THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES H. DE BALZAC THE COMEDIE HUMAINE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "THE PAIR OF MUTCKACKKUS " (p. Ill) . . . Frontispiece. PAGE THK RUE DE NORMANDIE 1 35 A COLD THRILL RAN THRi'UCH MME. CIBOT .... 221 "MADAME CIBOT, I BELIEVE?" 273 FRAISIER READ THE CURIOUS DOCUMENT .... 357 Drawn by W. Boucher. PREFACE. One of the last and largest of Balzac's great works — the very last of them, if we except "La Cousine Bette," to which it is pendant and contrast — "La 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 in- terest ; 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 in- terests, 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, (ix) X PREFACE. 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 satisfac- tions. His connoisseurship has, of course, been questioned — one connoisseur 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 v^hat 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 suc- ceeded 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 Rothschild 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 carry- ing out his behests he pathetically upbraids in more than one extant letter. Therefore, Balzac "did more than sympathize, he felt" — as it has been well put — with Pons in the bric-a-brac matter; and it would appear that he did so likewise in that of music. PREFACE. xi 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 sur- rounded 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 \\iQ. parvenu family of Camusot in one degree, and the greed of the portress, Madame Cibot, on 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 Mau- frigneuse 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-d- bracery'''' of this piece — that is to say, not of Balzac's com- petence in the matter, but of the artistic value of his intro- duction 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 some- what too soon ; that the struggle, first over the body and then over the property of Patrocliis-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 xii PREFACE. old, and generally rather impertinent, suggestion to the artist that he shall do with his art something different from that which he has himsef chosen to do. It is, or should be, suffi- cient that " Le Cousin Pons " is a very agreeable book, more / pathetic, if less "grimy," than its companion, full of its author's idiosyncrasy, and characteristic of his genius. It may not be uninteresting to add that " Le Cousin Pons" was originally called " Les Deux Musiciens," or " Le Parasite," and that the change, which is a great improvement, was due to the instances of Madame Hanska. (For bibliography, see the Preface to '• La Cousine Bette.") G. S. THE POOR PARENTS (Z 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 Monsieur 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 Monsieur Schmucke with you, sir. He is like a child. iVh ! 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 ; Mademoiselle 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 that have done for you these ten years. And those nurses are such eaters, they eat enough for ten ; 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 niirse in here to-day, and 236 THE POOR PARENTS. to-morrow we should find a picture or something or other gone " "Oh ! Madame 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 nobody but me,' I told him. ' He is used to me, and I am used to him.' So he said no more. A nurse, in- deed ! They are all thieves ; I hate that sort of woman, I do. Here is a tale tiiat 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 Madame 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 hus- band 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 lawyer- folks. 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 liim, 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, COUSIN PONS. 237 he married her, and they have a fine child ; Ma'am Bordevin, the butcher's wife in the Rue Chariot, 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 sou to bless ourselves with after thirty years of faithful service ? I have not a centime 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 saun- tering 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, Madame 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, no ; I am not thinking of myself. I cannot think how some women can do a kindness tliinking of themselves all the time. It ain't doing good, sir, is it? I do not go to church myself, I haven't the time ; but my con- science tells me what is right Don't you fidget like that, my lamb! Don't scratch yourself! Dear me, how yellow you have growed ! 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 people has, and one must surely have something ! Suppose that you were just at 238 THE POOR PARENTS. death's door, I should be the first to tell you that you ought to leave all that you have to Monsieur 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 Madame Cibot." " Good. You take me for a servant, do you, a common servant, as if I hadn't got no heart ! Goodness me ! for eleven years you do for two old bachelors, you think of noth- ing but their comfort. I have turned half a score of green- grocers' stalls 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 Madame 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 I for the little King of Rome was not so well cared for as you have been. You may bet that he was not as well looked after. He died in his prime; there is proof for you. Come, sir, you are unjust ! You are ungrateful ! It is be- cause I am only a poor portress. Goodness me ! are yoii one of those that think we are dogs? " " But, my dear Madame Cibot " "Indeed, you that know so much, tell me why we porters are treated like this, and ain't supposed to have no feelings; people look down on us in these days when they talks 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 Ecailiere^- and received declarations seven or eight * The handsome oyster-opener. COUSIN PONS. 239 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 of you.' 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, that 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 Madame 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 any- body " " Do let me speak ! " continued Pons, " Let us see ; I put Monsieur Schmucke first " " Monsieur 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 tor- ment 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 Madame Cibot ! there ! When Dr. Poulain comes, ask him for a nurse." 240 THE POOR PARENTS. "■ Oh fiddlestick, stop ! " 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 Cibet, 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 ! Madame 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 scratch their eyes out ! Such people deserve to die at the Barri6re 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 Monsieur Schmucke, I said to myself, ' Monsieur 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 COUSIN PONS. 241 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 Mon- sieur 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 Monsieur Schmucke's pleasure. And next day Monsieur 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 un- grateful 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 would not leave that poor dear alone, for fear that something might happen ; he is like God Almightv's lamb, he knows nothing about nothing, and I 16 242 Tint POOR PARENTS. 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 afterward. There is a chance ! 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 Monsieur 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 / am here ; I will take his part against anybody and everybody ! I and Cibot will defend him." "Dear Madame 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 in- tense bitterness. "So you have relations! " cried La Cibot, springing up as if her easy-chair had been heated red-hot. " Oh, well, COUSIN PONS. 243 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 centime! " "Well, my dear Madame Cibot, I meant to leave all that I had to a first 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 any- body 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, eli, sir? a housemaid didn't ought to have a velvet tippet, while I, Madame 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 house- maid 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 tip- pets 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 244 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 musi- cian 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 sparkling boulevards, the many sights to be seen for nothing in Paris. The isolation, the darkened days, the suff'ering that aff'ects 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 credulous. 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 invalids' thoughts, as a rule, never travel beyond in the little space over which their 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, tlie poor invalid looked upon him as a second Pons. La Cibot's pro- digious art consisted in expressing Pons' own ideas, and this she did quite unconsciously. " Ah ! here comes the doctor ! " she exclaimed, as the bell COUSIN PONS. 245 rang, and away she went, knowing very well tliat 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 pic- tures. 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 curiosi- ties ; in the middle of the room stood a row of carved cre- dence-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 masterpices ; 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 savan- nas, through virgin forests. The first was a painting by Sebastian del Piombo, the sec- ond 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 246 THE POOR PARENTS. schools meet, each bringing its preeminent qualities. A Venetian painter, he went 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 againt the reigning king of art. And so it came to pass tliat in del Piombo's indolent genius Venetian color was blended with Florentine composition and a some- thing 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 at- tained (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 bv that other Portrait of an Old Man in which Raphael's consummate skill blends with Coreggio's art ; or, again, compare it with Lionardo da Vinci's Charles VIII., and the picture would scarcely lose. The four pearls are equal ; there ii 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 Diirer, it was equal to the famous Holzschuer portrait at Nuremberg for which the Kings of Bavaria, Holland, and Prussia have vainly offered two hun- dred thousand francs again and again. Was it the portrait of the wife or the daughter of Holzschuer, Albrecht Diirer's per- sonal friend? The hypothesis seems to be a certainty, for COUSIN PONS. 247 the altitude of the figure in Pons' picture suggests iliat it is meant for a pendant, the position of the coat-of-arms is the same as in the Nuremberg portrait ; and, finally, the atatis suce 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 ear; " 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 fiutter. 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? 248 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 momen- tary and special dislikes to some person or thing, and concen- trates 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 chineursj'^ Remonencq answered astutely. "I am not much in the art line myself; but you are supposed to be such a great connoisseur, sir, that, little as I know, I would willingly buy your collection, sir, 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 had a bad turn, she spent thirty sous on medicine in ten days, 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. COUSIN PONS. 249 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 be- holding art made perfect : such as these can stand for whole hours before the Antiope — Correggio's masterpieces — before Lionardo'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 backward, 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 contem- plation 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." 250 THE POOR PARENTS. "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 ray 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 you 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 store 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 the Cibot. " I am incapable of taking the worth of a single pin ; mind you that now, Remon- encq ! 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 those two old bachelors, yonder, and neither of 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 centime. Well, there is one up there that will die soon, eh ? and he the COUSIN PONS. 2r,i 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), and yet, if the old hunks had never heard of me, 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 nov/ 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 go 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 thumping sound as if some heavy body had fallen in the din- ing-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 252 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 Monsieur Schmucke, crying like a child on the stairs — and iJiis 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 Damo- cles. "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 scolding 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, there is. Monsieur 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 liim of his early loves. Who knows men ? Old libertines that they all COUSIN PONS. 253 are. I ought not to have shown him my arms when his eyes were glittering like carhucklesy 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 bannisters, 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 de- votion, 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 "nut- crackers." 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. " Confounded 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 susbect Montame Zipod, dot lend us her safings ! It is not goot ; it is fery bad ; but it is der illness " "Ah ! what an illness ! I am not the same man, I can feel 254 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 were increased a hundred- fold by the accident. In the course of a week, the two nut- crackers 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 Monsieur 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 Monsieur Pons live ' " " Poor dear Madame 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 ])hilosophically. 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, ray lamb. You are our children, both of you," cried La Cibot. " Our savings will be well invested ; COUSIX PONS. 255 you are safer than the bank. So long as we ve 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 single sou. 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 testamenfum ; but as the portress waited for him to say something — " I shall recom- mend you to Monsieur 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 first-floor establishment, consisting of a lobby, a sitting-room, and two bedrooms. A closet, opening into tlie lobby and the bed- room, had been turned into a study for the doctor. The kitchen, the servant's bedroom, and a small cellar were situ- ated 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 first-floor tenants. 256 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 suspenders, anything, in fact, that is made in a way of busi- ness 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 had 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 only son. At all costs, he should occupy a higher station than his father before him ; and now she was proud of her ^sculapius, 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 shame'd 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 wliom he revered ; and this sublime love of hers more than atoned for a defective education. The breeches-maker's business sold for about twenty thou- COUSIN PONS. 257 sand 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 Mnie. 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 hun- dred 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 1S09. 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 an 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 17 258 THE POOR PARENTS. la Concorde to console the poor man for his poverty by re- minding him that he is rich as a citizen. The antechamber 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 could 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. Pou- lain, aged thirty-three, was still a bachelor. Heaven had be- stowed 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 neighbor- hood. 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 COUSIN PONS. 259 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. Pille- rault 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 Popi- not ; but as Count Popinot's family pliysician was the cele- brated 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 pat- ronage of a powerful cabinet minister, one of the twelve or fifteen cards which a cunning hand has been shuffling for six- teen 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 ex- pression of his countenance, lengthy and not too cheerful to begin with, at times was positively appalling. Set a Tartuffe's 260 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 fortu- nate) with Bianchon's five or six hundred. Are the hatreds and jealousies of democracy incomprehen- sible 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 Morri- son's, and intrusted the business operations to an old hospital chum, a house-student who afterward took a retail drug busi- ness ; 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 stolen 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 preeminently 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 vest, a hat preserved like a relic, a pair of old gloves, and a cotton shirt. COUSIN PONS. 261 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 gayety 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 con- tinually in contact with disease and dishonor ; they see noth- ing of human nature but its sores ; in the forlorn first stages and beginnings of their career they eye competitors suspi- ciously 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 vest ! 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, ambi- tion of every nature, is not easy to hide. The doctor ex- amined 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 262 THE POOR PARENTS. 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. Every- thing 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 apples and a dish of foreign mixed dried fruits, known as quatre-7nendiants, in which the raisin-stalks were abundantly conspicuous. "You may stay, mother," said the doctor, laying a hand on Mme. Poulain's arm ; " this is Madame 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." COUSIN PONS. 263 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 Monsieur Pons is doing very badly, sir, and I have some- thing 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 embellish- ments, and gave a full account of the immense services ren- dered during the past ten years to Messrs. 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 Monsieur Pons' intentions, supposing that he should 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 Monsieur Poulain only would, he might do me a service for which I should be very grateful ; and that is, to say a word to Monsieur Pons for me. Goodness me ! an annuity of a thou- sand francs, is that too much, I ask you? To M. Schmucke it will 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 Monsieur Schmucke should be his heir. But what is a man that cannot put two ideas together in French? And, beside, he would be quite capable of going back to Germany, he will be in such despair over his friend's death " 264 THE POOR PARENTS. The doctor grew grave. '' My dear Madame 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 ! Wiiat 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 Monsieur 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 and " " / 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 about it, my dear Madame Cibot! These things are not within a doctor's province ; it is a notary's business " " But, my dear Monsieur Poulain, suppose that Monsieur 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 con- taining three gold-coins into the doctor's hands. " It is all I can do at the moment. Ah ! my dear Monsieur 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." COUSIN PONS. 265 La Cibot rose to her feet, Mme. Poulain bowed amiably, and the doctor went to the door with tlie 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 surely her accomplice — he had taken the fee for a sham illness. "Monsieur 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 sugges- tion by another no less diabolical. " Listen, my dear Madame Cibot," he said, as he drew her into his consulting-room. "I will now pay a debt of grati- tude 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," replied 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 in- telligent young fellow ; and we are so much the more intimate because our lives have fallen out very much in the same way. He was studing law while I was studying medicine ; and when 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 any one 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. 266 THE POOR PARENTS. " 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 lodsed as I am, and he is even leaner and more threadbare. He took refuge in our arrondissement, and is reduced to ap- pear for clients in the police court or before the magistrate. He lives in the Rue de la Perle close by. Go to number 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 Monsieur Louchard, the bailiff : Monsieur Tabareau, the clerk of the court ; and the justice of the peace, Monsieur Vitel; and Monsieur 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 Monsieur 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 interme- diary " Mme. Cibot looked askance at the doctor. "Is that the lawyer who helped Madame 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 COUSIN PONS. 267 him a present of a dozen shirts and a couple of dozen pocket- handkerchiefs; an outfit, in short." " My dear Madame 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 prac- tice brings " "It is only the righteous that suffer here below," said La Cibot. " Well, Monsieur 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 any- thing — 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 hith- erto 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 "ddress 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 in- sult a 'French writer more cruelly than by caling him un homme de lettres — a literary man. The word monsieur is a capital example of the life and death of words. Abbreviated from 268 THE POOR PARENTS. monseigneur, once so considerable a title, and even now, in the form of sire, reserved for emperors and kings, it is be- stowed 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, councilors, 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 runss of the ladder. Now, the bailiff's man is an outsider, an adventitious minister of justice, appearing to see that judg- ment is executed ; he is, in fact, a kind of inferior executioner employed by the county court. But the word "lawyer" Qiomme de loi, man of law) 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 hotnnte de loi, homme de lettres, is wanting in the plural form, which may be used without offense ; 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 * Constables. COUSIN PONS. 269 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 store occu- pied almost the whole of the first floor, as well as the little yard behind, which was covered with his workshops and ware- houses ; 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 nitre 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 her own fraternity, a shoemaker, his wife, and two small children, all housed in a room ten feet square, lighted from the yard at the back. I-.a 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 sub- ject 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." 270 THE POOR PARENTS. "■ He saved my life too, madame. What sort of man is this Monsieur 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 centime belonging to anybody else." This sort of talk sounded familiar to La Cibot. "In short, one can trust him, child, eh?" "Lord! when Monsieur Fraisier means well by anyone, there is not his like, so I have heard Madame Florimond say." "And why didn't she marry him when she owed her for- tune 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 up 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 scat- tered about. The walls of the upper stories were covered with apprentices' ribald scrawls and caricatures. The por- tress' last remark had roused La Cibot's curiosity; she de- cided, not unnaturally, that she would consult Dr. Poulain's friend ; but as for employing him, that must depend upon her impressions. COUSIN PONS. 271 **I sometimes wonder how Madame 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 news- paper up to my landlord." Arrived on the third floor, above the entresol. La Cibot beheld a door of the most villainous description. The doubt- ful 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 grat- ing, 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 re- semblance 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 ara- besques ! On pulling a greasy acorn tassel attached to the bell-rope, a little bell jangled feebly somewhere within, com- plaining 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, hideous, ugly cotton gown, a red bandana handkerchief knotted over hair which she still continued to put in curl-papers (using for that purpose the 272 THE POOR PARENTS. 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, how- ever, 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 Monsieur Fraisier; his friend, Dr. Poulain, sent me." ''Oh! come in, missus," said La Sauvage, grown very amiable all of a sudden, which proves that she was prepared for this morning visit. With a sweeping curtsey, 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 attorney'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 "MADAME CIBOT. I BELIEVE?" COUSIN PONS. 273 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 agreeble expression, and brousrht forward a chair. "■ Madame Cibot, I believe? " queried he, in dulcet tones. "Yes, sir," answered the portress. She had lost her ha- bitual 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 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 thread- bare felt. The robe was an ancient painted 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 vest 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. " Madame Sauvage ! " called he. "Well?" " I am not at home to anybody ! " " Eh ! bless your life, there's no need to say that ! " 18 274 THE POOR PARENTS. " She is my old nurse," the lawyer made remark, 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 efi"ort 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 pen- sioner of the Old Guard. Fraisier's silence and acquies- cence, 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 por- tress' looks 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 at- torney 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, whom the next-of-kin COL SIN PONS. 275 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 pic- tures at six hundred thousand francs. "Would they take them themselves at that price?" in- quired 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 captalist 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 gentle- men. 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, ray dear sir," repeated La Cibot. "Yes, my Mon- sieur Pons is own cousin to President Camusot de Marville ; he tells me that ten times a day. Monsieur Camusot the silk mercer was married twice " "He that has just been nominated for a peer of France? who " " — And his first wife was a Mademoiselle Pons, Monsieur 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 276 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 Monsieur Pons must have an heir-at-law. Monsieur le President de Marville is your invalid's sole heir ; but as he is a collateral in the third degree, Monsieur Pons is entitled by law to leave his fortune as he pleases. You are not aware either that, six weeks ago at least, Monsieur le President's daughter married the eldest son of the 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. COUSIN PONS. 277 "One thing more you do not know," he contuiued, ''and tliis it is : If you had only to do with President Camusot him- self, 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 scaf- fold, your hair will stand on end. The presidente is so vin- dictive 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, Monsieur de Granville from " " That lived in the Rue Vieille-du-Temple, at the corner of the Rue Saint-Frangois ! " "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 afterward — I should apply for a passport and set sail for America, though I am as innocent as a new-born babe. So well do I know what justice means. Now, see here, my dear Madame Cibot; to marry her only daughter to young Vicomte Popinot (heir to Monsieur 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 Madame la Presidente will let Monsieur Pons' property go out of the family without a word ! Why, I would sooner iace guns loaded with grape-shot than have such a woman for my enemy " "But they have quarreled," put in La Cibot. "What has that to do with it?" asked Fraisier. "It is one reason the more for fearing her. To kill a relative of 278 THE POOR PARENTS. whom you are tired is something ; but to inherit his property afterward — that is a real pleasure ! " " But the old gentleman has a horror of his relatives. He says over and over again that these people — Messrs. Cardot, 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 Madame 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 ? " " Madame Cibot, I knew all about your business, but I knew nothing of Madame 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 Monsieur 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. Monsieur Pillerault was present at his grand-nephew's wed- ding — 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 mar- riage. It seems that your old musician was precisely the COUSIN PONS. 279 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 every- body 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 Monsieur Schmucke." "Then he means to make his will in favor of this Schmucke ? ' ' *' Everything will go to him " *' Listen, my dear Madame Cibot, if I am to arrive at any definite conclusions and think of a plan, I must know Mon- sieur 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, Monsieur 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 ask? 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. 280 THE POOR PARENTS. How if the presidente comes to hear that Monsieur Pons' property is worth a million of francs^ and that you mean to have a bite 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 morn- ing you and your husband will wake up in a prison cell, to be tried for your lives " "/.? " cried La Cibot ; " I that have not a sou that doesn't belong to me // //" 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 per- formance. 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 still making couplets. "And how? And why? And on what pretext?" de- manded she, when she came to an end. "You wish to know how you may come to the guillo- tine?" La Cibot turned pale as death at the words ; the words fell like the 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. COUSIN PONS. 281 *'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 Monsieur Pille- rault, we will say ; there is no doubt about that, is there ? You enter the service of ihese 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 out 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 idea, one hits hard " Another gesture of denial. This time La Cibot tossed her head. "There, there, old lady," said Fraisier, with odious famil- iarity, " you will go a very long way ! " " You take me for a thief, I suppose ? " " Come, now, mamma, you hold a receipt in Monsieur Schmucke's hand which did not cost you much. Ah ! you are in the confessional, my lady. Don't deceive youi con- fessor, especially when the confessor has tlie power of reading your thoughts." La Cibot was dismayed by the man's ])erspicacity ; 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 Monsieur 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 Ver- 282 THE POOR PARENTS. sailles ; she was in reality as innocent as you would be in such a case. Things were as I have told you, and ail 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 COUSIN PONS. 283 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 abun- dant 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, iiideed, 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 afterward. 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 appoint- ments 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 ])lans made by the some- time attorney of Mantes, and a formidable scheme sprouted up, a flourishing scheme, fertile in harvests of gain and in- trigue. 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 284 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 emo- tion ; 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 Madame la Presi- dente'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'Escrignon 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 Ru- bempre ;* the affair made a great deal of noise in Paris at the time. That was the 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 that the woman had left the money to him ! One cannot well be more innocent than that ! Well, after Monsieur 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 at- torney as I am, the law has been the ruin of me. My ex- perience was dearly bouglit — it is all at your service." * See " The Harlot's Progress." COUSIN PONS. 285 "■ Thank you, no," said La Cibot ; " I won't have nothing to do with it, upon my word ! I shall have nourished ingrati- tude, that is all ! I don't want nothing but my due; I have thirty years of honesty behind me, sir. Monsieur 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 im- pressions. " 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 and " " 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 286 THE POOR PARENTS. 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, Monsieur 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 any- thing happens — and — there ! — you are an intelligent woman ; all will go well." " Good-day, Monsieur 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 Monsieur 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 Monsieur Trognon, the notary of the quarter, very well. If Monsieur Pons has not a notary, mention Mon- sieur Trognon to him. Make him take this Monsieur Tro- gnon " " 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 ex- tent recovered her liberty of mind as she walked. Though the influence of the conversation was still upon her, and she COUSIN PONS. 287 had always stood in dread of scaffolds., justice, and judges, she took a very natural resolution which was to bring about a con- flict of strategy between her and her formidable legal adviser. "What do I want with other people? " said she to herself. "Let us make a round sum, and afterward 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 Monsieur Schmucke, and how is our dear, adored patient? " asked La Cibot, as she came into the room. " Fery bad ; Bons haf been 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 man ! 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 haven't never so much as heard tell of a pawn- broker — a man that lends you money on your things ? I have been pawning our silver spoons and forks, eiglit of them, thread pattern. Pooh, Cibot can eat his victuals with horrid German silver ; it is quite the fashion now, they say. It is not worth while to say anything to our angel there; it woulcl 288 THE POOR PARENTS. upset him and make him yellower than before, and he is quite cross enough as it is. Let us get round him again first, and afterward 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'm 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 Pons " " 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 afterward, and somebody must sit up of a night with Monsieur 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 COUSIN PONS. 289 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. It is a month and more already since I have been like this. 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 Monsieur 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 ! Monsieur 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 vari- 19 290 THE POOR PARENTS. ation 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 him- self 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 janitor 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 janitor, in a small way, in a house in the Rue de Normandie. Monsieur 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 Monsieur Pons going on, the 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 Monsieur Pons to see you, sir ! " After this fashion did the youth attached to the service of the manager's office announce Mme. Cibot, whom the portress below had particularly recommended to his care. COUSIN PONS. 291 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 con- ductor, he made a Napoleonic gesture, and La Cibot was ad- mitted. 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 per- son. Grown big and stout and high-colored with good cheer and prosperity, Gaudissart made no disguise of his transforma- tion 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," repeated Bixiou, who often replaced Gaudissart in the company of the leading lady of the ballet, the celebrated Heloi'se 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 insin- uated himself as 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 beside 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 292 THE POOR PARENTS. them a dividend of fifteen per cent, on their capital. On the strength of that fifteen per cent. Gaudissart talked of his in- telligence, 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 Gaudis- sart, 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 ven- tures. 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 in- terested 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 5 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 president of a railroad company, of be- coming a responsible person and an administrator, and finally of marrying Mile. Minard, daughter of the richest mayor in Paris. He might hope to get into the Chamber through " his COUSIN PONS. 293 line," and, with Popinot's influence, to take office under tlie Government. "Whom have I the honor of addressing?" inquired Gau- dissart, looking magisterially at La Cibot. "I am Monsieur Pons' confidential servant, sir," answered Mme. Cibot. " Well, and how is the dear fellow? " "111, 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 won- dered 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, unfor- tunately, 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 so 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 Monsieur 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 294 THE POOR PARENTS. have had Lebrun, our doctor ; it would have cost him nothing." " Monsieur 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 accom- paniment of my new fairy piece." " Is it 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 my gentle- men " 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 her- self upon the only sofa. The new-comer was Helo'ise Brise- tout, with a splendid algerienne, as such scarfs 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 sub- ject 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 brick-dust 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 COUSIN PONS. 295 long clialk 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 scarfs, you will never have as many declarations as / have had, missus. You will never match the Belle Ecaillere of the Cadran Bleu." HeloYse 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 HeloVse, and, striking an attitude, she declaimed, " ' Cinna, let us be friends.' " " Come, Heloise, come, the lady is not up to this; let her alone." " Madame is perhaps the New HeloTse," suggested LaCibot, 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 Monsieur Pons' confidential servant ; she has come to tell me that I must not count upon 296 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 insti- tutions, 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 bill. Sit down, madame." "Ah! poor woman, look, she is crying!" exclaimed HeloTse. " 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 " " HeloTse, 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, unfortimately." "At any rate, take Garangeot as a stop-gap!" pleaded Helo'ise. " He has the whole press on his side " Just at that moment the cashier came in with a bill for a thousand francs in his hand. COUSIN PONS. 297 "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 some time — as soon as I can, in short." " A drowning man," said HeloTse.* " 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 ac- count." Before La Cibot went out, she made Mile. Brisetout a fine curtsey, and heard Gaudissart remark to his mistress — " Can Garangeot do the dance-music for the ' Mohicans ' jn 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 mis- chief 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 Remon- encq 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 * A former mistress of Celestin Crevel. See " Cousin Betty." 298 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 ro- mantic purely speculative dream, persistently followed through a tobacco-smoker's long musings as he lounged in the door- way, 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 store on the boulevards ! The twofold covetous- ness turned Remonencq's head. In fancy he took a store 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 make me uneasy," said La Cibot. "I COUSIN PONS. 299 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 store. ''What a notion ! " said Remonencq. "Come here, I have something to say to you," said La Cibot. "Monsieur 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 Monsieur 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 Monsieur 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. Beside, if Monsieur Pons sold them himself while he was alive, nobody can find fault." "No," agreed Remonencq, " it is all one to me, but Mon- sieur Elie Magus will want receipts in due form." " And you shall have your receipt too, bless your life ! Do you suppose that / should write them? No, Monsieur 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 300 THE POOR PARENTS. know when h€ could buy his pictures. " Well, my dear lady," said he, "how are we getting on?" " Has nobody been to speak to you about Monsieur Pon« 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 make work for himself \ I don't like people of that sort, so I took no notice of his letter. Three days afterward 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 Monsieur Schmucke to the point of selling you seven or eight pictures, ten at most. But on two condi- tions. Absolute secrecy in the first place. Monsieur Schmucke will send for you, sir, is not that so ? And Monsieur Remon- encq 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 Monsieur 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 Monsieur Magus, I am going to help you and Remonencq to a splendid bit of busi- ness — 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 Monsieur Pons' things at the prices which you can give for them, so that Monsieur 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." COUSIN PONS. 301 "You shall have half a day. But, there, that is my affair. Talk it over betyi^een 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 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 ar- range 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 Monsieur 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 in- terview 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 toward 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 Portugal water, he 302 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 orna- ments of her whatnot. A great change had taken place in the Rue de Hanovre. The Count and Countess Popinotand 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 third 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 manservant, to the third 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 ?nediocritas was but little satis- factory 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 arrondisse- ment 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 COUSIN PONS. 303 of the inheritance which one day would be tlieirs. She wanted, she said, to buy a small estate worth about two thou- sand francs per annum set like a wedge within the Marville lands. There she and her husband would be near their chil- dren 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 com- pelled 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 Caniusot ! 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 afHiction. It was doubtful whether the ex-proprietor of Marville was eligible for reelection 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 Madame la Presidente for a few mo- ments, 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 you mention that. I have not the honor of being known to Madame 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 304 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 be- fore 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. " Madame la Presidente, if I take the liberty of calling your attention to a matter which concerns Monsieur le Presi- dent, it is because I am sure that Monsieur de Marville, occu- pying, 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 Mar- ville, like an impatient novel-reader, wanted the end of the story. "Yes, raadame, a legacy that you are like to lose; yes, COUSIN PONS. 305 to lose altogether; but I can, that is, I couid xtcowQx 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. Monsieur Leboeuf, president of the Tribunal, is acquainted with Monsieur de Marville, and can answer in- quiries 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 Monsieur 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 pay- ing his court to a little person " "Whom?" " Madame Vatinelle." "Oh ! Madame Vatinelle. She was very pretty and very — er — when I was there " " & .e was not unkind to me : inde tree," 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 20 306 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 Monsieur Bouyonnet this little service before ; but, egged on by his colleagues and the attorneys 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 scoun- drel ; 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 to you and Monsieur 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 Monsieur le President. (We are coming to the point, you see.) The doctor's cooperation is indispensable, and the doctor is pre- cisely 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 COUSIN PONS. 307 Monsieur le President may have been made. The 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, beside, much respected and learned ; he saved the life of the Comtesse Popinot's great-uncle, Monsieur Pille- rault. "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 cooperation of the legatee and of 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. Mon- sieur le President is Monsieur Pons' first cousin once removed, and his sole heir. Monsieur Pons is very ill ; he is about to make his will, if it is not made already, 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 mis- take 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 Monsieur le President and me. The ways of Providence are mysterious, let us not seek to fathom them," he added, to 308 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 Monsieur 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 Appeals 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 otlier 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 subor- dinates ; 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 for- give 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 tor- ture for Fraisier. Vinet, an orator of the Centre, attorney- general (J>rocureur'general) for the past sixteen years, nomi- COUSIN PONS. 309 nated 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 Presi- dent 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 steadfastly at Fraisier. " Madame la Presidente can see Monsieur Leboeuf ; he was favorable to me." "Do you feel sure that Monsieur Leboeuf will give Mon- sieur de Marville and Monsieur le Comte Popinot a good account of you? " " I will answer for it, especially now that Monsieur Oliver Vinet has left Mantes ; for between ourselves, good Monsieur Leboeuf was afraid of tliat crabbed little official. If you will permit me, Madame la Presidente, I will go to Mantes and see Monsieur 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, Madame la Presidente, but is not the reward that I expect for my com- plete devotion a pledge of my success ? " " Very well. If Monsieur 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 Monsieur le President, and tell those gentlemen to follow my instructions, and to do nothing on their own re- sponsibility." 310 THE POOR PARENTS. "The responsibility rests witii you," the presidente an- swered solemnly, "so you ought to have full powers. But is Monsieur Pons very ill ? " she asked, smiling. "Upon my word, madame, he might pull through, espe- cially 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 sick-bed, a portress, who would push him into his 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 Madame Evrard. When the woman was young she was one of thirty Belles EcailHres, 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 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. Pie thought of an- other president, the hero of an anecdote related by Louis XL, stamped by that monarch's final phrase. 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 forbade the grooms to give water to the horses. As his wife rode out along the Seine toward their country- COUSIN PONS. 311 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 mo- ment Mme. de Marvi'le 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 Monsieur 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 Monsieur 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 7ny 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 Monsieur Leboeuf? I am taking the train to Mantes." "Yes. Wait a moment, and I will write asking him to (line with us to-morrow. I want to see him, so that we 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 312 THE POOR PARENTS. of volition for fresh and strong doses of the divine essence. To reach succecs, he felt, as Remonencq had felc, 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 Lo 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 thou- sand crowns in fees from La Cibot, and five thousand francs from the presidente. This meant an abode such as befitted his future prosp'^cts. 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 Rich- elieu 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. "Monsieur 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. Mon- sieur 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 COUSIN PONS. 313 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, tliat 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 directly involved with- out 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, mak- ing his bow to the presidente with as much graciousness as his countenance could exhibit. "What a providence!" thought Mme. Camusot de Mar- ville. "So I am to be rich! Camusot will be sure of his election if we let loose this Fraisier upon the Bolbec constit- uency. What a tool ! " "What a providence ! " Fraisier said to himself as he de- scended the staircase ; " and what a sharp woman Madame 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 afterward, while Schmucke slept (for in accord- ance 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 al- ways 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 excite- 314 THE POOR PARENTS. ment 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 ex- perience or education ; Dr. Poulain's explanations for her were simply " doctors' 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. " Give Monsieur Pons one single mouthful of any solid food whatsoever, and you will kill him as surely as if you put a bullet through him," he said. 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 of arms with Mile. HeloVse 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 COUSIN PONS. 315 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 Monsieur 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 Monsieur 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 tlie 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 fourth-floor lodger's that owes us seventeen francs \ it is worth going to fetch is seventeen francs, for when the chemist has been paid we shall not have twenty left. So I had to tell le Gaudissart (I like that name), a good sort he seems to be — a regular Roger Bontempts 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 316 THE POOR PARENTS. voice, as he sat upright in bed. Sick people, generally speak- ing, and those more particularly who lie within the sweep of the scythe of Death, cling to their places with the same pas- sionate energy that the beginner displays to gain a start in life. To hear that some one 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, mur- dered 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 Monsieur 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 sinsr. he will lick Monsieur 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, Madame Cibot, tliey can find holes in anybody's coat. What fiend drove you to do it?" "Why! plague take it. Monsieur 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 Monsieur 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 COUSIN PONS. 317 day. And who would see to the liouse 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 / who took it into my head to do it, does it ? Do you think that we are made of iron ? Why, if Monsieur 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? V>y 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 inarticu- late 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 Mon- sieur 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 Monsieur Schmucke and I, who love you like our life, thought 318 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 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-by 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 handker- chief to her eyes ; and at that mute response the sufferer fell to dark musings — 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 Monsieur Schmucke's interests, you see, you would do well to send for Monsieur 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' bed- side 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 u]i to add under her breath : " He is going off to sleep at last, thank COUSIN PONS. 319 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 look 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 ; we vill sell some pric-a-prac und end our tays kvietly in a corner som- veres, 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 thouglit 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 Al- mighty ! " She burst into tears and dropped down into the great chair, a tragical movement which wrought a most disastrous revul- sion 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 320 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 Monsieur PUlerault 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 Monsieur Pons never liked me, he always hated me. Beside, he thinks perhaps that I want to be mentioned in his will " *' Hush ! you vill kill him ! " cried Schmucke. •'Good-by, 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, Monsieur 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 Monsieur Poulain about it." And out she went, 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 is vandering," said he; "he says dat you are ein padvoman. 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 sec, I would follow yoti to the end of the COUSIN PONS. 321 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 coin- ing it rather too strong, it is." " Too sthrong? " "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 and se /enty 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 hun- dred francs altogether, and with the two tho—and francs beside — 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 Monsieur Pillerault," and with that she held up Gaudissart's bill. 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, und nurse him as pefore, 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 21 322 THE POOR PARENTS. his all, earned by die sweat of his brow, the savings of twenty- six years of life together. He must have his money to-mor- row ; 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 Monsieur 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 were 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, yes, you and your Mon- sieur Pons." "It vould kill him " "Take yoqr choice! Dear me, sell the pictures and COUSIN PONS. 323 tell him about it afterward you can show him the sum- mons " " Ver' goot. Summons us. Dot shall pe mine egscuse. I shall show him der chudgment." Mrae. Cibot went down to the court, and that very day at seven o'clock she called to Schmucke. Schmucke found him- self 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 the 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, attri- buted to Diirer, is a portrait of a woman; the second, like- wise 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 beleei'dot the chimcracks haf some value," said Schmucke when the five thousand francs were paid over. 324 THE POOR PARENTS. "They are certainly worth something," said Remonencq. "I would willingly give a hundred thousand francs for the lot," he added. 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 bed- room. No sooner was Elie Magus in possession of the four great pictures than he went, taking La Cibot with him, under pretense 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 commis- sion, and finally dazzled her with the sheets of paper on which the Bank of France engraves the words " One thou- sand 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 can keep safe in a portfolio." "Stay here, Monsieur Magus. I will go and fetch the man of business who acts for Monsieur Pons' family. He wants to know how much you will give for the whole bag of tricks upstairs. I will go for him now." " If only she were a widow ! " said Remonencq when she cousnv rOAS. 325 was gone. " She would just suit me ; she will have plenty of money now " " Especially if she puts her money into the Orleans Rail- way; 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 store ; I could set up on a large scale ' ' "Good-day, Monsieur Fraisier," La Cibot began in an in- gratiating 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 Madame Cibot. I am taking the second 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 in- terests and in yours. I am not an attorney 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 the 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 Re- monencq 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 re- 326 THE POOR PARENTS. ceipt, bearing interest at five per cent, per annum, on the un- derstanding 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 we 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 Madame 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 ? Monsieur Pons is a contrairy old thing. You don't know him. It is him 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. Old Magus has come, as I told you, and is waiting to see you." "Right ! I v/ill be there as soon as you. Your income de- pends 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 or- dered 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. COUSIN PONS. 327 "■ 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 treas- ures 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 car- buncles 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's head stretched out, m 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, 328 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 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 pic- tures 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. "Madame 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 Madame 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. Madame la Vicomtesse Popinot, the little Cecile that you love so much, will be your nurse. She took your part with her mother. She convinced Madame 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 besi: judge and expert in all Paris with you to show you the w^y? Oh! a nice commission ! " he cried, bursting into wild laughter. "You have come to value my pictures and curiosities, my COUSIN PONS. 329 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 ! Madame 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 liim 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 Monsieur 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, Madame 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 S30 THE POOR PARENTS. me you would have gone out of the window, and now you are still talking of men in the room. Is it always a-going 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 ray 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 Monsieur Remonencq in one of your looking-glasses." "You are right, Madame Cibot," said Pons, meek as a lamb. "Well, now you are sensible again. Good-by, my cherub ; keep quiet, I shall be back again in a minute." When Pons heard the outer door close upon her, he sum- moned 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 COUSIN PONS. 331 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 Sebas- tian 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 laying 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 fore- head 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 dipieta carved in bas-relief by some great Italian sculptor. The divine eff'ort, 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 facul- ties gradually resumed their play under the influence of arti- ficial heat. Schmucke gave him balm-water with a little wine 332 THE POOR PARENTS. in it; the spirit of life spread through the bod\' ; 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 mag- netism in this phenomenon ; for them it is the result of intel- ligent 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. COUSIN PONS. 333 "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 afterward. 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." "K?«sold them?" "Yes, I," said poor Schmucke. " Dey summoned us to der court " ^'Sumfnoned ? 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 awhile. 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 Monsieur Schmucke, our dear invalid has had a delirious fit; he thought that there were men in the room. 334 THE POOR PARENTS. On my word as an honest woman, no one has come from the family." Schmucke went back with this answer, which he repeated word for word. "She is cleverer, more astute and cunning and wily, than I thouf^ht," 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. Tiie 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 plain ; he spoke to me. The two dealers took fright and made for the door. I thought that La Cibot would contradict herself— the experi- ment 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, beside, 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 COUSIN PONS. 335 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 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 second 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 Monsieur Pons really seriously ill, sir?" asked the second-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. " Monsieur Trognon lives near by in the Rue Saint-Louis," said Monsieur Jolivard, "he is the notary of the quarter.'' 336 THE POOR PARENTS. " Would you like me to go for him? " asked Remonencq. '* I should pe fery glad," said Schmucke ; " for gif Mon- tame Zipod cannot pe mit mein vriend, I shall not vish to leaf him in der shtate he is in " "Madame 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 through- out 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 in- cident 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 toward 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 COUSIN PONS. 337 his pipe and dreaming of that fine store on tlie 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 to 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 toward 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 cobble-stones, filters into the soil, and produces the mud peculiar to the city. La Cibot 22 338 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 Madame Cibot, he is dying of the porter's disease," said the doctor, " Incurable vitiation of the blood is evident from the general ansemic 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 alwa3^s announced 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. Pou- lain 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 ; COUSIN PONS. 339 and beside — every time the doctor came and she gave her husband a draught, she took a spoonful herself. Poulain him- self, the only person who might have thrown light on the matter, inclined to believe that this was one of the unaccount- able 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 insanitary 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 Monsieur 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 ad- vised 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 ex- plained the little tailor's demise in a perfectly satisfactory manner. Yet M. Poulain's pensive air and uneasy eyes em- barrassed 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 out 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 340 THE POOR PARENTS. marry Mademoiselle 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 the promise made to Mme. Vatinelle and spoken favorably of the sometime attorney of Mantes. Amelie's manner was almost caressing. So might the Duchesse de Montpensier have treated Jacques Clement. The petty at- torney 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. " Monsieur 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. Monsieur Godeschal, Desroche's 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 inspira- tion ; and see that everything goes well. You shall have a power of attorney from Monsieur de Ma'rville as soon as you want it." "I shall want it on the day of the decease." " It shall be in readiness." " Madame le Presidente, if I ask for a power of attorney, and would prefer that your attorney's name should not appear, COUSIiV rOA'S. 341 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 miser- able 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 a crown attorney's appoint- ment — 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 Monsieur Vitel ; for me it shall be a war-horse." And in this way the presidente proceeded to a final confi- dence. '•'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 dis- possessed 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 342 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 hun- dred 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, "my opinion is 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 ensagement made out under private seal, like a contract to deliver goods. I will go to the Englishman in the character of buyer. I well 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 Madame 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 Monsieur 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 people in my power. Only, to be absolute master, I ought to be the Ger- man's legal adviser in the person of Tabareau, the justice's clerk. Tabareau will not have me now for his daughter, his COUSIN PONS. 343 only daughter, but he will give her to me when I am a justice of the peace. I shall be eligible. Mademoiselle 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 livres per annum as well. She is not handsome ; but, good Lord, if you step from nothing at all to an income of eighteen 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 him- self up to the happiness of the thought that he should never know want again. He would marry his friend Poulain to Mile. 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 carryall 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 un- masking 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 the theatre, and tell Mile. Heloise Brisetout that I 344 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 morn- ing 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 uni- versal 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 ques- tion 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 in- serted, 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 COUSI.Y PDA'S. 345 clearly through all pretenses, 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 battle-field — 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 intelligeniial 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 gayly to his part, like a joyous artist finding a pretext for caricature and laughter in every- thing. 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 Chris- tian 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. 346 THE POOR PARENTS. It was this father-thought that led him to fix his choice upon the leading lady of the ballet. Mile. Brisetout should help him to baffle surrounding treachery, and those who in all probability would never forgive his innocent universal legatee. HeloTse 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 re- turned 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 farther 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 alJ that passed at the supreme moment. " Sir," said Pons, " I am in the full possession of my facul- ties, 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 Monsieur 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; COUSIN PONS. 347 *' that is the drawback of human justice. But in the matter of wills, there are wills so drafted that they cannot be up- set " "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 posses- sion 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 ac- count 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 holo- graph 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 reflec- tion all the while in a mirror). She saw the envelope sealed, saw Pons cive it to Schmucke, and heard him sav that it must be put away in a secret drawer in his bureau. Then the tes- 348 THE POOR PARENTS. tator asked for the key, tied it to the corner of his handker- chief, 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 Monsieur 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. Monsieur 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 un- imaginable pitch. She went downstairs and spent the night at Cibot's bedside, inwardly resolving that Mile. Remon- encq should take her place toward two or three in the morn- ing, when she would go up and have a look at the document. Mille. Brisetout's visit toward 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 Mile. Heloise had been a queen. " Ah ! my dear, you are much nicer here on your own ground than at the theatre," HeloVse 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 second-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, Madame Cibot?" asked Mme. Chapoulot. "A no-bctter-than-she-should-be, a light-skirts that you COUSIN PONS. 349 may see half-naked any evening for a couple of francs," La Cibot answered in an undertone for Mme. Chapoulot's ear. "Victorinel " 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 uncom- monly handsome off the stage," he remarked. Whereupon Mme. Chapoulot pinched him sharply and drove him indoors. " Here is a third-floor lodger that has a mind to set up for beinsr 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 " " Madame Cibot," said the patient, " be so kind as to leave us ; we want to talk about the theatre and my post as con- ductor, with this lady. Schmucke, will you go to the door with Madame 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 Monsieur Pons' doing; he taught him these dis- gusting tricks. But you shall pay for this, my dears," she 350 THE POOR PARENTS. thought, as she went down the 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 ^oon 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 very 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," HeloYse 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 P'ere aux Rais,* because he in- stills 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 notariesses. 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 paterfamilias, 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 * Father to the rats. COUSIN PONS. . 351 not his match in Paris. He is in the patriarchal style j 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 Antonio. So I will send round my man to-morrow morn- ing 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 folk economizzle. Artists have nothing left here'^ (tapping her breast) — '* it is a time to die in. Good- by, old boy." " HeloTse, 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 ? " "Monsieur Baudoyer, the mayor of your arrondissement, a man as stupid as the late Crevel ; Crevel once financed Gau- dissart, 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-by, 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 curiosi- ties 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 tiptoe, watched the lady of the ballet pass on her way out. It was quite an event in the house. Fraisier, like the bull-dog that sets his teeth and never lets go, was on the spot. He stood beside La Cibot when Mile. Brisetout passed under the gateway and asked for the door to be opened. Knowing that a will had been made, he had 352 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 Madame 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 Monsieur 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 holo- graph 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 offense 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 Monsieur 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 min- utes." " Good. I will come up about four o'clock, and I will knock very softly " " Mademoiselle 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." COUSIN PONS. 353 "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. "Yes, 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 my- self 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 23 354 THE POOR PARENTS. its mother ; one honors you for it — it seems to me that God Himself must watcn 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 Madame Cibot, who left the door ajar and watched us closely while Monsieur 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?" asked the sick man. "I asked of 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." COUSIN rOA'S. 355 "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 afterward. 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 to 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 gran- deur of Liszt — the two musicians who most nearly approach Paganini's temperament. When execution reaches this su- preme 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, 356 THE POOR PARENTS. of that heavenly music for which Saint Cecilia 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 under- growth 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 ring at the door-bell put an end to these visions. The second-floor lodgers sent up the servant with a message. Would Schmucke please to 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 blay to keep him kviet, and the secont-floor lodgers vas kom up to tell w«." " 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 Madame Cibot ; that is COUSIN PONS. 399 not right!" he said. "The pictures were sold by private treaty between Monsieur Pons, Monsieur 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 defenseless woman, you will not make a good bargain ! Do you understand, mister lawyer ? E. Magus rules the market, and if you do not come down off the high horse, if you do not keep your word to Madame Cibot, I shall wait till the collection is sold, and you shall see what you will lose if you have Monsieur 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. " Monsieur 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." Toward ten o'clock that evening, Gaudissart sent for Topi- nard. The manager was standing with his back to the fire, in a Napoleonic attitude — a trick which he had learned since he began to command his army of actors, ^■xwctx?,, figurants, musicians, and stage-carpenters. He grasped his left-hand 400 THE POOR PARENTS. suspender with his right hand, always thrust into his vest ; his 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! " "Allow me to speak " thundered Gaudissart. "And in your position, you want to leave " "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 excel- lency, 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 Monsieur 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 Monsieur 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, COUSIN PONS. 401 poor man. But if you meddle in Monsieur Schmucke's affairs, you will lose your place. I wish very well to Mon- sieur 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 recom- mend you to leave the worthy German to get out of his diffi- culties 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 can- not 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. Yester- day 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 ; the 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 26 402 THE POOR PARENTS. remark was Greek to Schmucke ; he gazed in dismay at his three visitors. *' We have come at the request of Monsieur Fraisier, legal representative of Monsieur Camusot de Marville, heir of the late Pons " added the clerk. " The collection is here in this great room and in the bed- room of the deceased," remarked Fraisier. "Very well, let us go into the next room. Pardon us, sir; do not let us interrupt you 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. " Monsieur 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 Monsieur Mannequin'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 Monsieur Villemot, Tabareau's head-clerk, was acting for you, and if it was a matter of busi- ness, I said, he might speak to Monsieur 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 COUSIN PONS. 403 told him to ask Monsieur 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. Monsieur Villemot will give them a piece of his mind. I have put my- self in a passion once already with that abominable hussy, La Cibot, a porter's wife that sets up to judge her lodgers, for- sooth, and insists that you have filched the money from the heirs; you locked Monsieur 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 gentle- men,' 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 Monsieur "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 cer- tainly be confirmed by the court, and you will be put in pos- session. "You will have a fine fortune." **// Ein fein vordune?" cried Schmucke despairingly, 404 THE POOR PARENTS. 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, Monsieur Schmucke, you have a right to be present." " No — go in yourself." " But where is the use of the seals Monsieur 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. ** Monsieur Schmucke is not in possession, madame ; he is in Monsieur 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 buf- foonery 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 COUSIN PONS. 405 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 Monsieur Schmucke's own room," remonstrated La Sauvage, springing in front of the door. " We found the lease among the papers," Fraisier said ruth- lessly ; " there is no mention of Monsieur Schmucke in it ; it is taken out in Monsieur Pons' name only. The whole place, and every room in it, is part of the estate. And beside " — 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 re- plied banteringly. "At this moment, if the legatee with- draws everything that he declares to be his, we shall raise no objections, but the room itself will be sealed. And Monsieur Schmucke may lodge where he pleases." " No," said Villemot ; "Monsieur 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. 406 THE POOR PARENTS. ''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 as in a criminal case, by calling witnesses. Do you mean to plunge into experts' fees and veri- fications, 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 to- bacco-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, ad- dressing Fraisier. "The justice of the peace gives orders here; he is supreme." "There are valuables in the room," put in the clerk. "And beside," added the justice of the peace, "Monsieur Schmucke is going out of his own free will." " Did any one ever see such a client ! " -Villemot cried in- dignantly, 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 tigers' faces. I shall send som- pody to vetch mein bits of dings." COUSIN PONS. 407 " 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 Pou- lain ; he will be head-surgeon at the Quinze-Vingts."* "We shall see. Good-day, Monsieur 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. " That 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 somveres, eh?" "Yes, sir." " A home off your own ? " "Yes, sir." " Are you villing to take me for ein poarder? Oh ! I shall bay ver' veil ; I haf nine hundert vrancs of inkomm, und — I haf not ver' long to lif I shall gif no drouble vatefer. I * The Asylum founded by St. Louis for three hundred bUnd people. 408 THE POOR PARENTS. 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, Monsieur Gaudissart has given me a proper wigging "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 man dot haf mourned Bons, dan der Duileries mit men dot haf ein tiger's face. I haf shoost left tigers in Bons' house ; dey vill eat up everydings " " Come with me, sir, and you shall see. But — well, any- how, there is a garret. Let us see what Madame 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 Cit6 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 toward 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- COUSIN PONS. 409 Antoine. Cabinet-work and brass-work, theatrical costumes, blown glass, painted porcelain — all the various fancy goods known as V article Paris are made here. Dirty and produc- tive like commerce, always full of traflSc — foot-passengers, vans, and wagons — the Cite Bordin is an unsavory-looking neighborhood, with a seething population in keeping with the squalid surroundings. It is a not unintelligent artisan popu- lation, though the whole power of the intellect is absorbed by the day's manual labor. Topinard, like every other inhab- itant of the Cite Bordin, lived in it for the sake of the com- paratively 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 bed- rooms. 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 servant's bed-room, 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 six sous a piece ; 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 410 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 furni- ture. 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 woodcuts 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 misfor- tunes 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 sor- COUSIN PONS. 411 row, 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. Topi- nard'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 little 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 Monsieur Schmucke, poor Monsieur 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 charm- ing 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." 412 THE POOR PARENTS. She opened the door as she spoke, and bade Schmucke come in. Such splendor as their abode possessed was all con- centrated here. Blue calico 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 mantel were evidently the gift of the bankrupt manager, whose portrait, a truly frightful performance of Pierre Gras- sou'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 mit 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 with 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." COUSIN PONS. 413 " We haf receifed nodings," said Schmucke ; " und gif I kom to you, it ees because I am in der shtreet, und haf not ein benny. How did you send us der ponus ? " " 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 man 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 councilor at least ; or so he told himself. " I gif you full powers." "Well. Let us see. Now, to begin with," said Gaudis- sart, 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 414 THE POOR PARENTS. 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. Vourbairs." "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 some 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 him short. This Fraisier canijot COUSIN PONS. 415 take large views. What debt is this, my good man ? Speak out. ' " Dere vas but von man dot haf mourned Bons mit me. He haf a tear liddle girl mit wunderschones haar ; it vas as if I saw mine 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 man mit die liddle laughter is Dobinard, vat tidies der orchestra una lights die lamps. Bons vas fery fond of him, und helped him. He vas der only von dat accombanied mein only frient to die church und to die grafe. I vant dree tausend vrancs for him, und dree tausend for die liddle von dat " " 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 inno- cence the trifle, like Bossuet's cup of water, was worth more than the victories of great captains. Beneath all Gandissart'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, vera 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. 416 THE POOR PARENTS. *' 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 have no heart for anydings j I feel that I am attacked " " Poor lamb ! " Gaudissart muttered to himself as the Ger- man 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. COUSIN PONS. 417 '• Oh ! here are two hundred vrancs to bay for eferydings," said Schmucke. " But, mein frient, your Montame Dobinard is ver' nice ; you shall marry her, is it not so? I shall gif you tausend crowns, and die liddle von 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 " "// instead of old Baudrand?" "Yes." "Who told you so?" *' Mennesir Gautissart 1 ' •' 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 live, ii ees fery koni- fortable," said Schmucke. " Goot-py ; 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 Mannequin. Honest Godes- chal said that even if Schmucke's own legal adviser should succeed in deceiving him, he would finci 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 cau- tion against Fraisier, concerning whom they had naturally made inquiries. At that very moment Fraisier, straiglit from the affixing of 27 418 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 ex- pression), and they wished to give Mme. de Marville their opinion in Fraisier's absence. "Well, madame, where are these gentlemen?" asked Frai- sier, 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 for- malities) ' 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 Mile. 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 scan- dalize the house and residents in the quarter who chanced to witness it when attending the funeral of the porter at the testa- tor's place of abode : COUSIN PONS. 419 " Whereas as still more serious charges, of which appli- cant is collecting proofs, will be formally made before their worships the judges : " ' I, the undersigned Registrar of the Court, et al. , 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 Hanne- quin and Crottat, being evidently obtained by undue influence, shall be regarded as null and void in law ; and I, the under- signed, 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 posses- sion 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, Madame la Presidente. He will come to terms as soon as he reads this little love-letter. He will consult Tabareau, and Tabareau will advise him to 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 at any time you may please." " Very well, monsieur, let it be so — go on ! Yes, the pur- chase of land that you have arranged for me is worth the trouble; and, beside, 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 " 420 THE POOR PARENTS. " Have you Vitel's resignation ? " "Yes, monsieur. Monsieur Vitel has put himself in Mon- sieur de Marville's hands." "Very good, madame. I have already saved you sixty thousand francs which I expected to give to that vile creature Madame 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 under- took to crush the workman who seemed likely to give us trouble." " Oh, I know Monsieur Gaudissart is devoted to the Popi- nots." 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 conversa- tion 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, Madame 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 mto extrava- gance " COUSIN PONS. 421 "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 Monsieur Pons and me. If he had come back again, all would have been forgiven. If you only knew how my husband misses him ! Monsieur 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 should 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 cf 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 shriv- eled 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 Ber- thier'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. Gaudis- 422 THE POOR PARENTS. sart 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 pre- amble in which it was set forth that Maitre Tabaraeau, bailiff, was acting as his proxy, and that the presidente, in the in- terests 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 ad- mitted 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 Monsieur 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 Monsieur 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." COUSIN PONS. 423 "Sir, I cannot eat bread if every mouthful of it is to stick in my throat. Monsieur Schmucke ! Oh, 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 Monsieur 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 sum- mon 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, Sclimucke read the docu- ment, 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. Topi- nard 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 recov- ered consciousness, and refused to eat. Ten davs afterward 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 promises infinitely better things for the 424 THE POOR PARENTS. clever man to whom she considers that 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, proves that Character is the great social force. You, O amateurs, connoisseurs, and dealers, will guess at once that Pons' collec- tion 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. " Monsieur le Comte, you possess treasures indeed," re- marked 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 curi- osities, 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 Vicomtesse ; " he loved the arts and beautiful work, but most of his treasures came to him through me." "Through you, madame ? So young I and yet have you such vices as this?" asked a Russian prince. COUSIN POxVS. 425 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. Peterburg, and the Russians caused such a rise of prices in the "art line," as Remonencq would say, that collections 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 Popi- not, " 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 Madame 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. " Madame la Vicomtesse, tell us the pretty speech," begged the Russian prince. " The speech was as pretty as the fan," returned the vicom- tesse, 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. 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 ! AVe could appreciate him, and artists like the society of those who relish their wit. My husband was, beside, his one surviving relative. So when, quite unexpectedly. Monsieur de Marville came into the prop- erty. Monsieur le Comte preferred to take over the whole collection to save it from a sale by auction ; and we ourselves 426 THE POOR PARENTS. 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 Mrae. Fontaine's prediction, declines to retire to the country. She is still living in her splendid store 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 prop- erty 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. FINIS. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. MAY 2 7 195* JUN 3 1953 8 13^ FEC'D LD-URl i SEP2 4J1973 "'"•'' 9 1979 FfCD CD-URB ... 31 1979 nCT4 n iri.MT?' ' ■- 1 r", '■ Form rj9-10(ji-6,'52(A1855)444 AA 000 571567 7 r THE STATION Out-ot-frint Books