to say nothing to them about +it. Now, you that are in business, my dear sir, do you advise me to +got to a lawyer?" + +"A lawyer?" cried Remonencq; "you know more about it than all the +lawyers put together--" + +Just at that moment a sound echoed in the great staircase, a sound as +if some heavy body had fallen in the dining-room. + +"Oh, goodness me!" exclaimed La Cibot; "it seems to me that monsieur +has just taken a ticket for the ground floor." + +She pushed her fellow-conspirators out at the door, and while the pair +descended the stairs with remarkable agility, she ran to the +dining-room, and there beheld Pons, in his shirt, stretched out upon +the tiles. He had fainted. She lifted him as if he had been a feather, +carried him back to his room, laid him in bed, burned feathers under +his nose, bathed his temples with eau-de-cologne, and at last brought +him to consciousness. When she saw his eyes unclose and life return, +she stood over him, hands on hips. + +"No slippers! In your shirt! That is the way to kill yourself! Why do +you suspect me?--If this is to be the way of it, I wish you good-day, +sir. Here have I served you these ten years, I have spent money on you +till my savings are all gone, to spare trouble to that poor M. +Schmucke, crying like a child on the stairs--and _this_ is my reward! +You have been spying on me. God has punished you! It serves you right! +Here I am straining myself to carry you, running the risk of doing +myself a mischief that I shall feel all my days. Oh dear, oh dear! and +the door left open too--" + +"You were talking with some one. Who was it?" + +"Here are notions!" cried La Cibot. "What next! Am I your bond-slave? +Am I to give account of myself to you? Do you know that if you bother +me like this, I shall clear out! You shall take a nurse." + +Frightened by this threat, Pons unwittingly allowed La Cibot to see +the extent of the power of her sword of Damocles. + +"It is my illness!" he pleaded piteously. + +"It is as you please," La Cibot answered roughly. + +She went. Pons, confused, remorseful, admiring his nurse's scalding +devotion, reproached himself for his behavior. The fall on the paved +floor of the dining-room had shaken and bruised him, and aggravated +his illness, but Pons was scarcely conscious of his physical +sufferings. + +La Cibot met Schmucke on the staircase. + +"Come here, sir," she said. "There is bad news, that there is! M. Pons +is going off his head! Just think of it! he got up with nothing on, he +came after me--and down he came full-length. Ask him why--he knows +nothing about it. He is in a bad way. I did nothing to provoke such +violence, unless, perhaps, I waked up ideas by talking to him of his +early amours. Who knows men? Old libertines that they are. I ought not +to have shown him my arms when his eyes were glittering like +_carbuckles_." + +Schmucke listened. Mme. Cibot might have been talking Hebrew for +anything that he understood. + +"I have given myself a wrench that I shall feel all my days," added +she, making as though she were in great pain. (Her arms did, as a +matter of fact, ache a little, and the muscular fatigue suggested an +idea, which she proceeded to turn to profit.) "So stupid I am. When I +saw him lying there on the floor, I just took him up in my arms as if +he had been a child, and carried him back to bed, I did. And I +strained myself, I can feel it now. Ah! how it hurts!--I am going +downstairs. Look after our patient. I will send Cibot for Dr. Poulain. +I had rather die outright than be crippled." + +La Cibot crawled downstairs, clinging to the banisters, and writhing +and groaning so piteously that the tenants, in alarm, came out upon +their landings. Schmucke supported the suffering creature, and told +the story of La Cibot's devotion, the tears running down his cheeks as +he spoke. Before very long the whole house, the whole neighborhood +indeed, had heard of Mme. Cibot's heroism; she had given herself a +dangerous strain, it was said, with lifting one of the "nutcrackers." + +Schmucke meanwhile went to Pons' bedside with the tale. Their factotum +was in a frightful state. "What shall we do without her?" they said, +as they looked at each other; but Pons was so plainly the worse for +his escapade, that Schmucke did not dare to scold him. + +"Gonfounded pric-a-prac! I would sooner purn dem dan loose mein +friend!" he cried, when Pons told him of the cause of the accident. +"To suspect Montame Zipod, dot lend us her safings! It is not goot; +but it is der illness--" + +"Ah! what an illness! I am not the same man, I can feel it," said +Pons. "My dear Schmucke, if only you did not suffer through me!" + +"Scold me," Schmucke answered, "und leaf Montame Zipod in beace." + +As for Mme. Cibot, she soon recovered in Dr. Poulain's hands; and her +restoration, bordering on the miraculous, shed additional lustre on +her name and fame in the Marais. Pons attributed the success to the +excellent constitution of the patient, who resumed her ministrations +seven days later to the great satisfaction of her two gentlemen. Her +influence in their household and her tyranny was increased a +hundred-fold by the accident. In the course of a week, the two +nutcrackers ran into debt; Mme. Cibot paid the outstanding amounts, +and took the opportunity to obtain from Schmucke (how easily!) a +receipt for two thousand francs, which she had lent, she said, to +the friends. + +"Oh, what a doctor M. Poulain is!" cried La Cibot, for Pons' benefit. +"He will bring you through, my dear sir, for he pulled me out of my +coffin! Cibot, poor man, thought I was dead. . . . Well, Dr. Poulain +will have told you that while I was in bed I thought of nothing but +you. 'God above,' said I, 'take me, and let my dear Mr. Pons live--'" + +"Poor dear Mme. Cibot, you all but crippled yourself for me." + +"Ah! but for Dr. Poulain I should have been put to bed with a shovel +by now, as we shall all be one day. Well, what must be, must, as the +old actor said. One must take things philosophically. How did you get +on without me?" + +"Schmucke nursed me," said the invalid; "but our poor money-box and +our lessons have suffered. I do not know how he managed." + +"Calm yourself, Bons," exclaimed Schmucke; "ve haf in Zipod ein +panker--" + +"Do not speak of it, my lamb. You are our children, both of you," +cried La Cibot. "Our savings will be well invested; you are safer than +the Bank. So long as we have a morsel of bread, half of it is yours. +It is not worth mentioning--" + +"Boor Montame Zipod!" said Schmucke, and he went. + +Pons said nothing. + +"Would you believe it, my cherub?" said La Cibot, as the sick man +tossed uneasily, "in my agony--for it was a near squeak for me--the +thing that worried me most was the thought that I must leave you +alone, with no one to look after you, and my poor Cibot without a +farthing. . . . My savings are such a trifle, that I only mention them +in connection with my death and Cibot, an angel that he is! No. He +nursed me as if I had been a queen, he did, and cried like a calf over +me! . . . But I counted on you, upon my word. I said to him, 'There, +Cibot! my gentlemen will not let you starve--'" + +Pons made no reply to this thrust _ad testamentum_; but as the +portress waited for him to say something--"I shall recommend you to M. +Schmucke," he said at last. + +"Ah!" cried La Cibot, "whatever you do will be right; I trust in you +and your heart. Let us never talk of this again; you make me feel +ashamed, my cherub. Think of getting better, you will outlive us all +yet." + +Profound uneasiness filled Mme. Cibot's mind. She cast about for some +way of making the sick man understand that she expected a legacy. That +evening, when Schmucke was eating his dinner as usual by Pons' +bedside, she went out, hoping to find Dr. Poulain at home. + +Dr. Poulain lived in the Rue d'Orleans in a small ground floor +establishment, consisting of a lobby, a sitting-room, and two +bedrooms. A closet, opening into the lobby and the bedroom, had been +turned into a study for the doctor. The kitchen, the servant's +bedroom, and a small cellar were situated in a wing of the house, a +huge pile built in the time of the Empire, on the site of an old +mansion of which the garden still remained, though it had been divided +among the three ground floor tenants. + +Nothing had been changed in the doctor's house since it was built. +Paint and paper and ceilings were all redolent of the Empire. The +grimy deposits of forty years lay thick on walls and ceilings, on +paper and paint and mirrors and gilding. And yet, this little +establishment, in the depths of the Marais, paid a rent of a thousand +francs. + +Mme. Poulain, the doctor's mother, aged sixty-seven, was ending her +days in the second bedroom. She worked for a breeches-maker, stitching +men's leggings, breeches, belts, and braces, anything, in fact, that +is made in a way of business which has somewhat fallen off of late +years. Her whole time was spent in keeping her son's house and +superintending the one servant; she never went abroad, and took the +air in the little garden entered through the glass door of the +sitting-room. Twenty years previously, when her husband died, she sold +his business to his best workman, who gave his master's widow work +enough to earn a daily wage of thirty sous. She had made every +sacrifice to educate her son. At all costs, he should occupy a higher +station than his father before him; and now she was proud of her +Aesculapius, she believed in him, and sacrificed everything to him as +before. She was happy to take care of him, to work and put by a little +money, and dream of nothing but his welfare, and love him with an +intelligent love of which every mother is not capable. For instance, +Mme. Poulain remembered that she had been a working girl. She would +not injure her son's prospects; he should not be ashamed by his mother +(for the good woman's grammar was something of the same kind as Mme. +Cibot's); and for this reason she kept in the background, and went to +her room of her own accord if any distinguished patient came to +consult the doctor, or if some old schoolfellow or fellow-student +chanced to call. Dr. Poulain had never had occasion to blush for the +mother whom he revered; and this sublime love of hers more than atoned +for a defective education. + +The breeches-maker's business sold for about twenty thousand francs, +and the widow invested the money in the Funds in 1820. The income of +eleven hundred francs per annum derived from this source was, at one +time, her whole fortune. For many a year the neighbors used to see the +doctor's linen hanging out to dry upon a clothes-line in the garden, +and the servant and Mme. Poulain thriftily washed everything at home; +a piece of domestic economy which did not a little to injure the +doctor's practice, for it was thought that if he was so poor, it must +be through his own fault. Her eleven hundred francs scarcely did more +than pay the rent. During those early days, Mme. Poulain, good, stout, +little old woman, was the breadwinner, and the poor household lived +upon her earnings. After twelve years of perseverance upon a rough and +stony road, Dr. Poulain at last was making an income of three thousand +francs, and Mme. Poulain had an income of about five thousand francs +at her disposal. Five thousand francs for those who know Paris means a +bare subsistence. + +The sitting-room, where patients waited for an interview, was shabbily +furnished. There was the inevitable mahogany sofa covered with +yellow-flowered Utrecht velvet, four easy-chairs, a tea-table, a console, +and half-a-dozen chairs, all the property of the deceased breeches-maker, +and chosen by him. A lyre-shaped clock between two Egyptian +candlesticks still preserved its glass shade intact. You asked +yourself how the yellow chintz window-curtains, covered with red +flowers, had contrived to hang together for so long; for evidently +they had come from the Jouy factory, and Oberkampf received the +Emperor's congratulations upon similar hideous productions of the +cotton industry in 1809. + +The doctor's consulting-room was fitted up in the same style, with +household stuff from the paternal chamber. It looked stiff, +poverty-stricken, and bare. What patient could put faith in the skill +of any unknown doctor who could not even furnish his house? And this +in a time when advertising is all-powerful; when we gild the gas-lamps +in the Place de la Concorde to console the poor man for his poverty by +reminding him that he is rich as a citizen. + +The ante-chamber did duty as a dining-room. The servant sat at her +sewing there whenever she was not busy in the kitchen or keeping the +doctor's mother company. From the dingy short curtains in the windows +you would have guessed at the shabby thrift behind them without +setting foot in the dreary place. What could those wall-cupboards +contain but stale scraps of food, chipped earthenware, corks used over +and over again indefinitely, soiled table-linen, odds and ends that +could descend but one step lower into the dust-heap, and all the +squalid necessities of a pinched household in Paris? + +In these days, when the five-franc piece is always lurking in our +thoughts and intruding itself into our speech, Dr. Poulain, aged +thirty-three, was still a bachelor. Heaven had bestowed on him a +mother with no connections. In ten years he had not met with the +faintest pretext for a romance in his professional career; his +practice lay among clerks and small manufacturers, people in his own +sphere of life, with homes very much like his own. His richer patients +were butchers, bakers, and the more substantial tradespeople of the +neighborhood. These, for the most part, attributed their recovery to +Nature, as an excuse for paying for the services of a medical man, who +came on foot, at the rate of two francs per visit. In his profession, +a carriage is more necessary than medical skill. + +A humdrum monotonous life tells in the end upon the most adventurous +spirit. A man fashions himself to his lot, he accepts a commonplace +existence; and Dr. Poulain, after ten years of his practice, continued +his labors of Sisyphus without the despair that made early days so +bitter. And yet--like every soul in Paris--he cherished a dream. +Remonencq was happy in his dream; La Cibot had a dream of her own; and +Dr. Poulain, too, dreamed. Some day he would be called in to attend a +rich and influential patient, would effect a positive cure, and the +patient would procure a post for him; he would be head surgeon to a +hospital, medical officer of a prison or police-court, or doctor to +the boulevard theatres. He had come by his present appointment as +doctor to the Mairie in this very way. La Cibot had called him in when +the landlord of the house in the Rue de Normandie fell ill; he had +treated the case with complete success; M. Pillerault, the patient, +took an interest in the young doctor, called to thank him, and saw his +carefully-hidden poverty. Count Popinot, the cabinet minister, had +married M. Pillerault's grand-niece, and greatly respected her uncle; +of him, therefore, M. Pillerault had asked for the post, which Poulain +had now held for two years. That appointment and its meagre salary +came just in time to prevent a desperate step; Poulain was thinking of +emigration; and for a Frenchman, it is a kind of death to leave +France. + +Dr. Poulain went, you may be sure, to thank Count Popinot; but as +Count Popinot's family physician was the celebrated Horace Bianchon, +it was pretty clear that his chances of gaining a footing in that +house were something of the slenderest. The poor doctor had fondly +hoped for the patronage of a powerful cabinet minister, one of the +twelve or fifteen cards which a cunning hand has been shuffling for +sixteen years on the green baize of the council table, and now he +dropped back again into his Marais, his old groping life among the +poor and the small tradespeople, with the privilege of issuing +certificates of death for a yearly stipend of twelve hundred francs. + +Dr. Poulain had distinguished himself to some extent as a +house-student; he was a prudent practitioner, and not without +experience. His deaths caused no scandal; he had plenty of +opportunities of studying all kinds of complaints _in anima vili_. +Judge, therefore, of the spleen that he nourished! The expression of +his countenance, lengthy and not too cheerful to begin with, at times +was positively appalling. Set a Tartuffe's all-devouring eyes, and +the sour humor of an Alceste in a sallow-parchment visage, and try to +imagine for yourself the gait, bearing, and expression of a man who +thought himself as good a doctor as the illustrious Bianchon, and +felt that he was held down in his narrow lot by an iron hand. He +could not help comparing his receipts (ten francs a day if he was +fortunate) with Bianchon's five or six hundred. + +Are the hatreds and jealousies of democracy incomprehensible after +this? Ambitious and continually thwarted, he could not reproach +himself. He had once already tried his fortune by inventing a +purgative pill, something like Morrison's, and intrusted the business +operations to an old hospital chum, a house-student who afterwards +took a retail drug business; but, unluckily, the druggist, smitten +with the charms of a ballet-dancer of the Ambigu-Comique, found +himself at length in the bankruptcy court; and as the patent had been +taken out in his name, his partner was literally without a remedy, and +the important discovery enriched the purchaser of the business. The +sometime house-student set sail for Mexico, that land of gold, taking +poor Poulain's little savings with him; and, to add insult to injury, +the opera-dancer treated him as an extortioner when he applied to her +for his money. + +Not a single rich patient had come to him since he had the luck to +cure old M. Pillerault. Poulain made his rounds on foot, scouring the +Marais like a lean cat, and obtained from two to forty sous out of a +score of visits. The paying patient was a phenomenon about as rare as +that anomalous fowl known as a "white blackbird" in all sublunary +regions. + +The briefless barrister, the doctor without a patient, are +pre-eminently the two types of a decorous despair peculiar to this +city of Paris; it is mute, dull despair in human form, dressed in a +black coat and trousers with shining seams that recall the zinc on an +attic roof, a glistening satin waistcoat, a hat preserved like a relic, +a pair of old gloves, and a cotton shirt. The man is the incarnation +of a melancholy poem, sombre as the secrets of the Conciergerie. Other +kinds of poverty, the poverty of the artist--actor, painter, musician, +or poet--are relieved and lightened by the artist's joviality, the +reckless gaiety of the Bohemian border country--the first stage of the +journey to the Thebaid of genius. But these two black-coated +professions that go afoot through the street are brought continually +in contact with disease and dishonor; they see nothing of human nature +but its sores; in the forlorn first stages and beginnings of their +career they eye competitors suspiciously and defiantly; concentrated +dislike and ambition flashes out in glances like the breaking forth of +hidden flames. Let two schoolfellows meet after twenty years, the rich +man will avoid the poor; he does not recognize him, he is afraid even +to glance into the gulf which Fate has set between him and the friend +of other years. The one has been borne through life on the mettlesome +steed called Fortune, or wafted on the golden clouds of success; the +other has been making his way in underground Paris through the sewers, +and bears the marks of his career upon him. How many a chum of old +days turned aside at the sight of the doctor's greatcoat and +waistcoat! + +With this explanation, it should be easy to understand how Dr. Poulain +came to lend himself so readily to the farce of La Cibot's illness and +recovery. Greed of every kind, ambition of every nature, is not easy +to hide. The doctor examined his patient, found that every organ was +sound and healthy, admired the regularity of her pulse and the perfect +ease of her movements; and as she continued to moan aloud, he saw that +for some reason she found it convenient to lie at Death's door. The +speedy cure of a serious imaginary disease was sure to cause a +sensation in the neighborhood; the doctor would be talked about. He +made up his mind at once. He talked of rupture, and of taking it in +time, and thought even worse of the case than La Cibot herself. The +portress was plied with various remedies, and finally underwent a sham +operation, crowned with complete success. Poulain repaired to the +Arsenal Library, looked out a grotesque case in some of Desplein's +records of extraordinary cures, and fitted the details to Mme. Cibot, +modestly attributing the success of the treatment to the great +surgeon, in whose steps (he said) he walked. Such is the impudence of +beginners in Paris. Everything is made to serve as a ladder by which +to climb upon the scene; and as everything, even the rungs of a +ladder, will wear out in time, the new members of every profession are +at a loss to find the right sort of wood of which to make steps for +themselves. + +There are moments when the Parisian is not propitious. He grows tired +of raising pedestals, pouts like a spoiled child, and will have no +more idols; or, to state it more accurately, Paris cannot always find +a proper object for infatuation. Now and then the vein of genius gives +out, and at such times the Parisian may turn supercilious; he is not +always willing to bow down and gild mediocrity. + + + +Mme. Cibot, entering in her usual unceremonious fashion, found the +doctor and his mother at table, before a bowl of lamb's lettuce, the +cheapest of all salad-stuffs. The dessert consisted of a thin wedge of +Brie cheese flanked by a plate of specked foreign apples and a dish of +mixed dry fruits, known as _quatre-mendiants_, in which the raisin +stalks were abundantly conspicuous. + +"You can stay, mother," said the doctor, laying a hand on Mme. +Poulain's arm; "this is Mme. Cibot, of whom I have told you." + +"My respects to you, madame, and my duty to you, sir," said La Cibot, +taking the chair which the doctor offered. "Ah! is this your mother, +sir? She is very happy to have a son who has such talent; he saved my +life, madame, brought me back from the depths." + +The widow, hearing Mme. Cibot praise her son in this way, thought her +a delightful woman. + +"I have just come to tell you, that, between ourselves, poor M. Pons +is doing very badly, sir, and I have something to say to you about +him--" + +"Let us go into the sitting-room," interrupted the doctor, and with a +significant gesture he indicated the servant. + +In the sitting-room La Cibot explained her position with regard to the +pair of nutcrackers at very considerable length. She repeated the +history of her loan with added embellishments, and gave a full account +of the immense services rendered during the past ten years to MM. Pons +and Schmucke. The two old men, to all appearance, could not exist +without her motherly care. She posed as an angel; she told so many +lies, one after another, watering them with her tears, that old Mme. +Poulain was quite touched. + +"You understand, my dear sir," she concluded, "that I really ought to +know how far I can depend on M. Pons' intentions, supposing that he +should not die; not that I want him to die, for looking after those +two innocents is my life, madame, you see; still, when one of them is +gone I shall look after the other. For my own part, I was built by +Nature to rival mothers. Without nobody to care for, nobody to take +for a child, I don't know what I should do. . . . So if M. Poulain +only would, he might do me a service for which I should be very +grateful; and that is, to say a word to M. Pons for me. Goodness me! +an annuity of a thousand francs, is that too much, I ask you? . . . +To. M. Schmucke it would be so much gained.--Our dear patient said +that he should recommend me to the German, poor man; it is his idea, +no doubt, that M. Schmucke should be his heir. But what is a man that +cannot put two ideas together in French? And besides, he would be +quite capable of going back to Germany, he will be in such despair +over his friend's death--" + +The doctor grew grave. "My dear Mme. Cibot," he said, "this sort of +thing does not in the least concern a doctor. I should not be allowed +to exercise my profession if it was known that I interfered in the +matter of my patients' testamentary dispositions. The law forbids a +doctor to receive a legacy from a patient--" + +"A stupid law! What is to hinder me from dividing my legacy with you?" +La Cibot said immediately. + +"I will go further," said the doctor; "my professional conscience will +not permit me to speak to M. Pons of his death. In the first place, he +is not so dangerously ill that there is any need to speak of it, and +in the second, such talk coming from me might give a shock to the +system that would do him real harm, and then his illness might +terminate fatally--" + +"_I_ don't put on gloves to tell him to get his affairs in order," +cried Mme. Cibot, "and he is none the worse for that. He is used to +it. There is nothing to fear." + +"Not a word more about it, my dear Mme. Cibot! These things are not +within a doctor's province; it is a notary's business--" + +"But, my dear M. Poulain, suppose that M. Pons of his own accord +should ask you how he is, and whether he had better make his +arrangements; then, would you refuse to tell him that if you want to +get better it is an excellent plan to set everything in order? Then +you might just slip in a little word for me--" + +"Oh, if _he_ talks of making his will, I certainly shall not dissuade +him," said the doctor. + +"Very well, that is settled. I came to thank you for your care of me," +she added, as she slipped a folded paper containing three gold coins +into the doctor's hands. "It is all I can do at the moment. Ah! my +dear M. Poulain, if I were rich, you should be rich, you that are the +image of Providence on earth.--Madame, you have an angel for a son." + +La Cibot rose to her feet, Mme. Poulain bowed amiably, and the doctor +went to the door with the visitor. Just then a sudden, lurid gleam of +light flashed across the mind of this Lady Macbeth of the streets. She +saw clearly that the doctor was her accomplice--he had taken the fee +for the sham illness. + +"M. Poulain," she began, "how can you refuse to say a word or two to +save me from want, when you helped me in the affair of my accident?" + +The doctor felt that the devil had him by the hair, as the saying is; +he felt, too, that the hair was being twisted round the pitiless red +claw. Startled and afraid lest he should sell his honesty for such a +trifle, he answered the diabolical suggestion by another no less +diabolical. + +"Listen, my dear Mme. Cibot," he said, as he drew her into his +consulting-room. "I will now pay a debt of gratitude that I owe you +for my appointment to the mairie--" + +"We go shares?" she asked briskly. + +"In what?" + +"In the legacy." + +"You do not know me," said Dr. Poulain, drawing himself up like +Valerius Publicola. "Let us have no more of that. I have a friend, an +old schoolfellow of mine, a very intelligent young fellow; and we are +so much the more intimate, because, our lives have fallen out very +much in the same way. He was studying law while I was a house-student, +he was engrossing deeds in Maitre Couture's office. His father was a +shoemaker, and mine was a breeches-maker; he has not found anyone to +take much interest in his career, nor has he any capital; for, after +all, capital is only to be had from sympathizers. He could only afford +to buy a provincial connection--at Mantes--and so little do +provincials understand the Parisian intellect, that they set all sorts +of intrigues on foot against him." + +"The wretches!" cried La Cibot. + +"Yes," said the doctor. "They combined against him to such purpose, +that they forced him to sell his connection by misrepresenting +something that he had done; the attorney for the crown interfered, he +belonged to the place, and sided with his fellow-townsmen. My friend's +name is Fraisier. He is lodged as I am, and he is even leaner and more +threadbare. He took refuge in our arrondissement, and is reduced to +appear for clients in the police-court or before the magistrate. He +lives in the Rue de la Perle close by. Go to No. 9, third floor, and +you will see his name on the door on the landing, painted in gilt +letters on a small square of red leather. Fraisier makes a special +point of disputes among the porters, workmen, and poor folk in the +arrondissement, and his charges are low. He is an honest man; for I +need not tell you that if he had been a scamp, he would be keeping his +carriage by now. I will call and see my friend Fraisier this evening. +Go to him early to-morrow; he knows M. Louchard, the bailiff; M. +Tabareau, the clerk of the court; and the justice of the peace, M. +Vitel; and M. Trognon, the notary. He is even now looked upon as one +of the best men of business in the Quarter. If he takes charge of your +interests, if you can secure him as M. Pons' adviser, you will have a +second self in him, you see. But do not make dishonorable proposals to +him, as you did just now to me; he has a head on his shoulders, you +will understand each other. And as for acknowledging his services, I +will be your intermediary--" + +Mme. Cibot looked askance at the doctor. + +"Is that the lawyer who helped Mme. Florimond the haberdasher in the +Rue Vieille-du-Temple out of a fix in that matter of her friend's +legacy?" + +"The very same." + +"Wasn't it a shame that she did not marry him after he had gained two +thousand francs a year for her?" exclaimed La Cibot. "And she thought +to clear off scores by making him a present of a dozen shirts and a +couple of dozen pocket-handkerchiefs; an outfit, in short." + +"My dear Mme. Cibot, that outfit cost a thousand francs, and Fraisier +was just setting up for himself in the Quarter, and wanted the things +very badly. And what was more, she paid the bill without asking any +questions. That affair brought him clients, and now he is very busy; +but in my line a practice brings--" + +"It is only the righteous that suffer here below," said La Cibot. +"Well, M. Poulain, good-day and thank you." + +And herewith begins the tragedy, or, if you like to have it so, a +terrible comedy--the death of an old bachelor delivered over by +circumstances too strong for him to the rapacity and greed that +gathered about his bed. And other forces came to the support of +rapacity and greed; there was the picture collector's mania, that most +intense of all passions; there was the cupidity of the Sieur Fraisier, +whom you shall presently behold in his den, a sight to make you +shudder; and lastly, there was the Auvergnat thirsting for money, +ready for anything--even for a crime--that should bring him the +capital he wanted. The first part of the story serves in some sort as +a prelude to this comedy in which all the actors who have hitherto +occupied the stage will reappear. + +The degradation of a word is one of those curious freaks of manners +upon which whole volumes of explanation might be written. Write to an +attorney and address him as "Lawyer So-and-so," and you insult him as +surely as you would insult a wholesale colonial produce merchant by +addressing your letter to "Mr. So-and-so, Grocer." There are plenty of +men of the world who ought to be aware, since the knowledge of such +subtle distinctions is their province, that you cannot insult a French +writer more cruelly than by calling him _un homme de lettres_--a +literary man. The word _monsieur_ is a capital example of the life and +death of words. Abbreviated from monseigneur, once so considerable a +title, and even now, in the form of _sire_, reserved for emperors and +kings, it is bestowed indifferently upon all and sundry; while the +twin-word _messire_, which is nothing but its double and equivalent, +if by any chance it slips into a certificate of burial, produces an +outcry in the Republican papers. + +Magistrates, councillors, jurisconsults, judges, barristers, officers +for the crown, bailiffs, attorneys, clerks of the court, procurators, +solicitors, and agents of various kinds, represent or misrepresent +Justice. The "lawyer" and the bailiff's men (commonly called "the +brokers") are the two lowest rungs of the ladder. Now, the bailiff's +man is an outsider, an adventitious minister of justice, appearing to +see that judgment is executed; he is, in fact, a kind of inferior +executioner employed by the county court. But the word "lawyer" (homme +de loi) is a depreciatory term applied to the legal profession. +Consuming professional jealousy finds similar disparaging epithets for +fellow-travelers in every walk of life, and every calling has its +special insult. The scorn flung into the words _homme de loi, homme de +lettres_, is wanting in the plural form, which may be used without +offence; but in Paris every profession, learned or unlearned, has its +_omega_, the individual who brings it down to the level of the lowest +class; and the written law has its connecting link with the custom +right of the streets. There are districts where the pettifogging man +of business, known as Lawyer So-and-So, is still to be found. M. +Fraisier was to the member of the Incorporated Law Society as the +money-lender of the Halles, offering small loans for a short period at +an exorbitant interest, is to the great capitalist. + +Working people, strange to say are as shy of officials as of +fashionable restaurants, they take advice from irregular sources as +they turn into a little wineshop to drink. Each rank in life finds its +own level, and there abides. None but a chosen few care to climb the +heights, few can feel at ease in the presence of their betters, or +take their place among them, like a Beaumarchais letting fall the +watch of the great lord who tried to humiliate him. And if there are +few who can even rise to a higher social level, those among them who +can throw off their swaddling-clothes are rare and great exceptions. + + + +At six o'clock the next morning Mme. Cibot stood in the Rue de la +Perle; she was making a survey of the abode of her future adviser, +Lawyer Fraisier. The house was one of the old-fashioned kind formerly +inhabited by small tradespeople and citizens with small means. A +cabinetmaker's shop occupied almost the whole of the ground floor, as +well as the little yard behind, which was covered with his workshops +and warehouses; the small remaining space being taken up by the +porter's lodge and the passage entry in the middle. The staircase +walls were half rotten with damp and covered with saltpetre to such a +degree that the house seemed to be stricken with leprosy. + +Mme. Cibot went straight to the porter's lodge, and there encountered +one of the fraternity, a shoemaker, his wife, and two small children, +all housed in a room ten feet square, lighted from the yard at the +back. La Cibot mentioned her profession, named herself, and spoke of +her house in the Rue de Normandie, and the two women were on cordial +terms at once. After a quarter of an hour spent in gossip while the +shoemaker's wife made breakfast ready for her husband and the +children, Mme. Cibot turned the conversation to the subject of the +lodgers, and spoke of the lawyer. + +"I have come to see him on business," she said. "One of his friends, +Dr. Poulain, recommended me to him. Do you know Dr. Poulain?" + +"I should think I do," said the lady of the Rue de la Perle. "He saved +my little girl's life when she had the croup." + +"He saved my life, too, madame. What sort of a man is this M. +Fraisier?" + +"He is the sort of man, my dear lady, out of whom it is very difficult +to get the postage-money at the end of the month." + +To a person of La Cibot's intelligence this was enough. + +"One may be poor and honest," observed she. + +"I am sure I hope so," returned Fraisier's portress. "We are not +rolling in coppers, let alone gold or silver; but we have not a +farthing belonging to anybody else." + +This sort of talk sounded familiar to La Cibot. + +"In short, one can trust him, child, eh?" + +"Lord! when M. Fraisier means well by any one, there is not his like, +so I have heard Mme. Florimond say." + +"And why didn't she marry him when she owed her fortune to him?" La +Cibot asked quickly. "It is something for a little haberdasher, kept +by an old man, to be a barrister's wife--" + +"Why?--" asked the portress, bringing Mme. Cibot out into the passage. +"Why?--You are going to see him, are you not, madame?--Very well, when +you are in his office you will know why." + +From the state of the staircase, lighted by sash-windows on the side +of the yard, it was pretty evident that the inmates of the house, with +the exception of the landlord and M. Fraisier himself, were all +workmen. There were traces of various crafts in the deposit of mud +upon the steps--brass-filings, broken buttons, scraps of gauze, and +esparto grass lay scattered about. The walls of the upper stories were +covered with apprentices' ribald scrawls and caricatures. The +portress' last remark had roused La Cibot's curiosity; she decided, +not unnaturally, that she would consult Dr. Poulain's friend; but as +for employing him, that must depend upon her impressions. + +"I sometimes wonder how Mme. Sauvage can stop in his service," said +the portress, by way of comment; she was following in Mme. Cibot's +wake. "I will come up with you, madame" she added; "I am taking the +milk and the newspaper up to my landlord." + +Arrived on the second floor above the entresol, La Cibot beheld a door +of the most villainous description. The doubtful red paint was coated +for seven or eight inches round the keyhole with a filthy glaze, a +grimy deposit from which the modern house-decorator endeavors to +protect the doors of more elegant apartments by glass "finger-plates." +A grating, almost stopped up with some compound similar to the deposit +with which a restaurant-keeper gives an air of cellar-bound antiquity +to a merely middle-aged bottle, only served to heighten the general +resemblance to a prison door; a resemblance further heightened by the +trefoil-shaped iron-work, the formidable hinges, the clumsy +nail-heads. A miser, or a pamphleteer at strife with the world at +large, must surely have invented these fortifications. A leaden sink, +which received the waste water of the household, contributed its quota +to the fetid atmosphere of the staircase, and the ceiling was covered +with fantastic arabesques traced by candle-smoke--such arabesques! On +pulling a greasy acorn tassel attached to the bell-rope, a little bell +jangled feebly somewhere within, complaining of the fissure in its +metal sides. + +Every detail was in keeping with the general dismal effect. La Cibot +heard a heavy footstep, and the asthmatic wheezing of a virago within, +and Mme. Sauvage presently showed herself. Adrien Brauwer might have +painted just such a hag for his picture of _Witches starting for the +Sabbath_; a stout, unwholesome slattern, five feet six inches in +height, with a grenadier countenance and a beard which far surpassed +La Cibot's own; she wore a cheap, hideously ugly cotton gown, a +bandana handkerchief knotted over hair which she still continued to +put in curl papers (using for that purpose the printed circulars which +her master received), and a huge pair of gold earrings like +cart-wheels in her ears. This female Cerberus carried a battered +skillet in one hand, and opening the door, set free an imprisoned +odor of scorched milk--a nauseous and penetrating smell, that lost +itself at once, however, among the fumes outside. + +"What can I do for you, missus?" demanded Mme. Sauvage, and with a +truculent air she looked La Cibot over; evidently she was of the +opinion that the visitor was too well dressed, and her eyes looked the +more murderous because they were naturally bloodshot. + +"I have come to see M. Fraisier; his friend, Dr. Poulain, sent me." + +"Oh! come in, missus," said La Sauvage, grown very amiable of a +sudden, which proves that she was prepared for this morning visit. + +With a sweeping courtesy, the stalwart woman flung open the door of a +private office, which looked upon the street, and discovered the +ex-attorney of Mantes. + +The room was a complete picture of a third-rate solicitor's office; +with the stained wooden cases, the letter-files so old that they had +grown beards (in ecclesiastical language), the red tape dangling limp +and dejected, the pasteboard boxes covered with traces of the gambols +of mice, the dirty floor, the ceiling tawny with smoke. A frugal +allowance of wood was smouldering on a couple of fire-dogs on the +hearth. And on the chimney-piece above stood a foggy mirror and a +modern clock with an inlaid wooden case; Fraisier had picked it up at +an execution sale, together with the tawdry imitation rococo +candlesticks, with the zinc beneath showing through the lacquer in +several places. + +M. Fraisier was small, thin, and unwholesome looking; his red face, +covered with an eruption, told of tainted blood; and he had, moreover, +a trick of continually scratching his right arm. A wig pushed to the +back of his head displayed a brick-colored cranium of ominous +conformation. This person rose from a cane-seated armchair, in which +he sat on a green leather cushion, assumed an agreeable expression, +and brought forward a chair. + +"Mme. Cibot, I believe?" queried he, in dulcet tones. + +"Yes, sir," answered the portress. She had lost her habitual +assurance. + +Something in the tones of a voice which strongly resembled the sounds +of the little door-bell, something in a glance even sharper than the +sharp green eyes of her future legal adviser, scared Mme. Cibot. +Fraisier's presence so pervaded the room, that any one might have +thought there was pestilence in the air; and in a flash Mme. Cibot +understood why Mme. Florimond had not become Mme. Fraisier. + +"Poulain told me about you, my dear madame," said the lawyer, in the +unnatural fashion commonly described by the words "mincing tones"; +tones sharp, thin, and grating as verjuice, in spite of all his +efforts. + +Arrived at this point, he tried to draw the skirts of his +dressing-gown over a pair of angular knees encased in threadbare felt. +The robe was an ancient printed cotton garment, lined with wadding +which took the liberty of protruding itself through various slits in +it here and there; the weight of this lining had pulled the skirts +aside, disclosing a dingy-hued flannel waistcoat beneath. With +something of a coxcomb's manner, Fraisier fastened this refractory +article of dress, tightening the girdle to define his reedy figure; +then with a blow of the tongs, he effected a reconciliation between +two burning brands that had long avoided one another, like brothers +after a family quarrel. A sudden bright idea struck him, and he rose +from his chair. + +"Mme. Sauvage!" called he. + +"Well?" + +"I am not at home to anybody!" + +"Eh! bless your life, there's no need to say that!" + +"She is my old nurse," the lawyer said in some confusion. + +"And she has not recovered her figure yet," remarked the heroine of +the Halles. + +Fraisier laughed, and drew the bolt lest his housekeeper should +interrupt Mme. Cibot's confidences. + +"Well, madame, explain your business," said he, making another effort +to drape himself in the dressing-gown. "Any one recommended to me by +the only friend I have in the world may count upon me--I may say +--absolutely." + +For half an hour Mme. Cibot talked, and the man of law made no +interruption of any sort; his face wore the expression of curious +interest with which a young soldier listens to a pensioner of "The Old +Guard." Fraisier's silence and acquiescence, the rapt attention with +which he appeared to listen to a torrent of gossip similar to the +samples previously given, dispelled some of the prejudices inspired in +La Cibot's mind by his squalid surroundings. The little lawyer with +the black-speckled green eyes was in reality making a study of his +client. When at length she came to a stand and looked to him to speak, +he was seized with a fit of the complaint known as a "churchyard +cough," and had recourse to an earthenware basin half full of herb +tea, which he drained. + +"But for Poulain, my dear madame, I should have been dead before +this," said Fraisier, by way of answer to the portress' look of +motherly compassion; "but he will bring me round, he says--" + +As all the client's confidences appeared to have slipped from the +memory of her legal adviser, she began to cast about for a way of +taking leave of a man so apparently near death. + +"In an affair of this kind, madame," continued the attorney from +Mantes, suddenly returning to business, "there are two things which it +is most important to know. In the first place, whether the property is +sufficient to be worth troubling about; and in the second, who the +next-of-kin may be; for if the property is the booty, the next-of-kin +is the enemy." + +La Cibot immediately began to talk of Remonencq and Elie Magus, and +said that the shrewd couple valued the pictures at six hundred +thousand francs. + +"Would they take them themselves at that price?" inquired the lawyer. +"You see, madame, that men of business are shy of pictures. A picture +may mean a piece of canvas worth a couple of francs or a painting +worth two hundred thousand. Now, paintings worth two hundred thousand +francs are usually well known; and what errors in judgment people make +in estimating even the most famous pictures of all! There was once a +great capitalist whose collection was admired, visited, and engraved +--actually engraved! He was supposed to have spent millions of francs +on it. He died, as men must, and--well, his _genuine_ pictures did not +fetch more than two hundred thousand francs! You must let me see these +gentlemen.--Now for the next-of-kin," and Fraisier again relapsed into +his attitude of listener. + +When President Camusot's name came up, he nodded with a grimace which +riveted Mme. Cibot's attention. She tried to read the forehead and the +villainous face, and found what is called in business a "wooden head." + +"Yes, my dear sir," repeated La Cibot. "Yes, my M. Pons is own cousin +to President Camusot de Marville; he tells me that ten times a day. M. +Camusot the silk mercer was married twice--" + +"He that has just been nominated for a peer of France?--" + +"And his first wife was a Mlle. Pons, M. Pons' first cousin." + +"Then they are first cousins once removed--" + +"They are 'not cousins.' They have quarreled." + +It may be remembered that before M. Camusot de Marville came to Paris, +he was President of the Tribunal of Mantes for five years; and not +only was his name still remembered there, but he had kept up a +correspondence with Mantes. Camusot's immediate successor, the judge +with whom he had been most intimate during his term of office, was +still President of the Tribunal, and consequently knew all about +Fraisier. + +"Do you know, madame," Fraisier said, when at last the red sluices of +La Cibot's torrent tongue were closed, "do you know that your +principal enemy will be a man who can send you to the scaffold?" + +The portress started on her chair, making a sudden spring like a +jack-in-the-box. + +"Calm yourself, dear madame," continued Fraisier. "You may not have +known the name of the President of the Chamber of Indictments at the +Court of Appeal in Paris; but you ought to have known that M. Pons +must have an heir-at-law. M. le President de Marville is your +invalid's sole heir; but as he is a collateral in the third degree, M. +Pons is entitled by law to leave his fortune as he pleases. You are +not aware either that, six weeks ago at least, M. le President's +daughter married the eldest son of M. le Comte Popinot, peer of +France, once Minister of Agriculture, and President of the Board of +Trade, one of the most influential politicians of the day. President +de Marville is even more formidable through this marriage than in his +own quality of head of the Court of Assize." + +At that word La Cibot shuddered. + +"Yes, and it is he who sends you there," continued Fraisier. "Ah! my +dear madame, you little know what a red robe means! It is bad enough +to have a plain black gown against you! You see me here, ruined, bald, +broken in health--all because, unwittingly, I crossed a mere attorney +for the crown in the provinces. I was forced to sell my connection at +a loss, and very lucky I was to come off with the loss of my money. If +I had tried to stand out, my professional position would have gone as +well. + +"One thing more you do not know," he continued, "and this it is. If +you had only to do with President Camusot himself, it would be +nothing; but he has a wife, mind you!--and if you ever find yourself +face to face with that wife, you will shake in your shoes as if you +were on the first step of the scaffold, your hair will stand on end. +The Presidente is so vindictive that she would spend ten years over +setting a trap to kill you. She sets that husband of hers spinning +like a top. Through her a charming young fellow committed suicide at +the Conciergerie. A count was accused of forgery--she made his +character as white as snow. She all but drove a person of the highest +quality from the Court of Charles X. Finally, she displaced the +Attorney-General, M. de Granville--" + +"That lived in the Rue Vieille-du-Temple, at the corner of the Rue +Saint-Francois?" + +"The very same. They say that she means to make her husband Home +Secretary, and I do not know that she will not gain her end.--If she +were to take it into her head to send us both to the Criminal Court +first and the hulks afterwards--I should apply for a passport and set +sail for America, though I am as innocent as a new-born babe. So well +I know what justice means. Now, see here, my dear Mme. Cibot; to marry +her only daughter to young Vicomte Popinot (heir to M. Pillerault, +your landlord, it is said)--to make that match, she stripped herself +of her whole fortune, so much so that the President and his wife have +nothing at this moment except his official salary. Can you suppose, my +dear madame, that under the circumstances Mme. la Presidente will let +M. Pons' property go out of the family without a word?--Why, I would +sooner face guns loaded with grape-shot than have such a woman for my +enemy--" + +"But they have quarreled," put in La Cibot. + +"What has that got to do with it?" asked Fraisier. "It is one reason +the more for fearing her. To kill a relative of whom you are tired, is +something; but to inherit his property afterwards--that is a real +pleasure!" + +"But the old gentleman has a horror of his relatives. He says over and +over again that these people--M. Cardot, M. Berthier, and the rest of +them (I can't remember their names)--have crushed him as a tumbril +cart crushes an egg--" + +"Have you a mind to be crushed too?" + +"Oh dear! oh dear!" cried La Cibot. "Ah! Ma'am Fontaine was right when +she said that I should meet with difficulties: still, she said that I +should succeed--" + +"Listen, my dear Mme. Cibot.--As for making some thirty thousand +francs out of this business--that is possible; but for the whole of +the property, it is useless to think of it. We talked over your case +yesterday evening, Dr. Poulain and I--" + +La Cibot started again. + +"Well, what is the matter?" + +"But if you knew about the affair, why did you let me chatter away +like a magpie?" + +"Mme. Cibot, I knew all about your business, but I knew nothing of +Mme. Cibot. So many clients, so many characters--" + +Mme. Cibot gave her legal adviser a queer look at this; all her +suspicions gleamed in her eyes. Fraisier saw this. + +"I resume," he continued. "So, our friend Poulain was once called in +by you to attend old M. Pillerault, the Countess Popinot's +great-uncle; that is one of your claims to my devotion. Poulain goes +to see your landlord (mark this!) once a fortnight; he learned all +these particulars from him. M. Pillerault was present at his +grand-nephew's wedding--for he is an uncle with money to leave; he +has an income of fifteen thousand francs, though he has lived like a +hermit for the last five-and-twenty years, and scarcely spends a +thousand crowns--well, _he_ told Poulain all about this marriage. It +seems that your old musician was precisely the cause of the row; he +tried to disgrace his own family by way of revenge.--If you only hear +one bell, you only hear one sound.--Your invalid says that he meant +no harm, but everybody thinks him a monster of--" + +"And it would not astonish me if he was!" cried La Cibot. "Just +imagine it!--For these ten years past I have been money out of pocket +for him, spending my savings on him, and he knows it, and yet he will +not let me lie down to sleep on a legacy!--No, sir! he will _not_. He +is obstinate, a regular mule he is.--I have talked to him these ten +days, and the cross-grained cur won't stir no more than a sign-post. +He shuts his teeth and looks at me like--The most that he would say +was that he would recommend me to M. Schmucke." + +"Then he means to make his will in favor of this Schmucke?" + +"Everything will go to him--" + +"Listen, my dear Mme. Cibot, if I am to arrive at any definite +conclusions and think of a plan, I must know M. Schmucke. I must see +the property and have some talk with this Jew of whom you speak; and +then, let me direct you--" + +"We shall see, M. Fraisier." + +"What is this? 'We shall see?'" repeated Fraisier, speaking in the +voice natural to him, as he gave La Cibot a viperous glance. "Am I +your legal adviser or am I not, I say? Let us know exactly where we +stand." + +La Cibot felt that he read her thoughts. A cold chill ran down her +back. + +"I have told you all I know," she said. She saw that she was at the +tiger's mercy. + +"We attorneys are accustomed to treachery. Just think carefully over +your position; it is superb.--If you follow my advice point by point, +you will have thirty or forty thousand francs. But there is a reverse +side to this beautiful medal. How if the Presidente comes to hear that +M. Pons' property is worth a million of francs, and that you mean to +have a bit out of it?--for there is always somebody ready to take that +kind of errand--" he added parenthetically. + +This remark, and the little pause that came before and after it, sent +another shudder through La Cibot. She thought at once that Fraisier +himself would probably undertake that office. + +"And then, my dear client, in ten minutes old Pillerault is asked to +dismiss you, and then on a couple of hours' notice--" + +"What does that matter to me?" said La Cibot, rising to her feet like +a Bellona; "I shall stay with the gentlemen as their housekeeper." + +"And then, a trap will be set for you, and some fine morning you and +your husband will wake up in a prison cell, to be tried for your +lives--" + +"_I?_" cried La Cibot, "I that have not a farthing that doesn't belong +to me? . . . _I!_ . . . _I!_" + +For five minutes she held forth, and Fraisier watched the great artist +before him as she executed a concerto of self-praise. He was quite +untouched, and even amused by the performance. His keen glances +pricked La Cibot like stilettos; he chuckled inwardly, till his +shrunken wig was shaking with laughter. He was a Robespierre at an age +when the Sylla of France was make couplets. + +"And how? and why? And on what pretext?" demanded she, when she had +come to an end. + +"You wish to know how you may come to the guillotine?" + +La Cibot turned pale as death at the words; the words fell like a +knife upon her neck. She stared wildly at Fraisier. + +"Listen to me, my dear child," began Fraisier, suppressing his inward +satisfaction at his client's discomfiture. + +"I would sooner leave things as they are--" murmured La Cibot, and she +rose to go. + +"Stay," Fraisier said imperiously. "You ought to know the risks that +you are running; I am bound to give you the benefit of my lights.--You +are dismissed by M. Pillerault, we will say; there is no doubt about +that, is there? You enter the service of these two gentlemen. Very +good! That is a declaration of war against the Presidente. You mean to +do everything you can to gain possession of the property, and to get a +slice of it at any rate-- + +"Oh, I am not blaming you," Fraisier continued, in answer to a gesture +from his client. "It is not my place to do so. This is a battle, and +you will be led on further than you think for. One grows full of one's +ideas, one hits hard--" + +Another gesture of denial. This time La Cibot tossed her head. + +"There, there, old lady," said Fraisier, with odious familiarity, "you +will go a very long way!--" + +"You take me for a thief, I suppose?" + +"Come, now, mamma, you hold a receipt in M. Schmucke's hand which did +not cost you much.--Ah! you are in the confessional, my lady! Don't +deceive your confessor, especially when the confessor has the power of +reading your thoughts." + +La Cibot was dismayed by the man's perspicacity; now she knew why he +had listened to her so intently. + +"Very good," continued he, "you can admit at once that the Presidente +will not allow you to pass her in the race for the property.--You will +be watched and spied upon.--You get your name into M. Pons' will; +nothing could be better. But some fine day the law steps in, arsenic +is found in a glass, and you and your husband are arrested, tried, and +condemned for attempting the life of the Sieur Pons, so as to come by +your legacy. I once defended a poor woman at Versailles; she was in +reality as innocent as you would be in such a case. Things were as I +have told you, and all that I could do was to save her life. The +unhappy creature was sentenced to twenty years' penal servitude. She +is working out her time now at St. Lazare." + +Mme. Cibot's terror grew to the highest pitch. She grew paler and +paler, staring at the little, thin man with the green eyes, as some +wretched Moor, accused of adhering to her own religion, might gaze at +the inquisitor who doomed her to the stake. + +"Then, do you tell me, that if I leave you to act, and put my +interests in your hands, I shall get something without fear?" + +"I guarantee you thirty thousand francs," said Fraisier, speaking like +a man sure of the fact. + +"After all, you know how fond I am of dear Dr. Poulain," she began +again in her most coaxing tones; "he told me to come to you, worthy +man, and he did not send me here to be told that I shall be +guillotined for poisoning some one." + +The thought of the guillotine so moved her that she burst into tears, +her nerves were shaken, terror clutched at her heart, she lost her +head. Fraisier gloated over his triumph. When he saw his client +hesitate, he thought that he had lost his chance; he had set himself +to frighten and quell La Cibot till she was completely in his power, +bound hand and foot. She had walked into his study as a fly walks into +a spider's web; there she was doomed to remain, entangled in the toils +of the little lawyer who meant to feed upon her. Out of this bit of +business, indeed, Fraisier meant to gain the living of old days; +comfort, competence, and consideration. He and his friend Dr. Poulain +had spent the whole previous evening in a microscopic examination of +the case; they had made mature deliberations. The doctor described +Schmucke for his friend's benefit, and the alert pair had plumbed all +hypotheses and scrutinized all risks and resources, till Fraisier, +exultant, cried aloud, "Both our fortunes lie in this!" He had gone so +far as to promise Poulain a hospital, and as for himself, he meant to +be justice of the peace of an arrondissement. + +To be a justice of the peace! For this man with his abundant capacity, +for this doctor of law without a pair of socks to his name, the dream +was a hippogriff so restive, that he thought of it as a +deputy-advocate thinks of the silk gown, as an Italian priest thinks +of the tiara. It was indeed a wild dream! + +M. Vitel, the justice of the peace before whom Fraisier pleaded, was a +man of sixty-nine, in failing health; he talked of retiring on a +pension; and Fraisier used to talk with Poulain of succeeding him, +much as Poulain talked of saving the life of some rich heiress and +marrying her afterwards. No one knows how greedily every post in the +gift of authority is sought after in Paris. Every one wants to live in +Paris. If a stamp or tobacco license falls in, a hundred women rise up +as one and stir all their friends to obtain it. Any vacancy in the +ranks of the twenty-four collectors of taxes sends a flood of +ambitious folk surging in upon the Chamber of Deputies. Decisions are +made in committee, all appointments are made by the Government. Now +the salary of a justice of the peace, the lowest stipendiary +magistrate in Paris, is about six thousand francs. The post of +registrar to the court is worth a hundred thousand francs. Few places +are more coveted in the administration. Fraisier, as a justice of the +peace, with the head physician of a hospital for his friend, would +make a rich marriage himself and a good match for Dr. Poulain. Each +would lend a hand to each. + +Night set its leaden seal upon the plans made by the sometime attorney +of Mantes, and a formidable scheme sprouted up, a flourishing scheme, +fertile in harvests of gain and intrigue. La Cibot was the hinge upon +which the whole matter turned; and for this reason, any rebellion on +the part of the instrument must be at once put down; such action on +her part was quite unexpected; but Fraisier had put forth all the +strength of his rancorous nature, and the audacious portress lay +trampled under his feet. + +"Come, reassure yourself, my dear madame," he remarked, holding out +his hand. The touch of the cold, serpent-like skin made a terrible +impression upon the portress. It brought about something like a +physical reaction, which checked her emotion; Mme. Fontaine's toad, +Astaroth, seemed to her to be less deadly than this poison-sac that +wore a sandy wig and spoke in tones like the creaking of a hinge. + +"Do not imagine that I am frightening you to no purpose," Fraisier +continued. (La Cibot's feeling of repulsion had not escaped him.) "The +affairs which made Mme. la Presidente's dreadful reputation are so +well known at the law-courts, that you can make inquiries there if you +like. The great person who was all but sent into a lunatic asylum was +the Marquis d'Espard. The Marquis d'Esgrignon was saved from the +hulks. The handsome young man with wealth and a great future before +him, who was to have married a daughter of one of the first families +of France, and hanged himself in a cell of the Conciergerie, was the +celebrated Lucien de Rubempre; the affair made a great deal of noise +in Paris at the time. That was a question of a will. His mistress, the +notorious Esther, died and left him several millions, and they accused +the young fellow of poisoning her. He was not even in Paris at the +time of her death, nor did he so much as know the woman had left the +money to him!--One cannot well be more innocent than that! Well, after +M. Camusot examined him, he hanged himself in his cell. Law, like +medicine, has its victims. In the first case, one man suffers for the +many, and in the second, he dies for science," he added, and an ugly +smile stole over his lips. "Well, I know the risks myself, you see; +poor and obscure little attorney as I am, the law has been the ruin of +me. My experience was dearly bought--it is all at your service." + +"Thank you, no," said La Cibot; "I will have nothing to do with it, +upon my word! . . . I shall have nourished ingratitude, that is all! I +want nothing but my due; I have thirty years of honesty behind me, +sir. M. Pons says that he will recommend me to his friend Schmucke; +well and good, I shall end my days in peace with the German, good +man." + +Fraisier had overshot his mark. He had discouraged La Cibot. Now he +was obliged to remove these unpleasant impressions. + +"Do not let us give up," he said; "just go away quietly home. Come, +now, we will steer the affair to a good end." + +"But what about my _rentes_, what am I to do to get them, and--" + +"And feel no remorse?" he interrupted quickly. "Eh! it is precisely +for that that men of business were invented; unless you keep within +the law, you get nothing. You know nothing of law; I know a good deal. +I will see that you keep on the right side of it, and you can hold +your own in all men's sight. As for your conscience, that is your own +affair." + +"Very well, tell me how to do it," returned La Cibot, curious and +delighted. + +"I do not know how yet. I have not looked at the strong points of the +case yet; I have been busy with the obstacles. But the first thing to +be done is to urge him to make a will; you cannot go wrong over that; +and find out, first of all, how Pons means to leave his fortune; for +if you were his heir--" + +"No, no; he does not like me. Ah! if I had but known the value of his +gimcracks, and if I had known what I know now about his amours, I +should be easy in my mind this day--" + +"Keep on, in fact," broke in Fraisier. "Dying folk have queer fancies, +my dear madame; they disappoint hopes many a time. Let him make his +will, and then we shall see. And of all things, the property must be +valued. So I must see this Remonencq and the Jew; they will be very +useful to us. Put entire confidence in me, I am at your disposal. When +a client is a friend to me, I am his friend through thick and thin. +Friend or enemy, that is my character." + +"Very well," said La Cibot, "I am yours entirely; and as for fees, M. +Poulain--" + +"Let us say nothing about that," said Fraisier. "Think how you can +keep Poulain at the bedside; he is one of the most upright and +conscientious men I know; and, you see, we want some one there whom we +can trust. Poulain would do better than I; I have lost my character." + +"You look as if you had," said La Cibot; "but, for my own part, I +should trust you." + +"And you would do well. Come to see me whenever anything happens, and +--there!--you are an intelligent woman; all will go well." + +"Good-day, M. Fraisier. I hope you will recover your health. Your +servant, sir." + +Fraisier went to the door with his client. But this time it was he, +and not La Cibot, who was struck with an idea on the threshold. + +"If you could persuade M. Pons to call me in, it would be a great +step." + +"I will try," said La Cibot. + +Fraisier drew her back into his sanctum. "Look here, old lady, I know +M. Trognon, the notary of the quarter, very well. If M. Pons has not a +notary, mention M. Trognon to him. Make him take M. Trognon--" + +"Right," returned La Cibot. + +And as she came out again she heard the rustle of a dress and the +sound of a stealthy, heavy footstep. + +Out in the street and by herself, Mme. Cibot to some extent recovered +her liberty of mind as she walked. Though the influence of the +conversation was still upon her, and she had always stood in dread of +scaffolds, justice, and judges, she took a very natural resolution +which was to bring about a conflict of strategy between her and her +formidable legal adviser. + +"What do I want with other folk?" said she to herself. "Let us make a +round sum, and afterwards I will take all that they offer me to push +their interests;" and this thought, as will shortly be seen, hastened +the poor old musician's end. + + + +"Well, dear M. Schmucke, and how is our dear, adored patient?" asked +La Cibot, as she came into the room. + +"Fery pad; Bons haf peen vandering all der night." + +"Then, what did he say?" + +"Chust nonsense. He vould dot I haf all his fortune, on kondition dot +I sell nodings.--Den he cried! Boor mann! It made me ver' sad." + +"Never mind, honey," returned the portress. "I have kept you waiting +for your breakfast; it is nine o'clock and past; but don't scold me. I +have business on hand, you see, business of yours. Here are we without +any money, and I have been out to get some." + +"Vere?" asked Schmucke. + +"Of my uncle." + +"Onkel?" + +"Up the spout." + +"Shpout?" + +"Oh! the dear man! how simple he is? No, you are a saint, a love, an +archbishop of innocence, a man that ought to be stuffed, as the old +actor said. What! you have lived in Paris for twenty-nine years; you +saw the Revolution of July, you did, and you have never so much as +heard tell of a pawnbroker--a man that lends you money on your things? +--I have been pawning our silver spoons and forks, eight of them, +thread pattern. Pooh, Cibot can eat his victuals with German silver; +it is quite the fashion now, they say. It is not worth while to say +anything to our angel there; it would upset him and make him yellower +than before, and he is quite cross enough as it is. Let us get him +round again first, and afterwards we shall see. What must be must; and +we must take things as we find them, eh?" + +"Goot voman! nople heart!" cried poor Schmucke, with a great +tenderness in his face. He took La Cibot's hand and clasped it to his +breast. When he looked up, there were tears in his eyes. + +"There, that will do, Papa Schmucke; how funny you are! This is too +bad. I am an old daughter of the people--my heart is in my hand. I +have something _here_, you see, like you have, hearts of gold that you +are," she added, slapping her chest. + +"Baba Schmucke!" continued the musician. "No. To know de tepths of +sorrow, to cry mit tears of blood, to mount up in der hefn--dat is +mein lot! I shall not lif after Bons--" + +"Gracious! I am sure you won't, you are killing yourself.--Listen, +pet!" + +"Bet?" + +"Very well, my sonny--" + +"Zonny?" + +"My lamb, then, if you like it better." + +"It is not more clear." + +"Oh, well, let _me_ take care of you and tell you what to do; for if +you go on like this, I shall have both of you laid up on my hands, you +see. To my little way of thinking, we must do the work between us. You +cannot go about Paris to give lessons for it tires you, and then you +are not fit to do anything afterwards, and somebody must sit up of a +night with M. Pons, now that he is getting worse and worse. I will run +round to-day to all your pupils and tell them that you are ill; is it +not so? And then you can spend the nights with our lamb, and sleep of +a morning from five o'clock till, let us say, two in the afternoon. I +myself will take the day, the most tiring part, for there is your +breakfast and dinner to get ready, and the bed to make, and the things +to change, and the doses of medicine to give. I could not hold out for +another ten days at this rate. What would become of you if I were to +fall ill? And you yourself, it makes one shudder to see you; just look +at yourself, after sitting up with him last night!" + +She drew Schmucke to the glass, and Schmucke thought that there was a +great change. + +"So, if you are of my mind, I'll have your breakfast ready in a jiffy. +Then you will look after our poor dear again till two o'clock. Let me +have a list of your people, and I will soon arrange it. You will be +free for a fortnight. You can go to bed when I come in, and sleep till +night." + +So prudent did the proposition seem, that Schmucke then and there +agreed to it. + +"Not a word to M. Pons; he would think it was all over with him, you +know, if we were to tell him in this way that his engagement at the +theatre and his lessons are put off. He would be thinking that he +should not find his pupils again, poor gentleman--stuff and nonsense! +M. Poulain says that we shall save our Benjamin if we keep him as +quiet as possible." + +"Ach! fery goot! Pring up der preakfast; I shall make der bett, and +gif you die attresses!--You are right; it vould pe too much for me." + +An hour later La Cibot, in her Sunday clothes, departed in great +state, to the no small astonishment of the Remonencqs; she promised +herself that she would support the character of confidential servant +of the pair of nutcrackers, in the boarding-schools and private +families in which they gave music-lessons. + +It is needless to repeat all the gossip in which La Cibot indulged on +her round. The members of every family, the head-mistress of every +boarding-school, were treated to a variation upon the theme of Pons' +illness. A single scene, which took place in the Illustrious +Gaudissart's private room, will give a sufficient idea of the rest. La +Cibot met with unheard-of difficulties, but she succeeded in +penetrating at last to the presence. Kings and cabinet ministers are +less difficult of access than the manager of a theatre in Paris; nor +is it hard to understand why such prodigious barriers are raised +between them and ordinary mortals: a king has only to defend himself +from ambition; the manager of a theatre has reason to dread the +wounded vanity of actors and authors. + +La Cibot, however, struck up an acquaintance with the portress, and +traversed all distances in a brief space. There is a sort of +freemasonry among the porter tribe, and, indeed, among the members of +every profession; for each calling has its shibboleth, as well as its +insulting epithet and the mark with which it brands its followers. + +"Ah! madame, you are the portress here," began La Cibot. "I myself am +a portress, in a small way, in a house in the Rue de Normandie. M. +Pons, your conductor, lodges with us. Oh, how glad I should be to have +your place, and see the actors and dancers and authors go past. It is +the marshal's baton in our profession, as the old actor said." + +"And how is M. Pons going on, good man?" inquired the portress. + +"He is not going on at all; he has not left his bed these two months. +He will only leave the house feet foremost, that is certain." + +"He will be missed." + +"Yes. I have come with a message to the manager from him. Just try to +get me a word with him, dear." + +"A lady from M. Pons to see you, sir!" After this fashion did the +youth attached to the service of the manager's office announce La +Cibot, whom the portress below had particularly recommended to his +care. + +Gaudissart had just come in for a rehearsal. Chance so ordered it that +no one wished to speak with him; actors and authors were alike late. +Delighted to have news of his conductor, he made a Napoleonic gesture, +and La Cibot was admitted. + +The sometime commercial traveler, now the head of a popular theatre, +regarded his sleeping partners in the light of a legitimate wife; they +were not informed of all his doings. The flourishing state of his +finances had reacted upon his person. Grown big and stout and +high-colored with good cheer and prosperity, Gaudissart made no +disguise of his transformation into a Mondor. + +"We are turning into a city-father," he once said, trying to be the +first to laugh. + +"You are only in the Turcaret stage yet, though," retorted Bixiou, who +often replaced Gaudissart in the company of the leading lady of the +ballet, the celebrated Heloise Brisetout. + +The former Illustrious Gaudissart, in fact, was exploiting the theatre +simply and solely for his own particular benefit, and with brutal +disregard of other interests. He first insinuated himself as a +collaborator in various ballets, plays, and vaudevilles; then he +waited till the author wanted money and bought up the other half of +the copyright. These after-pieces and vaudevilles, always added to +successful plays, brought him in a daily harvest of gold coins. He +trafficked by proxy in tickets, allotting a certain number to himself, +as the manager's share, till he took in this way a tithe of the +receipts. And Gaudissart had other methods of making money besides +these official contributions. He sold boxes, he took presents from +indifferent actresses burning to go upon the stage to fill small +speaking parts, or simply to appear as queens, or pages, and the like; +he swelled his nominal third share of the profits to such purpose that +the sleeping partners scarcely received one-tenth instead of the +remaining two-thirds of the net receipts. Even so, however, the tenth +paid them a dividend of fifteen per cent on their capital. On the +strength of that fifteen per cent Gaudissart talked of his +intelligence, honesty, and zeal, and the good fortune of his partners. +When Count Popinot, showing an interest in the concern, asked Matifat, +or General Gouraud (Matifat's son-in-law), or Crevel, whether they +were satisfied with Gaudissart, Gouraud, now a peer of France, +answered, "They say he robs us; but he is such a clever, good-natured +fellow, that we are quite satisfied." + +"This is like La Fontaine's fable," smiled the ex-cabinet minister. + +Gaudissart found investments for his capital in other ventures. He +thought well of Schwab, Brunner, and the Graffs; that firm was +promoting railways, he became a shareholder in the lines. His +shrewdness was carefully hidden beneath the frank carelessness of a +man of pleasure; he seemed to be interested in nothing but amusements +and dress, yet he thought everything over, and his wide experience of +business gained as a commercial traveler stood him in good stead. + +A self-made man, he did not take himself seriously. He gave suppers +and banquets to celebrities in rooms sumptuously furnished by the +house decorator. Showy by nature, with a taste for doing things +handsomely, he affected an easy-going air, and seemed so much the less +formidable because he had kept the slang of "the road" (to use his own +expression), with a few green-room phrases superadded. Now, artists in +the theatrical profession are wont to express themselves with some +vigor; Gaudissart borrowed sufficient racy green-room talk to blend +with his commercial traveler's lively jocularity, and passed for a +wit. He was thinking at that moment of selling his license and "going +into another line," as he said. He thought of being chairman of a +railway company, of becoming a responsible person and an +administrator, and finally of marrying Mlle. Minard, daughter of the +richest mayor in Paris. He might hope to get into the Chamber through +"his line," and, with Popinot's influence, to take office under the +Government. + +"Whom have I the honor of addressing?" inquired Gaudissart, looking +magisterially at La Cibot. + +"I am M. Pons' confidential servant, sir." + +"Well, and how is the dear fellow?" + +"Ill, sir--very ill." + +"The devil he is! I am sorry to hear it--I must come and see him; he +is such a man as you don't often find." + +"Ah yes! sir, he is a cherub, he is. I have always wondered how he +came to be in a theatre." + +"Why, madame, the theatre is a house of correction for morals," said +Gaudissart. "Poor Pons!--Upon my word, one ought to cultivate the +species to keep up the stock. 'Tis a pattern man, and has talent too. +When will he be able to take his orchestra again, do you think? A +theatre, unfortunately, is like a stage coach: empty or full, it +starts at the same time. Here at six o'clock every evening, up goes +the curtain; and if we are never sorry for ourselves, it won't make +good music. Let us see now--how is he?" + +La Cibot pulled out her pocket-handkerchief and held it to her eyes. + +"It is a terrible thing to say, my dear sir," said she; "but I am +afraid we shall lose him, though we are as careful of him as of the +apple of our eyes. And, at the same time, I came to say that you must +not count on M. Schmucke, worthy man, for he is going to sit up with +him at night. One cannot help doing as if there was hope still left, +and trying one's best to snatch the dear, good soul from death. But +the doctor has given him up----" + +"What is the matter with him?" + +"He is dying of grief, jaundice, and liver complaint, with a lot of +family affairs to complicate matters." + +"And a doctor as well," said Gaudissart. "He ought to have had Lebrun, +our doctor; it would have cost him nothing." + +"M. Pons' doctor is a Providence on earth. But what can a doctor do, +no matter how clever he is, with such complications?" + +"I wanted the good pair of nutcrackers badly for the accompaniment of +my new fairy piece." + +"Is there anything that I can do for them?" asked La Cibot, and her +expression would have done credit to a Jocrisse. + +Gaudissart burst out laughing. + +"I am their housekeeper, sir, and do many things for my gentlemen--" +She did not finish her speech, for in the middle of Gaudissart's roar +of laughter a woman's voice exclaimed, "If you are laughing, old man, +one may come in," and the leading lady of the ballet rushed into the +room and flung herself upon the only sofa. The newcomer was Heloise +Brisetout, with a splendid _algerienne_, such as scarves used to be +called, about her shoulders. + +"Who is amusing you? Is it this lady? What post does she want?" asked +this nymph, giving the manager such a glance as artist gives artist, a +glance that would make a subject for a picture. + +Heloise, a young woman of exceedingly literary tastes, was on intimate +terms with great and famous artists in Bohemia. Elegant, accomplished, +and graceful, she was more intelligent than dancers usually are. As +she put her question, she sniffed at a scent-bottle full of some +aromatic perfume. + +"One fine woman is as good as another, madame; and if I don't sniff +the pestilence out of a scent-bottle, nor daub brickdust on my +cheeks--" + +"That would be a sinful waste, child, when Nature put it on for you to +begin with," said Heloise, with a side glance at her manager. + +"I am an honest woman--" + +"So much the worse for you. It is not every one by a long chalk that +can find some one to keep them, and kept I am, and in slap-up style, +madame." + +"So much the worse! What do you mean? Oh, you may toss your head and +go about in scarves, you will never have as many declarations as I +have had, missus. You will never match the _Belle Ecaillere of the +Cadran Bleu_." + +Heloise Brisetout rose at once to her feet, stood at attention, and +made a military salute, like a soldier who meets his general. + +"What?" asked Gaudissart, "are you really _La Belle Ecaillere_ of whom +my father used to talk?" + +"In that case the cachucha and the polka were after your time; and +madame has passed her fiftieth year," remarked Heloise, and striking +an attitude, she declaimed, "'Cinna, let us be friends.'" + +"Come, Heloise, the lady is not up to this; let her alone." + +"Madame is perhaps the New Heloise," suggested La Cibot, with sly +innocence. + +"Not bad, old lady!" cried Gaudissart. + +"It is a venerable joke," said the dancer, "a grizzled pun; find us +another old lady--or take a cigarette." + +"I beg your pardon, madame, I feel too unhappy to answer you; my two +gentlemen are very ill; and to buy nourishment for them and to spare +them trouble, I have pawned everything down to my husband's clothes +that I pledged this morning. Here is the ticket!" + +"Oh! here, the affair is becoming tragic," cried the fair Heloise. +"What is it all about?" + +"Madame drops down upon us like--" + +"Like a dancer," said Heloise; "let me prompt you,--missus!" + +"Come, I am busy," said Gaudissart. "The joke has gone far enough. +Heloise, this is M. Pons' confidential servant; she had come to tell +me that I must not count upon him; our poor conductor is not expected +to live. I don't know what to do." + +"Oh! poor man; why, he must have a benefit." + +"It would ruin him," said Gaudissart. "He might find next day that he +owed five hundred francs to charitable institutions, and they refuse +to admit that there are any sufferers in Paris except their own. No, +look here, my good woman, since you are going in for the Montyon +prize----" + +He broke off, rang the bell, and the youth before mentioned suddenly +appeared. + +"Tell the cashier to send me up a thousand-franc note.--Sit down, +madame." + +"Ah! poor woman, look, she is crying!" exclaimed Heloise. "How stupid! +There, there, mother, we will go to see him; don't cry.--I say, now," +she continued, taking the manager into a corner, "you want to make me +take the leading part in the ballet in _Ariane_, you Turk. You are +going to be married, and you know how I can make you miserable--" + +"Heloise, my heart is copper-bottomed like a man-of-war." + +"I shall bring your children on the scene! I will borrow some +somewhere." + +"I have owned up about the attachment." + +"Do be nice, and give Pons' post to Garangeot; he has talent, poor +fellow, and he has not a penny; and I promise peace." + +"But wait till Pons is dead, in case the good man may come back +again." + +"Oh, as to that, no, sir," said La Cibot. "He began to wander in his +mind last night, and now he is delirious. It will soon be over, +unfortunately." + +"At any rate, take Garangeot as a stop-gap!" pleaded Heloise. "He has +the whole press on his side--" + +Just at that moment the cashier came in with a note for a thousand +francs in his hand. + +"Give it to madame here," said Gaudissart. "Good-day, my good woman; +take good care of the dear man, and tell him that I am coming to see +him to-morrow, or sometime--as soon as I can, in short." + +"A drowning man," said Heloise. + +"Ah, sir, hearts like yours are only found in a theatre. May God bless +you!" + +"To what account shall I post this item?" asked the cashier. + +"I will countersign the order. Post it to the bonus account." + +Before La Cibot went out, she made Mlle. Brisetout a fine courtesy, +and heard Gaudissart remark to his mistress: + +"Can Garangeot do the dance-music for the _Mohicans_ in twelve days? +If he helps me out of my predicament, he shall have Pons' place." + +La Cibot had cut off the incomes of the two friends, she had left them +without means of subsistence if Pons should chance to recover, and was +better rewarded for all this mischief than for any good that she had +done. In a few days' time her treacherous trick would bring about the +desired result--Elie Magus would have his coveted pictures. But if +this first spoliation was to be effected, La Cibot must throw dust in +Fraisier's eyes, and lull the suspicions of that terrible +fellow-conspirator of her own seeking; and Elie Magus and Remonencq +must be bound over to secrecy. + +As for Remonencq, he had gradually come to feel such a passion as +uneducated people can conceive when they come to Paris from the depths +of the country, bringing with them all the fixed ideas bred of the +solitary country life; all the ignorance of a primitive nature, all +the brute appetites that become so many fixed ideas. Mme. Cibot's +masculine beauty, her vivacity, her market-woman's wit, had all been +remarked by the marine store-dealer. He thought at first of taking La +Cibot from her husband, bigamy among the lower classes in Paris being +much more common than is generally supposed; but greed was like a +slip-knot drawn more and more tightly about his heart, till reason at +length was stifled. When Remonencq computed that the commission paid +by himself and Elie Magus amounted to about forty thousand francs, he +determined to have La Cibot for his legitimate spouse, and his +thoughts turned from a misdemeanor to a crime. A romantic purely +speculative dream, persistently followed through a tobacco-smoker's +long musings as he lounged in the doorway, had brought him to the +point of wishing that the little tailor were dead. At a stroke he +beheld his capital trebled; and then he thought of La Cibot. What a +good saleswoman she would be! What a handsome figure she would make in +a magnificent shop on the boulevards! The twofold covetousness turned +Remonencq's head. In fancy he took a shop that he knew of on the +Boulevard de la Madeleine, he stocked it with Pons' treasures, and +then--after dreaming his dream in sheets of gold, after seeing +millions in the blue spiral wreaths that rose from his pipe, he awoke +to find himself face to face with the little tailor. Cibot was +sweeping the yard, the doorstep, and the pavement just as his neighbor +was taking down the shutters and displaying his wares; for since Pons +fell ill, La Cibot's work had fallen to her husband. + +The Auvergnat began to look upon the little, swarthy, stunted, +copper-colored tailor as the one obstacle in his way, and pondered how +to be rid of him. Meanwhile this growing passion made La Cibot very +proud, for she had reached an age when a woman begins to understand +that she may grow old. + +So early one morning, she meditatively watched Remonencq as he +arranged his odds and ends for sale. She wondered how far his love +could go. He came across to her. + +"Well," he said, "are things going as you wish?" + +"It is you who makes me uneasy," said La Cibot. "I shall be talked +about; the neighbors will see you making sheep's eyes at me." + +She left the doorway and dived into the Auvergnat's back shop. + +"What a notion!" said Remonencq. + +"Come here, I have something to say to you," said La Cibot. "M. Pons' +heirs are about to make a stir; they are capable of giving us a lot of +trouble. God knows what might come of it if they send the lawyers here +to poke their noses into the affair like hunting-dogs. I cannot get M. +Schmucke to sell a few pictures unless you like me well enough to keep +the secret--such a secret!--With your head on the block, you must not +say where the pictures come from, nor who it was that sold them. When +M. Pons is once dead and buried, you understand, nobody will know how +many pictures there ought to be; if there are fifty-three pictures +instead of sixty-seven, nobody will be any the wiser. Besides, if M. +Pons sold them himself while he was alive, nobody can find fault." + +"No," agreed Remonencq, "it is all one to me, but M. Elie Magus will +want receipts in due form." + +"And you shall have your receipt too, bless your life! Do you suppose +that _I_ should write them?--No, M. Schmucke will do that. But tell +your Jew that he must keep the secret as closely as you do," she +continued. + +"We will be as mute as fishes. That is our business. I myself can +read, but I cannot write, and that is why I want a capable wife that +has had education like you. I have thought of nothing but earning my +bread all my days, and now I wish I had some little Remonencqs. Do +leave that Cibot of yours." + +"Why, here comes your Jew," said the portress; "we can arrange the +whole business." + +Elie Magus came every third day very early in the morning to know when +he could buy his pictures. "Well, my dear lady," said he, "how are we +getting on?" + +"Has nobody been to speak to you about M. Pons and his gimcracks?" +asked La Cibot. + +"I received a letter from a lawyer," said Elie Magus, "a rascal that +seems to me to be trying to work for himself; I don't like people of +that sort, so I took no notice of his letter. Three days afterwards he +came to see me, and left his card. I told my porter that I am never at +home when he calls." + +"You are a love of a Jew," said La Cibot. Little did she know Elie +Magus' prudence. "Well, sonnies, in a few days' time I will bring M. +Schmucke to the point of selling you seven or eight pictures, ten at +most. But on two conditions.--Absolute secrecy in the first place. M. +Schmucke will send for you, sir, is not that so? And M. Remonencq +suggested that you might be a purchaser, eh?--And, come what may, I +will not meddle in it for nothing. You are giving forty-six thousand +francs for four pictures, are you not?" + +"So be it," groaned the Jew. + +"Very good. This is the second condition. You will give me +_forty-three_ thousand francs, and pay three thousand only to M. +Schmucke; Remonencq will buy four for two thousand francs, and hand +over the surplus to me.--But at the same time, you see my dear M. +Magus, I am going to help you and Remonencq to a splendid bit of +business--on condition that the profits are shared among the three of +us. I will introduce you to that lawyer, as he, no doubt, will come +here. You shall make a valuation of M. Pons' things at the prices +which you can give for them, so that M. Fraisier may know how much +the property is worth. But--not until after our sale, you understand!" + +"I understand," said the Jew, "but it takes time to look at the things +and value them." + +"You shall have half a day. But, there, that is my affair. Talk it +over between yourselves, my boys, and for that matter the business +will be settled by the day after to-morrow. I will go round to speak +to this Fraisier; for Dr. Poulain tells him everything that goes on in +the house, and it is a great bother to keep that scarecrow quiet." + +La Cibot met Fraisier halfway between the Rue de la Perle and the Rue +de Normandie; so impatient was he to know the "elements of the case" +(to use his own expression), that he was coming to see her. + +"I say! I was going to you," said she. + +Fraisier grumbled because Elie Magus had refused to see him. But La +Cibot extinguished the spark of distrust that gleamed in the lawyer's +eyes by informing him that Elie Magus had returned from a journey, and +that she would arrange for an interview in Pons' rooms and for the +valuation of the property; for the day after to-morrow at latest. + +"Deal frankly with me," returned Fraisier. "It is more than probable +that I shall act for M. Pons' next-of-kin. In that case, I shall be +even better able to serve you." + +The words were spoken so drily that La Cibot quaked. This starving +limb of the law was sure to manoeuvre on his side as she herself was +doing. She resolved forthwith to hurry on the sale of the pictures. + +La Cibot was right. The doctor and lawyer had clubbed together to buy +a new suit of clothes in which Fraisier could decently present himself +before Mme. la Presidente Camusot de Marville. Indeed, if the clothes +had been ready, the interview would have taken place sooner, for the +fate of the couple hung upon its issues. Fraisier left Mme. Cibot, and +went to try on his new clothes. He found them waiting for him, went +home, adjusted his new wig, and towards ten o'clock that morning set +out in a carriage from a livery stable for the Rue de Hanovre, hoping +for an audience. In his white tie, yellow gloves, and new wig, +redolent of _eau de Portugal_, he looked something like a poisonous +essence kept in a cut-glass bottle, seeming but the more deadly +because everything about it is daintily neat, from the stopper covered +with white kid to the label and the thread. His peremptory manner, the +eruption on his blotched countenance, the green eyes, and a malignant +something about him,--all these things struck the beholder with the +same sense of surprise as storm-clouds in a blue sky. If in his +private office, as he showed himself to La Cibot, he was the common +knife that a murderer catches up for his crime,--now, at the +Presidente's door, he was the daintily-wrought dagger which a woman +sets among the ornaments on her what-not. + +A great change had taken place in the Rue de Hanovre. The Count and +Countess Popinot and the young people would not allow the President +and his wife to leave the house that they had settled upon their +daughter to pay rent elsewhere. M. and Mme. la Presidente, therefore, +were installed on the second floor, now left at liberty, for the +elderly lady had made up her mind to end her days in the country. + +Mme. Camusot took Madeleine Vivet, with her cook and her man-servant, +to the second floor, and would have been as much pinched for money as +in the early days, if the house had not been rent free, and the +President's salary increased to ten thousand francs. This _aurea +mediocritas_ was but little satisfactory to Mme. de Marville. Even now +she wished for means more in accordance with her ambitions; for when +she handed over their fortune to their daughter, she spoiled her +husband's prospects. Now Amelie had set her heart upon seeing her +husband in the Chamber of Deputies; she was not one of those women who +find it easy to give up their way; and she by no means despaired of +returning her husband for the arrondissement in which Marville is +situated. So for the past two months she had teased her father-in-law, +M. le Baron Camusot (for the new peer of France had been advanced to +that rank), and done her utmost to extort an advance of a hundred +thousand francs of the inheritance which one day would be theirs. She +wanted, she said, to buy a small estate worth about two thousand +francs per annum set like a wedge within the Marville lands. There she +and her husband would be near their children and in their own house, +while the addition would round out the Marville property. With that +the Presidente laid stress upon the recent sacrifices which she and +her husband had been compelled to make in order to marry Cecile to +Viscount Popinot, and asked the old man how he could bar his eldest +son's way to the highest honors of the magistracy, when such honors +were only to be had by those who made themselves a strong position in +parliament. Her husband would know how to take up such a position, he +would make himself feared by those in office, and so on and so on. + +"They do nothing for you unless you tighten a halter round their necks +to loosen their tongues," said she. "They are ungrateful. What do they +not owe to Camusot! Camusot brought the House of Orleans to the throne +by enforcing the ordinances of July." + +M. Camusot senior answered that he had gone out of his depth in +railway speculations. He quite admitted that it was necessary to come +to the rescue, but put off the day until shares should rise, as they +were expected to do. + +This half-promise, extracted some few days before Fraisier's visit, +had plunged the Presidente into depths of affliction. It was doubtful +whether the ex-proprietor of Marville was eligible for re-election +without the land qualification. + +Fraisier found no difficulty in obtaining speech of Madeleine Vivet; +such viper natures own their kinship at once. + +"I should like to see Mme. la Presidente for a few moments, +mademoiselle," Fraisier said in bland accents; "I have come on a +matter of business which touches her fortune; it is a question of a +legacy, be sure to mention that. I have not the honor of being known +to Mme. la Presidente, so my name is of no consequence. I am not in +the habit of leaving my chambers, but I know the respect that is due +to a President's wife, and I took the trouble of coming myself to save +all possible delay." + +The matter thus broached, when repeated and amplified by the +waiting-maid, naturally brought a favorable answer. It was a decisive +moment for the double ambition hidden in Fraisier's mind. Bold as a +petty provincial attorney, sharp, rough-spoken, and curt as he was, he +felt as captains feel before the decisive battle of a campaign. As he +went into the little drawing-room where Amelie was waiting for him, he +felt a slight perspiration breaking out upon his forehead and down his +back. Every sudorific hitherto employed had failed to produce this +result upon a skin which horrible diseases had left impervious. "Even +if I fail to make my fortune," said he to himself, "I shall recover. +Poulain said that if I could only perspire I should recover." + +The Presidente came forward in her morning gown. + +"Madame--" said Fraisier, stopping short to bow with the humility by +which officials recognize the superior rank of the person whom they +address. + +"Take a seat, monsieur," said the Presidente. She saw at a glance that +this was a man of law. + +"Mme. la Presidente, if I take the liberty of calling your attention +to a matter which concerns M. le President, it is because I am sure +that M. de Marville, occupying, as he does, a high position, would +leave matters to take their natural course, and so lose seven or eight +hundred thousand francs, a sum which ladies (who, in my opinion, have +a far better understanding of private business than the best of +magistrates)--a sum which ladies, I repeat, would by no means +despise--" + +"You spoke of a legacy," interrupted the lady, dazzled by the wealth, +and anxious to hide her surprise. Amelie de Marville, like an +impatient novel-reader, wanted the end of the story. + +"Yes, madame, a legacy that you are like to lose; yes, to lose +altogether; but I can, that is, I _could_, recover it for you, if--" + +"Speak out, monsieur." Mme. de Marville spoke frigidly, scanning +Fraisier as she spoke with a sagacious eye. + +"Madame, your eminent capacity is known to me; I was once at Mantes. +M. Leboeuf, President of the Tribunal, is acquainted with M. de +Marville, and can answer inquiries about me--" + +The Presidente's shrug was so ruthlessly significant, that Fraisier +was compelled to make short work of his parenthetic discourse. + +"So distinguished a woman will at once understand why I speak of +myself in the first place. It is the shortest way to the property." + +To this acute observation the lady replied by a gesture. Fraisier took +the sign for a permission to continue. + +"I was an attorney, madame, at Mantes. My connection was all the +fortune that I was likely to have. I took over M. Levroux's practice. +You knew him, no doubt?" + +The Presidente inclined her head. + +"With borrowed capital and some ten thousand francs of my own, I went +to Mantes. I had been with Desroches, one of the cleverest attorneys +in Paris, I had been his head-clerk for six years. I was so unlucky as +to make an enemy of the attorney for the crown at Mantes, Monsieur--" + +"Olivier Vinet." + +"Son of the Attorney-General, yes, madame. He was paying his court to +a little person--" + +"Whom?" + +"Mme. Vatinelle." + +"Oh! Mme. Vatinelle. She was very pretty and very--er--when I was +there--" + +"She was not unkind to me: _inde iroe_," Fraisier continued. "I was +industrious; I wanted to repay my friends and to marry; I wanted work; +I went in search of it; and before long I had more on my hands than +anybody else. Bah! I had every soul in Mantes against me--attorneys, +notaries, and even the bailiffs. They tried to fasten a quarrel on me. +In our ruthless profession, as you know, madame, if you wish to ruin a +man, it is soon done. I was concerned for both parties in a case, and +they found it out. It was a trifle irregular; but it is sometimes done +in Paris, attorneys in certain cases hand the rhubarb and take the +senna. They do things differently at Mantes. I had done M. Bouyonnet +this little service before; but, egged on by his colleagues and the +attorney for the crown, he betrayed me.--I am keeping back nothing, +you see.--There was a great hue and cry about it. I was a scoundrel; +they made me out blacker than Marat; forced me to sell out; ruined me. +And I am in Paris now. I have tried to get together a practice; but my +health is so bad, that I have only two quiet hours out of the +twenty-four. + +"At this moment I have but one ambition, and a very small one. Some +day," he continued, "you will be the wife of the Keeper of the Seals, +or of the Home Secretary, it may be; but I, poor and sickly as I am, +desire nothing but a post in which I can live in peace for the rest of +my life, a place without any opening in which to vegetate. I should +like to be a justice of the peace in Paris. It would be a mere trifle +for you and M. le President to gain the appointment for me; for the +present Keeper of the Seals must be anxious to keep on good terms with +you . . . + +"And that is not all, madame," added Fraisier. Seeing that Mme. de +Marville was about to speak, he cut her short with a gesture. "I have +a friend, the doctor in attendance on the old man who ought to leave +his property to M. le President. (We are coming to the point, you +see.) The doctor's co-operation is indispensable, and the doctor is +precisely in my position: he has abilities, he is unlucky. I learned +through him how far your interests were imperiled; for even as I +speak, all may be over, and the will disinheriting M. le President may +have been made. This doctor wishes to be head-surgeon of a hospital or +of a Government school. He must have a position in Paris equal to +mine. . . . Pardon me if I have enlarged on a matter so delicate; but +we must have no misunderstandings in this business. The doctor is, +besides, much respected and learned; he saved the life of the Comtesse +Popinot's great-uncle, M. Pillerault. + +"Now, if you are so good as to promise these two posts--the +appointment of justice of the peace and the sinecure for my friend--I +will undertake to bring you the property, _almost_ intact.--Almost +intact, I say, for the co-operation of the legatee and several other +persons is absolutely indispensable, and some obligations will be +incurred. You will not redeem your promises until I have fulfilled +mine." + +The Presidente had folded her arms, and for the last minute or two sat +like a person compelled to listen to a sermon. Now she unfolded her +arms, and looked at Fraisier as she said, "Monsieur, all that you say +concerning your interests has the merit of clearness; but my own +interests in the matter are by no means so clear--" + +"A word or two will explain everything, madame. M. le President is M. +Pons' first cousin once removed, and his sole heir. M. Pons is very +ill; he is about to make his will, if it is not already made, in favor +of a German, a friend of his named Schmucke; and he has more than +seven hundred thousand francs to leave. I hope to have an accurate +valuation made in two or three days--" + +"If this is so," said the Presidente, "I made a great mistake in +quarreling with him and throwing the blame----" she thought aloud, +amazed by the possibility of such a sum. + +"No, madame. If there had been no rupture, he would be as blithe as a +lark at this moment, and might outlive you and M. le President and me. +. . . The ways of Providence are mysterious, let us not seek to fathom +them," he added to palliate to some extent the hideous idea. "It +cannot be helped. We men of business look at the practical aspects of +things. Now you see clearly, madame, that M. de Marville in his public +position would do nothing, and could do nothing, as things are. He has +broken off all relations with his cousin. You see nothing now of Pons; +you have forbidden him the house; you had excellent reasons, no doubt, +for doing as you did, but the old man is ill, and he is leaving his +property to the only friend left to him. A President of the Court of +Appeal in Paris could say nothing under such circumstances if the will +was made out in due form. But between ourselves, madame, when one has +a right to expect seven or eight hundred thousand francs--or a +million, it may be (how should I know?)--it is very unpleasant to have +it slip through one's fingers, especially if one happens to be the +heir-at-law. . . . But, on the other hand, to prevent this, one is +obliged to stoop to dirty work; work so difficult, so ticklish, +bringing you cheek by jowl with such low people, servants and +subordinates; and into such close contact with them too, that no +barrister, no attorney in Paris could take up such a case. + +"What you want is a briefless barrister like me," said he, "a man who +should have real and solid ability, who has learned to be devoted, and +yet, being in a precarious position, is brought temporarily to a level +with such people. In my arrondissement I undertake business for small +tradespeople and working folk. Yes, madame, you see the straits to +which I have been brought by the enmity of an attorney for the crown, +now a deputy-public prosecutor in Paris, who could not forgive me my +superiority.--I know you, madame, I know that your influence means a +solid certainty; and in such a service rendered to you, I saw the end +of my troubles and success for my friend Dr. Poulain." + +The lady sat pensive during a moment of unspeakable torture for +Fraisier. Vinet, an orator of the Centre, attorney-general +(_procureur-general_) for the past sixteen years, nominated +half-a-score of times for the chancellorship, the father, moreover, of +the attorney for the crown at Mantes who had been appointed to a post +in Paris within the last year--Vinet was an enemy and a rival for the +malignant Presidente. The haughty attorney-general did not hide his +contempt for President Camusot. This fact Fraisier did not know, and +could not know. + +"Have you nothing on your conscience but the fact that you were +concerned for both parties?" asked she, looking steadily at Fraisier. + +"Mme. la Presidente can see M. Leboeuf; M. Leboeuf was favorable to +me." + +"Do you feel sure that M. Leboeuf will give M. de Marville and M. le +Comte Popinot a good account of you?" + +"I will answer for it, especially now that M. Olivier Vinet has left +Mantes; for between ourselves, good M. Leboeuf was afraid of that +crabbed little official. If you will permit me, Madame La Presidente, +I will go to Mantes and see M. Leboeuf. No time will be lost, for I +cannot be certain of the precise value of the property for two or +three days. I do not wish that you should know all the ins and outs of +this affair; you ought not to know them, Mme. la Presidente, but is +not the reward that I expect for my complete devotion a pledge of my +success?" + +"Very well. If M. Leboeuf will speak in your favor, and if the +property is worth as much as you think (I doubt it myself), you shall +have both appointments, _if_ you succeed, mind you--" + +"I will answer for it, madame. Only, you must be so good as to have +your notary and your attorney here when I shall need them; you must +give me a power of attorney to act for M. le President, and tell those +gentlemen to follow my instructions, and to do nothing on their own +responsibility." + +"The responsibility rests with you," the Presidente answered solemnly, +"so you ought to have full powers.--But is M. Pons very ill?" she +asked, smiling. + +"Upon my word, madame, he might pull through, especially with so +conscientious a doctor as Poulain in attendance; for this friend of +mine, madame, is simply an unconscious spy directed by me in your +interests. Left to himself, he would save the old man's life; but +there is some one else by the sickbed, a portress, who would push him +into the grave for thirty thousand francs. Not that she would kill him +outright; she will not give him arsenic, she is not so merciful; she +will do worse, she will kill him by inches; she will worry him to +death day by day. If the poor old man were kept quiet and left in +peace; if he were taken into the country and cared for and made much +of by friends, he would get well again; but he is harassed by a sort +of Mme. Evrard. When the woman was young she was one of thirty _Belles +Ecailleres_, famous in Paris, she is a rough, greedy, gossiping woman; +she torments him to make a will and to leave her something handsome, +and the end of it will be induration of the liver, calculi are +possibly forming at this moment, and he has not enough strength to +bear an operation. The doctor, noble soul, is in a horrible +predicament. He really ought to send the woman away--" + +"Why, then, this vixen is a monster!" cried the lady in thin +flute-like tones. + +Fraisier smiled inwardly at the likeness between himself and the +terrible Presidente; he knew all about those suave modulations of a +naturally sharp voice. He thought of another president, the hero of an +anecdote related by Louis XI., stamped by that monarch's final praise. +Blessed with a wife after the pattern of Socrates' spouse, and +ungifted with the sage's philosophy, he mingled salt with the corn in +the mangers and forbad the grooms to give water to the horses. As his +wife rode along the Seine towards their country-house, the animals +bolted into the river with the lady, and the magistrate returned +thanks to Providence for ridding him of his wife "in so natural a +manner." At this present moment Mme. de Marville thanked Heaven for +placing at Pons' bedside a woman so likely to get him "decently" out +of the way. + +Aloud she said, "I would not take a million at the price of a single +scruple.--Your friend ought to speak to M. Pons and have the woman +sent away." + +"In the first place, madame, Messrs. Schmucke and Pons think the woman +an angel; they would send my friend away. And secondly, the doctor +lies under an obligation to this horrid oyster-woman; she called him +in to attend M. Pillerault. When he tells her to be as gentle as +possible with the patient, he simply shows the creature how to make +matters worse." + +"What does your friend think of _my_ cousin's condition?" + +This man's clear, business-like way of putting the facts of the case +frightened Mme. de Marville; she felt that his keen gaze read the +thoughts of a heart as greedy as La Cibot's own. + +"In six weeks the property will change hands." + +The Presidente dropped her eyes. + +"Poor man!" she sighed, vainly striving after a dolorous expression. + +"Have you any message, madame, for M. Leboeuf? I am taking the train +to Mantes." + +"Yes. Wait a moment, and I will write to ask him to dine with us +to-morrow. I want to see him, so that he may act in concert to repair +the injustice to which you have fallen a victim." + +The Presidente left the room. Fraisier saw himself a justice of the +peace. He felt transformed at the thought; he grew stouter; his lungs +were filled with the breath of success, the breeze of prosperity. He +dipped into the mysterious reservoirs of volition for fresh and strong +doses of the divine essence. To reach success, he felt, as Remonencq +half felt, that he was ready for anything, for crime itself, provided +that no proofs of it remained. He had faced the Presidente boldly; he +had transmuted conjecture into reality; he had made assertions right +and left, all to the end that she might authorize him to protect her +interests and win her influence. As he stood there, he represented the +infinite misery of two lives, and the no less boundless desires of two +men. He spurned the squalid horrors of the Rue de la Perle. He saw the +glitter of a thousand crowns in fees from La Cibot, and five thousand +francs from the Presidente. This meant an abode such as befitted his +future prospects. Finally, he was repaying Dr. Poulain. + +There are hard, ill-natured beings, goaded by distress or disease into +active malignity, that yet entertain diametrically opposed sentiments +with a like degree of vehemence. If Richelieu was a good hater, he was +no less a good friend. Fraisier, in his gratitude, would have let +himself be cut in two for Poulain. + +So absorbed was he in these visions of a comfortable and prosperous +life, that he did not see the Presidente come in with the letter in +her hand, and she, looking at him, thought him less ugly now than at +first. He was about to be useful to her, and as soon as a tool belongs +to us we look upon it with other eyes. + +"M. Fraisier," said she, "you have convinced me of your intelligence, +and I think that you can speak frankly." + +Fraisier replied by an eloquent gesture. + +"Very well," continued the lady, "I must ask you to give a candid +reply to this question: Are we, either of us, M. de Marville or I, +likely to be compromised, directly or indirectly, by your action in +this matter?" + +"I would not have come to you, madame, if I thought that some day I +should have to reproach myself for bringing so much as a splash of mud +upon you, for in your position a speck the size of a pin's head is +seen by all the world. You forget, madame, that I must satisfy you if +I am to be a justice of the peace in Paris. I have received one lesson +at the outset of my life; it was so sharp that I do not care to lay +myself open to a second thrashing. To sum it up in a last word, +madame, I will not take a step in which you are indirectly involved +without previously consulting you--" + +"Very good. Here is the letter. And now I shall expect to be informed +of the exact value of the estate." + +"There is the whole matter," said Fraisier shrewdly, making his bow to +the Presidente with as much graciousness as his countenance could +exhibit. + +"What a providence!" thought Mme. Camusot de Marville. "So I am to be +rich! Camusot will be sure of his election if we let loose this +Fraisier upon the Bolbec constituency. What a tool!" + +"What a providence!" Fraisier said to himself as he descended the +staircase; "and what a sharp woman Mme. Camusot is! I should want a +woman in these circumstances. Now to work!" + +And he departed for Mantes to gain the good graces of a man he +scarcely knew; but he counted upon Mme. Vatinelle, to whom, +unfortunately, he owed all his troubles--and some troubles are of a +kind that resemble a protested bill while the defaulter is yet +solvent, in that they bear interest. + +Three days afterwards, while Schmucke slept (for in accordance with +the compact he now sat up at night with the patient), La Cibot had a +"tiff," as she was pleased to call it, with Pons. It will not be out +of place to call attention to one particularly distressing symptom of +liver complaint. The sufferer is always more or less inclined to +impatience and fits of anger; an outburst of this kind seems to give +relief at the time, much as a patient while the fever fit is upon him +feels that he has boundless strength; but collapse sets in so soon as +the excitement passes off, and the full extent of mischief sustained +by the system is discernible. This is especially the case when the +disease has been induced by some great shock; and the prostration is +so much the more dangerous because the patient is kept upon a +restricted diet. It is a kind of fever affecting neither the blood nor +the brain, but the humoristic mechanism, fretting the whole system, +producing melancholy, in which the patient hates himself; in such a +crisis anything may cause dangerous irritation. + +In spite of all that the doctor could say, La Cibot had no belief in +this wear and tear of the nervous system by the humoristic. She was a +woman of the people, without experience or education; Dr. Poulain's +explanations for her were simply "doctor's notions." Like most of her +class, she thought that sick people must be fed, and nothing short of +Dr. Poulain's direct order prevented her from administering ham, a +nice omelette, or vanilla chocolate upon the sly. + +The infatuation of the working classes on this point is very strong. +The reason of their reluctance to enter a hospital is the idea that +they will be starved there. The mortality caused by the food smuggled +in by the wives of patients on visiting-days was at one time so great +that the doctors were obliged to institute a very strict search for +contraband provisions. + +If La Cibot was to realize her profits at once, a momentary quarrel +must be worked up in some way. She began by telling Pons about her +visit to the theatre, not omitting her passage at arms with Mlle. +Heloise the dancer. + +"But why did you go?" the invalid asked for the third time. La Cibot +once launched on a stream of words, he was powerless to stop her. + +"So, then, when I had given her a piece of my mind, Mademoiselle +Heloise saw who I was and knuckled under, and we were the best of +friends.--And now do you ask me why I went?" she added, repeating +Pons' question. + +There are certain babblers, babblers of genius are they, who sweep up +interruptions, objections, and observations in this way as they go +along, by way of provision to swell the matter of their conversation, +as if that source were ever in any danger of running dry. + +"Why I went?" repeated she. "I went to get your M. Gaudissart out of a +fix. He wants some music for a ballet, and you are hardly fit to +scribble on sheets of paper and do your work, dearie.--So I +understood, things being so, that a M. Garangeot was to be asked to +set the _Mohicans_ to music--" + +"Garangeot!" roared Pons in fury. "_Garangeot!_ a man with no talent; +I would not have him for first violin! He is very clever, he is very +good at musical criticism, but as to composing--I doubt it! And what +the devil put the notion of going to the theatre into your head?" + +"How confoundedly contrairy the man is! Look here, dearie, we mustn't +boil over like milk on the fire! How are you to write music in the +state that you are in? Why, you can't have looked at yourself in the +glass! Will you have the glass and see? You are nothing but skin and +bone--you are as weak as a sparrow, and do you think that you are fit +to make your notes! why, you would not so much as make out mine. . . . +And that reminds me that I ought to go up to the third floor lodger's +that owes us seventeen francs, for when the chemist has been paid we +shall not have twenty left.--So I had to tell M. Gaudissart (I like +that name), a good sort he seems to be,--a regular Roger Bontemps that +would just suit me.--_He_ will never have liver complaint!--Well, so I +had to tell him how you were.--Lord! you are not well, and he has put +some one else in your place for a bit--" + +"Some one else in my place!" cried Pons in a terrible voice, as he sat +right up in bed. Sick people, generally speaking, and those most +particularly who lie within the sweep of the scythe of Death, cling to +their places with the same passionate energy that the beginner +displays to gain a start in life. To hear that someone had taken his +place was like a foretaste of death to the dying man. + +"Why, the doctor told me that I was going on as well as possible," +continued he; "he said that I should soon be about again as usual. You +have killed me, ruined me, murdered me!" + +"Tut, tut, tut!" cried La Cibot, "there you go! I am killing you, am +I? Mercy on us! these are the pretty things that you are always +telling M. Schmucke when my back is turned. I hear all that you say, +that I do! You are a monster of ingratitude." + +"But you do not know that if I am only away for another fortnight, +they will tell me that I have had my day, that I am old-fashioned, out +of date, Empire, rococo, when I go back. Garangeot will have made +friends all over the theatre, high and low. He will lower the pitch to +suit some actress that cannot sing, he will lick M. Gaudissart's +boots!" cried the sick man, who clung to life. "He has friends that +will praise him in all the newspapers; and when things are like that +in such a shop, Mme. Cibot, they can find holes in anybody's coat. +. . . What fiend drove you to do it?" + +"Why! plague take it, M. Schmucke talked it over with me for a week. +What would you have? You see nothing but yourself! You are so selfish +that other people may die if you can only get better.--Why poor M. +Schmucke has been tired out this month past! he is tied by the leg, he +can go nowhere, he cannot give lessons nor take his place at the +theatre. Do you really see nothing? He sits up with you at night, and +I take the nursing in the day. If I were to sit up at night with you, +as I tried to do at first when I thought you were so poor, I should +have to sleep all day. And who would see to the house and look out for +squalls! Illness is illness, it cannot be helped, and here are you--" + +"This was not Schmucke's idea, it is quite impossible--" + +"That means that it was _I_ who took it into my head to do it, does +it? Do you think that we are made of iron? Why, if M. Schmucke had +given seven or eight lessons every day and conducted the orchestra +every evening at the theatre from six o'clock till half-past eleven at +night, he would have died in ten days' time. Poor man, he would give +his life for you, and do you want to be the death of him? By the +authors of my days, I have never seen a sick man to match you! Where +are your senses? have you put them in pawn? We are all slaving our +lives out for you; we do all for the best, and you are not satisfied! +Do you want to drive us raging mad? I myself, to begin with, am tired +out as it is----" + +La Cibot rattled on at her ease; Pons was too angry to say a word. He +writhed on his bed, painfully uttering inarticulate sounds; the blow +was killing him. And at this point, as usual, the scolding turned +suddenly to tenderness. The nurse dashed at her patient, grasped him +by the head, made him lie down by main force, and dragged the blankets +over him. + +"How any one can get into such a state!" exclaimed she. "After all, it +is your illness, dearie. That is what good M. Poulain says. See now, +keep quiet and be good, my dear little sonny. Everybody that comes +near you worships you, and the doctor himself comes to see you twice a +day. What would he say if he found you in such a way? You put me out +of all patience; you ought not to behave like this. If you have Ma'am +Cibot to nurse you, you should treat her better. You shout and you +talk!--you ought not to do it, you know that. Talking irritates you. +And why do you fly into a passion? The wrong is all on your side; you +are always bothering me. Look here, let us have it out! If M. Schmucke +and I, who love you like our life, thought that we were doing right +--well, my cherub, it was right, you may be sure." + +"Schmucke never could have told you to go to the theatre without +speaking to me about it--" + +"And must I wake him, poor dear, when he is sleeping like one of the +blest, and call him in as a witness?" + +"No, no!" cried Pons. "If my kind and loving Schmucke made the +resolution, perhaps I am worse than I thought." His eyes wandered +round the room, dwelling on the beautiful things in it with a +melancholy look painful to see. + +"So I must say good-bye to my dear pictures, to all the things that +have come to be like so many friends to me . . . and to my divine +friend Schmucke? . . . Oh! can it be true?" + +La Cibot, acting her heartless comedy, held her handkerchief to her +eyes; and at that mute response the sufferer fell to dark musing--so +sorely stricken was he by the double stab dealt to health and his +interests by the loss of his post and the near prospect of death, that +he had no strength left for anger. He lay, ghastly and wan, like a +consumptive patient after a wrestling bout with the Destroyer. + +"In M. Schmucke's interests, you see, you would do well to send for M. +Trognon; he is the notary of the quarter and a very good man," said La +Cibot, seeing that her victim was completely exhausted. + +"You are always talking about this Trognon--" + +"Oh! he or another, it is all one to me, for anything you will leave +me." + +She tossed her head to signify that she despised riches. There was +silence in the room. + +A moment later Schmucke came in. He had slept for six hours, hunger +awakened him, and now he stood at Pons' bedside watching his friend +without saying a word, for Mme. Cibot had laid a finger on her lips. + +"Hush!" she whispered. Then she rose and went up to add under her +breath, "He is going off to sleep at last, thank Heaven! He is as +cross as a red donkey!--What can you expect, he is struggling with his +illness----" + +"No, on the contrary, I am very patient," said the victim in a weary +voice that told of a dreadful exhaustion; "but, oh! Schmucke, my dear +friend, she has been to the theatre to turn me out of my place." + +There was a pause. Pons was too weak to say more. La Cibot took the +opportunity and tapped her head significantly. "Do not contradict +him," she said to Schmucke; "it would kill him." + +Pons gazed into Schmucke's honest face. "And she says that you sent +her--" he continued. + +"Yes," Schmucke affirmed heroically. "It had to pe. Hush!--let us safe +your life. It is absurd to vork and train your sdrength gif you haf a +dreasure. Get better; ve vill sell some prick-a-prack und end our tays +kvietly in a corner somveres, mit kind Montame Zipod." + +"She has perverted you," moaned Pons. + +Mme. Cibot had taken up her station behind the bed to make signals +unobserved. Pons thought that she had left the room. "She is murdering +me," he added. + +"What is that? I am murdering you, am I?" cried La Cibot, suddenly +appearing, hand on hips and eyes aflame. "I am as faithful as a dog, +and this is all I get! God Almighty!--" + +She burst into tears and dropped down into the great chair, a tragical +movement which wrought a most disastrous revulsion in Pons. + +"Very good," she said, rising to her feet. The woman's malignant eyes +looked poison and bullets at the two friends. "Very good. Nothing that +I can do is right here, and I am tired of slaving my life out. You +shall take a nurse." + +Pons and Schmucke exchanged glances in dismay. + +"Oh! you may look at each other like actors. I mean it. I shall ask +Dr. Poulain to find a nurse for you. And now we will settle accounts. +You shall pay me back the money that I have spent on you, and that I +would never have asked you for, I that have gone to M. Pillerault to +borrow another five hundred francs of him--" + +"It ees his illness!" cried Schmucke--he sprang to Mme. Cibot and put +an arm round her waist--"haf batience." + +"As for you, you are an angel, I could kiss the ground you tread +upon," said she. "But M. Pons never liked me, he always hated me. +Besides, he thinks perhaps that I want to be mentioned in his will--" + +"Hush! you vill kill him!" cried Schmucke. + +"Good-bye, sir," said La Cibot, with a withering look at Pons. "You +may keep well for all the harm I wish you. When you can speak to me +pleasantly, when you can believe that what I do is done for the best, +I will come back again. Till then I shall stay in my own room. You +were like my own child to me; did anybody ever see a child revolt +against its mother? . . . No, no, M. Schmucke, I do not want to hear +more. I will bring you _your_ dinner and wait upon _you_, but you must +take a nurse. Ask M. Poulain about it." + +And she went out, slamming the door after her so violently that the +precious, fragile objects in the room trembled. To Pons in his +torture, the rattle of china was like the final blow dealt by the +executioner to a victim broken on the wheel. + +An hour later La Cibot called to Schmucke through the door, telling +him that his dinner was waiting for him in the dining-room. She would +not cross the threshold. Poor Schmucke went out to her with a haggard, +tear-stained face. + +"Mein boor Bons in vandering," said he; "he says dat you are ein pad +voman. It ees his illness," he added hastily, to soften La Cibot and +excuse his friend. + +"Oh, I have had enough of his illness! Look here, he is neither +father, nor husband, nor brother, nor child of mine. He has taken a +dislike to me; well and good, that is enough! As for you, you see, I +would follow _you_ to the end of the world; but when a woman gives her +life, her heart, and all her savings, and neglects her husband (for +here has Cibot fallen ill), and then hears that she is a bad woman--it +is coming it rather too strong, it is." + +"Too shtrong?" + +"Too strong, yes. Never mind idle words. Let us come to the facts. As +to that, you owe me for three months at a hundred and ninety francs +--that is five hundred seventy francs; then there is the rent that I +have paid twice (here are the receipts), six hundred more, including +rates and the sou in the franc for the porter--something under twelve +hundred francs altogether, and with the two thousand francs besides +--without interest, mind you--the total amounts to three thousand one +hundred and ninety-two francs. And remember that you will want at +least two thousand francs before long for the doctor, and the nurse, +and the medicine, and the nurse's board. That was why I borrowed a +thousand francs of M. Pillerault," and with that she held up +Gaudissart's bank-note. + +It may readily be conceived that Schmucke listened to this reckoning +with amazement, for he knew about as much of business as a cat knows +of music. + +"Montame Zipod," he expostulated, "Bons haf lost his head. Bardon him, +and nurse him as before, und pe our profidence; I peg it of you on +mine knees," and he knelt before La Cibot and kissed the tormentor's +hands. + +La Cibot raised Schmucke and kissed him on the forehead. "Listen, my +lamb," said she, "here is Cibot ill in bed; I have just sent for Dr. +Poulain. So I ought to set my affairs in order. And what is more, +Cibot saw me crying, and flew into such a passion that he will not +have me set foot in here again. It is _he_ who wants the money; it is +his, you see. We women can do nothing when it comes to that. But if +you let him have his money back again--the three thousand two hundred +francs--he will be quiet perhaps. Poor man, it is his all, earned by +the sweat of his brow, the savings of twenty-six years of life +together. He must have his money to-morrow; there is no getting round +him.--You do not know Cibot; when he is angry he would kill a man. +Well, I might perhaps get leave of him to look after you both as +before. Be easy. I will just let him say anything that comes into his +head. I will bear it all for love of you, an angel as you are." + +"No, I am ein boor man, dot lof his friend and vould gif his life to +save him--" + +"But the money?" broke in La Cibot. "My good M. Schmucke, let us +suppose that you pay me nothing; you will want three thousand francs, +and where are they to come from? Upon my word, do you know what I +should do in your place? I should not think twice, I should just sell +seven or eight good-for-nothing pictures and put up some of those +instead that are standing in your closet with their faces to the wall +for want of room. One picture or another, what difference does it +make?" + +"Und vy?" + +"He is so cunning. It is his illness, for he is a lamb when he is +well. He is capable of getting up and prying about; and if by any +chance he went into the salon, he is so weak that he could not go +beyond the door; he would see that they are all still there." + +"Drue!" + +"And when he is quite well, we will tell him about the sale. And if +you wish to confess, throw it all upon me, say that you were obliged +to pay me. Come! I have a broad back--" + +"I cannot tispose of dings dot are not mine," the good German answered +simply. + +"Very well. I will summons you, you and M. Pons." + +"It vould kill him--" + +"Take your choice! Dear me, sell the pictures and tell him about it +afterwards . . . you can show him the summons--" + +"Ver' goot. Summons us. Dot shall pe mine egscuse. I shall show him +der chudgment." + +Mme. Cibot went down to the court, and that very day at seven o'clock +she called to Schmucke. Schmucke found himself confronted with M. +Tabareau the bailiff, who called upon him to pay. Schmucke made +answer, trembling from head to foot, and was forthwith summoned +together with Pons, to appear in the county court to hear judgment +against him. The sight of the bailiff and a bit of stamped paper +covered with scrawls produced such an effect upon Schmucke, that he +held out no longer. + +"Sell die bictures," he said, with tears in his eyes. + +Next morning, at six o'clock, Elie Magus and Remonencq took down the +paintings of their choice. Two receipts for two thousand five hundred +francs were made out in correct form:-- + +"I, the undersigned, representing M. Pons, acknowledge the receipt of +two thousand five hundred francs from M. Elie Magus for the four +pictures sold to him, the said sum being appropriated to the use of M. +Pons. The first picture, attributed to Durer, is a portrait of a +woman; the second, likewise a portrait, is of the Italian School; the +third, a Dutch landscape by Breughel; and the fourth, a _Holy Family_ +by an unknown master of the Florentine School." + +Remonencq's receipt was worded in precisely the same way; a Greuze, a +Claude Lorraine, a Rubens, and a Van Dyck being disguised as pictures +of the French and Flemish schools. + +"Der monny makes me beleef dot the chimcracks haf som value," said +Schmucke when the five thousand francs were paid over. + +"They are worth something," said Remonencq. "I would willingly give +you a hundred thousand francs for the lot." + +Remonencq, asked to do a trifling service, hung eight pictures of the +proper size in the same frames, taking them from among the less +valuable pictures in Schmucke's bedroom. + +No sooner was Elie Magus in possession of the four great pictures than +he went, taking La Cibot with him, under pretence of settling +accounts. But he pleaded poverty, he found fault with the pictures, +they needed rebacking, he offered La Cibot thirty thousand francs by +way of commission, and finally dazzled her with the sheets of paper on +which the Bank of France engraves the words "One thousand francs" in +capital letters. Magus thereupon condemned Remonencq to pay the like +sum to La Cibot, by lending him the money on the security of his four +pictures, which he took with him as a guarantee. So glorious were +they, that Magus could not bring himself to part with them, and next +day he bought them of Remonencq for six thousand francs over and above +the original price, and an invoice was duly made out for the four. +Mme. Cibot, the richer by sixty-eight thousand francs, once more swore +her two accomplices to absolute secrecy. Then she asked the Jew's +advice. She wanted to invest the money in such a way that no one +should know of it. + +"Buy shares in the Orleans Railway," said he; "they are thirty francs +below par, you will double your capital in three years. They will give +you scraps of paper, which you keep safe in a portfolio." + +"Stay here, M. Magus. I will go and fetch the man of business who acts +for M. Pons' family. He wants to know how much you will give him for +the whole bag of tricks upstairs. I will go for him now." + +"If only she were a widow!" said Remonencq when she was gone. "She +would just suit me; she will have plenty of money now--" + +"Especially if she puts her money into the Orleans Railway; she will +double her capital in two years' time. I have put all my poor little +savings into it," added the Jew, "for my daughter's portion.--Come, +let us take a turn on the boulevard until this lawyer arrives." + +"Cibot is very bad as it is," continued Remonencq; "if it should +please God to take him to Himself, I should have a famous wife to keep +a shop; I could set up on a large scale--" + +"Good-day, M. Fraisier," La Cibot began in an ingratiating tone as she +entered her legal adviser's office. "Why, what is this that your +porter has been telling me? are you going to move?" + +"Yes, my dear Mme. Cibot. I am taking the first floor above Dr. +Poulain, and trying to borrow two or three thousand francs so as to +furnish the place properly; it is very nice, upon my word, the +landlord has just papered and painted it. I am acting, as I told you, +in President de Marville's interests and yours. . . . I am not a +solicitor now; I mean to have my name entered on the roll of +barristers, and I must be well lodged. A barrister in Paris cannot +have his name on the rolls unless he has decent furniture and books +and the like. I am a doctor of law, I have kept my terms, and have +powerful interest already. . . . Well, how are we getting on?" + +"Perhaps you would accept my savings," said La Cibot. "I have put them +in a savings bank. I have not much, only three thousand francs, the +fruits of twenty-five years of stinting and scraping. You might give +me a bill of exchange, as Remonencq says; for I am ignorant myself, I +only know what they tell me." + +"No. It is against the rules of the guild for a barrister (_avocat_) +to put his name to a bill. I will give you a receipt, bearing interest +at five per cent per annum, on the understanding that if I make an +income of twelve hundred francs for you out of old Pons' estate you +will cancel it." + +La Cibot, caught in the trap, uttered not a word. + +"Silence gives consent," Fraisier continued. "Let me have it to-morrow +morning." + +"Oh! I am quite willing to pay fees in advance," said La Cibot; "it is +one way of making sure of my money." + +Fraisier nodded. "How are you getting on?" he repeated. "I saw Poulain +yesterday; you are hurrying your invalid along, it seems. . . . One +more scene such as yesterday's, and gall-stones will form. Be gentle +with him, my dear Mme. Cibot, do not lay up remorse for yourself. Life +is not too long." + +"Just let me alone with your remorse! Are you going to talk about the +guillotine again? M. Pons is a contrairy old thing. You don't know +him. It is he that bothers me. There is not a more cross-grained man +alive; his relations are in the right of it, he is sly, revengeful, +and contrairy. . . . M. Magus has come, as I told you, and is waiting +to see you." + +"Right! I will be there as soon as you. Your income depends upon the +price the collection will fetch. If it brings in eight hundred +thousand francs, you shall have fifteen hundred francs a year. It is a +fortune." + +"Very well. I will tell them to value the things on their +consciences." + + + +An hour later, Pons was fast asleep. The doctor had ordered a soothing +draught, which Schmucke administered, all unconscious that La Cibot +had doubled the dose. Fraisier, Remonencq, and Magus, three +gallows-birds, were examining the seventeen hundred different objects +which formed the old musician's collection one by one. + +Schmucke had gone to bed. The three kites, drawn by the scent of a +corpse, were masters of the field. + +"Make no noise," said La Cibot whenever Magus went into ecstasies or +explained the value of some work of art to Remonencq. The dying man +slept on in the neighboring room, while greed in four different forms +appraised the treasures that he must leave behind, and waited +impatiently for him to die--a sight to wring the heart. + +Three hours went by before they had finished the salon. + +"On an average," said the grimy old Jew, "everything here is worth a +thousand francs." + +"Seventeen hundred thousand francs!" exclaimed Fraisier in +bewilderment. + +"Not to me," Magus answered promptly, and his eyes grew dull. "I would +not give more than a hundred thousand francs myself for the +collection. You cannot tell how long you may keep a thing on hand. +. . . There are masterpieces that wait ten years for a buyer, and +meanwhile the purchase money is doubled by compound interest. Still, I +should pay cash." + +"There is stained glass in the other room, as well as enamels and +miniatures and gold and silver snuff-boxes," put in Remonencq. + +"Can they be seen?" inquired Fraisier. + +"I'll see if he is sound asleep," replied La Cibot. She made a sign, +and the three birds of prey came in. + +"There are masterpieces yonder!" said Magus, indicating the salon, +every bristle of his white beard twitching as he spoke. "But the +riches are here! And what riches! Kings have nothing more glorious in +royal treasuries." + +Remonencq's eyes lighted up till they glowed like carbuncles, at the +sight of the gold snuff-boxes. Fraisier, cool and calm as a serpent, +or some snake-creature with the power of rising erect, stood with his +viper head stretched out, in such an attitude as a painter would +choose for Mephistopheles. The three covetous beings, thirsting for +gold as devils thirst for the dew of heaven, looked simultaneously, as +it chanced, at the owner of all this wealth. Some nightmare troubled +Pons; he stirred, and suddenly, under the influence of those +diabolical glances, he opened his eyes with a shrill cry. + +"Thieves! . . . There they are! . . . Help! Murder! Help!" + +The nightmare was evidently still upon him, for he sat up in bed, +staring before him with blank, wide-open eyes, and had not the power +to move. + +Elie Magus and Remonencq made for the door, but a word glued them to +the spot. + +"_Magus_ here! . . . I am betrayed!" + +Instinctively the sick man had known that his beloved pictures were in +danger, a thought that touched him at least as closely as any dread +for himself, and he awoke. Fraisier meanwhile did not stir. + +"Mme. Cibot! who is that gentleman?" cried Pons, shivering at the +sight. + +"Goodness me! how could I put him out of the door?" she inquired, with +a wink and gesture for Fraisier's benefit. "This gentleman came just a +minute ago, from your family." + +Fraisier could not conceal his admiration for La Cibot. + +"Yes, sir," he said, "I have come on behalf of Mme. la Presidente de +Marville, her husband, and her daughter, to express their regret. They +learned quite by accident that you are ill, and they would like to +nurse you themselves. They want you to go to Marville and get well +there. Mme. la Vicomtesse Popinot, the little Cecile that you love so +much, will be your nurse. She took your part with her mother. She +convinced Mme. de Marville that she had made a mistake." + +"So my next-of-kin have sent you to me, have they?" Pons exclaimed +indignantly, "and sent the best judge and expert in all Paris with you +to show you the way? Oh! a nice commission!" he cried, bursting into +wild laughter. "You have come to value my pictures and curiosities, my +snuff-boxes and miniatures! . . . Make your valuation. You have a man +there who understands everything, and more--he can buy everything, for +he is a millionaire ten times over. . . . My dear relatives will not +have long to wait," he added, with bitter irony, "they have choked the +last breath out of me. . . . Ah! Mme. Cibot, you said you were a +mother to me, and you bring dealers into the house, and my competitor +and the Camusots, while I am asleep! . . . Get out, all of you!--" + +The unhappy man was beside himself with anger and fear; he rose from +the bed and stood upright, a gaunt, wasted figure. + +"Take my arm, sir," said La Cibot, rushing to the rescue, lest Pons +should fall. "Pray calm yourself, the gentlemen are gone." + +"I want to see the salon. . . ." said the death-stricken man. La Cibot +made a sign to the three ravens to take flight. Then she caught up +Pons as if he had been a feather, and put him in bed again, in spite +of his cries. When she saw that he was quite helpless and exhausted, +she went to shut the door on the staircase. The three who had done +Pons to death were still on the landing; La Cibot told them to wait. +She heard Fraisier say to Magus: + +"Let me have it in writing, and sign it, both of you. Undertake to pay +nine hundred thousand francs in cash for M. Pons' collection, and we +will see about putting you in the way of making a handsome profit." + +With that he said something to La Cibot in a voice so low that the +others could not catch it, and went down after the two dealers to the +porter's room. + +"Have they gone, Mme. Cibot?" asked the unhappy Pons, when she came +back again. + +"Gone? . . . who?" asked she. + +"Those men." + +"What men? There, now, you have seen men," said she. "You have just +had a raving fit; if it hadn't been for me you would have gone out the +window, and now you are still talking of men in the room. Is it always +to be like this?" + +"What! was there not a gentleman here just now, saying that my +relatives had sent him?" + +"Will you still stand me out?" said she. "Upon my word, do you know +where you ought to be sent?--To the asylum at Charenton. You see +men--" + +"Elie Magus, Remonencq, and--" + +"Oh! as for Remonencq, you may have seen _him_, for he came up to tell +me that my poor Cibot is so bad that I must clear out of this and come +down. My Cibot comes first, you see. When my husband is ill, I can +think of nobody else. Try to keep quiet and sleep for a couple of +hours; I have sent for Dr. Poulain, and I will come up with him. . . . +Take a drink and be good--" + +"Then was there no one in the room just now, when I waked? . . ." + +"No one," said she. "You must have seen M. Remonencq in one of your +looking-glasses." + +"You are right, Mme. Cibot," said Pons, meek as a lamb. + +"Well, now you are sensible again. . . . Good-bye, my cherub; keep +quiet, I shall be back again in a minute." + +When Pons heard the outer door close upon her, he summoned up all his +remaining strength to rise. + +"They are cheating me," he muttered to himself, "they are robbing me! +Schmucke is a child that would let them tie him up in a sack." + +The terrible scene had seemed so real, it could not be a dream, he +thought; a desire to throw light upon the puzzle excited him; he +managed to reach the door, opened it after many efforts, and stood on +the threshold of his salon. There they were--his dear pictures, his +statues, his Florentine bronzes, his porcelain; the sight of them +revived him. The old collector walked in his dressing-gown along the +narrow spaces between the credence-tables and the sideboards that +lined the wall; his feet bare, his head on fire. His first glance of +ownership told him that everything was there; he turned to go back to +bed again, when he noticed that a Greuze portrait looked out of the +frame that had held Sebastian del Piombo's _Templar_. Suspicion +flashed across his brain, making his dark thoughts apparent to him, as +a flash of lightning marks the outlines of the cloud-bars on a stormy +sky. He looked round for the eight capital pictures of the collection; +each one of them was replaced by another. A dark film suddenly +overspread his eyes; his strength failed him; he fell fainting upon +the polished floor. + +So heavy was the swoon, that for two hours he lay as he fell, till +Schmucke awoke and went to see his friend, and found him lying +unconscious in the salon. With endless pains Schmucke raised the +half-dead body and laid it on the bed; but when he came to question +the death-stricken man, and saw the look in the dull eyes and heard +the vague, inarticulate words, the good German, so far from losing his +head, rose to the very heroism of friendship. Man and child as he was, +with the pressure of despair came the inspiration of a mother's +tenderness, a woman's love. He warmed towels (he found towels!), he +wrapped them about Pons' hands, he laid them over the pit of the +stomach; he took the cold, moist forehead in his hands, he summoned +back life with a might of will worthy of Apollonius of Tyana, laying +kisses on his friend's eyelids like some Mary bending over the dead +Christ, in a _pieta_ carved in bas-relief by some great Italian +sculptor. The divine effort, the outpouring of one life into another, +the work of mother and of lover, was crowned with success. In half an +hour the warmth revived Pons; he became himself again, the hues of +life returned to his eyes, suspended faculties gradually resumed their +play under the influence of artificial heat; Schmucke gave him +balm-water with a little wine in it; the spirit of life spread through +the body; intelligence lighted up the forehead so short a while ago +insensible as a stone; and Pons knew that he had been brought back to +life, by what sacred devotion, what might of friendship! + +"But for you, I should die," he said, and as he spoke he felt the good +German's tears falling on his face. Schmucke was laughing and crying +at once. + +Poor Schmucke! he had waited for those words with a frenzy of hope as +costly as the frenzy of despair; and now his strength utterly failed +him, he collapsed like a rent balloon. It was his turn to fall; he +sank into the easy-chair, clasped his hands, and thanked God in +fervent prayer. For him a miracle had just been wrought. He put no +belief in the efficacy of the prayer of his deeds; the miracle had +been wrought by God in direct answer to his cry. And yet that miracle +was a natural effect, such as medical science often records. + +A sick man, surrounded by those who love him, nursed by those who wish +earnestly that he should live, will recover (other things being +equal), when another patient tended by hirelings will die. Doctors +decline to see unconscious magnetism in this phenomenon; for them it +is the result of intelligent nursing, of exact obedience to their +orders; but many a mother knows the virtue of such ardent projection +of strong, unceasing prayer. + +"My good Schmucke--" + +"Say nodings; I shall hear you mit mein heart . . . rest, rest!" said +Schmucke, smiling at him. + +"Poor friend, noble creature, child of God, living in God! . . . The +one being that has loved me. . . ." The words came out with pauses +between them; there was a new note, a something never heard before, in +Pons' voice. All the soul, so soon to take flight, found utterance in +the words that filled Schmucke with happiness almost like a lover's +rapture. + +"Yes, yes. I shall be shtrong as a lion. I shall vork for two!" + +"Listen, my good, my faithful, adorable friend. Let me speak, I have +not much time left. I am a dead man. I cannot recover from these +repeated shocks." + +Schmucke was crying like a child. + +"Just listen," continued Pons, "and cry afterwards. As a Christian, +you must submit. I have been robbed. It is La Cibot's doing. . . . I +ought to open your eyes before I go; you know nothing of life. . . . +Somebody has taken away eight of the pictures, and they were worth a +great deal of money." + +"Vorgif me--I sold dem." + +"_You_ sold them?" + +"Yes, I," said poor Schmucke. "Dey summoned us to der court--" + +"_Summoned?_. . . . Who summoned us?" + +"Wait," said Schmucke. He went for the bit of stamped-paper left by +the bailiff, and gave it to Pons. Pons read the scrawl through with +close attention, then he let the paper drop and lay quite silent for a +while. A close observer of the work of men's hands, unheedful so far +of the workings of the brain, Pons finally counted out the threads of +the plot woven about him by La Cibot. The artist's fire, the intellect +that won the Roman scholarship--all his youth came back to him for a +little. + +"My good Schmucke," he said at last, "you must do as I tell you, and +obey like a soldier. Listen! go downstairs into the lodge and tell +that abominable woman that I should like to see the person sent to me +by my cousin the President; and that unless he comes, I shall leave my +collection to the Musee. Say that a will is in question." + +Schmucke went on his errand; but at the first word, La Cibot answered +by a smile. + +"My good M. Schmucke, our dear invalid has had a delirious fit; he +thought that there were men in the room. On my word, as an honest +woman, no one has come from the family." + +Schmucke went back with his answer, which he repeated word for word. + +"She is cleverer, more astute and cunning and wily, than I thought," +said Pons with a smile. "She lies even in her room. Imagine it! This +morning she brought a Jew here, Elie Magus by name, and Remonencq, and +a third whom I do not know, more terrific than the other two put +together. She meant to make a valuation while I was asleep; I happened +to wake, and saw them all three, estimating the worth of my +snuff-boxes. The stranger said, indeed, that the Camusots had sent him +here; I spoke to him. . . . That shameless woman stood me out that I was +dreaming! . . . My good Schmucke, it was not a dream. I heard the man +perfectly plainly; he spoke to me. . . . The two dealers took fright +and made for the door. . . . I thought that La Cibot would contradict +herself--the experiment failed. . . . I will lay another snare, and +trap the wretched woman. . . . Poor Schmucke, you think that La Cibot +is an angel; and for this month past she has been killing me by inches +to gain her covetous ends. I would not believe that a woman who served +us faithfully for years could be so wicked. That doubt has been my +ruin. . . . How much did the eight pictures fetch?" + +"Vife tausend vrancs." + +"Good heavens! they were worth twenty times as much!" cried Pons; "the +gems of the collection! I have not time now to institute proceedings; +and if I did, you would figure in court as the dupe of those rascals. +. . . A lawsuit would be the death of you. You do not know what +justice means--a court of justice is a sink of iniquity. . . . At the +sight of such horrors, a soul like yours would give way. And besides, +you will have enough. The pictures cost me forty thousand francs. I +have had them for thirty-six years. . . . Oh, we have been robbed with +surprising dexterity. I am on the brink of the grave, I care for +nothing now but thee--for thee, the best soul under the sun. . . . + +"I will not have you plundered; all that I have is yours. So you must +trust nobody, Schmucke, you that have never suspected any one in your +life. I know God watches over you, but He may forget for one moment, +and you will be seized like a vessel among pirates. . . . La Cibot is +a monster! She is killing me; and you think her an angel! You shall +see what she is. Go and ask her to give you the name of a notary, and +I will show you her with her hand in the bag." + +Schmucke listened as if Pons proclaimed an apocalypse. Could so +depraved a creature as La Cibot exist? If Pons was right, it seemed to +imply that there was no God in the world. He went right down again to +Mme. Cibot. + +"Mein boor vriend Bons feel so ill," he said, "dat he vish to make his +vill. Go und pring ein nodary." + +This was said in the hearing of several persons, for Cibot's life was +despaired of. Remonencq and his sister, two women from neighboring +porters' lodges, two or three servants, and the lodger from the first +floor on the side next the street, were all standing outside in the +gateway. + +"Oh! you can just fetch a notary yourself, and have your will made as +you please," cried La Cibot, with tears in her eyes. "My poor Cibot is +dying, and it is no time to leave him. I would give all the Ponses in +the world to save Cibot, that has never given me an ounce of +unhappiness in these thirty years since we were married." + +And in she went, leaving Schmucke in confusion. + +"Is M. Pons really seriously ill, sir?" asked the first-floor lodger, +one Jolivard, a clerk in the registrar's office at the Palais de +Justice. + +"He nearly died chust now," said Schmucke, with deep sorrow in his +voice. + +"M. Trognon lives near by in the Rue Saint-Louis," said M. Jolivard, +"he is the notary of the quarter." + +"Would you like me to go for him?" asked Remonencq. + +"I should pe fery glad," said Schmucke; "for gif Montame Zipod cannot +pe mit mine vriend, I shall not vish to leaf him in der shtate he is +in--" + +"Mme. Cibot told us that he was going out of his mind," resumed +Jolivard. + +"Bons! out off his mind!" cried Schmucke, terror-stricken by the idea. +"Nefer vas he so clear in der head . . . dat is chust der reason vy I +am anxious for him." + +The little group of persons listened to the conversation with a very +natural curiosity, which stamped the scene upon their memories. +Schmucke did not know Fraisier, and could not note his satanic +countenance and glittering eyes. But two words whispered by Fraisier +in La Cibot's ear had prompted a daring piece of acting, somewhat +beyond La Cibot's range, it may be, though she played her part +throughout in a masterly style. To make others believe that the dying +man was out of his mind--it was the very corner-stone of the edifice +reared by the petty lawyer. The morning's incident had done Fraisier +good service; but for him, La Cibot in her trouble might have fallen +into the snare innocently spread by Schmucke, when he asked her to +send back the person sent by the family. + +Remonencq saw Dr. Poulain coming towards them, and asked no better +than to vanish. The fact was that for the last ten days the Auvergnat +had been playing Providence in a manner singularly displeasing to +Justice, which claims the monopoly of that part. He had made up his +mind to rid himself at all costs of the one obstacle in his way to +happiness, and happiness for him meant capital trebled and marriage +with the irresistibly charming portress. He had watched the little +tailor drinking his herb-tea, and a thought struck him. He would +convert the ailment into mortal sickness; his stock of old metals +supplied him with the means. + +One morning as he leaned against the door-post, smoking his pipe and +dreaming of that fine shop on the Boulevard de la Madeleine where Mme. +Cibot, gorgeously arrayed, should some day sit enthroned, his eyes +fell upon a copper disc, about the size of a five-franc piece, covered +thickly with verdigris. The economical idea of using Cibot's medicine +to clean the disc immediately occurred to him. He fastened the thing +in a bit of twine, and came over every morning to inquire for tidings +of his friend the tailor, timing his visit during La Cibot's visit to +her gentlemen upstairs. He dropped the disc into the tumbler, allowed +it to steep there while he talked, and drew it out again by the string +when he went away. + +The trace of tarnished copper, commonly called verdigris, poisoned the +wholesome draught; a minute dose administered by stealth did +incalculable mischief. Behold the results of this criminal +homoeopathy! On the third day poor Cibot's hair came out, his teeth +were loosened in their sockets, his whole system was deranged by a +scarcely perceptible trace of poison. Dr. Poulain racked his brains. +He was enough of a man of science to see that some destructive agent +was at work. He privately carried off the decoction, analyzed it +himself, but found nothing. It so chanced that Remonencq had taken +fright and omitted to dip the disc in the tumbler that day. + +Then Dr. Poulain fell back on himself and science and got out of the +difficulty with a theory. A sedentary life in a damp room; a cramped +position before the barred window--these conditions had vitiated the +blood in the absence of proper exercise, especially as the patient +continually breathed an atmosphere saturated with the fetid +exhalations of the gutter. The Rue de Normandie is one of the +old-fashioned streets that slope towards the middle; the municipal +authorities of Paris as yet have laid on no water supply to flush the +central kennel which drains the houses on either side, and as a result +a stream of filthy ooze meanders among the cobblestones, filters into +the soil, and produces the mud peculiar to the city. La Cibot came and +went; but her husband, a hard-working man, sat day in day out like a +fakir on the table in the window, till his knee-joints were stiffened, +the blood stagnated in his body, and his legs grew so thin and crooked +that he almost lost the use of them. The deep copper tint of the man's +complexion naturally suggested that he had been out of health for a +very long time. The wife's good health and the husband's illness +seemed to the doctor to be satisfactorily accounted for by this +theory. + +"Then what is the matter with my poor Cibot?" asked the portress. + +"My dear Mme. Cibot, he is dying of the porter's disease," said the +doctor. "Incurable vitiation of the blood is evident from the general +anaemic condition." + +No one had anything to gain by a crime so objectless. Dr. Poulain's +first suspicions were effaced by this thought. Who could have any +possible interest in Cibot's death? His wife?--the doctor saw her +taste the herb-tea as she sweetened it. Crimes which escape social +vengeance are many enough, and as a rule they are of this order--to +wit, murders committed without any startling sign of violence, without +bloodshed, bruises, marks of strangling, without any bungling of the +business, in short; if there seems to be no motive for the crime, it +most likely goes unpunished, especially if the death occurs among the +poorer classes. Murder is almost always denounced by its advanced +guards, by hatred or greed well known to those under whose eyes the +whole matter has passed. But in the case of the Cibots, no one save +the doctor had any interest in discovering the actual cause of death. +The little copper-faced tailor's wife adored her husband; he had no +money and no enemies; La Cibot's fortune and the marine-store dealer's +motives were alike hidden in the shade. Poulain knew the portress and +her way of thinking perfectly well; he thought her capable of +tormenting Pons, but he saw that she had neither motive enough nor wit +enough for murder; and besides--every time the doctor came and she +gave her husband a draught, she took a spoonful herself. Poulain +himself, the only person who might have thrown light on the matter, +inclined to believe that this was one of the unaccountable freaks of +disease, one of the astonishing exceptions which make medicine so +perilous a profession. And in truth, the little tailor's unwholesome +life and unsanitary surroundings had unfortunately brought him to such +a pass that the trace of copper-poisoning was like the last straw. +Gossips and neighbors took it upon themselves to explain the sudden +death, and no suspicion of blame lighted upon Remonencq. + +"Oh! this long time past I have said that M. Cibot was not well," +cried one. + +"He worked too hard, he did," said another; "he heated his blood." + +"He would not listen to me," put in a neighbor; "I advised him to walk +out of a Sunday and keep Saint Monday; two days in the week is not too +much for amusement." + +In short, the gossip of the quarter, the tell-tale voice to which +Justice, in the person of the commissary of police, the king of the +poorer classes, lends an attentive ear--gossip explained the little +tailor's demise in a perfectly satisfactory manner. Yet M. Poulain's +pensive air and uneasy eyes embarrassed Remonencq not a little, and at +sight of the doctor he offered eagerly to go in search of M. Trognon, +Fraisier's acquaintance. Fraisier turned to La Cibot to say in a low +voice, "I shall come back again as soon as the will is made. In spite +of your sorrow, you must look for squalls." Then he slipped away like +a shadow and met his friend the doctor. + +"Ah, Poulain!" he exclaimed, "it is all right. We are safe! I will +tell you about it to-night. Look out a post that will suit you, you +shall have it! For my own part, I am a justice of the peace. Tabareau +will not refuse me now for a son-in-law. And as for you, I will +undertake that you shall marry Mlle. Vitel, granddaughter of our +justice of the peace." + +Fraisier left Poulain reduced to dumb bewilderment by these wild +words; bounced like a ball into the boulevard, hailed an omnibus, and +was set down ten minutes later by the modern coach at the corner of +the Rue de Choiseul. By this time it was nearly four o'clock. Fraisier +felt quite sure of a word in private with the Presidente, for +officials seldom leave the Palais de Justice before five o'clock. + +Mme. de Marville's reception of him assured Fraisier that M. Leboeuf +had kept his promise made to Mme. Vatinelle and spoken favorably of +the sometime attorney at Mantes. Amelie's manner was almost caressing. +So might the Duchesse de Montpensier have treated Jacques Clement. The +petty attorney was a knife to her hand. But when Fraisier produced the +joint-letter signed by Elie Magus and Remonencq offering the sum of +nine hundred thousand francs in cash for Pons' collection, then the +Presidente looked at her man of business and the gleam of the money +flashed from her eyes. That ripple of greed reached the attorney. + +"M. le President left a message with me," she said; "he hopes that you +will dine with us to-morrow. It will be a family party. M. Godeschal, +Desroches' successor and my attorney, will come to meet you, and +Berthier, our notary, and my daughter and son-in-law. After dinner, +you and I and the notary and attorney will have the little +consultation for which you ask, and I will give you full powers. The +two gentlemen will do as you require and act upon your inspiration; +and see that _everything_ goes well. You shall have a power of +attorney from M. de Marville as soon as you want it." + +"I shall want it on the day of the decease." + +"It shall be in readiness." + +"Mme. la Presidente, if I ask for a power of attorney, and would +prefer that your attorney's name should not appear I wish it less in +my own interest than in yours. . . . When I give myself, it is without +reserve. And in return, madame, I ask the same fidelity; I ask my +patrons (I do not venture to call you my clients) to put the same +confidence in me. You may think that in acting thus I am trying to +fasten upon this affair--no, no, madame; there may be reprehensible +things done; with an inheritance in view one is dragged on . . . +especially with nine hundred thousand francs in the balance. Well, +now, you could not disavow a man like Maitre Godeschal, honesty +itself, but you can throw all the blame on the back of a miserable +pettifogging lawyer--" + +Mme. Camusot de Marville looked admiringly at Fraisier. + +"You ought to go very high," said she, "or sink very low. In your +place, instead of asking to hide myself away as a justice of the +peace, I would aim at the crown attorney's appointment--at, say, +Mantes!--and make a great career for myself." + +"Let me have my way, madame. The post of justice of the peace is an +ambling pad for M. Vitel; for me it shall be a war-horse." + +And in this way the Presidente proceeded to a final confidence. + +"You seem to be so completely devoted to our interests," she began, +"that I will tell you about the difficulties of our position and our +hopes. The President's great desire, ever since a match was projected +between his daughter and an adventurer who recently started a bank, +--the President's wish, I say, has been to round out the Marville +estate with some grazing land, at that time in the market. We +dispossessed ourselves of fine property, as you know, to settle it +upon our daughter; but I wish very much, my daughter being an only +child, to buy all that remains of the grass land. Part has been sold +already. The estate belongs to an Englishman who is returning to +England after a twenty years' residence in France. He built the most +charming cottage in a delightful situation, between Marville Park and +the meadows which once were part of the Marville lands; he bought up +covers, copse, and gardens at fancy prices to make the grounds about +the cottage. The house and its surroundings make a feature of the +landscape, and it lies close to my daughter's park palings. The whole, +land and house, should be bought for seven hundred thousand francs, +for the net revenue is about twenty thousand francs. . . . But if Mr. +Wadman finds out that _we_ think of buying it, he is sure to add +another two or three hundred thousand francs to the price; for he will +lose money if the house counts for nothing, as it usually does when +you buy land in the country--" + +"Why, madame," Fraisier broke in, "in my opinion you can be so sure +that the inheritance is yours that I will offer to act the part of +purchaser for you. I will undertake that you shall have the land at +the best possible price, and have a written engagement made out under +private seal, like a contract to deliver goods. . . . I will go to the +Englishman in the character of buyer. I understand that sort of thing; +it was my specialty at Mantes. Vatinelle doubled the value of his +practice, while I worked in his name." + +"Hence your connection with little Madame Vatinelle. He must be very +well off--" + +"But Mme. Vatinelle has expensive tastes. . . . So be easy, madame--I +will serve you up the Englishman done to a turn--" + +"If you can manage that you will have eternal claims to my gratitude. +Good-day, my dear M. Fraisier. Till to-morrow--" + +Fraisier went. His parting bow was a degree less cringing than on the +first occasion. + +"I am to dine to-morrow with President de Marville!" he said to +himself. "Come now, I have these folk in my power. Only, to be +absolute master, I ought to be the German's legal adviser in the +person of Tabareau, the justice's clerk. Tabareau will not have me now +for his daughter, his only daughter, but he will give her to me when I +am a justice of the peace. I shall be eligible. Mlle. Tabareau, that +tall, consumptive girl with the red hair, has a house in the Place +Royale in right of her mother. At her father's death she is sure to +come in for six thousand francs, you must not look too hard at the +plank." + +As he went back to the Rue de Normandie by way of the boulevards, he +dreamed out his golden dream, he gave himself up to the happiness of +the thought that he should never know want again. He would marry his +friend Poulain to Mlle. Vitel, the daughter of the justice of the +peace; together, he and his friend the doctor would reign like kings +in the quarter; he would carry all the elections--municipal, military, +or political. The boulevards seem short if, while you pace afoot, you +mount your ambition on the steed of fancy in this way. + +Schmucke meanwhile went back to his friend Pons with the news that +Cibot was dying, and Remonencq gone in search of M. Trognon, the +notary. Pons was struck by the name. It had come up again and again in +La Cibot's interminable talk, and La Cibot always recommended him as +honesty incarnate. And with that a luminous idea occurred to Pons, in +whom mistrust had grown paramount since the morning, an idea which +completed his plan for outwitting La Cibot and unmasking her +completely for the too-credulous Schmucke. + +So many unexpected things had happened that day that poor Schmucke was +quite bewildered. Pons took his friend's hand. + +"There must be a good deal of confusion in the house, Schmucke; if the +porter is at death's door, we are almost free for a minute or two; +that is to say, there will be no spies--for we are watched, you may be +sure of that. Go out, take a cab, go to the theatre, and tell Mlle. +Heloise Brisetout that I should like to see her before I die. Ask her +to come here to-night when she leaves the theatre. Then go to your +friends Brunner and Schwab and beg them to come to-morrow morning at +nine o'clock to inquire after me; let them come up as if they were +just passing by and called in to see me." + +The old artist felt that he was dying, and this was the scheme that he +forged. He meant Schmucke to be his universal legatee. To protect +Schmucke from any possible legal quibbles, he proposed to dictate his +will to a notary in the presence of witnesses, lest his sanity should +be called in question and the Camusots should attempt upon that +pretext to dispute the will. At the name of Trognon he caught a +glimpse of machinations of some kind; perhaps a flaw purposely +inserted, or premeditated treachery on La Cibot's part. He would +prevent this. Trognon should dictate a holograph will which should be +signed and deposited in a sealed envelope in a drawer. Then Schmucke, +hidden in one of the cabinets in his alcove, should see La Cibot +search for the will, find it, open the envelope, read it through, and +seal it again. Next morning, at nine o'clock, he would cancel the will +and make a new one in the presence of two notaries, everything in due +form and order. La Cibot had treated him as a madman and a visionary; +he saw what this meant--he saw the Presidente's hate and greed, her +revenge in La Cibot's behavior. In the sleepless hours and lonely days +of the last two months, the poor man had sifted the events of his past +life. + +It has been the wont of sculptors, ancient and modern, to set a +tutelary genius with a lighted torch upon either side of a tomb. Those +torches that light up the paths of death throw light for dying eyes +upon the spectacle of a life's mistakes and sins; the carved stone +figures express great ideas, they are symbols of a fact in human +experience. The agony of death has its own wisdom. Not seldom a simple +girl, scarcely more than a child, will grow wise with the experience +of a hundred years, will gain prophetic vision, judge her family, and +see clearly through all pretences, at the near approach of Death. +Herein lies Death's poetry. But, strange and worthy of remark it is, +there are two manners of death. + +The poetry of prophecy, the gift of seeing clearly into the future or +the past, only belongs to those whose bodies are stricken, to those +who die by the destruction of the organs of physical life. Consumptive +patients, for instance, or those who die of gangrene like Louis XIV., +of fever like Pons, of a stomach complaint like Mme. de Mortsauf, or +of wounds received in the full tide of life like soldiers on the +battlefield--all these may possess this supreme lucidity to the full; +their deaths fill us with surprise and wonder. But many, on the other +hand, die of _intelligential_ diseases, as they may be called; of +maladies seated in the brain or in that nervous system which acts as a +kind of purveyor of thought fuel--and these die wholly, body and +spirit are darkened together. The former are spirits deserted by the +body, realizing for us our ideas of the spirits of Scripture; the +latter are bodies untenanted by a spirit. + +Too late the virgin nature, the epicure-Cato, the righteous man almost +without sin, was discovering the Presidente's real character--the sac +of gall that did duty for her heart. He knew the world now that he was +about to leave it, and for the past few hours he had risen gaily to +his part, like a joyous artist finding a pretext for caricature and +laughter in everything. The last links that bound him to life, the +chains of admiration, the strong ties that bind the art lover to Art's +masterpieces, had been snapped that morning. When Pons knew that La +Cibot had robbed him, he bade farewell, like a Christian, to the pomps +and vanities of Art, to his collection, to all his old friendships +with the makers of so many fair things. Our forefathers counted the +day of death as a Christian festival, and in something of the same +spirit Pons' thoughts turned to the coming end. In his tender love he +tried to protect Schmucke when he should be low in the grave. It was +this father's thought that led him to fix his choice upon the leading +lady of the ballet. Mlle. Brisetout should help him to baffle +surrounding treachery, and those who in all probability would never +forgive his innocent universal legatee. + +Heloise Brisetout was one of the few natures that remain true in a +false position. She was an opera-girl of the school of Josepha and +Jenny Cadine, capable of playing any trick on a paying adorer; yet she +was a good comrade, dreading no power on earth, accustomed as she was +to see the weak side of the strong and to hold her own with the police +at the scarcely idyllic Bal de Mabille and the carnival. + +"If she asked for my place for Garangeot, she will think that she owes +me a good turn by so much the more," said Pons to himself. + +Thanks to the prevailing confusion in the porter's lodge, Schmucke +succeeded in getting out of the house. He returned with the utmost +speed, fearing to leave Pons too long alone. M. Trognon reached the +house just as Schmucke came in. Albeit Cibot was dying, his wife came +upstairs with the notary, brought him into the bedroom, and withdrew, +leaving Schmucke and Pons with M. Trognon; but she left the door ajar, +and went no further than the next room. Providing herself with a +little hand-glass of curious workmanship, she took up her station in +the doorway, so that she could not only hear but see all that passed +at the supreme moment. + +"Sir," said Pons, "I am in the full possession of my faculties, +unfortunately for me, for I feel that I am about to die; and +doubtless, by the will of God, I shall be spared nothing of the agony +of death. This is M. Schmucke"--(the notary bowed to M. Schmucke)--"my +one friend on earth," continued Pons. "I wish to make him my universal +legatee. Now, tell me how to word the will, so that my friend, who is +a German and knows nothing of French law, may succeed to my +possessions without any dispute." + +"Anything is liable to be disputed, sir," said the notary; "that is +the drawback of human justice. But in the matter of wills, there are +wills so drafted that they cannot be upset--" + +"In what way?" queried Pons. + +"If a will is made in the presence of a notary, and before witnesses +who can swear that the testator was in the full possession of his +faculties; and if the testator has neither wife nor children, nor +father nor mother--" + +"I have none of these; all my affection is centred upon my dear friend +Schmucke here." + +The tears overflowed Schmucke's eyes. + +"Then, if you have none but distant relatives, the law leaves you free +to dispose of both personalty and real estate as you please, so long +as you bequeath them for no unlawful purpose; for you must have come +across cases of wills disputed on account of the testator's +eccentricities. A will made in the presence of a notary is considered +to be authentic; for the person's identity is established, the notary +certifies that the testator was sane at the time, and there can be no +possible dispute over the signature.--Still, a holograph will, +properly and clearly worded, is quite as safe." + +"I have decided, for reasons of my own, to make a holograph will at +your dictation, and to deposit it with my friend here. Is this +possible?" + +"Quite possible," said the notary. "Will you write? I will begin to +dictate--" + +"Schmucke, bring me my little Boule writing-desk.--Speak low, sir," he +added; "we may be overheard." + +"Just tell me, first of all, what you intend," demanded the notary. + +Ten minutes later La Cibot saw the notary look over the will, while +Schmucke lighted a taper (Pons watching her reflection all the while +in a mirror). She saw the envelope sealed, saw Pons give it to +Schmucke, and heard him say that it must be put away in a secret +drawer in his bureau. Then the testator asked for the key, tied it to +the corner of his handkerchief, and slipped it under his pillow. + +The notary himself, by courtesy, was appointed executor. To him Pons +left a picture of price, such a thing as the law permits a notary to +receive. Trognon went out and came upon Mme. Cibot in the salon. + +"Well, sir, did M. Pons remember me?" + +"You do not expect a notary to betray secrets confided to him, my +dear," returned M. Trognon. "I can only tell you this--there will be +many disappointments, and some that are anxious after the money will +be foiled. M. Pons has made a good and very sensible will, a patriotic +will, which I highly approve." + +La Cibot's curiosity, kindled by such words, reached an unimaginable +pitch. She went downstairs and spent the night at Cibot's bedside, +inwardly resolving that Mlle. Remonencq should take her place towards +two or three in the morning, when she would go up and have a look at +the document. + +Mlle. Brisetout's visit towards half-past ten that night seemed +natural enough to La Cibot; but in her terror lest the ballet-girl +should mention Gaudissart's gift of a thousand francs, she went +upstairs with her, lavishing polite speeches and flattery as if Mlle. +Heloise had been a queen. + +"Ah! my dear, you are much nicer here on your own ground than at the +theatre," Heloise remarked. "I advise you to keep to your employment." + +Heloise was splendidly dressed. Bixiou, her lover, had brought her in +his carriage on the way to an evening party at Mariette's. It so fell +out that the first-floor lodger, M. Chapoulot, a retired braid +manufacturer from the Rue Saint-Denis, returning from the +Ambigu-Comique with his wife and daughter, was dazzled by a vision of +such a costume and such a charming woman upon their staircase. + +"Who is that, Mme. Cibot?" asked Mme. Chapoulot. + +"A no-better-than-she-should-be, a light-skirts that you may see +half-naked any evening for a couple of francs," La Cibot answered in +an undertone for Mme. Chapoulot's ear. + +"Victorine!" called the braid manufacturer's wife, "let the lady pass, +child." + +The matron's alarm signal was not lost upon Heloise. + +"Your daughter must be more inflammable than tinder, madame, if you +are afraid that she will catch fire by touching me," she said. + +M. Chapoulot waited on the landing. "She is uncommonly handsome off +the stage," he remarked. Whereupon Mme. Chapoulot pinched him sharply +and drove him indoors. + +"Here is a second-floor lodger that has a mind to set up for being on +the fourth floor," said Heloise as she continued to climb. + +"But mademoiselle is accustomed to going higher and higher." + +"Well, old boy," said Heloise, entering the bedroom and catching sight +of the old musician's white, wasted face. "Well, old boy, so we are +not very well? Everybody at the theatre is asking after you; but +though one's heart may be in the right place, every one has his own +affairs, you know, and cannot find time to go to see friends. +Gaudissart talks of coming round every day, and every morning the +tiresome management gets hold of him. Still, we are all of us fond of +you--" + +"Mme. Cibot," said the patient, "be so kind as to leave us; we want to +talk about the theatre and my post as conductor, with this lady. +Schmucke, will you go to the door with Mme. Cibot?" + +At a sign from Pons, Schmucke saw Mme. Cibot out at the door, and drew +the bolts. + +"Ah, that blackguard of a German! Is he spoiled, too?" La Cibot said +to herself as she heard the significant sounds. "That is M. Pons' +doing; he taught him those disgusting tricks. . . . But you shall pay +for this, my dears," she thought as she went down stairs. "Pooh! if +that tight-rope dancer tells him about the thousand francs, I shall +say that it is a farce. + +She seated herself by Cibot's pillow. Cibot complained of a burning +sensation in the stomach. Remonencq had called in and given him a +draught while his wife was upstairs. + +As soon as Schmucke had dismissed La Cibot, Pons turned to the +ballet-girl. + +"Dear child, I can trust no one else to find me a notary, an honest +man, and send him here to make my will to-morrow morning at half-past +nine precisely. I want to leave all that I have to Schmucke. If he is +persecuted, poor German that he is, I shall reckon upon the notary; +the notary must defend him. And for that reason I must have a wealthy +notary, highly thought of, a man above the temptations to which +pettifogging lawyers yield. He must succor my poor friend. I cannot +trust Berthier, Cardot's successor. And you know so many people--" + +"Oh! I have the very man for you," Heloise broke in; "there is the +notary that acts for Florine and the Comtesse du Bruel, Leopold +Hannequin, a virtuous man that does not know what a _lorette_ is! He +is a sort of chance-come father--a good soul that will not let you +play ducks and drakes with your earnings; I call him _Le Pere aux +Rats_, because he instils economical notions into the minds of all my +friends. In the first place, my dear fellow, he has a private income +of sixty thousand francs; and he is a notary of the real old sort, a +notary while he walks or sleeps; his children must be little notaries +and notaresses. He is a heavy, pedantic creature, and that's the +truth; but on his own ground, he is not the man to flinch before any +power in creation. . . . No woman ever got money out of him; he is a +fossil pater-familias, his wife worships him, and does not deceive +him, although she is a notary's wife.--What more do you want? as a +notary he has not his match in Paris. He is in the patriarchal style; +not queer and amusing, as Cardot used to be with Malaga; but he will +never decamp like little What's-his-name that lived with Antonia. So I +will send round my man to-morrow morning at eight o'clock. . . . You +may sleep in peace. And I hope, in the first place, that you will get +better, and make charming music for us again; and yet, after all, you +see, life is very dreary--managers chisel you, and kings mizzle and +ministers fizzle and rich fold economizzle.--Artists have nothing left +_here_" (tapping her breast)--"it is a time to die in. Good-bye, old +boy." + +"Heloise, of all things, I ask you to keep my counsel." + +"It is not a theatre affair," she said; "it is sacred for an artist." + +"Who is your gentleman, child?" + +"M. Baudoyer, the mayor of your arrondissement, a man as stupid as the +late Crevel; Crevel once financed Gaudissart, you know, and a few days +ago he died and left me nothing, not so much as a pot of pomatum. That +made me say just now that this age of ours is something sickening." + +"What did he die of?" + +"Of his wife. If he had stayed with me, he would be living now. +Good-bye, dear old boy, I am talking of going off, because I can see +that you will be walking about the boulevards in a week or two, hunting +up pretty little curiosities again. You are not ill; I never saw your +eyes look so bright." And she went, fully convinced that her protege +Garangeot would conduct the orchestra for good. + +Every door stood ajar as she went downstairs. Every lodger, on +tip-toe, watched the lady of the ballet pass on her way out. It was +quite an event in the house. + +Fraisier, like the bulldog that sets his teeth and never lets go, was +on the spot. He stood beside La Cibot when Mlle. Brisetout passed +under the gateway and asked for the door to be opened. Knowing that a +will had been made, he had come to see how the land lay, for Maitre +Trognon, notary, had refused to say a syllable--Fraisier's questions +were as fruitless as Mme. Cibot's. Naturally the ballet-girl's visit +_in extremis_ was not lost upon Fraisier; he vowed to himself that he +would turn it to good account. + +"My dear Mme. Cibot," he began, "now is the critical moment for you." + +"Ah, yes . . . my poor Cibot!" said she. "When I think that he will +not live to enjoy anything I may get--" + +"It is a question of finding out whether M. Pons has left you anything +at all; whether your name is mentioned or left out, in fact," he +interrupted. "I represent the next-of-kin, and to them you must look +in any case. It is a holograph will, and consequently very easy to +upset.--Do you know where our man has put it?" + +"In a secret drawer in his bureau, and he has the key of it. He tied +it to a corner of his handkerchief, and put it under his pillow. I saw +it all." + +"Is the will sealed?" + +"Yes, alas!" + +"It is a criminal offence if you carry off a will and suppress it, but +it is only a misdemeanor to look at it; and anyhow, what does it +amount to? A peccadillo, and nobody will see you. Is your man a heavy +sleeper?" + +"Yes. But when you tried to see all the things and value them, he +ought to have slept like a top, and yet he woke up. Still, I will see +about it. I will take M. Schmucke's place about four o'clock this +morning; and if you care to come, you shall have the will in your +hands for ten minutes." + +"Good. I will come up about four o'clock, and I will knock very +softly--" + +"Mlle Remonencq will take my place with Cibot. She will know, and open +the door; but tap on the window, so as to rouse nobody in the house." + +"Right," said Fraisier. "You will have a light, will you not. A candle +will do." + + + +At midnight poor Schmucke sat in his easy-chair, watching with a +breaking heart that shrinking of the features that comes with death; +Pons looked so worn out with the day's exertions, that death seemed +very near. + +Presently Pons spoke. "I have just enough strength, I think, to last +till to-morrow night," he said philosophically. "To-morrow night the +death agony will begin; poor Schmucke! As soon as the notary and your +two friends are gone, go for our good Abbe Duplanty, the curate of +Saint-Francois. Good man, he does not know that I am ill, and I wish +to take the holy sacrament to-morrow at noon." + +There was a long pause. + +"God so willed it that life has not been as I dreamed," Pons resumed. +"I should so have loved wife and children and home. . . . To be loved +by a very few in some corner--that was my whole ambition! Life is hard +for every one; I have seen people who had all that I wanted so much +and could not have, and yet they were not happy. . . . Then at the end +of my life, God put untold comfort in my way, when He gave me such a +friend. . . . And one thing I have not to reproach myself with--that I +have not known your worth nor appreciated you, my good Schmucke. . . . +I have loved you with my whole heart, with all the strength of love +that is in me. . . . Do not cry, Schmucke; I shall say no more if you +cry and it is so sweet to me to talk of ourselves to you. . . . If I +had listened to you, I should not be dying. I should have left the +world and broken off my habits, and then I should not have been +wounded to death. And now, I want to think of no one but you at the +last--" + +"You are missdaken--" + +"Do not contradict me--listen, dear friend. . . . You are as guileless +and simple as a six-year-old child that has never left its mother; one +honors you for it--it seems to me that God Himself must watch over +such as you. But men are so wicked, that I ought to warn you +beforehand . . . and then you will lose your generous trust, your +saint-like belief in others, the bloom of a purity of soul that only +belongs to genius or to hearts like yours. . . . In a little while you +will see Mme. Cibot, who left the door ajar and watched us closely +while M. Trognon was here--in a little while you will see her come for +the will, as she believes it to be. . . . I expect the worthless +creature will do her business this morning when she thinks you are +asleep. Now, mind what I say, and carry out my instructions to the +letter. . . . Are you listening?" asked the dying man. + +But Schmucke was overcome with grief, his heart was throbbing +painfully, his head fell back on the chair, he seemed to have lost +consciousness. + +"Yes," he answered, "I can hear, but it is as if you vere doo huntert +baces afay from me. . . . It seem to me dat I am going town into der +grafe mit you," said Schmucke, crushed with pain. + +He went over to the bed, took one of Pons' hands in both his own, and +within himself put up a fervent prayer. + +"What is that that you are mumbling in German?" + +"I asked Gott dat He vould take us poth togedders to Himself!" +Schmucke answered simply when he had finished his prayer. + +Pons bent over--it was a great effort, for he was suffering +intolerable pain; but he managed to reach Schmucke, and kissed him on +the forehead, pouring out his soul, as it were, in benediction upon a +nature that recalled the lamb that lies at the foot of the Throne of +God. + +"See here, listen, my good Schmucke, you must do as dying people tell +you--" + +"I am lisdening." + +"The little door in the recess in your bedroom opens into that +closet." + +"Yes, but it is blocked up mit bictures." + +"Clear them away at once, without making too much noise." + +"Yes." + +"Clear a passage on both sides, so that you can pass from your room +into mine.--Now, leave the door ajar.--When La Cibot comes to take +your place (and she is capable of coming an hour earlier than usual), +you can go away to bed as if nothing had happened, and look very +tired. Try to look sleepy. As soon as she settles down into the +armchair, go into the closet, draw aside the muslin curtains over the +glass door, and watch her. . . . Do you understand?" + +"I oondershtand; you belief dat die pad voman is going to purn der +vill." + +"I do not know what she will do; but I am sure of this--that you will +not take her for an angel afterwards.--And now play for me; improvise +and make me happy. It will divert your thoughts; your gloomy ideas +will vanish, and for me the dark hours will be filled with your +dreams. . . ." + +Schmucke sat down at the piano. Here he was in his element; and in a +few moments, musical inspiration, quickened by the pain with which he +was quivering and the consequent irritation that followed came upon +the kindly German, and, after his wont, he was caught up and borne +above the world. On one sublime theme after another he executed +variations, putting into them sometimes Chopin's sorrow, Chopin's +Raphael-like perfection; sometimes the stormy Dante's grandeur of +Liszt--the two musicians who most nearly approach Paganini's +temperament. When execution reaches this supreme degree, the executant +stands beside the poet, as it were; he is to the composer as the actor +is to the writer of plays, a divinely inspired interpreter of things +divine. But that night, when Schmucke gave Pons an earnest of diviner +symphonies, of that heavenly music for which Saint Cecile let fall her +instruments, he was at once Beethoven and Paganini, creator and +interpreter. It was an outpouring of music inexhaustible as the +nightingale's song--varied and full of delicate undergrowth as the +forest flooded with her trills; sublime as the sky overhead. Schmucke +played as he had never played before, and the soul of the old musician +listening to him rose to ecstasy such as Raphael once painted in a +picture which you may see at Bologna. + +A terrific ringing of the door-bell put an end to these visions. The +first-floor lodgers sent up a servant with a message. Would Schmucke +please stop the racket overhead. Madame, Monsieur, and Mademoiselle +Chapoulot had been wakened, and could not sleep for the noise; they +called his attention to the fact that the day was quite long enough +for rehearsals of theatrical music, and added that people ought not to +"strum" all night in a house in the Marais.--It was then three o'clock +in the morning. At half-past three, La Cibot appeared, just as Pons +had predicted. He might have actually heard the conference between +Fraisier and the portress: "Did I not guess exactly how it would be?" +his eyes seemed to say as he glanced at Schmucke, and, turning a +little, he seemed to be fast asleep. + +Schmucke's guileless simplicity was an article of belief with La Cibot +(and be it noted that this faith in simplicity is the great source and +secret of the success of all infantine strategy); La Cibot, therefore, +could not suspect Schmucke of deceit when he came to say to her, with +a face half of distress, half of glad relief: + +"I haf had a derrible night! a derrible dime of it! I vas opliged to +play to keep him kviet, and the virst-floor lodgers vas komm up to +tell _me_ to be kviet! . . . It was frightful, for der life of mein +friend vas at shtake. I am so tired mit der blaying all night, dat dis +morning I am all knocked up." + +"My poor Cibot is very bad, too; one more day like yesterday, and he +will have no strength left. . . . One can't help it; it is God's +will." + +"You haf a heart so honest, a soul so peautiful, dot gif der Zipod +die, ve shall lif togedder," said the cunning Schmucke. + +The craft of simple, straightforward folk is formidable indeed; they +are exactly like children, setting their unsuspected snares with the +perfect craft of the savage. + +"Oh, well go and sleep, sonny!" returned La Cibot. "Your eyes look +tired, they are as big as my fist. But there! if anything could +comfort me for losing Cibot, it would be the thought of ending my days +with a good man like you. Be easy. I will give Mme. Chapoulot a +dressing down. . . . To think of a retired haberdasher's wife giving +herself such airs!" + +Schmucke went to his room and took up his post in the closet. + +La Cibot had left the door ajar on the landing; Fraisier came in and +closed it noiselessly as soon as he heard Schmucke shut his bedroom +door. He had brought with him a lighted taper and a bit of very fine +wire to open the seal of the will. La Cibot, meanwhile, looking under +the pillow, found the handkerchief with the key of the bureau knotted +to one corner; and this so much the more easily because Pons purposely +left the end hanging over the bolster, and lay with his face to the +wall. + +La Cibot went straight to the bureau, opened it cautiously so as to +make as little noise as possible, found the spring of the secret +drawer, and hurried into the salon with the will in her hand. Her +flight roused Pons' curiosity to the highest pitch; and as for +Schmucke, he trembled as if he were the guilty person. + +"Go back," said Fraisier, when she handed over the will. "He may wake, +and he must find you there." + +Fraisier opened the seal with a dexterity which proved that his was no +'prentice hand, and read the following curious document, headed "My +Will," with ever-deepening astonishment: + + "On this fifteenth day of April, eighteen hundred and forty-five, + I, being in my sound mind (as this my Will, drawn up in concert + with M. Trognon, will testify), and feeling that I must shortly + die of the malady from which I have suffered since the beginning + of February last, am anxious to dispose of my property, and have + herein recorded my last wishes:-- + + "I have always been impressed by the untoward circumstances that + injure great pictures, and not unfrequently bring about total + destruction. I have felt sorry for the beautiful paintings + condemned to travel from land to land, never finding some fixed + abode whither admirers of great masterpieces may travel to see + them. And I have always thought that the truly deathless work of a + great master ought to be national property; put where every one of + every nation may see it, even as the light, God's masterpiece, + shines for all His children. + + "And as I have spent my life in collecting together and choosing a + few pictures, some of the greatest masters' most glorious work, + and as these pictures are as the master left them--genuine + examples, neither repainted nor retouched,--it has been a painful + thought to me that the paintings which have been the joy of my + life, may be sold by public auction, and go, some to England, some + to Russia, till they are all scattered abroad again as if they had + never been gathered together. From this wretched fate I have + determined to save both them and the frames in which they are set, + all of them the work of skilled craftsmen. + + "On these grounds, therefore, I give and bequeath the pictures + which compose my collection to the King, for the gallery in the + Louvre, subject to the charge (if the legacy is accepted) of a + life-annuity of two thousand four hundred francs to my friend + Wilhelm Schmucke. + + "If the King, as usufructuary of the Louvre collection, should + refuse the legacy with the charge upon it, the said pictures shall + form a part of the estate which I leave to my friend, Schmucke, on + condition that he shall deliver the _Monkey's Head_, by Goya, to + my cousin, President Camusot; a _Flower-piece_, the tulips, by + Abraham Mignon, to M. Trognon, notary (whom I appoint as my + executor): and allow Mme. Cibot, who has acted as my housekeeper + for ten years, the sum of two hundred francs per annum. + + "Finally, my friend Schmucke is to give the _Descent from the + Cross_, Ruben's sketch for his great picture at Antwerp, to adorn + a chapel in the parish church, in grateful acknowledgment of M. + Duplanty's kindness to me; for to him I owe it that I can die as a + Christian and a Catholic."--So ran the will. + +"This is ruin!" mused Fraisier, "the ruin of all my hopes. Ha! I begin +to believe all that the Presidente told me about this old artist and +his cunning." + +"Well?" La Cibot came back to say. + +"Your gentleman is a monster. He is leaving everything to the Crown. +Now, you cannot plead against the Crown. . . . The will cannot be +disputed. . . . We are robbed, ruined, spoiled, and murdered!" + +"What has he left to me?" + +"Two hundred francs a year." + +"A pretty come-down! . . . Why, he is a finished scoundrel." + +"Go and see," said Fraisier, "and I will put your scoundrel's will +back again in the envelope." + +While Mme. Cibot's back was turned, Fraisier nimbly slipped a sheet of +blank paper into the envelope; the will he put in his pocket. He next +proceeded to seal the envelope again so cleverly that he showed the +seal to Mme. Cibot when she returned, and asked her if she could see +the slightest trace of the operation. La Cibot took up the envelope, +felt it over, assured herself that it was not empty, and heaved a deep +sigh. She had entertained hopes that Fraisier himself would have +burned the unlucky document while she was out of the room. + +"Well, my dear M. Fraisier, what is to be done?" + +"Oh! that is your affair! I am not one of the next-of-kin, myself; but +if I had the slightest claim to any of _that_" (indicating the +collection), "I know very well what I should do." + +"That is just what I want to know," La Cibot answered, with sufficient +simplicity. + +"There is a fire in the grate----" he said. Then he rose to go. + +"After all, no one will know about it, but you and me----" began La +Cibot. + +"It can never be proved that a will existed," asserted the man of law. + +"And you?" + +"I? . . . If M. Pons dies intestate, you shall have a hundred thousand +francs." + +"Oh yes, no doubt," returned she. "People promise you heaps of money, +and when they come by their own, and there is talk of paying they +swindle you like--" "Like Elie Magus," she was going to say, but she +stopped herself just in time. + +"I am going," said Fraisier; "it is not to your interest that I should +be found here; but I shall see you again downstairs." + +La Cibot shut the door and returned with the sealed packet in her +hand. She had quite made up her mind to burn it; but as she went +towards the bedroom fireplace, she felt the grasp of a hand on each +arm, and saw--Schmucke on one hand, and Pons himself on the other, +leaning against the partition wall on either side of the door. + +La Cibot cried out, and fell face downwards in a fit; real or feigned, +no one ever knew the truth. This sight produced such an impression on +Pons that a deadly faintness came upon him, and Schmucke left the +woman on the floor to help Pons back to bed. The friends trembled in +every limb; they had set themselves a hard task, it was done, but it +had been too much for their strength. When Pons lay in bed again, and +Schmucke had regained strength to some extent, he heard a sound of +sobbing. La Cibot, on her knees, bursting into tears, held out +supplicating hands to them in very expressive pantomime. + +"It was pure curiosity!" she sobbed, when she saw that Pons and +Schmucke were paying attention to her proceedings. "Pure curiosity; a +woman's fault, you know. But I did not know how else to get a sight of +your will, and I brought it back again--" + +"Go!" said Schmucke, standing erect, his tall figure gaining in height +by the full height of his indignation. "You are a monster! You dried +to kill mein goot Bons! He is right. You are worse than a monster, you +are a lost soul!" + +La Cibot saw the look of abhorrence in the frank German's face; she +rose, proud as Tartuffe, gave Schmucke a glance which made him quake, +and went out, carrying off under her dress an exquisite little picture +of Metzu's pointed out by Elie Magus. "A diamond," he had called it. +Fraisier downstairs in the porter's lodge was waiting to hear that La +Cibot had burned the envelope and the sheet of blank paper inside it. +Great was his astonishment when he beheld his fair client's agitation +and dismay. + +"What has happened?" + +"_This_ has happened, my dear M. Fraisier. Under pretence of giving me +good advice and telling me what to do, you have lost me my annuity and +the gentlemen's confidence. . . ." + +One of the word-tornadoes in which she excelled was in full progress, +but Fraisier cut her short. + +"This is idle talk. The facts, the facts! and be quick about it." + +"Well; it came about in this way,"--and she told him of the scene +which she had just come through. + +"You have lost nothing through me," was Fraisier's comment. "The +gentlemen had their doubts, or they would not have set this trap for +you. They were lying in wait and spying upon you. . . . You have not +told me everything," he added, with a tiger's glance at the woman +before him. + +"_I_ hide anything from you!" cried she--"after all that we have done +together!" she added with a shudder. + +"My dear madame, _I_ have done nothing blameworthy," returned +Fraisier. Evidently he meant to deny his nocturnal visit to Pons' +rooms. + +Every hair on La Cibot's head seemed to scorch her, while a sense of +icy cold swept over her from head to foot. + +"_What?_" . . . she faltered in bewilderment. + +"Here is a criminal charge on the face of it. . . . You may be accused +of suppressing the will," Fraisier made answer drily. + +La Cibot started. + +"Don't be alarmed; I am your legal adviser. I only wished to show you +how easy it is, in one way or another, to do as I once explained to +you. Let us see, now; what have you done that this simple German +should be hiding in the room?" + +"Nothing at all, unless it was that scene the other day when I stood +M. Pons out that his eyes dazzled. And ever since, the two gentlemen +have been as different as can be. So you have brought all my troubles +upon me; I might have lost my influence with M. Pons, but I was sure +of the German; just now he was talking of marrying me or of taking me +with him--it is all one." + +The excuse was so plausible that Fraisier was fain to be satisfied +with it. "You need fear nothing," he resumed. "I gave you my word that +you shall have your money, and I shall keep my word. The whole matter, +so far, was up in the air, but now it is as good as bank-notes. . . . +You shall have at least twelve hundred francs per annum. . . . But, my +good lady, you must act intelligently under my orders." + +"Yes, my dear M. Fraisier," said La Cibot with cringing servility. She +was completely subdued. + +"Very good. Good-bye," and Fraisier went, taking the dangerous +document with him. He reached home in great spirits. The will was a +terrible weapon. + +"Now," thought he, "I have a hold on Mme. la Presidente de Marville; +she must keep her word with me. If she did not, she would lose the +property." + +At daybreak, when Remonencq had taken down his shutters and left his +sister in charge of the shop, he came, after his wont of late, to +inquire for his good friend Cibot. The portress was contemplating the +Metzu, privately wondering how a little bit of painted wood could be +worth such a lot of money. + +"Aha!" said he, looking over her shoulder, "that is the one picture +which M. Elie Magus regretted; with that little bit of a thing, he +says, his happiness would be complete." + +"What would he give for it?" asked La Cibot. + +"Why, if you will promise to marry me within a year of widowhood, I +will undertake to get twenty thousand francs for it from Elie Magus; +and unless you marry me you will never get a thousand francs for the +picture." + +"Why not?" + +"Because you would be obliged to give a receipt for the money, and +then you might have a lawsuit with the heirs-at-law. If you were my +wife, I myself should sell the thing to M. Magus, and in the way of +business it is enough to make an entry in the day-book, and I should +note that M. Schmucke sold it to me. There, leave the panel with me. +. . . If your husband were to die you might have a lot of bother over +it, but no one would think it odd that I should have a picture in the +shop. . . . You know me quite well. Besides, I will give you a receipt +if you like." + +The covetous portress felt that she had been caught; she agreed to a +proposal which was to bind her for the rest of her life to the +marine-store dealer. + +"You are right," said she, as she locked the picture away in a chest; +"bring me the bit of writing." + +Remonencq beckoned her to the door. + +"I can see, neighbor, that we shall not save our poor dear Cibot," he +said lowering his voice. "Dr. Poulain gave him up yesterday evening, +and said that he could not last out the day. . . . It is a great +misfortune. But after all, this was not the place for you. . . . You +ought to be in a fine curiosity shop on the Boulevard des Capucines. +Do you know that I have made nearly a hundred thousand francs in ten +years? And if you will have as much some day, I will undertake to make +a handsome fortune for you--as my wife. You would be the mistress--my +sister should wait on you and do the work of the house, and--" + +A heartrending moan from the little tailor cut the tempter short; the +death agony had begun. + +"Go away," said La Cibot. "You are a monster to talk of such things +and my poor man dying like this--" + +"Ah! it is because I love you," said Remonencq; "I could let +everything else go to have you--" + +"If you loved me, you would say nothing to me just now," returned she. +And Remonencq departed to his shop, sure of marrying La Cibot. + +Towards ten o'clock there was a sort of commotion in the street; M. +Cibot was taking the Sacrament. All the friends of the pair, all the +porters and porters' wives in the Rue de Normandie and neighboring +streets, had crowded into the lodge, under the archway, and stood on +the pavement outside. Nobody so much as noticed the arrival of M. +Leopold Hannequin and a brother lawyer. Schwab and Brunner reached +Pons' rooms unseen by Mme. Cibot. The notary, inquiring for Pons, was +shown upstairs by the portress of a neighboring house. Brunner +remembered his previous visit to the museum, and went straight in with +his friend Schwab. + +Pons formally revoked his previous will and constituted Schmucke his +universal legatee. This accomplished, he thanked Schwab and Brunner, +and earnestly begged M. Leopold Hannequin to protect Schmucke's +interests. The demands made upon him by last night's scene with La +Cibot, and this final settlement of his worldly affairs, left him so +faint and exhausted that Schmucke begged Schwab to go for the Abbe +Duplanty; it was Pons' great desire to take the Sacrament, and +Schmucke could not bring himself to leave his friend. + +La Cibot, sitting at the foot of her husband's bed, gave not so much +as a thought to Schmucke's breakfast--for that matter had been +forbidden to return; but the morning's events, the sight of Pons' +heroic resignation in the death agony, so oppressed Schmucke's heart +that he was not conscious of hunger. Towards two o'clock, however, as +nothing had been seen of the old German, La Cibot sent Remonencq's +sister to see whether Schmucke wanted anything; prompted not so much +by interest as by curiosity. The Abbe Duplanty had just heard the old +musician's dying confession, and the administration of the sacrament +of extreme unction was disturbed by repeated ringing of the door-bell. +Pons, in his terror of robbery, had made Schmucke promise solemnly to +admit no one into the house; so Schmucke did not stir. Again and again +Mlle. Remonencq pulled the cord, and finally went downstairs in alarm +to tell La Cibot that Schmucke would not open the door; Fraisier made +a note of this. Schmucke had never seen any one die in his life; +before long he would be perplexed by the many difficulties which beset +those who are left with a dead body in Paris, this more especially if +they are lonely and helpless and have no one to act for them. Fraisier +knew, moreover, that in real affliction people lose their heads, and +therefore immediately after breakfast he took up his position in the +porter's lodge, and sitting there in perpetual committee with Dr. +Poulain, conceived the idea of directing all Schmucke's actions +himself. + +To obtain the important result, the doctor and the lawyer took their +measures on this wise:-- + +The beadle of Saint-Francois, Cantinet by name, at one time a retail +dealer in glassware, lived in the Rue d'Orleans, next door to Dr. +Poulain and under the same roof. Mme. Cantinet, who saw to the letting +of the chairs at Saint-Francois, once had fallen ill and Dr. Poulain +had attended her gratuitously; she was, as might be expected, +grateful, and often confided her troubles to him. The "nutcrackers," +punctual in their attendance at Saint-Francois on Sundays and +saints'-days, were on friendly terms with the beadle and the lowest +ecclesiastical rank and file, commonly called in Paris _le bas +clerge_, to whom the devout usually give little presents from time to +time. Mme. Cantinet therefore knew Schmucke almost as well as Schmucke +knew her. And Mme. Cantinet was afflicted with two sore troubles which +enabled the lawyer to use her as a blind and involuntary agent. +Cantinet junior, a stage-struck youth, had deserted the paths of the +Church and turned his back on the prospect of one day becoming a +beadle, to make his _debut_ among the supernumeraries of the +Cirque-Olympique; he was leading a wild life, breaking his mother's +heart and draining her purse by frequent forced loans. Cantinet senior, +much addicted to spirituous liquors and idleness, had, in fact, been +driven to retire from business by those two failings. So far from +reforming, the incorrigible offender had found scope in his new +occupation for the indulgence of both cravings; he did nothing, and he +drank with drivers of wedding-coaches, with the undertaker's men at +funerals, with poor folk relieved by the vicar, till his morning's +occupation was set forth in rubric on his countenance by noon. + +Mme. Cantinet saw no prospect but want in her old age, and yet she had +brought her husband twelve thousand francs, she said. The tale of her +woes related for the hundredth time suggested an idea to Dr. Poulain. +Once introduce her into the old bachelor's quarters, and it would be +easy by her means to establish Mme. Sauvage there as working +housekeeper. It was quite impossible to present Mme. Sauvage herself, +for the "nutcrackers" had grown suspicious of every one. Schmucke's +refusal to admit Mlle. Remonencq had sufficiently opened Fraisier's +eyes. Still, it seemed evident that Pons and Schmucke, being pious +souls, would take any one recommended by the Abbe, with blind +confidence. Mme. Cantinet should bring Mme. Sauvage with her, and to +put in Fraisier's servant was almost tantamount to installing Fraisier +himself. + +The Abbe Duplanty, coming downstairs, found the gateway blocked by the +Cibots' friends, all of them bent upon showing their interest in one +of the oldest and most respectable porters in the Marais. + +Dr. Poulain raised his hat, and took the Abbe aside. + +"I am just about to go to poor M. Pons," he said. "There is still a +chance of recovery; but it is a question of inducing him to undergo an +operation. The calculi are perceptible to the touch, they are setting +up an inflammatory condition which will end fatally, but perhaps it is +not too late to remove them. You should really use your influence to +persuade the patient to submit to surgical treatment; I will answer +for his life, provided that no untoward circumstance occurs during the +operation." + +"I will return as soon as I have taken the sacred ciborium back to the +church," said the Abbe Duplanty, "for M. Schmucke's condition claims +the support of religion." + +"I have just heard that he is alone," said Dr. Poulain. "The German, +good soul, had a little altercation this morning with Mme. Cibot, who +has acted as housekeeper to them both for the past ten years. They +have quarreled (for the moment only, no doubt), but under the +circumstances they must have some one in to help upstairs. It would be +a charity to look after him.--I say, Cantinet," continued the doctor, +beckoning to the beadle, "just go and ask your wife if she will nurse +M. Pons, and look after M. Schmucke, and take Mme. Cibot's place for a +day or two. . . . Even without the quarrel, Mme. Cibot would still +require a substitute. Mme. Cantinet is honest," added the doctor, +turning to M. Duplanty. + +"You could not make a better choice," said the good priest; "she is +intrusted with the letting of chairs in the church." + +A few minutes later, Dr. Poulain stood by Pons' pillow watching the +progress made by death, and Schmucke's vain efforts to persuade his +friend to consent to the operation. To all the poor German's +despairing entreaties Pons only replied by a shake of the head and +occasional impatient movements; till, after awhile, he summoned up all +his fast-failing strength to say, with a heartrending look: + +"Do let me die in peace!" + +Schmucke almost died of sorrow, but he took Pons' hand and softly +kissed it, and held it between his own, as if trying a second time to +give his own vitality to his friend. + +Just at this moment the bell rang, and Dr. Poulain, going to the door, +admitted the Abbe Duplanty. + +"Our poor patient is struggling in the grasp of death," he said. "All +will be over in a few hours. You will send a priest, no doubt, to +watch to-night. But it is time that Mme. Cantinet came, as well as a +woman to do the work, for M. Schmucke is quite unfit to think of +anything: I am afraid for his reason; and there are valuables here +which ought to be in the custody of honest persons." + +The Abbe Duplanty, a kindly, upright priest, guileless and +unsuspicious, was struck with the truth of Dr. Poulain's remarks. He +had, moreover, a certain belief in the doctor of the quarter. So on +the threshold of the death-chamber he stopped and beckoned to +Schmucke, but Schmucke could not bring himself to loosen the grasp of +the hand that grew tighter and tighter. Pons seemed to think that he +was slipping over the edge of a precipice and must catch at something +to save himself. But, as many know, the dying are haunted by an +hallucination that leads them to snatch at things about them, like men +eager to save their most precious possessions from a fire. Presently +Pons released Schmucke to clutch at the bed-clothes, dragging them and +huddling them about himself with a hasty, covetous movement +significant and painful to see. + +"What will you do, left alone with your dead friend?" asked M. l'Abbe +Duplanty when Schmucke came to the door. "You have not Mme. Cibot +now--" + +"Ein monster dat haf killed Bons!" + +"But you must have somebody with you," began Dr. Poulain. "Some one +must sit up with the body to-night." + +"I shall sit up; I shall say die prayers to Gott," the innocent German +answered. + +"But you must eat--and who is to cook for you now?" asked the doctor. + +"Grief haf taken afay mein abbetite," Schmucke said, simply. + +"And some one must give notice to the registrar," said Poulain, "and +lay out the body, and order the funeral; and the person who sits up +with the body and the priest will want meals. Can you do all this by +yourself? A man cannot die like a dog in the capital of the civilized +world." + +Schmucke opened wide eyes of dismay. A brief fit of madness seized +him. + +"But Bons shall not tie! . . ." he cried aloud. "I shall safe him!" + +"You cannot go without sleep much longer, and who will take your +place? Some one must look after M. Pons, and give him drink, and nurse +him--" + +"Ah! dat is drue." + +"Very well," said the Abbe, "I am thinking of sending your Mme. +Cantinet, a good and honest creature--" + +The practical details of the care of the dead bewildered Schmucke, +till he was fain to die with his friend. + +"He is a child," said the doctor, turning to the Abbe Duplanty. + +"Ein child," Schmucke repeated mechanically. + +"There, then," said the curate; "I will speak to Mme. Cantinet, and +send her to you." + +"Do not trouble yourself," said the doctor; "I am going home, and she +lives in the next house." + +The dying seem to struggle with Death as with an invisible assassin; +in the agony at the last, as the final thrust is made, the act of +dying seems to be a conflict, a hand-to-hand fight for life. Pons had +reached the supreme moment. At the sound of his groans and cries, the +three standing in the doorway hurried to the bedside. Then came the +last blow, smiting asunder the bonds between soul and body, striking +down to life's sources; and suddenly Pons regained for a few brief +moments the perfect calm that follows the struggle. He came to +himself, and with the serenity of death in his face he looked round +almost smilingly at them. + +"Ah, doctor, I have had a hard time of it; but you were right, I am +doing better. Thank you, my good Abbe; I was wondering what had become +of Schmucke--" + +"Schmucke has had nothing to eat since yesterday evening, and now it +is four o'clock! You have no one with you now and it would be wise to +send for Mme. Cibot." + +"She is capable of anything!" said Pons, without attempting to conceal +all his abhorrence at the sound of her name. "It is true, Schmucke +ought to have some trustworthy person." + +"M. Duplanty and I have been thinking about you both--" + +"Ah! thank you, I had not thought of that." + +"--And M. Duplanty suggests that you should have Mme. Cantinet--" + +"Oh! Mme. Cantinet who lets the chairs!" exclaimed Pons. "Yes, she is +an excellent creature." + +"She has no liking for Mme. Cibot," continued the doctor, "and she +would take good care of M. Schmucke--" + +"Send her to me, M. Duplanty . . . send her and her husband too. I +shall be easy. Nothing will be stolen here." + +Schmucke had taken Pons' hand again, and held it joyously in his own. +Pons was almost well again, he thought. + +"Let us go, Monsieur l'Abbe," said the doctor. "I will send Mme. +Cantinet round at once. I see how it is. She perhaps may not find M. +Pons alive." + + + +While the Abbe Duplanty was persuading Pons to engage Mme. Cantinet as +his nurse, Fraisier had sent for her. He had plied the beadle's wife +with sophistical reasoning and subtlety. It was difficult to resist +his corrupting influence. And as for Mme. Cantinet--a lean, sallow +woman, with large teeth and thin lips--her intelligence, as so often +happens with women of the people, had been blunted by a hard life, +till she had come to look upon the slenderest daily wage as +prosperity. She soon consented to take Mme. Sauvage with her as +general servant. + +Mme. Sauvage had had her instructions already. She had undertaken to +weave a web of iron wire about the two musicians, and to watch them as +a spider watches a fly caught in the toils; and her reward was to be a +tobacconist's license. Fraisier had found a convenient opportunity of +getting rid of his so-called foster-mother, while he posted her as a +detective and policeman to supervise Mme. Cantinet. As there was a +servant's bedroom and a little kitchen included in the apartment, La +Sauvage could sleep on a truckle-bed and cook for the German. Dr. +Poulain came with the two women just as Pons drew his last breath. +Schmucke was sitting beside his friend, all unconscious of the crisis, +holding the hand that slowly grew colder in his grasp. He signed to +Mme. Cantinet to be silent; but Mme. Sauvage's soldierly figure +surprised him so much that he started in spite of himself, a kind of +homage to which the virago was quite accustomed. + +"M. Duplanty answers for this lady," whispered Mme. Cantinet by way of +introduction. "She once was cook to a bishop; she is honesty itself; +she will do the cooking." + +"Oh! you may talk out loud," wheezed the stalwart dame. "The poor +gentleman is dead. . . . He has just gone." + +A shrill cry broke from Schmucke. He felt Pons' cold hand stiffening +in his, and sat staring into his friend's eyes; the look in them would +have driven him mad, if Mme. Sauvage, doubtless accustomed to scenes +of this sort, had not come to the bedside with a mirror which she held +over the lips of the dead. When she saw that there was no mist upon +the surface, she briskly snatched Schmucke's hand away. + +"Just take away your hand, sir; you may not be able to do it in a +little while. You do not know how the bones harden. A corpse grows +cold very quickly. If you do not lay out a body while it is warm, you +have to break the joints later on. . . ." + +And so it was this terrible woman who closed the poor dead musician's +eyes. + +With a business-like dexterity acquired in ten years of experience, +she stripped and straightened the body, laid the arms by the sides, +and covered the face with the bedclothes, exactly as a shopman wraps a +parcel. + +"A sheet will be wanted to lay him out.--Where is there a sheet?" she +demanded, turning on the terror-stricken Schmucke. + +He had watched the religious ritual with its deep reverence for the +creature made for such high destinies in heaven; and now he saw his +dead friend treated simply as a thing in this packing process--saw +with the sharp pain that dissolves the very elements of thought. + +"Do as you vill----" he answered mechanically. The innocent creature +for the first time in his life had seen a man die, and that man was +Pons, his only friend, the one human being who understood him and +loved him. + +"I will go and ask Mme. Cibot where the sheets are kept," said La +Sauvage. + +"A truckle-bed will be wanted for the person to sleep upon," Mme. +Cantinet came to tell Schmucke. + +Schmucke nodded and broke out into weeping. Mme. Cantinet left the +unhappy man in peace; but an hour later she came back to say: + +"Have you any money, sir, to pay for the things?" + +The look that Schmucke gave Mme. Cantinet would have disarmed the +fiercest hate; it was the white, blank, peaked face of death that he +turned upon her, as an explanation that met everything. + +"Dake it all and leaf me to mein prayers and tears," he said, and +knelt. + +Mme. Sauvage went to Fraisier with the news of Pons' death. Fraisier +took a cab and went to the Presidente. To-morrow she must give him the +power of attorney to enable him to act for the heirs. + +Another hour went by, and Mme. Cantinet came again to Schmucke. + +"I have been to Mme. Cibot, sir, who knows all about things here," she +said. "I asked her to tell me where everything is kept. But she almost +jawed me to death with her abuse. . . . Sir, do listen to me. . . ." + +Schmucke looked up at the woman, and she went on, innocent of any +barbarous intention, for women of her class are accustomed to take the +worst of moral suffering passively, as a matter of course. + +"We must have linen for the shroud, sir, we must have money to buy a +truckle-bed for the person to sleep upon, and some things for the +kitchen--plates, and dishes, and glasses, for a priest will be coming +to pass the night here, and the person says that there is absolutely +nothing in the kitchen." + +"And what is more, sir, I must have coal and firing if I am to get the +dinner ready," echoed La Sauvage, "and not a thing can I find. Not +that there is anything so very surprising in that, as La Cibot used to +do everything for you--" + +Schmucke lay at the feet of the dead; he heard nothing, knew nothing, +saw nothing. Mme. Cantinet pointed to him. "My dear woman, you would +not believe me," she said. "Whatever you say, he does not answer." + +"Very well, child," said La Sauvage; "now I will show you what to do +in a case of this kind." + +She looked round the room as a thief looks in search of possible +hiding-places for money; then she went straight to Pons' chest, opened +the first drawer, saw the bag in which Schmucke had put the rest of +the money after the sale of the pictures, and held it up before him. +He nodded mechanically. + +"Here is money, child," said La Sauvage, turning to Mme. Cantinet. "I +will count it first and take enough to buy everything we want--wine, +provisions, wax-candles, all sorts of things, in fact, for there is +nothing in the house. . . . Just look in the drawers for a sheet to +bury him in. I certainly was told that the poor gentleman was simple, +but I don't know what he is; he is worse. He is like a new-born child; +we shall have to feed him with a funnel." + +The women went about their work, and Schmucke looked on precisely as +an idiot might have done. Broken down with sorrow, wholly absorbed, in +a half-cataleptic state, he could not take his eyes from the face that +seemed to fascinate him, Pons' face refined by the absolute repose of +Death. Schmucke hoped to die; everything was alike indifferent. If the +room had been on fire he would not have stirred. + +"There are twelve hundred and fifty francs here," La Sauvage told him. + +Schmucke shrugged his shoulders. + +But when La Sauvage came near to measure the body by laying the sheet +over it, before cutting out the shroud, a horrible struggle ensued +between her and the poor German. Schmucke was furious. He behaved like +a dog that watches by his dead master's body, and shows his teeth at +all who try to touch it. La Sauvage grew impatient. She grasped him, +set him in the armchair, and held him down with herculean strength. + +"Go on, child; sew him in his shroud," she said, turning to Mme. +Cantinet. + +As soon as this operation was completed, La Sauvage set Schmucke back +in his place at the foot of the bed. + +"Do you understand?" said she. "The poor dead man lying there must be +done up, there is no help for it." + +Schmucke began to cry. The women left him and took possession of the +kitchen, whither they brought all the necessaries in a very short +time. La Sauvage made out a preliminary statement accounting for three +hundred and sixty francs, and then proceeded to prepare a dinner for +four persons. And what a dinner! A fat goose (the cobbler's pheasant) +by way of a substantial roast, an omelette with preserves, a salad, +and the inevitable broth--the quantities of the ingredients for this +last being so excessive that the soup was more like a strong +meat-jelly. + +At nine o'clock the priest, sent by the curate to watch by the dead, +came in with Cantinet, who brought four tall wax candles and some +tapers. In the death-chamber Schmucke was lying with his arms about +the body of his friend, holding him in a tight clasp; nothing but the +authority of religion availed to separate him from his dead. Then the +priest settled himself comfortably in the easy-chair and read his +prayers while Schmucke, kneeling beside the couch, besought God to +work a miracle and unite him to Pons, so that they might be buried in +the same grave; and Mme. Cantinet went on her way to the Temple to buy +a pallet and complete bedding for Mme. Sauvage. The twelve hundred and +fifty francs were regarded as plunder. At eleven o'clock Mme. Cantinet +came in to ask if Schmucke would not eat a morsel, but with a gesture +he signified that he wished to be left in peace. + +"Your supper is ready, M. Pastelot," she said, addressing the priest, +and they went. + +Schmucke, left alone in the room, smiled to himself like a madman free +at last to gratify a desire like the longing of pregnancy. He flung +himself down beside Pons, and yet again he held his friend in a long, +close embrace. At midnight the priest came back and scolded him, and +Schmucke returned to his prayers. At daybreak the priest went, and at +seven o'clock in the morning the doctor came to see Schmucke, and +spoke kindly and tried hard to persuade him to eat, but the German +refused. + +"If you do not eat now you will feel very hungry when you come back," +the doctor told him, "for you must go to the mayor's office and take a +witness with you, so that the registrar may issue a certificate of +death." + +"_I_ must go!" cried Schmucke in frightened tones. + +"Who else? . . . You must go, for you were the one person who saw him +die." + +"Mein legs vill nicht carry me," pleaded Schmucke, imploring the +doctor to come to the rescue. + +"Take a cab," the hypocritical doctor blandly suggested. "I have given +notice already. Ask some one in the house to go with you. The two +women will look after the place while you are away." + +No one imagines how the requirements of the law jar upon a heartfelt +sorrow. The thought of it is enough to make one turn from civilization +and choose rather the customs of the savage. At nine o'clock that +morning Mme. Sauvage half-carried Schmucke downstairs, and from the +cab he was obliged to beg Remonencq to come with him to the registrar +as a second witness. Here in Paris, in this land of ours besotted with +Equality, the inequality of conditions is glaringly apparent +everywhere and in everything. The immutable tendency of things peeps +out even in the practical aspects of Death. In well-to-do families, a +relative, a friend, or a man of business spares the mourners these +painful details; but in this, as in the matter of taxation, the whole +burden falls heaviest upon the shoulders of the poor. + +"Ah! you have good reason to regret him," said Remonencq in answer to +the poor martyr's moan; "he was a very good, a very honest man, and he +has left a fine collection behind him. But being a foreigner, sir, do +you know that you are like to find yourself in a great predicament +--for everybody says that M. Pons left everything to you?" + +Schmucke was not listening. He was sounding the dark depths of sorrow +that border upon madness. There is such a thing as tetanus of the +soul. + +"And you would do well to find some one--some man of business--to +advise you and act for you," pursued Remonencq. + +"Ein mann of pizness!" echoed Schmucke. + +"You will find that you will want some one to act for you. If I were +you, I should take an experienced man, somebody well known to you in +the quarter, a man you can trust. . . . I always go to Tabareau myself +for my bits of affairs--he is the bailiff. If you give his clerk power +to act for you, you need not trouble yourself any further." + +Remonencq and La Cibot, prompted by Fraisier, had agreed beforehand to +make a suggestion which stuck in Schmucke's memory; for there are +times in our lives when grief, as it were, congeals the mind by +arresting all its functions, and any chance impression made at such +moments is retained by a frost-bound memory. Schmucke heard his +companion with such a fixed, mindless stare, that Remonencq said no +more. + +"If he is always to be idiotic like this," thought Remonencq, "I might +easily buy the whole bag of tricks up yonder for a hundred thousand +francs; if it is really his. . . . Here we are at the mayor's office, +sir." + +Remonencq was obliged to take Schmucke out of the cab and to +half-carry him to the registrar's department, where a wedding-party +was assembled. Here they had to wait for their turn, for, by no very +uncommon chance, the clerk had five or six certificates to make out +that morning; and here it was appointed that poor Schmucke should +suffer excruciating anguish. + +"Monsieur is M. Schmucke?" remarked a person in a suit of black, +reducing Schmucke to stupefaction by the mention of his name. He +looked up with the same blank, unseeing eyes that he had turned upon +Remonencq, who now interposed. + +"What do you want with him?" he said. "Just leave him in peace; you +can plainly see that he is in trouble." + +"The gentleman has just lost his friend, and proposes, no doubt, to do +honor to his memory, being, as he is, the sole heir. The gentleman, no +doubt, will not haggle over it, he will buy a piece of ground outright +for a grave. And as M. Pons was such a lover of the arts, it would be +a great pity not to put Music, Painting, and Sculpture on his tomb +--three handsome full-length figures, weeping--" + +Remonencq waved the speaker away, in Auvergnat fashion, but the man +replied with another gesture, which being interpreted means "Don't +spoil sport"; a piece of commercial free-masonry, as it were, which +the dealer understood. + +"I represent the firm of Sonet and Company, monumental stone-masons; +Sir Walter Scott would have dubbed me _Young Mortality_," continued +this person. "If you, sir, should decide to intrust your orders to us, +we would spare you the trouble of the journey to purchase the ground +necessary for the interment of a friend lost to the arts--" + +At this Remonencq nodded assent, and jogged Schmucke's elbow. + +"Every day we receive orders from families to arrange all +formalities," continued he of the black coat, thus encouraged by +Remonencq. "In the first moment of bereavement, the heir-at-law finds +it very difficult to attend to such matters, and we are accustomed to +perform these little services for our clients. Our charges, sir, are +on a fixed scale, so much per foot, freestone or marble. Family vaults +a specialty.--We undertake everything at the most moderate prices. Our +firm executed the magnificent monument erected to the fair Esther +Gobseck and Lucien de Rubempre, one of the finest ornaments of +Pere-Lachaise. We only employ the best workmen, and I must warn you, +sir, against small contractors--who turn out nothing but trash," he +added, seeing that another person in a black suit was coming up to say +a word for another firm of marble-workers. + +It is often said that "death is the end of a journey," but the aptness +of the simile is realized most fully in Paris. Any arrival, especially +of a person of condition, upon the "dark brink," is hailed in much the +same way as the traveler recently landed is hailed by hotel touts and +pestered with their recommendations. With the exception of a few +philosophically-minded persons, or here and there a family secure of +handing down a name to posterity, nobody thinks beforehand of the +practical aspects of death. Death always comes before he is expected; +and, from a sentiment easy to understand, the heirs usually act as if +the event were impossible. For which reason, almost every one that +loses father or mother, wife or child, is immediately beset by scouts +that profit by the confusion caused by grief to snare others. In +former days, agents for monuments used to live round about the famous +cemetery of Pere-Lachaise, and were gathered together in a single +thoroughfare, which should by rights have been called the Street of +Tombs; issuing thence, they fell upon the relatives of the dead as +they came from the cemetery, or even at the grave-side. But +competition and the spirit of speculation induced them to spread +themselves further and further afield, till descending into Paris +itself they reached the very precincts of the mayor's office. Indeed, +the stone-mason's agent has often been known to invade the house of +mourning with a design for the sepulchre in his hand. + +"I am in treaty with this gentleman," said the representative of the +firm of Sonet to another agent who came up. + +"Pons deceased! . . ." called the clerk at this moment. "Where are the +witnesses?" + +"This way, sir," said the stone-mason's agent, this time addressing +Remonencq. + +Schmucke stayed where he had been placed on the bench, an inert mass. +Remonencq begged the agent to help him, and together they pulled +Schmucke towards the balustrade, behind which the registrar shelters +himself from the mourning public. Remonencq, Schmucke's Providence, +was assisted by Dr. Poulain, who filled in the necessary information +as to Pons' age and birthplace; the German knew but one thing--that +Pons was his friend. So soon as the signatures were affixed, Remonencq +and the doctor (followed by the stone-mason's man), put Schmucke into +a cab, the desperate agent whisking in afterwards, bent upon taking a +definite order. + +La Sauvage, on the lookout in the gateway, half-carried Schmucke's +almost unconscious form upstairs. Remonencq and the agent went up with +her. + +"He will be ill!" exclaimed the agent, anxious to make an end of the +piece of business which, according to him, was in progress. + +"I should think he will!" returned Mme. Sauvage. "He has been crying +for twenty-four hours on end, and he would not take anything. There is +nothing like grief for giving one a sinking in the stomach." + +"My dear client," urged the representative of the firm of Sonet, "do +take some broth. You have so much to do; some one must go to the Hotel +de Ville to buy the ground in the cemetery on which you mean to erect +a monument to perpetuate the memory of the friend of the arts, and +bear record to your gratitude." + +"Why, there is no sense in this!" added Mme. Cantinet, coming in with +broth and bread. + +"If you are as weak as this, you ought to think of finding some one to +act for you," added Remonencq, "for you have a good deal on your +hands, my dear sir. There is the funeral to order. You would not have +your friend buried like a pauper!" + +"Come, come, my dear sir," put in La Sauvage, seizing a moment when +Schmucke laid his head back in the great chair to pour a spoonful of +soup into his mouth. She fed him as if he had been a child, and almost +in spite of himself. + +"Now, if you were wise, sir, since you are inclined to give yourself +up quietly to grief, you would find some one to act for you--" + +"As you are thinking of raising a magnificent monument to the memory +of your friend, sir, you have only to leave it all to me; I will +undertake--" + +"What is all this? What is all this?" asked La Sauvage. "Has M. +Schmucke ordered something? Who may you be?" + +"I represent the firm of Sonet, my dear madame, the biggest monumental +stone-masons in Paris," said the person in black, handing a +business-card to the stalwart Sauvage. + +"Very well, that will do. Some one will go with you when the time +comes; but you must not take advantage of the gentleman's condition +now. You can quite see that he is not himself----" + +The agent led her out upon the landing. + +"If you will undertake to get the order for us," he said +confidentially, "I am empowered to offer you forty francs." + +Mme. Sauvage grew placable. "Very well, let me have your address," +said she. + +Schmucke meantime being left to himself, and feeling the stronger for +the soup and bread that he had been forced to swallow, returned at +once to Pons' rooms, and to his prayers. He had lost himself in the +fathomless depths of sorrow, when a voice sounding in his ears drew +him back from the abyss of grief, and a young man in a suit of black +returned for the eleventh time to the charge, pulling the poor, +tortured victim's coatsleeve until he listened. + +"Sir!" said he. + +"Vat ees it now?" + +"Sir! we owe a supreme discovery to Dr. Gannal; we do not dispute his +fame; he has worked miracles of Egypt afresh; but there have been +improvements made upon his system. We have obtained surprising +results. So, if you would like to see your friend again, as he was +when he was alive--" + +"See him again!" cried Schmucke. "Shall he speak to me?" + +"Not exactly. Speech is the only thing wanting," continued the +embalmer's agent. "But he will remain as he is after embalming for all +eternity. The operation is over in a few seconds. Just an incision in +the carotid artery and an injection.--But it is high time; if you wait +one single quarter of an hour, sir, you will not have the sweet +satisfaction of preserving the body. . . ." + +"Go to der teufel! . . . Bons is ein spirit--und dat spirit is in +hefn." + +"That man has no gratitude in his composition," remarked the youthful +agent of one of the famous Gannal's rivals; "he will not embalm his +friend." + +The words were spoken under the archway, and addressed to La Cibot, +who had just submitted her beloved to the process. + +"What would you have, sir!" she said. "He is the heir, the universal +legatee. As soon as they get what they want, the dead are nothing to +them." + +An hour later, Schmucke saw Mme. Sauvage come into the room, followed +by another man in a suit of black, a workman, to all appearance. + +"Cantinet has been so obliging as to send this gentleman, sir," she +said; "he is coffin-maker to the parish." + +The coffin-maker made his bow with a sympathetic and compassionate +air, but none the less he had a business-like look, and seemed to know +that he was indispensable. He turned an expert's eye upon the dead. + +"How does the gentleman wish 'it' to be made? Deal, plain oak, or oak +lead-lined? Oak with a lead lining is the best style. The body is a +stock size,"--he felt for the feet, and proceeded to take the measure +--"one metre seventy!" he added. "You will be thinking of ordering the +funeral service at the church, sir, no doubt?" + +Schmucke looked at him as a dangerous madman might look before +striking a blow. La Sauvage put in a word. + +"You ought to find somebody to look after all these things," she said. + +"Yes----" the victim murmured at length. + +"Shall I fetch M. Tabareau?--for you will have a good deal on your +hands before long. M. Tabareau is the most honest man in the quarter, +you see." + +"Yes. Mennesir Dapareau! Somepody vas speaking of him chust now--" +said Schmucke, completely beaten. + +"Very well. You can be quiet, sir, and give yourself up to grief, when +you have seen your deputy." + +It was nearly two o'clock when M. Tabareau's head-clerk, a young man +who aimed at a bailiff's career, modestly presented himself. Youth has +wonderful privileges; no one is alarmed by youth. This young man +Villemot by name, sat down by Schmucke's side and waited his +opportunity to speak. His diffidence touched Schmucke very much. + +"I am M. Tabareau's head-clerk, sir," he said; "he sent me here to +take charge of your interests, and to superintend the funeral +arrangements. Is this your wish?" + +"You cannot safe my life, I haf not long to lif; but you vill leaf me +in beace!" + +"Oh! you shall not be disturbed," said Villemot. + +"Ver' goot. Vat must I do for dat?" + +"Sign this paper appointing M. Tabareau to act for you in all matters +relating to the settlement of the affairs of the deceased." + +"Goot! gif it to me," said Schmucke, anxious only to sign it at once. + +"No, I must read it over to you first." + +"Read it ofer." + +Schmucke paid not the slightest attention to the reading of the power +of attorney, but he set his name to it. The young clerk took +Schmucke's orders for the funeral, the interment, and the burial +service; undertaking that he should not be troubled again in any way, +nor asked for money. + +"I vould gif all dat I haf to be left in beace," said the unhappy man. +And once more he knelt beside the dead body of his friend. + +Fraisier had triumphed. Villemot and La Sauvage completed the circle +which he had traced about Pons' heir. + +There is no sorrow that sleep cannot overcome. Towards the end of the +day La Sauvage, coming in, found Schmucke stretched asleep at the +bed-foot. She carried him off, put him to bed, tucked him in +maternally, and till the morning Schmucke slept. + +When he awoke, or rather when the truce was over and he again became +conscious of his sorrows, Pons' coffin lay under the gateway in such a +state as a third-class funeral may claim, and Schmucke, seeking vainly +for his friend, wandered from room to room, across vast spaces, as it +seemed to him, empty of everything save hideous memories. La Sauvage +took him in hand, much as a nurse manages a child; she made him take +his breakfast before starting for the church; and while the poor +sufferer forced himself to eat, she discovered, with lamentations +worthy of Jeremiah, that he had not a black coat in his possession. La +Cibot took entire charge of his wardrobe; since Pons fell ill, his +apparel, like his dinner, had been reduced to the lowest terms--to a +couple of coats and two pairs of trousers. + +"And you are going just as you are to M. Pons' funeral? It is an +unheard-of thing; the whole quarter will cry shame upon us!" + +"Und how vill you dat I go?" + +"Why, in mourning--" + +"Mourning!" + +"It is the proper thing." + +"Der bropper ding! . . . Confound all dis stupid nonsense!" cried poor +Schmucke, driven to the last degree of exasperation which a childlike +soul can reach under stress of sorrow. + +"Why, the man is a monster of ingratitude!" said La Sauvage, turning +to a personage who just then appeared. At the sight of this +functionary Schmucke shuddered. The newcomer wore a splendid suit of +black, black knee-breeches, black silk stockings, a pair of white +cuffs, an extremely correct white muslin tie, and white gloves. A +silver chain with a coin attached ornamented his person. A typical +official, stamped with the official expression of decorous gloom, an +ebony wand in his hand by way of insignia of office, he stood waiting +with a three-cornered hat adorned with the tricolor cockade under his +arm. + +"I am the master of the ceremonies," this person remarked in a subdued +voice. + +Accustomed daily to superintend funerals, to move among families +plunged in one and the same kind of tribulation, real or feigned, this +man, like the rest of his fraternity, spoke in hushed and soothing +tones; he was decorous, polished, and formal, like an allegorical +stone figure of Death. + +Schmucke quivered through every nerve as if he were confronting his +executioner. + +"Is this gentleman the son, brother, or father of the deceased?" +inquired the official. + +"I am all dat and more pesides--I am his friend," said Schmucke +through a torrent of weeping. + +"Are you his heir?" + +"Heir? . . ." repeated Schmucke. "Noding matters to me more in dis +vorld," returning to his attitude of hopeless sorrow. + +"Where are the relatives, the friends?" asked the master of the +ceremonies. + +"All here!" exclaimed the German, indicating the pictures and +rarities. "Not von of dem haf efer gifn bain to mein boor Bons. . . . +Here ees everydings dot he lofed, after me." + +Schmucke had taken his seat again, and looked as vacant as before; he +dried his eyes mechanically. Villemot came up at that moment; he had +ordered the funeral, and the master of the ceremonies, recognizing +him, made an appeal to the newcomer. + +"Well, sir, it is time to start. The hearse is here; but I have not +often seen such a funeral as this. Where are the relatives and +friends?" + +"We have been pressed for time," replied Villemot. "This gentleman was +in such deep grief that he could think of nothing. And there is only +one relative." + +The master of the ceremonies looked compassionately at Schmucke; this +expert in sorrow knew real grief when he saw it. He went across to +him. + +"Come, take heart, my dear sir. Think of paying honor to your friend's +memory." + +"We forgot to send out cards; but I took care to send a special +message to M. le Presidente de Marville, the one relative that I +mentioned to you.--There are no friends.--M. Pons was conductor of an +orchestra at a theatre, but I do not think that any one will come. +--This gentleman is the universal legatee, I believe." + +"Then he ought to be chief mourner," said the master of the +ceremonies.--"Have you a black coat?" he continued, noticing +Schmucke's costume. + +"I am all in plack insite!" poor Schmucke replied in heartrending +tones; "so plack it is dot I feel death in me. . . . Gott in hefn is +going to haf pity upon me; He vill send me to mein friend in der +grafe, und I dank Him for it--" + +He clasped his hands. + +"I have told our management before now that we ought to have a +wardrobe department and lend the proper mourning costumes on hire," +said the master of the ceremonies, addressing Villemot; "it is a want +that is more and more felt every day, and we have even now introduced +improvements. But as this gentleman is chief mourner, he ought to wear +a cloak, and this one that I have brought with me will cover him from +head to foot; no one need know that he is not in proper mourning +costume.--Will you be so kind as to rise?" + +Schmucke rose, but he tottered on his feet. + +"Support him," said the master of the ceremonies, turning to Villemot; +"you are his legal representative." + +Villemot held Schmucke's arm while the master of the ceremonies +invested Schmucke with the ample, dismal-looking garment worn by +heirs-at-law in the procession to and from the house and the church. +He tied the black silken cords under the chin, and Schmucke as heir +was in "full dress." + +"And now comes a great difficulty," continued the master of the +ceremonies; "we want four bearers for the pall. . . . If nobody comes +to the funeral, who is to fill the corners? It is half-past ten +already," he added, looking at his watch; "they are waiting for us at +the church." + +"Oh! here comes Fraisier!" Villemot exclaimed, very imprudently; but +there was no one to hear the tacit confession of complicity. + +"Who is this gentleman?" inquired the master of the ceremonies. + +"Oh! he comes on behalf of the family." + +"Whose family?" + +"The disinherited family. He is M. Camusot de Marville's +representative." + +"Good," said the master of the ceremonies, with a satisfied air. "We +shall have two pall-bearers at any rate--you and he." + +And, happy to find two of the places filled up, he took out some +wonderful white buckskin gloves, and politely presented Fraisier and +Villemot with a pair apiece. + +"If you gentlemen will be so good as to act as pall-bearers--" said +he. + +Fraisier, in black from head to foot, pretentiously dressed, with his +white tie and official air, was a sight to shudder at; he embodied a +hundred briefs. + +"Willingly, sir," said he. + +"If only two more persons will come, the four corners will be filled +up," said the master of the ceremonies. + +At that very moment the indefatigable representative of the firm of +Sonet came up, and, closely following him, the man who remembered Pons +and thought of paying him a last tribute of respect. This was a +supernumerary at the theatre, the man who put out the scores on the +music-stands for the orchestra. Pons had been wont to give him a +five-franc piece once a month, knowing that he had a wife and family. + +"Oh, Dobinard (Topinard)!" Schmucke cried out at the sight of him, +"_you_ love Bons!" + +"Why, I have come to ask news of M. Pons every morning, sir." + +"Efery morning! boor Dobinard!" and Schmucke squeezed the man's hand. + +"But they took me for a relation, no doubt, and did not like my visits +at all. I told them that I belonged to the theatre and came to inquire +after M. Pons; but it was no good. They saw through that dodge, they +said. I asked to see the poor dear man, but they never would let me +come upstairs." + +"Dat apominable Zipod!" said Schmucke, squeezing Topinard's horny hand +to his heart. + +"He was the best of men, that good M. Pons. Every month he use to give +me five francs. . . . He knew that I had three children and a wife. My +wife has gone to the church." + +"I shall difide mein pread mit you," cried Schmucke, in his joy at +finding at his side some one who loved Pons. + +"If this gentleman will take a corner of the pall, we shall have all +four filled up," said the master of the ceremonies. + +There had been no difficulty over persuading the agent for monuments. +He took a corner the more readily when he was shown the handsome pair +of gloves which, according to custom, was to be his property. + +"A quarter to eleven! We absolutely must go down. They are waiting for +us at the church." + +The six persons thus assembled went down the staircase. + +The cold-blooded lawyer remained a moment to speak to the two women on +the landing. "Stop here, and let nobody come in," he said, "especially +if you wish to remain in charge, Mme. Cantinet. Aha! two francs a day, +you know!" + +By a coincidence in nowise extraordinary in Paris, two hearses were +waiting at the door, and two coffins standing under the archway; +Cibot's funeral and the solitary state in which Pons was lying was +made even more striking in the street. Schmucke was the only mourner +that followed Pons' coffin; Schmucke, supported by one of the +undertaker's men, for he tottered at every step. From the Rue de +Normandie to the Rue d'Orleans and the Church of Saint-Francois the +two funerals went between a double row of curious onlookers for +everything (as was said before) makes a sensation in the quarter. +Every one remarked the splendor of the white funeral car, with a big +embroidered P suspended on a hatchment, and the one solitary mourner +behind it; while the cheap bier that came after it was followed by an +immense crowd. Happily, Schmucke was so bewildered by the throng of +idlers and the rows of heads in the windows, that he heard no remarks +and only saw the faces through a mist of tears. + +"Oh, it is the nutcracker!" said one, "the musician, you know--" + +"Who can the pall-bearers be?" + +"Pooh! play-actors." + +"I say, just look at poor old Cibot's funeral. There is one worker the +less. What a man! he could never get enough of work!" + +"He never went out." + +"He never kept Saint Monday." + +"How fond he was of his wife!" + +"Ah! There is an unhappy woman!" + +Remonencq walked behind his victim's coffin. People condoled with him +on the loss of his neighbor. + +The two funerals reached the church. Cantinet and the doorkeeper saw +that no beggars troubled Schmucke. Villemot had given his word that +Pons' heir should be left in peace; he watched over his client, and +gave the requisite sums; and Cibot's humble bier, escorted by sixty or +eighty persons, drew all the crowd after it to the cemetery. At the +church door Pons' funeral possession mustered four mourning-coaches, +one for the priest and three for the relations; but one only was +required, for the representative of the firm of Sonet departed during +mass to give notice to his principal that the funeral was on the way, +so that the design for the monument might be ready for the survivor at +the gates of the cemetery. A single coach sufficed for Fraisier, +Villemot, Schmucke, and Topinard; but the remaining two, instead of +returning to the undertaker, followed in the procession to +Pere-Lachaise--a useless procession, not unfrequently seen; there are +always too many coaches when the dead are unknown beyond their own +circle and there is no crowd at the funeral. Dear, indeed, the dead +must have been in their lifetime if relative or friend will go with +them so far as the cemetery in this Paris, where every one would fain +have twenty-five hours in the day. But with the coachmen it is +different; they lose their tips if they do not make the journey; so, +empty or full, the mourning coaches go to the church and cemetery and +return to the house for gratuities. A death is a sort of +drinking-fountain for an unimagined crowd of thirsty mortals. The +attendants at the church, the poor, the undertaker's men, the drivers +and sextons, are creatures like sponges that dip into a hearse and +come out again saturated. + +From the church door, where he was beset with a swarm of beggars +(promptly dispersed by the beadle), to Pere-Lachaise, poor Schmucke +went as criminals went in old times from the Palais de Justice to the +Place de Greve. It was his own funeral that he followed, clinging to +Topinard's hand, to the one living creature besides himself who felt a +pang of real regret for Pons' death. + +As for Topinard, greatly touched by the honor of the request to act as +pall-bearer, content to drive in a carriage, the possessor of a new +pair of gloves,--it began to dawn upon him that this was to be one of +the great days of his life. Schmucke was driven passively along the +road, as some unlucky calf is driven in a butcher's cart to the +slaughter-house. Fraisier and Villemot sat with their backs to the +horses. Now, as those know whose sad fortune it has been to accompany +many of their friends to their last resting-place, all hypocrisy +breaks down in the coach during the journey (often a very long one) +from the church to the eastern cemetery, to that one of the +burying-grounds of Paris in which all vanities, all kinds of display, +are met, so rich is it in sumptuous monuments. On these occasions those +who feel least begin to talk soonest, and in the end the saddest listen, +and their thoughts are diverted. + +"M. le President had already started for the Court." Fraisier told +Villemot, "and I did not think it necessary to tear him away from +business; he would have come too late, in any case. He is the +next-of-kin; but as he has been disinherited, and M. Schmucke gets +everything, I thought that if his legal representative were present +it would be enough." + +Topinard lent an ear to this. + +"Who was the queer customer that took the fourth corner?" continued +Fraisier. + +"He is an agent for a firm of monumental stone-masons. He would like +an order for a tomb, on which he proposes to put three sculptured +marble figures--Music, Painting, and Sculpture shedding tears over the +deceased." + +"It is an idea," said Fraisier; "the old gentleman certainly deserved +that much; but the monument would cost seven or eight hundred francs." + +"Oh! quite that!" + +"If M. Schmucke gives the order, it cannot affect the estate. You +might eat up a whole property with such expenses." + +"There would be a lawsuit, but you would gain it--" + +"Very well," said Fraisier, "then it will be his affair.--It would be +a nice practical joke to play upon the monument-makers," Fraisier +added in Villemot's ear; "for if the will is upset (and I can answer +for that), or if there is no will at all, who would pay them?" + +Villemot grinned like a monkey, and the pair began to talk +confidentially, lowering their voices; but the man from the theatre, +with his wits and senses sharpened in the world behind the scenes, +could guess at the nature of their discourse; in spite of the rumbling +of the carriage and other hindrances, he began to understand that +these representatives of justice were scheming to plunge poor Schmucke +into difficulties; and when at last he heard the ominous word +"Clichy," the honest and loyal servitor of the stage made up his mind +to watch over Pons' friend. + +At the cemetery, where three square yards of ground had been purchased +through the good offices of the firm of Sonet (Villemot having +announced Schmucke's intention of erecting a magnificent monument), +the master of ceremonies led Schmucke through a curious crowd to the +grave into which Pons' coffin was about to be lowered; but here, at +the sight of the square hole, the four men waiting with ropes to lower +the bier, and the clergy saying the last prayer for the dead at the +grave-side, something clutched tightly at the German's heart. He +fainted away. + +Sonet's agent and M. Sonet himself came to help Topinard to carry poor +Schmucke into the marble-works hard by, where Mme. Sonet and Mme. +Vitelot (Sonet's partner's wife) were eagerly prodigal of efforts to +revive him. Topinard stayed. He had seen Fraisier in conversation with +Sonet's agent, and Fraisier, in his opinion, had gallows-bird written +on his face. + +An hour later, towards half-past two o'clock, the poor, innocent +German came to himself. Schmucke thought that he had been dreaming for +the past two days; if he could only wake, he should find Pons still +alive. So many wet towels had been laid on his forehead, he had been +made to inhale salts and vinegar to such an extent, that he opened his +eyes at last. Mme. Sonet make him take some meat-soup, for they had +put the pot on the fire at the marble-works. + +"Our clients do not often take things to heart like this; still, it +happens once in a year or two--" + +At last Schmucke talked of returning to the Rue de Normandie, and at +this Sonet began at once. + +"Here is the design, sir," he said; "Vitelot drew it expressly for +you, and sat up last night to do it. . . . And he has been happily +inspired, it will look fine--" + +"One of the finest in Pere-Lachaise!" said the little Mme. Sonet. "But +you really ought to honor the memory of a friend who left you all his +fortune." + +The design, supposed to have been drawn on purpose, had, as a matter +of fact, been prepared for de Marsay, the famous cabinet minister. His +widow, however, had given the commission to Stidmann; people were +disgusted with the tawdriness of the project, and it was refused. The +three figures at that period represented the three days of July which +brought the eminent minister to power. Subsequently, Sonet and Vitelot +had turned the Three Glorious Days--"_les trois glorieuses_"--into the +Army, Finance, and the Family, and sent in the design for the +sepulchre of the late lamented Charles Keller; and here again Stidmann +took the commission. In the eleven years that followed, the sketch had +been modified to suit all kinds of requirements, and now in Vitelot's +fresh tracing they reappeared as Music, Sculpture, and Painting. + +"It is a mere trifle when you think of the details and cost of setting +it up; for it will take six months," said Vitelot. "Here is the +estimate and the order-form--seven thousand francs, sketch in plaster +not included." + +"If M. Schmucke would like marble," put in Sonet (marble being his +special department), "it would cost twelve thousand francs, and +monsieur would immortalize himself as well as his friend." + +Topinard turned to Vitelot. + +"I have just heard that they are going to dispute the will," he +whispered, "and the relatives are likely to come by their property. Go +and speak to M. Camusot, for this poor, harmless creature has not a +farthing." + +"This is the kind of customer that you always bring us," said Mme. +Vitelot, beginning a quarrel with the agent. + +Topinard led Schmucke away, and they returned home on foot to the Rue +de Normandie, for the mourning-coaches had been sent back. + +"Do not leaf me," Schmucke said, when Topinard had seen him safe into +Mme. Sauvage's hands, and wanted to go. + +"It is four o'clock, dear M. Schmucke. I must go home to dinner. My +wife is a box-opener--she will not know what has become of me. The +theatre opens at a quarter to six, you know." + +"Yes, I know . . . but remember dat I am alone in die earth, dat I haf +no friend. You dat haf shed a tear for Bons enliden me; I am in teep +tarkness, und Bons said dat I vas in der midst of shcoundrels." + +"I have seen that plainly already; I have just prevented them from +sending you to Clichy." + +"_Gligy!_" repeated Schmucke; "I do not understand." + +"Poor man! Well, never mind, I will come to you. Good-bye." + +"Goot-bye; komm again soon," said Schmucke, dropping half-dead with +weariness. + +"Good-bye, mosieu," said Mme. Sauvage, and there was something in her +tone that struck Topinard. + +"Oh, come, what is the matter now?" he asked, banteringly. "You are +attitudinizing like a traitor in a melodrama." + +"Traitor yourself! Why have you come meddling here? Do you want to +have a hand in the master's affairs, and swindle him, eh?" + +"Swindle him! . . . Your very humble servant!" Topinard answered with +superb disdain. "I am only a poor super at a theatre, but I am +something of an artist, and you may as well know that I never asked +anything of anybody yet! Who asked anything of you? Who owes you +anything? eh, old lady!" + +"You are employed at a theatre, and your name is--?" + +"Topinard, at your service." + +"Kind regards to all at home," said La Sauvage, "and my compliments to +your missus, if you are married, mister. . . . That was all I wanted +to know." + +"Why, what is the matter, dear?" asked Mme. Cantinet, coming out. + +"This, child--stop here and look after the dinner while I run round to +speak to monsieur." + +"He is down below, talking with poor Mme. Cibot, that is crying her +eyes out," said Mme. Cantinet. + +La Sauvage dashed down in such headlong haste that the stairs trembled +beneath her tread. + +"Monsieur!" she called, and drew him aside a few paces to point out +Topinard. + +Topinard was just going away, proud at heart to have made some return +already to the man who had done him so many kindnesses. He had saved +Pons' friend from a trap, by a stratagem from that world behind the +scenes in which every one has more or less ready wit. And within +himself he vowed to protect a musician in his orchestra from future +snares set for his simple sincerity. + +"Do you see that little wretch?" said La Sauvage. "He is a kind of +honest man that has a mind to poke his nose into M. Schmucke's +affairs." + +"Who is he?" asked Fraisier. + +"Oh! he is a nobody." + +"In business there is no such thing as a nobody." + +"Oh, he is employed at the theatre," said she; "his name is Topinard." + +"Good, Mme. Sauvage! Go on like this, and you shall have your +tobacconist's shop." + +And Fraisier resumed his conversation with Mme. Cibot. + +"So I say, my dear client, that you have not played openly and +above-board with me, and that one is not bound in any way to a +partner who cheats." + +"And how have I cheated you?" asked La Cibot, hands on hips. "Do you +think that you will frighten me with your sour looks and your frosty +airs? You look about for bad reasons for breaking your promises, and +you call yourself an honest man! Do you know what you are? You are a +blackguard! Yes! yes! scratch your arm; but just pocket that--" + +"No words, and keep your temper, dearie. Listen to me. You have been +feathering your nest. . . . I found this catalogue this morning while +we were getting ready for the funeral; it is all in M. Pons' +handwriting, and made out in duplicate. And as it chanced, my eyes +fell on this--" + +And opening the catalogue, he read: + + "No. 7. _Magnificent portrait painted on marble, by Sebastian del + Piombo, in 1546. Sold by a family who had it removed from Terni + Cathedral. The picture, which represents a Knight-Templar kneeling + in prayer, used to hang above a tomb of the Rossi family with a + companion portrait of a Bishop, afterwards purchased by an + Englishman. The portrait might be attributed to Raphael, but for + the date. This example is, to my mind, superior to the portrait of + Baccio Bandinelli in the Musee; the latter is a little hard, while + the Templar, being painted upon 'lavagna,' or slate, has preserved + its freshness of coloring._" + +"When I come to look for No. 7," continued Fraisier, "I find a +portrait of a lady, signed 'Chardin,' without a number on it! I went +through the pictures with the catalogue while the master of ceremonies +was making up the number of pall-bearers, and found that eight of +those indicated as works of capital importance by M. Pons had +disappeared, and eight paintings of no special merit, and without +numbers, were there instead. . . . And finally, one was missing +altogether, a little panel-painting by Metzu, described in the +catalogue as a masterpiece." + +"And was _I_ in charge of the pictures?" demanded La Cibot. + +"No; but you were in a position of trust. You were M. Pons' +housekeeper, you looked after his affairs, and he has been robbed--" + +"Robbed! Let me tell you this, sir: M. Schmucke sold the pictures, by +M. Pons' orders, to meet expenses." + +"And to whom?" + +"To Messrs. Elie Magus and Remonencq." + +"For how much?" + +"I am sure I do not remember." + +"Look here, my dear madame; you have been feathering your nest, and +very snugly. I shall keep an eye upon you; I have you safe. Help me, I +will say nothing! In any case, you know that since you deemed it +expedient to plunder M. le President Camusot, you ought not to expect +anything from _him_." + +"I was sure that this would all end in smoke, for me," said La Cibot, +mollified by the words "I will say nothing." + +Remonencq chimed in at this point. + +"Here are you finding fault with Mme. Cibot; that is not right!" he +said. "The pictures were sold by private treaty between M. Pons, M. +Magus, and me. We waited for three days before we came to terms with +the deceased; he slept on his pictures. We took receipts in proper +form; and if we gave Madame Cibot a few forty-franc pieces, it is the +custom of the trade--we always do so in private houses when we +conclude a bargain. Ah! my dear sir, if you think to cheat a +defenceless woman, you will not make a good bargain! Do you +understand, master lawyer?--M. Magus rules the market, and if you do +not come down off the high horse, if you do not keep your word to Mme. +Cibot, I shall wait till the collection is sold, and you shall see +what you will lose if you have M. Magus and me against you; we can get +the dealers in a ring. Instead of realizing seven or eight hundred +thousand francs, you will not so much as make two hundred thousand." + +"Good, good, we shall see. We are not going to sell; or if we do, it +will be in London." + +"We know London," said Remonencq. "M. Magus is as powerful there as at +Paris." + +"Good-day, madame; I shall sift these matters to the bottom," said +Fraisier--"unless you continue to do as I tell you" he added. + +"You little pickpocket!--" + +"Take care! I shall be a justice of the peace before long." And with +threats understood to the full upon either side, they separated. + +"Thank you, Remonencq!" said La Cibot; "it is very pleasant to a poor +widow to find a champion." + + + +Towards ten o'clock that evening, Gaudissart sent for Topinard. The +manager was standing with his back to the fire, in a Napoleonic +attitude--a trick which he had learned since be began to command his +army of actors, dancers, _figurants_, musicians, and stage carpenters. +He grasped his left-hand brace with his right hand, always thrust into +his waistcoat; he head was flung far back, his eyes gazed out into +space. + +"Ah! I say, Topinard, have you independent means?" + +"No, sir." + +"Are you on the lookout to better yourself somewhere else?" + +"No, sir--" said Topinard, with a ghastly countenance. + +"Why, hang it all, your wife takes the first row of boxes out of +respect to my predecessor, who came to grief; I gave you the job of +cleaning the lamps in the wings in the daytime, and you put out the +scores. And that is not all, either. You get twenty sous for acting +monsters and managing devils when a hell is required. There is not a +super that does not covet your post, and there are those that are +jealous of you, my friend; you have enemies in the theatre." + +"Enemies!" repeated Topinard. + +"And you have three children; the oldest takes children's parts at +fifty centimes--" + +"Sir!--" + +"You want to meddle in other people's business, and put your finger +into a will case.--Why, you wretched man, you would be crushed like an +egg-shell! My patron is His Excellency, Monseigneur le Comte Popinot, +a clever man and a man of high character, whom the King in his wisdom +has summoned back to the privy council. This statesman, this great +politician, has married his eldest son to a daughter of M. le +President de Marville, one of the foremost men among the high courts +of justice; one of the leading lights of the law-courts. Do you know +the law-courts? Very good. Well, he is cousin and heir to M. Pons, to +our old conductor whose funeral you attended this morning. I do not +blame you for going to pay the last respects to him, poor man. . . . +But if you meddle in M. Schmucke's affairs, you will lose your place. +I wish very well to M. Schmucke, but he is in a delicate position with +regard to the heirs--and as the German is almost nothing to me, and +the President and Count Popinot are a great deal, I recommend you to +leave the worthy German to get out of his difficulties by himself. +There is a special Providence that watches over Germans, and the part +of deputy guardian-angel would not suit you at all. Do you see? Stay +as you are--you cannot do better." + +"Very good, monsieur le directeur," said Topinard, much distressed. +And in this way Schmucke lost the protector sent to him by fate, the +one creature that shed a tear for Pons, the poor super for whose +return he looked on the morrow. + +Next morning poor Schmucke awoke to a sense of his great and heavy +loss. He looked round the empty rooms. Yesterday and the day before +yesterday the preparations for the funeral had made a stir and bustle +which distracted his eyes; but the silence which follows the day, when +the friend, father, son, or loved wife has been laid in the grave--the +dull, cold silence of the morrow is terrible, is glacial. Some +irresistible force drew him to Pons' chamber, but the sight of it was +more than the poor man could bear; he shrank away and sat down in the +dining-room, where Mme. Sauvage was busy making breakfast ready. + +Schmucke drew his chair to the table, but he could eat nothing. A +sudden, somewhat sharp ringing of the door-bell rang through the +house, and Mme. Cantinet and Mme. Sauvage allowed three black-coated +personages to pass. First came Vitel, the justice of the peace, with +his highly respectable clerk; third was Fraisier, neither sweeter nor +milder for the disappointing discovery of a valid will canceling the +formidable instrument so audaciously stolen by him. + +"We have come to affix seals on the property," the justice of the +peace said gently, addressing Schmucke. But the remark was Greek to +Schmucke; he gazed in dismay at his three visitors. + +"We have come at the request of M. Fraisier, legal representative of +M. Camusot de Marville, heir of the late Pons--" added the clerk. + +"The collection is here in this great room, and in the bedroom of the +deceased," remarked Fraisier. + +"Very well, let us go into the next room.--Pardon us, sir; do not let +us interrupt with your breakfast." + +The invasion struck an icy chill of terror into poor Schmucke. +Fraisier's venomous glances seemed to possess some magnetic influence +over his victims, like the power of a spider over a fly. + +"M. Schmucke understood how to turn a will, made in the presence of a +notary, to his own advantage," he said, "and he surely must have +expected some opposition from the family. A family does not allow +itself to be plundered by a stranger without some protest; and we +shall see, sir, which carries the day--fraud and corruption or the +rightful heirs. . . . We have a right as next of kin to affix seals, +and seals shall be affixed. I mean to see that the precaution is taken +with the utmost strictness." + +"Ach, mein Gott! how haf I offended against Hefn?" cried the innocent +Schmucke. + +"There is a good deal of talk about you in the house," said La +Sauvage. "While you were asleep, a little whipper-snapper in a black +suit came here, a puppy that said he was M. Hannequin's head-clerk, +and must see you at all costs; but as you were asleep and tired out +with the funeral yesterday, I told him that M. Villemot, Tabareau's +head-clerk, was acting for you, and if it was a matter of business, I +said, he might speak to M. Villemot. 'Ah, so much the better!' the +youngster said. 'I shall come to an understanding with him. We will +deposit the will at the Tribunal, after showing it to the President.' +So at that, I told him to ask M. Villemot to come here as soon as he +could.--Be easy, my dear sir, there are those that will take care of +you. They shall not shear the fleece off your back. You will have some +one that has beak and claws. M. Villemot will give them a piece of his +mind. I have put myself in a passion once already with that abominable +hussy, La Cibot, a porter's wife that sets up to judge her lodgers, +forsooth, and insists that you have filched the money from the heirs; +you locked M. Pons up, she says, and worked upon him till he was +stark, staring mad. She got as good as she gave, though, the wretched +woman. 'You are a thief and a bad lot,' I told her; 'you will get into +the police-courts for all the things that you have stolen from the +gentlemen,' and she shut up." + +The clerk came out to speak to Schmucke. + +"Would you wish to be present, sir, when the seals are affixed in the +next room?" + +"Go on, go on," said Schmucke; "I shall pe allowed to die in beace, I +bresume?" + +"Oh, under any circumstances a man has a right to die," the clerk +answered, laughing; "most of our business relates to wills. But, in my +experience, the universal legatee very seldom follows the testator to +the tomb." + +"I am going," said Schmucke. Blow after blow had given him an +intolerable pain at the heart. + +"Oh! here comes M. Villemot!" exclaimed La Sauvage. + +"Mennesir Fillemod," said poor Schmucke, "rebresent me." + +"I hurried here at once," said Villemot. "I have come to tell you that +the will is completely in order; it will certainly be confirmed by the +court, and you will be put in possession. You will have a fine +fortune." + +"_I?_ Ein fein vordune?" cried Schmucke, despairingly. That he of all +men should be suspected of caring for the money! + +"And meantime what is the justice of the peace doing here with his wax +candles and his bits of tape?" asked La Sauvage. + +"Oh, he is affixing seals. . . . Come, M. Schmucke, you have a right +to be present." + +"No--go in yourself." + +"But where is the use of the seals if M. Schmucke is in his own house +and everything belongs to him?" asked La Sauvage, doing justice in +feminine fashion, and interpreting the Code according to their fancy, +like one and all of her sex. + +"M. Schmucke is not in possession, madame; he is in M. Pons' house. +Everything will be his, no doubt; but the legatee cannot take +possession without an authorization--an order from the Tribunal. And +if the next-of-kin set aside by the testator should dispute the order, +a lawsuit is the result. And as nobody knows what may happen, +everything is sealed up, and the notaries representing either side +proceed to draw up an inventory during the delay prescribed by the +law. . . . And there you are!" + +Schmucke, hearing such talk for the first time in his life, was +completely bewildered by it; his head sank down upon the back of his +chair--he could not support it, it had grown so heavy. + +Villemot meanwhile went off to chat with the justice of the peace and +his clerk, assisting with professional coolness to affix the seals--a +ceremony which always involves some buffoonery and plentiful comments +on the objects thus secured, unless, indeed, one of the family happens +to be present. At length the party sealed up the chamber and returned +to the dining-room, whither the clerk betook himself. Schmucke watched +the mechanical operation which consists in setting the justice's seal +at either end of a bit of tape stretched across the opening of a +folding-door; or, in the case of a cupboard or ordinary door, from +edge to edge above the door-handle. + +"Now for this room," said Fraisier, pointing to Schmucke's bedroom, +which opened into the dining-room. + +"But that is M. Schmucke's own room," remonstrated La Sauvage, +springing in front of the door. + +"We found the lease among the papers," Fraisier said ruthlessly; +"there was no mention of M. Schmucke in it; it is taken out in M. +Pons' name only. The whole place, and every room in it, is a part of +the estate. And besides"--flinging open the door--"look here, monsieur +le juge de la paix, it is full of pictures." + +"So it is," answered the justice of the peace, and Fraisier thereupon +gained his point. + +"Wait a bit, gentlemen," said Villemot. "Do you know that you are +turning the universal legatee out of doors, and as yet his right has +not been called in question?" + +"Yes, it has," said Fraisier; "we are opposing the transfer of the +property." + +"And upon what grounds?" + +"You shall know that by and by, my boy," Fraisier replied, +banteringly. "At this moment, if the legatee withdraws everything that +he declares to be his, we shall raise no objections, but the room +itself will be sealed. And M. Schmucke may lodge where he pleases." + +"No," said Villemot; "M. Schmucke is going to stay in his room." + +"And how?" + +"I shall demand an immediate special inquiry," continued Villemot, +"and prove that we pay half the rent. You shall not turn us out. Take +away the pictures, decide on the ownership of the various articles, +but here my client stops--'my boy.'" + +"I shall go out!" the old musician suddenly said. He had recovered +energy during the odious dispute. + +"You had better," said Fraisier. "Your course will save expense to +you, for your contention would not be made good. The lease is +evidence--" + +"The lease! the lease!" cried Villemot, "it is a question of good +faith--" + +"That could only be proved in a criminal case, by calling witnesses. +--Do you mean to plunge into experts' fees and verifications, and +orders to show cause why judgment should not be given, and law +proceedings generally?" + +"No, no!" cried Schmucke in dismay. "I shall turn out; I am used to +it--" + +In practice Schmucke was a philosopher, an unconscious cynic, so +greatly had he simplified his life. Two pairs of shoes, a pair of +boots, a couple of suits of clothes, a dozen shirts, a dozen bandana +handkerchiefs, four waistcoats, a superb pipe given to him by Pons, +with an embroidered tobacco-pouch--these were all his belongings. +Overwrought by a fever of indignation, he went into his room and piled +his clothes upon a chair. + +"All dese are mine," he said, with simplicity worthy of Cincinnatus. +"Der biano is also mine." + +Fraisier turned to La Sauvage. "Madame, get help," he said; "take that +piano out and put it on the landing." + +"You are too rough into the bargain," said Villemot, addressing +Fraisier. "The justice of the peace gives orders here; he is supreme." + +"There are valuables in the room," put in the clerk. + +"And besides," added the justice of the peace, "M. Schmucke is going +out of his own free will." + +"Did any one ever see such a client!" Villemot cried indignantly, +turning upon Schmucke. "You are as limp as a rag--" + +"Vat dos it matter vere von dies?" Schmucke said as he went out. "Dese +men haf tiger faces. . . . I shall send somebody to vetch mein bits of +dings." + +"Where are you going, sir?" + +"Vere it shall blease Gott," returned Pons' universal legatee with +supreme indifference. + +"Send me word," said Villemot. + +Fraisier turned to the head-clerk. "Go after him," he whispered. + +Mme. Cantinet was left in charge, with a provision of fifty francs +paid out of the money that they found. The justice of the peace looked +out; there Schmucke stood in the courtyard looking up at the windows +for the last time. + +"You have found a man of butter," remarked the justice. + +"Yes," said Fraisier, "yes. The thing is as good as done. You need not +hesitate to marry your granddaughter to Poulain; he will be +head-surgeon at the Quinze-Vingts." (The Asylum founded by St. Louis +for three hundred blind people.) + +"We shall see.--Good-day, M. Fraisier," said the justice of the peace +with a friendly air. + +"There is a man with a head on his shoulders," remarked the justice's +clerk. "The dog will go a long way." + +By this time it was eleven o'clock. The old German went like an +automaton down the road along which Pons and he had so often walked +together. Wherever he went he saw Pons, he almost thought that Pons +was by his side; and so he reached the theatre just as his friend +Topinard was coming out of it after a morning spent in cleaning the +lamps and meditating on the manager's tyranny. + +"Oh, shoost der ding for me!" cried Schmucke, stopping his +acquaintance. "Dopinart! you haf a lodging someveres, eh?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"A home off your own?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Are you villing to take me for ein poarder? Oh! I shall pay ver' +vell; I haf nine hundert vrancs of inkomm, und--I haf not ver' long +ter lif. . . . I shall gif no drouble vatefer. . . . I can eat +onydings--I only vant to shmoke mein bipe. Und--you are der only von +dat haf shed a tear for Bons, mit me; und so, I lof you." + +"I should be very glad, sir; but, to begin with, M. Gaudissart has +given me a proper wigging--" + +"_Vigging?_" + +"That is one way of saying that he combed my hair for me." + +"_Combed your hair?_" + +"He gave me a scolding for meddling in your affairs. . . . So we must +be very careful if you come to me. But I doubt whether you will stay +when you have seen the place; you do not know how we poor devils +live." + +"I should rader der boor home of a goot-hearted mann dot haf mourned +Bons, dan der Duileries mit men dot haf ein tiger face. . . . I haf +chust left tigers in Bons' house; dey vill eat up everydings--" + +"Come with me, sir, and you shall see. But--well, anyhow, there is a +garret. Let us see what Mme. Topinard says." + +Schmucke followed like a sheep, while Topinard led the way into one of +the squalid districts which might be called the cancers of Paris--a +spot known as the Cite Bordin. It is a slum out of the Rue de Bondy, a +double row of houses run up by the speculative builder, under the +shadow of the huge mass of the Porte Saint-Martin theatre. The +pavement at the higher end lies below the level of the Rue de Bondy; +at the lower it falls away towards the Rue des Mathurins du Temple. +Follow its course and you find that it terminates in another slum +running at right angles to the first--the Cite Bordin is, in fact, a +T-shaped blind alley. Its two streets thus arranged contain some +thirty houses, six or seven stories high; and every story, and every +room in every story, is a workshop and a warehouse for goods of every +sort and description, for this wart upon the face of Paris is a +miniature Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Cabinet-work and brasswork, +theatrical costumes, blown glass, painted porcelain--all the various +fancy goods known as _l'article Paris_ are made here. Dirty and +productive like commerce, always full of traffic--foot-passengers, +vans, and drays--the Cite Bourdin is an unsavory-looking neighborhood, +with a seething population in keeping with the squalid surroundings. +It is a not unintelligent artisan population, though the whole power +of the intellect is absorbed by the day's manual labor. Topinard, like +every other inhabitant of the Cite Bourdin, lived in it for the sake +of comparatively low rent, the cause of its existence and prosperity. +His sixth floor lodging, in the second house to the left, looked out +upon the belt of green garden, still in existence, at the back of +three or four large mansions in the Rue de Bondy. + +Topinard's apartment consisted of a kitchen and two bedrooms. The +first was a nursery with two little deal bedsteads and a cradle in it, +the second was the bedroom, and the kitchen did duty as a dining-room. +Above, reached by a short ladder, known among builders as a +"trap-ladder," there was a kind of garret, six feet high, with a +sash-window let into the roof. This room, given as a servants' bedroom, +raised the Topinards' establishment from mere "rooms" to the dignity of +a tenement, and the rent to a corresponding sum of four hundred francs. +An arched lobby, lighted from the kitchen by a small round window, did +duty as an ante-chamber, and filled the space between the bedroom, the +kitchen, and house doors--three doors in all. The rooms were paved +with bricks, and hung with a hideous wall-paper at threepence apiece; +the chimneypieces that adorned them were of the kind called +_capucines_--a shelf set on a couple of brackets painted to resemble +wood. Here in these three rooms dwelt five human beings, three of them +children. Any one, therefore, can imagine how the walls were covered +with scores and scratches so far as an infant arm can reach. + +Rich people can scarcely realize the extreme simplicity of a poor +man's kitchen. A Dutch oven, a kettle, a gridiron, a saucepan, two or +three dumpy cooking-pots, and a frying-pan--that was all. All the +crockery in the place, white and brown earthenware together, was not +worth more than twelve francs. Dinner was served on the kitchen table, +which, with a couple of chairs and a couple of stools, completed the +furniture. The stock of fuel was kept under the stove with a +funnel-shaped chimney, and in a corner stood the wash-tub in which the +family linen lay, often steeping over-night in soapsuds. The nursery +ceiling was covered with clothes-lines, the walls were variegated with +theatrical placards and wood-cuts from newspapers or advertisements. +Evidently the eldest boy, the owner of the school-books stacked in a +corner, was left in charge while his parents were absent at the +theatre. In many a French workingman's family, so soon as a child +reaches the age of six or seven, it plays the part of mother to +younger sisters and brothers. + +From this bare outline, it may be imagined that the Topinards, to use +the hackneyed formula, were "poor but honest." Topinard himself was +verging on forty; Mme. Topinard, once leader of a chorus--mistress, +too, it was said, of Gaudissart's predecessor, was certainly thirty +years old. Lolotte had been a fine woman in her day; but the +misfortunes of the previous management had told upon her to such an +extent, that it had seemed to her to be both advisable and necessary +to contract a stage-marriage with Topinard. She did not doubt but +that, as soon as they could muster the sum of a hundred and fifty +francs, her Topinard would perform his vows agreeably to the civil +law, were it only to legitimize the three children, whom he worshiped. +Meantime, Mme. Topinard sewed for the theatre wardrobe in the morning; +and with prodigious effort, the brave couple made nine hundred francs +per annum between them. + +"One more flight!" Topinard had twice repeated since they reached the +third floor. Schmucke, engulfed in his sorrow, did not so much as know +whether he was going up or coming down. + +In another minute Topinard had opened the door; but before he appeared +in his white workman's blouse Mme. Topinard's voice rang from the +kitchen: + +"There, there! children, be quiet! here comes papa!" + +But the children, no doubt, did as they pleased with papa, for the +oldest member of the family, sitting astride a broomstick, continued +to command a charge of cavalry (a reminiscence of the +Cirque-Olympique), the second blew a tin trumpet, while the third did +its best to keep up with the main body of the army. Their mother was +at work on a theatrical costume. + +"Be quiet! or I shall slap you!" shouted Topinard in a formidable +voice; then in an aside for Schmucke's benefit--"Always have to say +that!--Here, little one," he continued, addressing his Lolotte, "this +is M. Schmucke, poor M. Pons' friend. He does not know where to go, +and he would like to live with us. I told him that we were not very +spick-and-span up here, that we lived on the sixth floor, and had only +the garret to offer him; but it was no use, he would come--" + +Schmucke had taken the chair which the woman brought him, and the +children, stricken with sudden shyness, had gathered together to give +the stranger that mute, earnest, so soon-finished scrutiny +characteristic of childhood. For a child, like a dog, is wont to judge +by instinct rather than reason. Schmucke looked up; his eyes rested on +that charming little picture; he saw the performer on the tin trumpet, +a little five-year-old maiden with wonderful golden hair. + +"She looks like ein liddle German girl," said Schmucke, holding out +his arms to the child. + +"Monsieur will not be very comfortable here," said Mme. Topinard. "I +would propose that he should have our room at once, but I am obliged +to have the children near me." + +She opened the door as she spoke, and bade Schmucke come in. Such +splendor as their abode possessed was all concentrated here. Blue +cotton curtains with a white fringe hung from the mahogany bedstead, +and adorned the window; the chest of drawers, bureau, and chairs, +though all made of mahogany, were neatly kept. The clock and +candlesticks on the chimneypiece were evidently the gift of the +bankrupt manager, whose portrait, a truly frightful performance of +Pierre Grassou's, looked down upon the chest of drawers. The children +tried to peep in at the forbidden glories. + +"Monsieur might be comfortable in here," said their mother. + +"No, no," Schmucke replied. "Eh! I haf not ver' long to lif, I only +vant a corner to die in." + +The door was closed, and the three went up to the garret. "Dis is der +ding for me," Schmucke cried at once. "Pefore I lifd mid Bons, I vas +nefer better lodged." + +"Very well. A truckle-bed, a couple of mattresses, a bolster, a +pillow, a couple of chairs, and a table--that is all that you need to +buy. That will not ruin you--it may cost a hundred and fifty francs, +with the crockeryware and strip of carpet for the bedside." + +Everything was settled--save the money, which was not forthcoming. +Schmucke saw that his new friends were very poor, and recollecting +that the theatre was only a few steps away, it naturally occurred to +him to apply to the manager for his salary. He went at once, and found +Gaudissart in his office. Gaudissart received him in the somewhat +stiffly polite manner which he reserved for professionals. Schmucke's +demand for a month's salary took him by surprise, but on inquiry he +found that it was due. + +"Oh, confound it, my good man, a German can always count, even if he +has tears in his eyes. . . . I thought that you would have taken the +thousand francs that I sent you into account, as a final year's +salary, and that we were quits." + +"We haf receifed nodings," said Schmucke; "und gif I komm to you, it +ees because I am in der shtreet, und haf not ein benny. How did you +send us der bonus?" + +"By your portress." + +"By Montame Zipod!" exclaimed Schmucke. "She killed Bons, she robbed +him, she sold him--she tried to purn his vill--she is a pad creature, +a monster!" + +"But, my good man, how come you to be out in the street without a roof +over your head or a penny in your pocket, when you are the sole heir? +That does not necessarily follow, as the saying is." + +"They haf put me out at der door. I am a voreigner, I know nodings of +die laws." + +"Poor man!" thought Gaudissart, foreseeing the probable end of the +unequal contest.--"Listen," he began, "do you know what you ought to +do in this business?" + +"I haf ein mann of pizness!" + +"Very good, come to terms at once with the next-of-kin; make them pay +you a lump sum of money down and an annuity, and you can live in +peace--" + +"I ask noding more." + +"Very well. Let me arrange it for you," said Gaudissart. Fraisier had +told him the whole story only yesterday, and he thought that he saw +his way to making interest out of the case with the young Vicomtesse +Popinot and her mother. He would finish a dirty piece of work, and +some day he would be a privy councillor, at least; or so he told +himself. + +"I gif you full powers." + +"Well. Let me see. Now, to begin with," said Gaudissart, Napoleon of +the boulevard theatres, "to begin with, here are a hundred crowns--" +(he took fifteen louis from his purse and handed them to Schmucke). + +"That is yours, on account of six months' salary. If you leave the +theatre, you can repay me the money. Now for your budget. What are +your yearly expenses? How much do you want to be comfortable? Come, +now, scheme out a life for a Sardanapalus--" + +"I only need two suits of clothes, von for der vinter, von for der +sommer." + +"Three hundred francs," said Gaudissart. + +"Shoes. Vour bairs." + +"Sixty francs." + +"Shtockings--" + +"A dozen pairs--thirty-six francs." + +"Half a tozzen shirts." + +"Six calico shirts, twenty-four francs; as many linen shirts, +forty-eight francs; let us say seventy-two. That makes four hundred +and sixty-eight francs altogether.--Say five hundred, including +cravats and pocket-handkerchiefs; a hundred francs for the laundress +--six hundred. And now, how much for your board--three francs a day?" + +"No, it ees too much." + +"After all, you want hats; that brings it to fifteen hundred. Five +hundred more for rent; that makes two thousand. If I can get two +thousand francs per annum for you, are you willing? . . . Good +securities." + +"Und mein tobacco." + +"Two thousand four hundred, then. . . . Oh! Papa Schmucke, do you call +that tobacco? Very well, the tobacco shall be given in.--So that is +two thousand four hundred francs per annum." + +"Dat ees not all! I should like som monny." + +"Pin-money!--Just so. Oh, these Germans! And calls himself an +innocent, the old Robert Macaire!" thought Gaudissart. Aloud he said, +"How much do you want? But this must be the last." + +"It ees to bay a zacred debt." + +"A debt!" said Gaudissart to himself. What a shark it is! He is worse +than an eldest son. He will invent a bill or two next! We must cut +this short. This Fraisier cannot take large views.--What debt is this, +my good man? Speak out." + +"Dere vas but von mann dot haf mourned Bons mit me. . . . He haf a +tear liddle girl mit wunderschones haar; it vas as if I saw mein boor +Deutschland dot I should nefer haf left. . . . Baris is no blace for +die Germans; dey laugh at dem" (with a little nod as he spoke, and the +air of a man who knows something of life in this world below). + +"He is off his head," Gaudissart said to himself. And a sudden pang of +pity for this poor innocent before him brought a tear to the manager's +eyes. + +"Ah! you understand, mennesir le directeur! Ver' goot. Dat mann mit +die liddle taughter is Dobinard, vat tidies der orchestra and lights +die lamps. Bons vas fery fond of him, und helped him. He vas der +only von dat accombanied mein only friend to die church und to die +grafe. . . . I vant dree tausend vrancs for him, und dree tausend for +die liddle von--" + +"Poor fellow!" said Gaudissart to himself. + +Rough, self-made man though he was, he felt touched by this nobleness +of nature, by a gratitude for a mere trifle, as the world views it; +though for the eyes of this divine innocence the trifle, like +Bossuet's cup of water, was worth more than the victories of great +captains. Beneath all Gaudissart's vanity, beneath the fierce desire +to succeed in life at all costs, to rise to the social level of his +old friend Popinot, there lay a warm heart and a kindly nature. +Wherefore he canceled his too hasty judgments and went over to +Schmucke's side. + +"You shall have it all! But I will do better still, my dear Schmucke. +Topinard is a good sort--" + +"Yes. I haf chust peen to see him in his boor home, vere he ees happy +mit his children--" + +"I will give him the cashier's place. Old Baudrand is going to leave." + +"Ah! Gott pless you!" cried Schmucke. + +"Very well, my good, kind fellow, meet me at Berthier's office about +four o'clock this afternoon. Everything shall be ready, and you shall +be secured from want for the rest of your days. You shall draw your +six thousand francs, and you shall have the same salary with Garangeot +that you used to have with Pons." + +"No," Schmucke answered. "I shall not lif. . . . I haf no heart for +anydings; I feel that I am attacked--" + +"Poor lamb!" Gaudissart muttered to himself as the German took his +leave. "But, after all, one lives on mutton; and, as the sublime +Beranger says, 'Poor sheep! you were made to be shorn,'" and he +hummed the political squib by way of giving vent to his feelings. Then +he rang for the office-boy. + +"Call my carriage," he said. + +"Rue de Hanovre," he told the coachman. + +The man of ambitions by this time had reappeared; he saw the way to +the Council of State lying straight before him. + + + +And Schmucke? He was busy buying flowers and cakes for Topinard's +children, and went home almost joyously. + +"I am gifing die bresents . . ." he said, and he smiled. It was the +first smile for three months, but any one who had seen Schmucke's face +would have shuddered to see it there. + +"But dere is ein condition--" + +"It is too kind of you, sir," said the mother. + +"De liddle girl shall gif me a kiss and put die flowers in her hair, +like die liddle German maidens--" + +"Olga, child, do just as the gentleman wishes," said the mother, +assuming an air of discipline. + +"Do not scold mein liddle German girl," implored Schmucke. It seemed +to him that the little one was his dear Germany. Topinard came in. + +"Three porters are bringing up the whole bag of tricks," he said. + +"Oh! Here are two hundred vrancs to bay for eferydings . . ." said +Schmucke. "But, mein friend, your Montame Dobinard is ver' nice; you +shall marry her, is it not so? I shall gif you tausend crowns, and die +liddle vone shall haf tausend crowns for her toury, and you shall +infest it in her name. . . . Und you are not to pe ein zuper any more +--you are to pe de cashier at de teatre--" + +"_I_?--instead of old Baudrand?" + +"Yes." + +"Who told you so?" + +"Mennesir Gautissart!" + +"Oh! it is enough to send one wild with joy! . . . Eh! I say, Rosalie, +what a rumpus there will be at the theatre! But it is not possible--" + +"Our benefactor must not live in a garret--" + +"Pshaw! for die few tays dat I haf to lif it ees fery komfortable," +said Schmucke. "Goot-pye; I am going to der zemetery, to see vat dey +haf don mit Bons, und to order som flowers for his grafe." + + + +Mme. Camusot de Marville was consumed by the liveliest apprehensions. +At a council held with Fraisier, Berthier, and Godeschal, the two +last-named authorities gave it as their opinion that it was hopeless +to dispute a will drawn up by two notaries in the presence of two +witnesses, so precisely was the instrument worded by Leopold +Hannequin. Honest Godeschal said that even if Schmucke's own legal +adviser should succeed in deceiving him, he would find out the truth +at last, if it were only from some officious barrister, the gentlemen +of the robe being wont to perform such acts of generosity and +disinterestedness by way of self-advertisement. And the two officials +took their leave of the Presidente with a parting caution against +Fraisier, concerning whom they had naturally made inquiries. + +At that very moment Fraisier, straight from the affixing of the seals +in the Rue de Normandie, was waiting for an interview with Mme. de +Marville. Berthier and Godeschal had suggested that he should be shown +into the study; the whole affair was too dirty for the President to +look into (to use their own expression), and they wished to give Mme. +de Marville their opinion in Fraisier's absence. + +"Well, madame, where are these gentlemen?" asked Fraisier, admitted to +audience. + +"They are gone. They advise me to give up," said Mme. de Marville. + +"Give up!" repeated Fraisier, suppressed fury in his voice. "Give up! +. . . Listen to this, madame:-- + + "'At the request of' . . . and so forth (I will omit the + formalities) . . . 'Whereas there has been deposited in the hands + of M. le President of the Court of First Instance, a will drawn up + by Maitres Leopold Hannequin and Alexandre Crottat, notaries of + Paris, and in the presence of two witnesses, the Sieurs Brunner + and Schwab, aliens domiciled at Paris, and by the said will the + Sieur Pons, deceased, has bequeathed his property to one Sieur + Schmucke, a German, to the prejudice of his natural heirs: + + "'Whereas the applicant undertakes to prove that the said will + was obtained under undue influence and by unlawful means; and + persons of credit are prepared to show that it was the testator's + intention to leave his fortune to Mlle. Cecile, daughter of the + aforesaid Sieur de Marville, and the applicant can show that the + said will was extorted from the testator's weakness, he being + unaccountable for his actions at the time: + + "'Whereas as the Sieur Schmucke, to obtain a will in his favor, + sequestrated the testator, and prevented the family from + approaching the deceased during his last illness; and his + subsequent notorious ingratitude was of a nature to scandalize the + house and residents in the quarter who chanced to witness it when + attending the funeral of the porter at the testator's place of + abode: + + "'Whereas as still more serious charges, of which applicant is + collecting proofs, will be formally made before their worships the + judges: + + "'I, the undersigned Registrar of the Court, etc., etc., on + behalf of the aforesaid, etc., have summoned the Sieur Schmucke, + pleading, etc., to appear before their worships the judges of the + first chamber of the Tribunal, and to be present when application + is made that the will received by Maitres Hannequin and Crottat, + being evidently obtained by undue influence, shall be regarded as + null and void in law; and I, the undersigned, on behalf of the + aforesaid, etc., have likewise given notice of protest, should the + Sieur Schmucke as universal legatee make application for an order + to be put into possession of the estate, seeing that the applicant + opposes such order, and makes objection by his application bearing + date of to-day, of which a copy has been duly deposited with the + Sieur Schmucke, costs being charged to . . . etc., etc.' + +"I know the man, Mme. le Presidente. He will come to terms as soon as +he reads this little love-letter. He will take our terms. Are you +going to give the thousand crowns per annum?" + +"Certainly. I only wish I were paying the first installment now." + +"It will be done in three days. The summons will come down upon him +while he is stupefied with grief, for the poor soul regrets Pons and +is taking the death to heart." + +"Can the application be withdrawn?" inquired the lady. + +"Certainly, madame. You can withdraw it at any time." + +"Very well, monsieur, let it be so . . . go on! Yes, the purchase of +land that you have arranged for me is worth the trouble; and, besides, +I have managed Vitel's business--he is to retire, and you must pay +Vitel's sixty thousand francs out of Pons' property. So, you see, you +must succeed." + +"Have you Vitel's resignation?" + +"Yes, monsieur. M. Vitel has put himself in M. de Marville's hands." + +"Very good, madame. I have already saved you sixty thousand francs +which I expected to give to that vile creature Mme. Cibot. But I still +require the tobacconist's license for the woman Sauvage, and an +appointment to the vacant place of head-physician at the Quinze-Vingts +for my friend Poulain." + +"Agreed--it is all arranged." + +"Very well. There is no more to be said. Every one is for you in this +business, even Gaudissart, the manager of the theatre. I went to look +him up yesterday, and he undertook to crush the workman who seemed +likely to give us trouble." + +"Oh, I know M. Gaudissart is devoted to the Popinots." + +Fraisier went out. Unluckily, he missed Gaudissart, and the fatal +summons was served forthwith. + +If all covetous minds will sympathize with the Presidente, all honest +folk will turn in abhorrence from her joy when Gaudissart came twenty +minutes later to report his conversation with poor Schmucke. She gave +her full approval; she was obliged beyond all expression for the +thoughtful way in which the manager relieved her of any remaining +scruples by observations which seemed to her to be very sensible and +just. + +"I thought as I came, Mme. la Presidente, that the poor devil would +not know what to do with the money. 'Tis a patriarchally simple +nature. He is a child, he is a German, he ought to be stuffed and put +in a glass case like a waxen image. Which is to say that, in my +opinion, he is quite puzzled enough already with his income of two +thousand five hundred francs, and here you are provoking him into +extravagance--" + +"It is very generous of him to wish to enrich the poor fellow who +regrets the loss of our cousin," pronounced the Presidente. "For my +own part, I am sorry for the little squabble that estranged M. Pons +and me. If he had come back again, all would have been forgiven. If +you only knew how my husband misses him! M. de Marville received no +notice of the death, and was in despair; family claims are sacred for +him, he would have gone to the service and the interment, and I myself +would have been at the mass--" + +"Very well, fair lady," said Gaudissart. "Be so good as to have the +documents drawn up, and at four o'clock I will bring this German to +you. Please remember me to your charming daughter the Vicomtesse, and +ask her to tell my illustrious friend the great statesman, her good +and excellent father-in-law, how deeply I am devoted to him and his, +and ask him to continue his valued favors. I owe my life to his uncle +the judge, and my success in life to him; and I should wish to be +bound to both you and your daughter by the high esteem which links us +with persons of rank and influence. I wish to leave the theatre and +become a serious person." + +"As you are already, monsieur!" said the Presidente. + +"Adorable!" returned Gaudissart, kissing the lady's shriveled fingers. + +At four o'clock that afternoon several people were gathered together +at Berthier's office; Fraisier, arch-concocter of the whole scheme, +Tabareau, appearing on behalf of Schmucke, and Schmucke himself. +Gaudissart had come with him. Fraisier had been careful to spread out +the money on Berthier's desk, and so dazzled was Schmucke by the sight +of the six thousand-franc bank-notes for which he had asked, and six +hundred francs for the first quarter's allowance, that he paid no heed +whatsoever to the reading of the document. Poor man, he was scarcely +in full possession of his faculties, shaken as they had already been +by so many shocks. Gaudissart had snatched him up on his return from +the cemetery, where he had been talking with Pons, promising to join +him soon--very soon. So Schmucke did not listen to the preamble in +which it was set forth that Maitre Tabareau, bailiff, was acting as +his proxy, and that the Presidente, in the interests of her daughter, +was taking legal proceedings against him. Altogether, in that preamble +the German played a sorry part, but he put his name to the document, +and thereby admitted the truth of Fraisier's abominable allegations; +and so joyous was he over receiving the money for the Topinards, so +glad to bestow wealth according to his little ideas upon the one +creature who loved Pons, that he heard not a word of lawsuit nor +compromise. + +But in the middle of the reading a clerk came into the private office +to speak to his employer. "There is a man here, sir, who wishes to +speak to M. Schmucke," said he. + +The notary looked at Fraisier, and, taking his cue from him, shrugged +his shoulders. + +"Never disturb us when we are signing documents. Just ask his name--is +it a man or a gentleman? Is he a creditor?" + +The clerk went and returned. "He insists that he must speak to M. +Schmucke." + +"His name?" + +"His name is Topinard, he says." + +"I will go out to him. Sign without disturbing yourself," said +Gaudissart, addressing Schmucke. "Make an end of it; I will find out +what he wants with us." + +Gaudissart understood Fraisier; both scented danger. + +"Why are you here?" Gaudissart began. "So you have no mind to be +cashier at the theatre? Discretion is a cashier's first +recommendation." + +"Sir--" + +"Just mind your own business; you will never be anything if you meddle +in other people's affairs." + +"Sir, I cannot eat bread if every mouthful of it is to stick in my +throat. . . . Monsieur Schmucke!--M. Schmucke!" he shouted aloud. + +Schmucke came out at the sound of Topinard's voice. He had just +signed. He held the money in his hand. + +"Thees ees for die liddle German maiden und for you," he said. + +"Oh! my dear M. Schmucke, you have given away your wealth to inhuman +wretches, to people who are trying to take away your good name. I took +this paper to a good man, an attorney who knows this Fraisier, and he +says that you ought to punish such wickedness; you ought to let them +summon you and leave them to get out of it.--Read this," and +Schmucke's imprudent friend held out the summons delivered in the Cite +Bordin. + +Standing in the notary's gateway, Schmucke read the document, saw the +imputations made against him, and, all ignorant as he was of the +amenities of the law, the blow was deadly. The little grain of sand +stopped his heart's beating. Topinard caught him in his arms, hailed a +passing cab, and put the poor German into it. He was suffering from +congestion of the brain; his eyes were dim, his head was throbbing, +but he had enough strength left to put the money into Topinard's +hands. + +Schmucke rallied from the first attack, but he never recovered +consciousness, and refused to eat. Ten days afterwards he died without +a complaint; to the last he had not spoken a word. Mme. Topinard +nursed him, and Topinard laid him by Pons' side. It was an obscure +funeral; Topinard was the only mourner who followed the son of Germany +to his last resting-place. + + + +Fraisier, now a justice of the peace, is very intimate with the +President's family, and much valued by the Presidente. She could not +think of allowing him to marry "that girl of Tabareau's," and promised +infinitely better things for the clever man to whom she considers she +owes not merely the pasture-land and the English cottage at Marville, +but also the President's seat in the Chamber of Deputies, for M. le +President was returned at the general election in 1846. + +Every one, no doubt, wishes to know what became of the heroine of a +story only too veracious in its details; a chronicle which, taken with +its twin sister the preceding volume, _La Cousine Bette_, proves that +Character is a great social force. You, O amateurs, connoisseurs, and +dealers, will guess at once that Pons' collection is now in question. +Wherefore it will suffice if we are present during a conversation that +took place only a few days ago in Count Popinot's house. He was +showing his splendid collection to some visitors. + +"M. le Comte, you possess treasures indeed," remarked a distinguished +foreigner. + +"Oh! as to pictures, nobody can hope to rival an obscure collector, +one Elie Magus, a Jew, an old monomaniac, the prince of +picture-lovers," the Count replied modestly. "And when I say nobody, +I do not speak of Paris only, but of all Europe. When the old Croesus +dies, France ought to spare seven or eight millions of francs to buy +the gallery. For curiosities, my collection is good enough to be +talked about--" + +"But how, busy as you are, and with a fortune so honestly earned in +the first instance in business--" + +"In the drug business," broke in Popinot; "you ask how I can continue +to interest myself in things that are a drug in the market--" + +"No," returned the foreign visitor, "no, but how do you find time to +collect? The curiosities do not come to find you." + +"My father-in-law owned the nucleus of the collection," said the young +Vicomtess; "he loved the arts and beautiful work, but most of his +treasures came to him through me." + +"Through you, madame?--So young! and yet have you such vices as this?" +asked a Russian prince. + +Russians are by nature imitative; imitative indeed to such an extent +that the diseases of civilization break out among them in epidemics. +The bric-a-brac mania had appeared in an acute form in St. Petersburg, +and the Russians caused such a rise of prices in the "art line," as +Remonencq would say, that collection became impossible. The prince who +spoke had come to Paris solely to buy bric-a-brac. + +"The treasures came to me, prince, on the death of a cousin. He was +very fond of me," added the Vicomtesse Popinot, "and he had spent some +forty odd years since 1805 in picking up these masterpieces +everywhere, but more especially in Italy--" + +"And what was his name?" inquired the English lord. + +"Pons," said President Camusot. + +"A charming man he was," piped the Presidente in her thin, flute +tones, "very clever, very eccentric, and yet very good-hearted. This +fan that you admire once belonged to Mme. de Pompadour; he gave it to +me one morning with a pretty speech which you must permit me not to +repeat," and she glanced at her daughter. + +"Mme. la Vicomtesse, tell us the pretty speech," begged the Russian +prince. + +"The speech was as pretty as the fan," returned the Vicomtesse, who +brought out the stereotyped remark on all occasions. "He told my +mother that it was quite time that it should pass from the hands of +vice into those of virtue." + +The English lord looked at Mme. Camusot de Marville with an air of +doubt not a little gratifying to so withered a woman. + +"He used to dine at our house two or three times a week," she said; +"he was so fond of us! We could appreciate him, and artists like the +society of those who relish their wit. My husband was, besides, his +one surviving relative. So when, quite unexpectedly, M. de Marville +came into the property, M. le Comte preferred to take over the whole +collection to save it from a sale by auction; and we ourselves much +preferred to dispose of it in that way, for it would have been so +painful to us to see the beautiful things, in which our dear cousin +was so much interested, all scattered abroad. Elie Magus valued them, +and in that way I became possessed of the cottage that your uncle +built, and I hope you will do us the honor of coming to see us there." + + + +Gaudissart's theatre passed into other hands a year ago, but M. +Topinard is still the cashier. M. Topinard, however, has grown gloomy +and misanthropic; he says little. People think that he has something +on his conscience. Wags at the theatre suggest that his gloom dates +from his marriage with Lolotte. Honest Topinard starts whenever he +hears Fraisier's name mentioned. Some people may think it strange that +the one nature worthy of Pons and Schmucke should be found on the +third floor beneath the stage of a boulevard theatre. + +Mme. Remonencq, much impressed with Mme. Fontaine's prediction, +declines to retire to the country. She is still living in her splendid +shop on the Boulevard de la Madeleine, but she is a widow now for the +second time. Remonencq, in fact, by the terms of the marriage +contract, settled the property upon the survivor, and left a little +glass of vitriol about for his wife to drink by mistake; but his wife, +with the very best intentions, put the glass elsewhere, and Remonencq +swallowed the draught himself. The rascal's appropriate end vindicates +Providence, as well as the chronicler of manners, who is sometimes +accused of neglect on this head, perhaps because Providence has been +so overworked by playwrights of late. + +Pardon the transcriber's errors. + + + + +ADDENDUM + +The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy. + +Baudoyer, Isidore + The Government Clerks + The Middle Classes + +Berthier (Parisian notary) + Cousin Betty + +Berthier, Madame + The Muse of the Department + +Bixiou, Jean-Jacques + The Purse + A Bachelor's Establishment + The Government Clerks + Modeste Mignon + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + The Firm of Nucingen + The Muse of the Department + Cousin Betty + The Member for Arcis + Beatrix + A Man of Business + Gaudissart II. + The Unconscious Humorists + +Braulard + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + Cousin Betty + +Brisetout, Heloise + Cousin Betty + The Middle Classes + +Camusot + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + A Bachelor's Establishment + The Muse of the Department + Cesar Birotteau + At the Sign of the Cat and Racket + +Camusot de Marville + Jealousies of a Country Town + The Commission in Lunacy + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + +Camusot de Marville, Madame + The Vendetta + Cesar Birotteau + Jealousies of a Country Town + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + +Cardot (Parisian notary) + The Muse of the Department + A Man of Business + Jealousies of a Country Town + Pierre Grassou + The Middle Classes + +Chanor + Cousin Betty + +Crevel, Celestin + Cesar Birotteau + Cousin Betty + +Crottat, Alexandre + Cesar Birotteau + Colonel Chabert + A Start in Life + A Woman of Thirty + +Desplein + The Atheist's Mass + Lost Illusions + The Thirteen + The Government Clerks + Pierrette + A Bachelor's Establishment + The Seamy Side of History + Modeste Mignon + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + Honorine + +Florent + Cousin Betty + +Fontaine, Madame + The Unconscious Humorists + +Gaudissart, Felix + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + Cesar Birotteau + Honorine + Gaudissart the Great + +Godeschal, Francois-Claude-Marie + Colonel Chabert + A Bachelor's Establishment + A Start in Life + The Commission in Lunacy + The Middle Classes + +Godeschal, Marie + A Bachelor's Establishment + A Start in Life + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + +Gouraud, General, Baron + Pierrette + +Graff, Wolfgang + Cousin Betty + +Granville, Vicomte de (later Comte) + The Gondreville Mystery + Honorine + A Second Home + Farewell (Adieu) + Cesar Birotteau + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + A Daughter of Eve + +Grassou, Pierre + Pierre Grassou + A Bachelor's Establishment + Cousin Betty + The Middle Classes + +Hannequin, Leopold + Albert Savarus + Beatrix + Cousin Betty + +Haudry (doctor) + Cesar Birotteau + The Thirteen + A Bachelor's Establishment + The Seamy Side of History + +Lebrun (physician) + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + +Louchard + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + +Madeleine + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + +Magus, Elie + The Vendetta + A Marriage Settlement + A Bachelor's Establishment + Pierre Grassou + +Matifat (wealthy druggist) + Cesar Birotteau + A Bachelor's Establishment + Lost Illusions + A Distinguished Provincial at Paris + The Firm of Nucingen + +Minard, Prudence + The Middle Classes + +Pillerault, Claude-Joseph + Cesar Birotteau + +Popinot, Anselme + Cesar Birotteau + Gaudissart the Great + Cousin Betty + +Popinot, Madame Anselme + Cesar Birotteau + A Prince of Bohemia + Cousin Betty + +Popinot, Vicomte + Cousin Betty + +Rivet, Achille + Cousin Betty + +Schmucke, Wilhelm + A Daughter of Eve + Ursule Mirouet + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + +Stevens, Dinah + A Marriage Settlement + +Stidmann + Modeste Mignon + Beatrix + The Member for Arcis + Cousin Betty + The Unconscious Humorists + +Thouvenin + Cesar Birotteau + +Vinet + Pierrette + The Member for Arcis + The Middle Classes + +Vinet, Olivier + The Member for Arcis + The Middle Classes + +Vivet, Madeleine + Scenes from a Courtesan's Life + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Poor Relations, by Honore de Balzac + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POOR RELATIONS *** + +***** This file should be named 12900.txt or 12900.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/9/0/12900/ + +Produced by Dagny, and John Bickers, + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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