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HON ORE DE BALZAC 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY 
 
 Cousin Pons 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS 
 
 3 SOMERSET STREET 
 
 BOSTON 
 1890 
 

 Copyright, 1886, 
 By Roberts Brothers. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 ©m'bcrgtta |3rt0s. 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambkidg; 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. A Glorious Kelic of the Empire . . 1 
 
 11. The End of a Grand Prix de Rome . 7 
 
 III. The Two Nut- Crackers 21 
 
 IV. One of the Many Joys of a Collec- 
 
 tor 35 
 
 V. One of the Thousand Affronts a 
 
 Poor Relation has to bear ... 50 
 VI. Specimen of' Doorkeepers (Male and 
 
 Female) . 57 
 
 VII. A Living Edition of the Fable of the 
 
 Two Pigeons 65 
 
 VIII. In which we shall see that Prodigal 
 Sons always end by becoming Bank- 
 ers AND MiLLIONNAIRES, PROVIDED 
 
 they belong to Frankfort-on-the- 
 
 Main 78 
 
 IX. In which Pons presents to Madame de 
 Map.ville an Article far more pre- 
 cious THAN A Fan 93 
 
 X. A German Idea 108 
 
 XI. Pons buried under Gravel .... 123 
 XII. " L'Or est UN Chimere." — Words by 
 Scribe, Music by Meyerbeer, Sce- 
 nery BY Remonencq 137 
 
 XIII. Treats of the Occult Sciences . . 151 
 
VI 
 
 Contents, 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XIV. 
 XV. 
 
 XVI. 
 XVII. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 XX. 
 
 XXI. 
 XXII. 
 XXIII. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 XXVII. 
 XXVIII. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 XXX. 
 XXXI. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 A Character out of Hoffman . . . 165 
 The Cackle and Schemes of an Old 
 
 Woman 180 
 
 Depravity discussed 194 
 
 The History of all First Appear- 
 ances IN Paris 208 
 
 A Man of Law 223 
 
 Fraisier's Secret Intention .... 237 
 
 Madame Cibot at the Theatre . . . 248 
 
 Fraisier in Flower 267 
 
 Advice to Old Bachelors 282 
 
 In which Schmucke rises to the Throne 
 
 OF God 297 
 
 The Craft of a Testator 312 
 
 .The Fictitious Will 327 
 
 In which the Woman Sauvage reap- 
 pears 341 
 
 Death as it is 356 
 
 Schmucke's Martyrdom continued; 
 
 showing how People die in Paris . 371 
 In which we see that what is called 
 COMING INTO Possession of Property 
 
 may mean dispossession 385 
 
 The Fruits of Fraisier 400 
 
 Conclusion 414 
 
ff UNIVEBSITT 
 
 COUSIN PONS. 
 
 A GLORIOUS RELIC OF THE EMPIRE. 
 
 Towards three o'clock of an afternoon in October, 
 1844, a man about sixty years old — though most per- 
 sons would have thought him older — was passing along 
 the Boulevard des Itallens, his nose to the scent as 
 it were, his lips pharisaically pursed, like those of a 
 merchant who has just concluded a profitable piece of 
 business, or a young fellow satisfied with himself as he 
 leaves a boudoir. In Paris that is the highest known 
 expression of personal satisfaction in man. 
 
 As the old man approached within sight of the vari- 
 ous persons who daily sit on chairs along the boulevard 
 and enjoy the pleasure of anahziug the passers-by, a 
 smile flickered across the faces of one and all, — a smile 
 peculiar to the inhabitants of Paris ; meaning many 
 things, ironical, sarcastic, or compassionate, though it 
 never dawns upon the face of a Parisian, blase as he is 
 with sights of every kind, unless drawn forth by some 
 great and living curiosity. The clever saying of a certain 
 actor may serve to explain both the archaeological value 
 of this worthy man, and the meaning of the smile which 
 
 1 
 
2 Cousin Pons.' 
 
 ran like an echo from eye to eye along his way. Some 
 one asked Hj'acinthe, famous for his witticisms, what 
 hatter he emplo3^ed to make his hats, the mere sight of 
 which convulsed an aii^ience. "I don't have them 
 made," he replied, " I keep them." And in like man- 
 ner, among the million actors who form the great troop 
 of Parisian life, we meet with certain unconscious Hya- 
 cinthes who carry on their persons all the absurdities 
 of their period, and seem so complete!}^ the embodiment 
 of an epoch that we are seized with convulsive laughter, 
 though perhaps at the very moment we are consumed 
 with grief for the treacher}' of some ex-friend. 
 
 Preserving, as he did with uncompromising fidelit}', 
 certain details of dress belonging to the fashions of the 
 year 1806, this particular passer-by recalled to mind 
 the Empire, without being altogether a caricature of it. 
 To an observer, a discrimination of this kind renders 
 such evocations of the past extremelj" valuable, though 
 this conjunction of trifling things requires the anal3'tical 
 attention with which connoisseurs in the art of loungmg 
 are gifted : to excite a general laugh the passer-by must 
 present fantasticalities that are " as plain as a pike- 
 stafff" to use a common sa3'ing, such in fact as actors 
 rely upon to insure the success of their entrance upon 
 the stage. This withered, dried-up, thin old man wore 
 a faut-colored spencer over a greenish coat with white 
 metal buttons. A man wearing a spencer in 1844 is, 
 we beg you to observe, as remarkable a sight as if 
 Napoleon himself had deigned to be resuscitated for 
 a couple of hours. 
 
 The spencer was invented, as its name indicates, by 
 an English lord, vain, no doubt, of his handsome per- 
 
Cousin Pons. 3 
 
 son. Before the peace of Amiens, this Enghshman thus 
 solved the problem of covering his shoulders without 
 burdening his whole bodj^ with the weight of that horrible 
 box-coat, which in our da}^ has fallen on the backs of 
 hacknev-coachmen. However, handsome figures being 
 always in a minorit}^, the spencer had only a passing 
 success in France, despite the fact that it was an Eng- 
 lish invention. At sight of a spencer, the men of forty 
 to fifty years of age clothed the wearer in their mind's 
 eye with top-boots, kerseymere small-clothes of pistachio- 
 green, and fancied themselves once more in the arraj' of 
 their youth. Old women recalled their early conquests. 
 As to the 3'oung people, they merely asked why this 
 elderly Alcibiades had cut off the tails of his coat. 
 Everything about him was so thoroughly in keeping 
 with the spencer that no one could have hesitated to 
 ticket him homme' Empire^ just as we call our chairs 
 and consoles meubles- Empire ; though he symbolized 
 the Empire only in the eyes of those to whom that mag- 
 nificent and gorgeous epoch was known, at least de 
 visu, for a certain fidelitj' of memorj' as to past fashions 
 was needful to its perception. The Empire has alreadj^ 
 receded so far that it is not every one who can picture 
 to himself its Gallo-grecian reahtj^ 
 
 The hat worn at the back of the head exposed the 
 whole forehead with a sort of bravado, by which civihans 
 and government officials were just then endeavoring to 
 assert themselves against mililar}' assumption. It was 
 a horrible fourteen -franc silk hat, under whose brim a 
 pair of large thick ears had left whitish traces that no 
 brushing had been able to efface. The silk tissue, 
 badly stretched as it alwaj's is over the stiff frame, was 
 
4 Cousin Pons. 
 
 crumpled in several places, and looked as if it had the 
 leprosy in spite of the hand which smoothed it dailj^ 
 
 Beneath the hat, which seemed in danger of falling 
 off, expanded one of those ludicrously droll faces such 
 as the Chinese alone had the wit to invent for their gro- 
 tesque porcelain images. This huge face, perforated 
 like a colander till the holes actually produced shadows, 
 and furrowed with lines like a Roman mask, defied all 
 the laws of anatomy. The e3'e found no framework to 
 rest upon. Where construction required bones, the flesh 
 showed only gelatinous levels ; where ordinary features 
 exhibit hollows, flabby knobs and protuberances ap- 
 peared. This grotesque face, crushed together into 
 the shape of a pumpkin, and made forlorn b}' two gray 
 eyes surmounted b}^ a red rim in place of e3'elashes, was 
 overtopped by a nose like that of Don Quixote, — just 
 as a plain is commanded by a solitary rock. Such a 
 nose expresses, as Cervantes must have observed, that 
 innate tendencj^ for self-devotion to great things which 
 degenerates into credulity. The ugliness of this face, 
 comical as it was, excited no laughter. The extreme 
 melancholj^ revealed in the pale eyes of the poor man 
 struck the minds of scoffers and froze the light jest 
 upon their lips. The thought came that here was one 
 to whom Nature had denied the power of expressing 
 tenderness, except at the cost of being ridiculous or 
 revolting to a woman. Frenchmen are dumb before a 
 misfortune such as this ; to them the worst of all mis- 
 fortunes is the denial of the powder to please. 
 
 This man, thus disfigured by Nature, was dressed like 
 the paupers of good societ}', — a condition sometimes 
 emulated by the rich. He wore shoes hidden hy gaiters 
 
Cousin Pons. 6 
 
 made after the fashion of those of the garde imperiale 
 which enabled him, no doubt, to wear the shoes a long 
 time. The black cloth of his trousers had a rusty 
 tinge, and the creases had grown shiny and showed 
 white lines, which, together with the old-fashioned cut, 
 revealed the age of the garment. The amplitude of 
 this nether casing scarcely concealed a leanness de- 
 rived more from the man's constitution than from any 
 Pythagorean regime ; for the wortliy soul, endowed bj' 
 Nature with a sensual mouth and thick lips, showed 
 when he smiled a set of white teeth worth}- of a shark. 
 The double-breasted waistcoat, crossed like a shawl and 
 also of black cloth, with a white vest under it, beneath 
 which still further appeared the scarlet edge of a knitted 
 doublet, carried you back in memory to the days of the 
 five waistcoats of Garat. An enormous white muslin 
 cravat, whose portentous tie had been invented b}- a 
 famous Beau to charm the " charming women " of 1809, 
 covered so much of his chin that his face seemed to 
 plunge into it as into-an abNss. A silken cord, braided 
 to resemble hair, crossed the shirt and guarded the 
 watch from the improbable grasp of a thief. The 
 greenish coat, which was remarkabl}' clean, testified to 
 a fashion at least three 3'ears older than that of the 
 trousers ; but the black velvet collar and the white 
 metal buttons were recent restorations, and showed 
 domestic care brought down to minute particulars. 
 
 The habit of tilting the hat on the crown of the head, 
 the triple waistcoat, the immense cravat in which the 
 chin was buried, the gaiters, the metal buttons on the 
 greenish coat, all these signs of imperial fashions har- 
 monized with a lingering air of Incroj^able aflfectations ; 
 
6 Cousin Pons, 
 
 while something indescribably skimped in the folds, 
 something precise and meagre in the general effect, 
 savored of David's studio, and recalled the spindling 
 furniture of Jacob. It was easy to recognize at the 
 first glance either a man of good breeding now the prey 
 of some secret vice, or one of a class of small incomes 
 whose expenses are so sharply limited hj the narrow- 
 ness of their means that a broken pane of glass, a torn 
 garment, or the philanthropic nuisance of a charit}' 
 suffices to put an end to their personal enjoj^ments for 
 a month. Had you been there and seen him pass, you 
 would have asked yourself why a smile flickered on that 
 grotesque face, whose habitual expression must have 
 been sad and cold, like that of one struggling in obscu- 
 rit}' to obtain the trivial necessaries of life. But if you 
 also noticed the maternal care with which the strange old 
 man held something unmistakably precious beneath the 
 two left flaps of his double coat, as if to protect it from 
 accidental shocks ; and more especially if you observed 
 in his manner the busy air which idle people assume 
 when they are charged with some commission, — 3'ou 
 might have guessed that he had found the equivalent of 
 a countess's lap-dog, and was carrj-ing it triumphantl}^, 
 with the assiduous gallantry of an homme-Empire^ to the 
 charming woman of sixty who had not yet been able to 
 renounce the daily visit of her satellite. Paris is the 
 onl}^ city in the world where you will meet such sights, 
 — sights which make the boulevards a perpetual drama 
 played gratis by Frenchmen for the benefit of Art. 
 
Cousin Pons. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE END OF A GRAND PRIX DE ROME. 
 
 Judging b}* the general structure of this bony being, 
 and in spite of his audacious spencer, 3'ou would hardly 
 have classed him among Parisian artists, — a clique 
 whose privilege, like that of the Gamin de Paris, is to 
 rouse the bourgeois imagination into jovial mirth ever 
 since the good old word drolatique has been restored 
 to honor. The man was, however, a grand prix} — 
 the composer of a prize cantata, crowned at the Insti- 
 tute about the time that the Academy of Rome was re- 
 established ; in short, he was .Monsieur Sylvain Pons, 
 author of many well-known songs warbled b}- our 
 mothers ; also of two or three operas performed in 1815 
 and 1816, and of other unpublished scores. The worth}^ 
 man was now ending his career as leader of an orches- 
 tra in a boulevard theatre ; and he was also — thanks to 
 his appearance — music-teacher in several schools for 
 young ladies. He had no means beyond his salary and 
 the pa}' for his private lessons. What a fate ! To be 
 giving private lessons at his time of life ! How man}' 
 mysteries behind this matter-of-fact and unromantic 
 situation ! 
 
 1 The l^cole des Beaux-Arts gives as the chief prize in its several de- 
 partments three years' stud}' at its Academy in Rome, now established 
 in the Villa Medici. The winner of this benefit is called familiarly a 
 "grand prix," or "grand prix de Rome." 
 
8 Cousin Pons. 
 
 This last of the spencer-wearers, if we may so desig- 
 nate him, carried upon his person something other than 
 the symbols of the Empire ; he bore, written upon 
 those three waistcoats, a significant lesson. He ex- 
 hibited gratis one of the many victims of that baneful 
 and disastrous system called Goncours^ — a system 
 of competition in educational institutions which has 
 ruled in France for over a hundred 3'ears without 
 beneficial results. This hot-bed for intellect was in- 
 vented by Poisson de Marigny, brother of Madame 
 de Pompadour, who was appointed director of the 
 Beaux- Arts in 1726. We can count upon our fingers 
 the men of genius which these laureates of the Academy 
 have supplied to us during the last century. In the 
 first place, no administrative or scholastic nurturing 
 will take the place of the miraculous opportune chances 
 to which the world owes its great men. Among all 
 the mysteries of generation this is the most inaccessible 
 to our ambitious modern analysis. What should we 
 think of the Egyptians, who the3' say invented ovens to 
 hatch chickens, if they had not immediately given food 
 to the brood ? And 3'et that is what France neglects 
 to do when she tries to produce artists by the forcing- 
 pit of competition. As soon as she has obtained a 
 sculptor, a painter, an engraver, a musician, by this 
 mechanical contrivance, she troubles herself no more 
 about him than a dandy troubles himself about the 
 faded flowers in his button-hole. Thus it happens that 
 the true man of talent is Greuze or Watteau, Felicien 
 David or Pagnest, Gericault or Decamps, Auber or 
 David d'Angers, Eugene Delacroix or Meissonnier, — 
 all men who cared little for the great prizes, and who 
 
Cousin Pons. 9 
 
 came up in the open ground under the raj'S of that 
 invisible sun called Vocation. 
 
 Sjlvain Pons, sent to Rome b}^ the State to become a 
 great musician, brought back a taste for antiquity and 
 for the choice things of art. He had grown well versed 
 in all those achievements and masterpieces of the hand 
 and brain called of late, in popular parlance, hric-a-brac. 
 This son of Euterpe returned to Paris in 1810 a rabid 
 collector, — the owner of pictures, statuettes, carvings in 
 wood and ivory, enamels, porcelains, etc., which in the 
 course of his academical sta^^ in Rome swallowed up 
 the greater part of his paternal inheritance, nearl}^ as 
 much through costs of transportation as from the price 
 of their acquisition. He also spent a little fortune de- 
 rived from his mother in the same outla3's during a 
 journey which he made through Ital}', after the official 
 three years passed in Rome. He wished to visit Venice, 
 Milan, Florence, Bologna, Naples, at his leisure ; to abi<le 
 for a time in each city as a dreamer, a philosopher, and 
 with the careless ease of an artist who trusts to his tal- 
 ents for a livelihood as the courtesan trusts to her beauty*. 
 Pons was happy throughout this splendid journey, — 
 happ3' as a man of soul and delicacy could ever be whose 
 personal ugliness forbade all " success with women " (to 
 use the hallowed phrase of 1809), and who found the 
 things of life lower than the ideal standard he had cre- 
 ated for them in his own mind. He accepted this dis- 
 cord between the rhythm of his soul and actual realities, 
 however, with his ej'es open. The sentiment of the 
 beautiful, kept ever pure and vivid in his heart, was no 
 doubt the hidden essence of those artless melodies, deli- 
 cate and full of grace, which made his musical reputation 
 
10 Cousin Po7is. 
 
 from 1810 to 1814. All reputations based on vogue 
 and fashion and the ephemeral fancies of Paris produce 
 such men as Pons. There is no countr}^ in the world so 
 exacting as France in gi-eat matters, or so disdainfull}^ 
 indulgent in little ones. If Pons — fated to be drowned 
 erelong in floods of German harmony and Rossinian 
 opera — was by the year 1824 only an agreeable musi- 
 cian, known for a few charming songs, we ma}* fancy 
 what he became in 1831 ; so that in 1844, the year in 
 which the solitarj^ drama of his humble life began, 
 Sylvain Pons had attained the value, and no other, of 
 an antediluvian quaver ; even the music-shops ignored 
 his existence, though he composed the scores for certain 
 pieces at his own and other theatres for very moderate 
 remuneration. 
 
 The worth}' soul did willing justice to the famous 
 composers of the present epoch. — a fine performance of 
 their masterpieces made him weep ; but his reverence 
 never reached the point of fanaticism, as it did with the 
 Kreislers of Hoffmann ; he let no emotion appear upon 
 the surface, enjoying all within himself like the hashish- 
 eaters or the Theriakis. The gift of admiration, 
 of comprehension, the one faculty hy which a common- 
 place man becomes the brother of a great poet, is so rare 
 in Paris, where all ideas are treated like the transient 
 guests at an inn, that for this alone we ought to give 
 Pons our respectful esteem. The fact of his own failure 
 to achieve success may seem exaggerated ; but in tiuth 
 he honestly admitted his weakness on the score of har- 
 mony ; he had neglected the study of counterpoint, and 
 modern orchestration, grown utterlj'^ beyond his knowl- 
 edge, became inscrutable to him at the ver}^ moment 
 
Vousin Pons. 11 
 
 when b}' fresh study he should have kept himself to the 
 level of modern composers and become, not indeed a 
 Rossini, but a Herold. However, he found such livel}' 
 compensation in the jo3's of a collector for his failure as 
 to musical fame, that if he had been forced to choose 
 between his treasures and the glor}^ of Rossini, he 
 would — can it be beUeved ? — have decided in favor 
 of his beloved bric-a-brac. 
 
 The old musician put into actual practice the maxim 
 of Chenavard, that learned collector of precious engrav- 
 ings who averred that no one could truly enjoy a Ruj^s- 
 dael, a Hobbema, a Holbein, a Raphael, a Murillo, a 
 Greuze, a Sebastian del Piombo, a Giorg-ione, an Albert 
 Diirer, unless the picture cost him no more than fift\' 
 francs. Pons never allowed himself a purchase over the 
 cost of a hundred francs ; and if he paid fift^^ francs for 
 anything, that thing must have had an actual value of 
 three thousand. The finest object in the world had no 
 existence, so far as he was concerned, if its price was 
 three hundred francs. Rare indeed had been his bar- 
 gains ; but he possessed the three elements of a collec- 
 tor's success, — the legs of a deer, the time of an idler ,t 
 and the patience of a Jew. \\ 
 
 Such a purpose, pursued for forty years in Italy and 
 in Paris, had borne fruit. After spending, since his 
 return from Rome, about two thousand francs a year, 
 Pons now concealed from every eye a collection of mas- 
 terpieces of all kinds, which amounted in his catalogue 
 to the astounding number of 1907. From 1811 to 1816, 
 in course of his quests about Paris, he had found for ten 
 francs things that would sell in the present da,y for ten 
 or twelve hundred, — pictures culled from the fort}' and 
 
12 Cousin Pons, 
 
 one thousand paintings annually offered for sale in the 
 auction-rooms of Paris ; Sevres porcelains, pate tendre^ 
 bought from the Auvergnats, those satellites of the 
 Black-Band, who were gradually bringing back in their 
 hand-carts the treasures of France under the Pompadour. 
 He had scraped together relics of the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries, doing justice to the men of wit 
 and genius of the French school, the great unrecognized, 
 such as Lepautre, Lavallee-Poussin, and others who cre- 
 ated Louis XV. art and the style Louis XVI. , and whose 
 works supply to-da}^ the pretended originality of our 
 modern artists, who may be seen bending over these 
 treasures in the Cabinet des Estampes, attempting to 
 make the like, but attaining only to clever imitations. 
 Pons owed many of his specimens to exchanges, — that 
 source of ineffable happiness to collectors. The pleas- 
 ure of buying curios is second only to the superior joy of 
 bartering them. Pons was the first to collect snuff-boxes 
 and miniatures ; yet, for all this, he had no fame as a 
 bric-a-bracologist, for he never haunted auction-rooms, 
 and was seldom seen in the chief marts of that business ; 
 consequently, he was ignorant of the venal value of his 
 treasures. 
 
 The late Du Sommerard, founder of the museum now 
 at the Hotel Cluny, endeavored at one time to estab- 
 lish relations with the old musician ; but that prince of 
 bric-k-brac died without ever penetrating behind the veil 
 of Pons's collection, — the only one, as Du Sommerard 
 was well aware, that could be compared to the famous 
 cabinet of Sauvageot. There were certain similarities 
 between Pons and Sauvageot. The latter, a musician 
 ■without fortune like Pons, followed the same methods 
 
Cousin Pons- 13 
 
 and employed the same means, from the same love of 
 art and the same hatred towards these illustrious rich 
 people who collect treasures for the purpose of compet- 
 ing in the markets with the dealers. Like his rival, his 
 antagonist, his competitor in the quest for these marvels 
 of handicraft, these prodigies of workmanship, Pons 
 nurtured in his heart an insatiable avarice, the love of 
 a lover for a beautiful mistress ; and a public sale in 
 the halls of the Rue des Jcuneurs under the hammer of 
 an auctioneer seemed to him a crime of leze-majest}'- 
 bric-a-brac. He kept his collection to enjo}^ it at all 
 hours, for souls created to admire great works have 
 the glorious faculty of the true lover : the}^ find as much 
 enjo3'ment to-day as the}' found yesterday ; for them 
 there is no satiety, and masterpieces happily are ever 
 young. Thus the thing he was holding so paternally 
 under the tails of his coat was undoubtedl}' some 
 treasure-trove, carried off with an ardor, O amateurs ! 
 which you alone can truly know. 
 
 At the first outline of this biographical sketch, every 
 one will cr}' out : " Wh}', in spite of his ugliness, he 
 must be the happiest man on earth ! " True enough : 
 no ennui, no si)leen, resists the soothing influence a 
 hobby sheds upon the soul. You, who can drink no 
 longer from that chalice called through all time the 
 " cup of pleasure," take up the task of collecting some- 
 thing, no matter what (people have ere now collected 
 handbills) , and you will recover your ingots of jo}- in 
 small change. A hobby, a mania, is pleasure trans- 
 formed into the shape of an idea. Nevertheless, do not 
 envy the worthy Pons ; for if you do, your sentiment, 
 like others of its kind, will rest on error. 
 
14 Cousin Pons. 
 
 This man of innate delicacy, whose soul lived by its 
 unwearying admiration for the glories of human toil, 
 — that noble struggle with the forces of Nature, — was 
 the slave of a capital sin, albeit the one which God will 
 punish least severely. Pons was a gourmand. His 
 small means and his passion for bric-a-brac condemned 
 him to an ascetic diet so abhorrent to his hankering 
 appetite, that the old celibate early cut the Gordian 
 knot by dining daily among his friends. Far more at- 
 tention was paid to people of celebrity under the Empire 
 than in our da}^ possibly because they were fewer in 
 number and less poUtical in tlieir pretensions. Men 
 were poets, musicians, writers, on such moderate expen- 
 diture of talent ! Pons, who was looked upon in those 
 days as a probable rival of Nicolo, Paer, Berton, and 
 other composers of his time, received so many invita- 
 tions that he was forced to enter them in a note-book, 
 just as a lawyer is obliged to record his cases. In his 
 quality- of artist he presented copies of his songs to his 
 various hosts, pla3'ed what was called the " forte " in their 
 salons, gave them boxes at the Feydeau (the theatre 
 to which he belonged), organized their concerts, and even 
 played the violin and improvised little dances at the 
 houses of his rich relations. Those were the days when 
 the handsomest men in France were flighting duels with 
 the handsomest menof tlie AlUed Powers ; consequently, 
 and in accordance with the great law promulgated b}- 
 Moliere in the famous couplet of Eliante, Pons's re- 
 markable ugliness was considered "originality." When 
 he had done some service to a beautiful woman, he heard 
 her call him a charming man ; but his experience of hap- 
 piness never went beyond the hearing of the words. 
 
Cousin Pons. 15 
 
 During this period, which lasted about six years (from 
 1810 to 1816), Pons contracted the fatal habit of dining 
 well, of seeing those with whom he dined living extrav- 
 agantly, procuring delicacies, producing their best wines, 
 solicitous about the dessert, the coffee, the liqueurs, and 
 ffivins: him of their best, after the lavish fashion of the 
 Empire, when many houses imitated the splendor of the 
 various kings and queens and princes with which Paris 
 then abounded. People played at royalty, just as in 
 these da3's they play at parliament and create crowds of 
 '-'- Societies," each with its president, vice-president, and 
 secretar}', — ' ' Societies " for the linen-trade and the 
 silk-trade and the wine-trade ; Agricultural Societies, 
 Industrial Societies, etc. We have even got so far as to 
 seek out social diseases, that we may set up societies of 
 healers and reformers. 
 
 A stomach constructed by education, like that of 
 Pons, reacts of course upon the moral constitution, and 
 corrupts it through the high culinary knowledge thus 
 acquired. Sensualit}' lurking in every fold of the heart 
 speaks with sovereign voice, subverts the will, shatters 
 the sense of honor, and demands its gratification at any 
 price. No one has ever j-et depicted the exactions of 
 the human Maw ; the}^ escape literary criticism through 
 sheer necessit}' of living. Who knows the number of 
 those who are ruined by the table? In this respect, the 
 table in Paris rivals the courtesan ; it is, moreover, the 
 fuel of which she is the waste. When Pons, falling from 
 reputation as an artist, fell also from the condition of 
 honored guest to that of a poor relation sponging for a 
 dinner on his prosperous friends, he was unable to re- 
 sign their well-served tables for the Spartan broth of a 
 
16 Cousin Pons. 
 
 fortj'-soiis restaurant. Alas ! he shuddered as he thought 
 that his self-respect demanded so great a sacrifice ; he 
 knew himself capable of the utmost meanness that he 
 might still live well, enjoy all the luxuries of the season, 
 and (vulgar, but expressive word !) '* gobble down " deli- 
 cious little made dishes. Like a marauding bird, fl3'ing 
 away with a full crop and warbling a tune by way of 
 thanks, Pons had come to feel a certain pleasure in thus 
 living at the cost of society, which asked in return — 
 what? mere bowing and scraping. Accustomed, like 
 all bachelors who hate their own homes and live chiefly 
 in other people's houses, to the formulas and grimaces 
 which are made to take the place of real sentiments in 
 the social world, he used compliments as he did small 
 change ; and in respect to persons he was satisfied to 
 take them at their current value, without poking his nose 
 inquisitively behind the scenes. 
 
 This not intolerable state of things lasted ten years. 
 But what 3'ears ! they were like a rainy autumn. Dur- 
 ing all that time Pons kept his gratuitous place at table, 
 and made himself useful in the houses where he dined. 
 He set foot in the fatal path of doing a multiplicity of 
 errands, and supplying, again and again, the place of 
 porters and servants. Often employed to make pur- 
 chases, he became an honorable and innocent spy sent 
 by one family into another ; 3'et no one ever blamed him 
 for these incursions, or reproached him for their sneak- 
 ing meanness. "Pons is a good fellow, who doesn't 
 know what to do with his time," they all said ; "he is 
 delisfhted to trot about for us — what else can he do ? " 
 
 Soon the cliill of old age began to creep about him, 
 that keen north wind which penetrates and lowers the 
 
Cousin Pons. 17 
 
 moral temperature — above all, if age is poor and ugly. 
 Then indeed the old man is trebl}' old. The winter of 
 his life has come, — the winter of wan cheeks, and red- 
 dened nose, and numbness of all kinds. 
 
 From 1836 to 1843 Pons was seldom invited as a 
 guest. Far from seeking their parasite, each family en- 
 dured him as thej^ endured their taxes ; the}' paid no heed 
 to him, nor to the real services which he did for them. 
 The families among whom he revolved, all of them with- 
 out any respect for art, worshipped material results and 
 valued none but those which thej^ had gained since 
 1830, — that is to say, large fortunes or eminent social 
 rank. Now Pons, being without sufficient dignity of 
 mind or manners to inspire the awe which talent or 
 genius imposes on the bourgeois soul, had ended, natur- 
 ally, by becoming less than a cipher, without at the 
 same time being altogether despised. Though he suf- 
 fered in this world of cruel suffering like all timid beings, 
 he bore his troubles silently-. He had learned by de- 
 grees to repress his feelings, and make his heart a 
 sanctuary, into whose solitude he withdrew, — a phe- 
 nomenon which superficial persons often explain b}' the 
 "Word " selfisliness." The likeness between the solitary 
 soul and the egotist is near enough to seem to justify 
 such cavillers in their judgment of true hearts, — more 
 especially in Paris, where no one carefully observes ; 
 where events are rapid as the dash of waters, and all 
 things go and come like an administration. 
 
 Thus it happened that Pons was found guiltj^ under 
 an indictment of selfishness drawn retrospectivel}^ 
 against him ; for the world always ends by condemn- 
 ing those whom it accuses. Do any of us realize how 
 
 2 
 
18 Cousin Pons. 
 
 unmerited discredit crushes a timid nature ? Who will 
 ever trul}- picture the sorrows of timidit}^ ? Such a situa- 
 tion, aggraA^ated more and more and from day to da}', 
 explains the sadness stamped upon the face of this poor 
 musician, whose life was a long succession of servile 
 surrenders. But such abject meanness, which all pas- 
 sions compel, is a bond in itself, — the more a passion 
 exacts, the more it binds us ; and these sacrifices are 
 turned by the force of passion into a negative ideal 
 treasure, in which men see an actual wealth. After 
 enduring the insolent patronizing glance of some rich 
 bourgeois, — rich in duluess, — Pons sipped his glass 
 of port-wine and ate his quail mi gratin as if they were 
 a compensating vengeance, saving to himself, "They 
 don't cost me too much." 
 
 To the e^'e of a moralist certain extenuating circum- 
 stances appear in such a life. A man exists ojily 
 through some species of satisfaction. A being without 
 passion, the just man made perfect, is a monster, a 
 lialf-fledged angel : angels in the Catholic mythology 
 have nothing but heads. Here below the perfect man 
 is the wearisome Grandison, who finds even the Venus 
 of the slums without a sex. Barring a few common- 
 place adventures during his Italian journey, where the 
 cHmate may have given him a brief success. Pons had 
 never won a woman's smile. Many men have had this 
 luckless destin}-. Pons was born out of time. His 
 parents begot him in their old age, and he l)ore the 
 stigmata of an unseasonable birth in the cadaverous 
 tints of his skin, which looked as if they might have 
 been contracted in one of those jars of spirits-of-wine 
 where abnormal foetuses are usually preserved. This 
 
Co linn Pons. 19 
 
 artist-soul, endowed with tenderness, dream}', delicate, 
 and yet forced to accept the character imposed upon 
 him by his outward man, despaired of ever being loved. 
 Celibacy was with him less a choice than a necessit}^ 
 Gastronomy, the seducer of virtuous monks, opened 
 its arras to him ; he rushed into them as he had rushed 
 into the worship of works of art and the religion of 
 music. Good living and bric-a-brac were to him the 
 small change for a woman ; not music, for that was his 
 profession, and we may look far before we find a man 
 who is fond of the trade by which he lives. In the long 
 run a profession is like marriage, we come to feel only 
 its annoyances. 
 
 Brillat-Savarin defended the science of good eating 
 from conviction ; but perhaps he has not sufficientl}' in- 
 sisted on the real pleasure a man finds at table. Diges- 
 tion, which sets to work the forces of the human bod}', 
 produces within the epicure an inward tumult equivalent 
 to the highest enjoyments of love. Such a vast develop- 
 ment of vital energy is felt, that the brain annuls itself 
 in the interests of the secondary brain which exists in 
 the diaphragm, and intoxication ensues from the very 
 inertia of all the faculties. The boa- constrictors gorged 
 with buffalo are found so drunk that they will let them- 
 selves be killed. Is there a man over forty who dares 
 to go to work after dinner? And for this reason all 
 p'eat men are sober. Convalescents recovering from 
 ;erious illness, to whom nourishment is carefully doled 
 jut, have often observed a species of gastric inebria-< 
 tion produced by a single chicken-wing. The virtuous ^ 
 Pons, whose enjoyments were concentrated in the me- 
 chanism of his stomach, was often in the condition 
 
20 Cousin Pons. 
 
 of such convalescents : he exacted from good living 
 all the sensations it was capable of bestowing ; and so 
 far he had obtained them daily. No one dares bid 
 farewell to a fixed habit. Many a suicide has stopped 
 short on the threshold of death, as he remembered the 
 cafe where he played his nightly game of dominos. 
 
Cousin Pons. 21 
 
 III. 
 
 THE TWO NUT-CRACKEKS. 
 
 In 1835 mere chance avenged Pons for the indiffer- 
 ence of the fair sex, and gave him what is familiarly 
 called a staff of old age. The old man, old from his 
 birth, found in friendship his prop of life ; he contracted 
 the only marriage society allowed him to make ; he 
 espoused a man, an old man, — a musician, like him- 
 self. Were it not for La Fontaine's divine fable, this 
 sketch might have been called " The Two Friends ; '* 
 but to take that name now would surely be a literary 
 outrage, — a profanation, before which all true writers 
 must recoil. That masterpiece of our fable-maker, at 
 once the histor}' of his dreams and the disclosure of his 
 own soul, has an eternal right of conquest to its title. 
 The page on which the poet wrote those words, " The 
 Two Friends," is sacred property, — a temple, which 
 each generation enters respectfully ; where the world 
 will come to pay its homage so long as the art of print- 
 ing endures. 
 
 The friend of Sylvain Pons was a music-teacher, 
 whose life and whose inclinations sympathized so well 
 with his own that he said he knew him too late for hap- 
 piness : their acquaintance, begun at the distribution 
 of prizes in a private school, dated only from 1834. 
 Perhaps no two souls ever so resembled each other 
 
22 Cousin Pons, 
 
 in that ocean of human life which took its rise, against 
 the will of God, in this terrestrial paradise. The two 
 musicians be^^ame in a short time a necessity for one 
 another. In a week they were brothers ; and at last 
 Schraucke no more realized the existence of a Pons 
 than Pons was aware of the existence of a Schmucke. 
 This alone suffices to depict these wortlw souls ; but as 
 all minds do not equally enjo}^ the brevity of synthesis, 
 a slight elucidation becomes necessary for the benefit 
 of the incredulous. 
 
 This pianist, like all pianists, was a German, — Ger- 
 man, like the great Liszt and the great Mendelssohn ; 
 German like Steibelt, Mozart, and Dusseck ; German 
 like Dohler and Thalberg, Drej^schok and Hiller ; like 
 Leopold Meyer, like Crammer ; like Zimmermann, Kalk- 
 brenner, Herz, Woetz, Karr, Edouard Wolff, Pixis, Clara 
 Wieck, — in short, all Germans. Though a natural com- 
 poser, Schmucke could only point the wa}' and in- 
 struct others, so lacking was he in that native audacity 
 which is necessarj^ to the man of genius who seeks to 
 manifest himself bj' music. The simple naivete of man}' 
 Germans does not last into middle-life ; it stops short; 
 what remains to them after a certain age is taken, as 
 one takes the water of a canal, from the springs of 
 their youth ; and the}' use it to fertilize and foster their 
 success in various ways — in science, in art, in fortune 
 — by the power it gives them to escape distrust. In 
 France, subtle people sometimes substitute for such 
 Teutonic innocence the stolidity of the Parisian grocer. 
 But Schmucke had kept his childlike simplicity, just as 
 Pons carried on his person, unawares, the relics of the 
 Empire. This genuine and noble German was, as it 
 
Cousin Pons, 23 
 
 were, both play and audience ; he made his music for 
 his own soul. He lived in Paris twenty 3'ears as a 
 nightingale lives in its forest, alone of its species, sing- 
 ing in solitude, until the moment when, meeting Pons, 
 he met his other self. (See " Une Fille d'Eve.") 
 
 Pons and Schmucke had each, one as much as the 
 other, in his heart and in his character, those childlike 
 sentimentalities which distinguish all Germans, — such, 
 for instance, as a passion for flowers, and the worship 
 of all natural effects, whereby they are led to plant a 
 tangle of shrubs and vines in their gardens, to see iii 
 miniature the landscape which extends before their 
 eyes ; or that strong inclination for discovery which 
 carries a German savant three hundred miles in his 
 gaiters, to find a fact which stares him in the face as 
 lie sits at the edge of his well under the jessamine in 
 his court3'ard ; or, in short, that innate impulse to 
 attribute psychical significance to the trifles of creation 
 which inspired the inexplicable works of Jean Paul 
 Richter, the printed inebriations of Hoflmann, and the 
 fortifications of folio which Germany throws up around 
 the simplest question, into which they burrow till it be- 
 comes an abyss, at the bottom of which there is nothing 
 to be seen but one German. Both were Catholics ; 
 together they went to Mass, and fulfilled their religious 
 duties like children who never had anything to reveal 
 to their confessors. The}' beheved firmly that music, 
 the language of heaven, was to ideas and sentiments 
 what ideas and sentiments are to speech ; they con- 
 versed ad infinitum on tliis theory, answering one 
 another b}' orgies of music, demonstrating to themselves 
 their own convictions, after the fashion of all lovers. 
 
24 Cousin Pons, 
 
 Schmucke was as absent-minded as Pons was intent. 
 If Pons was a collector, Schmucke was a dreamer ; one 
 studied noble moral truths, the other saved and gar- 
 nered noble material objects. Pons saw and bought a 
 porcelain cup, while Schmucke was blowing his nose 
 and thinking over some theme of Rossini or Bellini or 
 Beethoven or Mozart, and hunting through the regions 
 of sentiment to discover the origin or the echo of that 
 musical phrase. Schmucke, whose savings were at the 
 merc}^ of his absent-mindedness, and Pons, prodigal on 
 his passion for bric-a-brac, arrived at the same result on 
 the Saint-Sylvester of ever}' year, — an empt}- purse. 
 
 Without this friendship, Pons might have died of his 
 griefs ; but as soon as he found a heart on which to un- 
 burden his own, life became bearable to him. The first 
 time he poured his troubles into Schmucke's ear, the 
 worth}^ German advised him to live as he did — on bread 
 and cheese in his own home — rather than eat the dinners 
 for which he was made to pay so dear. Alas ! Pons 
 dared not confess to Schmucke that within him heart 
 and stomach were enemies ; that the stomach demanded 
 what the heart feared ; and that it must at an}- cost 
 have a good dinner to relish, just as a man of gallantr}- 
 requires a mistress — to provoke. In course of time 
 Schmucke, who was too much of a German to have the 
 rapid observation which Frenchmen enjoy, came to 
 understand Pons, and he loved the poor soul only the 
 better for his weakness. Nothing strengthens friend- 
 ship more than for one friend to feel himself superior to 
 the other. \ An angel would have found nothing to say 
 against ScHmucke if he had seen him rubbing his hands 
 when he first discovered the strong gi'asp which the love 
 
Cousin Pons, 25 
 
 of good eating had laid upon his friend. Indeed, the 
 next da}^ he added dainties to their breakfast, which he 
 bought himself; and he took pains to have daily some 
 rarity for his friend at breakfast, — a meal which since 
 their intimacy the}^ took together in their own home. 
 
 It would argue little knowledge of Paris to suppose 
 for a moment that the two friends escaped Parisian rid- 
 icule, which respects nothing. Schmucke and Pons, 
 when they married their wealth and their poverty, were 
 seized with the thrifty idea of lodging together. Ac- 
 cordingly they shared the rent of an appartement, other- 
 wise ver}^ unequally divided, in a quiet house in the 
 quiet rue de Normandie, in the Marais. As they often 
 left home in company, they were frequently to be seen 
 walking side by side along the same boulevards, and the 
 idlers of the neighborhood had christened them " the 
 two Nut-crackers." This nickname relieves us from 
 the necessity of giving a portrait of Schmucke, who was 
 to Pons what the nurse of Niobe, the famous statue of 
 the Vatican, is to the Venus of the Tribune. 
 
 Madame Cibot, concierge of the house, was the pivot 
 on which the domestic arrangements of the two Nut- 
 crackers turned ; but she plays so important a part in 
 the drama of their double lives, that it is best to with- 
 hold her portrait until the moment of her entrance on 
 the scene. 
 
 What now remains to tell of the moral constitution of 
 these two beings is precisely that which is most difBcult 
 to get into the comprehension of nine hundred and 
 ninety-nine of the readers in this forty-seventh year of 
 the nineteenth century, — probably because of the pro- 
 digious financial development which has followed the 
 
26 Cousin Pons. 
 
 establishment of railroads. What we have to say may 
 be little, yet it is much ; it is, in fact, to give some idea 
 of the extreme delicacy of these two hearts. Let us 
 borrow a figure from the railways, if only in repayment 
 of the loans they obtain from us. The trains as they 
 flash along the rails grind into the iron imperceptible 
 grains of sand. Insert one of those grains, invisible 
 to the traveller, into his loins, and he endures the pain 
 of that worst of maladies, the gravel. Men die of it. 
 Well, that which to our society, rushing along its metalHc 
 way with the rapidity of a locomotive, is the invisible 
 grain of sand of which it takes no notice, — that very 
 grain, perpetually ground on all occasions into the fibre 
 of these two beings, was to them the gravel of the heart. 
 Full of exceeding tenderness for the troubles of others, 
 each mourned over his own powerlessness ; and in the 
 matter of their own feelings both had the exquisite sen- 
 sitiveness of a person recovering from illness. Nei- 
 ther old age nor the manifold sights of the Parisian 
 drama had hardened these fresh, pure, childlike souls. 
 The longer thej" went their way, the more vivid were 
 their inward sufferings. Alas ! it is ever thus with the 
 chaste natures, the tranquil thinkers, the true poets, who 
 have never themselves fallen into excesses. 
 
 Since the union of the two old men, their occupations, 
 which were much alike, had assumed a fraternal sort of 
 gait, such as ma}' be observed in the horses of a Pari- 
 sian hackney-coach. Getting up, summer and winter, 
 at seven in the morning, they went out after breakfast 
 to give lessons in their several schools, where on occa- 
 sion each supplied the other's place. Toward mid-day 
 Pons went to his theatre, if there happened to be a 
 
Cousin Pons* 27 
 
 rehearsal ; and all his leisure time he spent in strolling 
 about. The two friends met again in the evening at 
 the theatre, where Pons had secured employment for 
 Schraucke, in this wise : 
 
 At the time when Pons first met Schmucke, he had 
 just obtained, without seeking it, that marshal's staff 
 of all unrecognized composers, the conductor's baton as 
 leader of an orchestra. Thanks to Comte Popinot, — 
 formerly Monsieur Anselme Popinot, married to Made- 
 moiselle Cesarine Birotteau, — now a minister of state, 
 this place was secured to the poor musician when that 
 bourgeois hero of the July revolution gave the manage- 
 ment of the theatre to an old friend, — one of those 
 friends for whom a mere parvenu blushes, when, as he 
 rolls in his chariot, he encounters some companion of his 
 3'outh, seedy and out-at-elbows, wrapped in a top-coat 
 of doubtful tint, with his nose to the wind of such things 
 as bring no grist to the mill. This friend, formerly a 
 commercial traveller named Gaudissard, was at one 
 time instrumental in the success of the great house of 
 Popinot. Popinot, now a count and peer of France, 
 having been twice a minister of state, never forgot or 
 disowned the Illustrious Gaudissard. Far otherwise ; for 
 he was truly anxious to give the bagman an opportunity 
 to replenish his wardrobe and refill his purse : neither 
 politics nor the pomps and vanities of a citizen court 
 had spoiled the heart of the former druggist. Gaudis- 
 sard, always weak on women, asked for the lesseeship 
 of a theatre which had latel^^ failed ; and the minister, in 
 granting it, had taken care to send him a few old ama- 
 teurs of the fair sex, rich enough to create a profitable 
 stock-company in the interests of the ballet. Pons, a 
 
28 Cousin Pons. 
 
 parasite of the Hotel Popinot, was a condition of this 
 licensco The Gaudissard company — which, be it said, 
 eventualh^ made its fortune — started in 1834 with the 
 intention of realizing on the boulevard a grand idea, — 
 an opera for the people. The music for the ballets and 
 the fairy scenes required a good leader of the orchestra, 
 and one who was something of a composer. The man- 
 agement to which the Gaudissard compan}^ succeeded 
 had been so long on the pomt of failure that it employed 
 no copyist. Pons got Schmucke into the theatre in that 
 capacity, — an obscure occupation, which nevertheless 
 requires serious musical knowledge. Schmucke, under 
 Pons's advice, made some arrangement with the head of 
 the business at the Opera Comique, by which he avoided 
 the mechanical part of it. The association of Pons and 
 Schmucke had excellent results. Schmucke, who like 
 all Germans was very strong in harmon}^, attended 
 carefuU}^ to the instrumentation of the scores, for which 
 Pons supplied the songs. When connoisseurs admired 
 certain sparkling compositions which served as accom- 
 paniments to two or three popular plays, they accounted 
 for them by the word progress^ without inquiring as 
 to their authors. Pons and Schmucke were eclipsed by 
 their own glory, as some people have been drowned in 
 \their own bath-tubs. In Paris, especially since 1830, 
 no one arrives at eminence without pushing, quihuscum- 
 que viis^ and pushing masterfully, through an alarming 
 crowd of competitors ; for this a man needs strength in 
 his loins ; and the two friends had that gravel in their 
 hearts which hinders all ambitious action. 
 
 Ordinarily, Pons entered the orchestra of his the- 
 atre at eight o'clock, the hour at which they give those 
 
Cousin Pons. 29 
 
 favorite pieces that require the t^Tanny of the leader's 
 baton, both for the overture and for the accompani- 
 ments. This easy arrangement rules in most of the 
 lesser theatres ; but Pons was allowed even more free- 
 dom in this respect because of the great disinterested- 
 ness he showed in his relations with the management. 
 Moreover, Schmucke supplied his place if necessar}^ 
 After a time, Schmucke's position in the orchestra be- 
 came a settled one. The Illustrious Gaudissard recog- 
 nized, without sa^'ing a word about it, the value and 
 usefulness of Pons's assistant. Pianos had latel}^ been 
 introduced into the orchestras of the leading theatres. 
 That instrument, pla3'ed gratis b}' Schmucke, was soon 
 stationed close to the leader's desk, near which sat the 
 volunteer supernumerary. As soon as the good Ger- 
 man, who was without ambition or pretention, became 
 known, all the musicians welcomed him heartil}^ The 
 management soon after put Schmucke, at a moderate 
 stipend, in charge of all tliose instruments that are 
 not included in the orchestra of the boulevard theatres, 
 but which, nevertheless, are often needed, — such as 
 the piano, the tenor violin, the English horn, the violin- 
 cello, the harp, the castanets for the cachucha, the 
 bells, and all the Sax inventions, etc. Germans, though 
 they may not know how to play the glorious instruments 
 of Liberty, have a natural gift for playing all musical 
 instruments. 
 
 The two old men, extremely beloved at the theatre, 
 lived in its precincts like philosophers. They had drawn 
 a film over their eyes so as not to see the inherent evils of 
 a company in which the corps de ballet mingles with the 
 actors and actresses, — one of the worst combinations 
 
30 Cousin Pons. 
 
 that the necessity of drawing houses has created for the 
 torment of directors, authors, and musicians. Sincere 
 respect for himself and others won general esteem for 
 the good and modest Pons. In ever}- sphere of existence 
 a pure and limpid life, an honor and honesty above re- 
 proach, command a species of admiration from even the 
 worst hearts. In Paris a noble virtue has the success 
 of a large diamond, of a rare curiosity. Not an actor, 
 nor an author, nor a dancer, however bold, would have 
 played the smallest trick or permitted themselves the 
 least jest against Pons or against his friend. Pons 
 sometimes appeared in the green-room, but Schmucke 
 knew naught but the subterranean passage which led 
 from the orchestra to the outer wall of the theatre. 
 Between the acts, when he was present at a represen- 
 tation, the good old German ventured to look about him 
 at the audience, and he sometimes questioned the first 
 flute — a young man born in Strasburg of a German 
 family from Kehl — as to the eccentric individuals who 
 usually garnish the regions of the proscenium. Little by 
 little, the childlike imagination of the old man (whose 
 social education was undertaken by the flute) admitted 
 the fabulous existence of the Lorette, the possibility of 
 marriage without formalities, the extravagancies of a 
 leading actor, and the intrigues of the box-openers.. 
 The innocencies of vice seemed to the worthy man the 
 last stroke of Bab^'lonian iniquity, and he smiled as 
 he would have done at Chinese arabesques. Knowing 
 minds will readily understand that Pons and Schmucke 
 were exploited and sponged upon, to use a phrase of the 
 day ; but what they lost in money they gained in con- 
 sideration and good-will. 
 
Cousin Pons. 31 
 
 After the success of ballet which started the rapid 
 fortune of the Gaudissard company, the directors pre- 
 sented Pons with a group in silver attributed to Ben- 
 venuto Cellini, the astounding price of which had been 
 a topic of a conversation in the green-room. It was 
 an affair of twelve hundred francs ! The honest soul 
 wished to return the gift. Gaudissard was at great 
 pains to make him keep it. 
 
 "Ah! if we could onl3^ find actors of his stripe!" 
 said the manager to his associate. 
 
 This double life, so calm apparently, was troubled 
 solely by the vice to which Pons bowed the knee, — that 
 fierce necessity which drove him daily to seek his unin- 
 vited dinner. Every time that Schmucke chanced to be 
 at home when Pons was dressing, the good German 
 bewailed the fatal habit. 
 
 "And subbose it make you fat!" he sometimes 
 cried. 
 
 Schmucke brooded over schemes to cure his friend of 
 his besetting weakness ; for true friends are possessed, 
 as to the moral order of things, with the perception of 
 a dog's nose : they scent the griefs of friends, they guess 
 the causes, and their minds dwell upon them. 
 
 Pons, who always wore upon the little finger of his 
 right hand a diamond ring (tolerated under the Empire, 
 but which was now considered ridiculous) , — Pons, far 
 too much of a troubadour at heart, and too much of a 
 Frenchman, gave no sign on his countenance of the 
 divine serenity which diminished the frightful ugliness 
 of Schmucke. The German detected in the melancholy 
 expression of his friend's face the increasing difficulties 
 which made the calling of a parasite more and still 
 
 Of THi ^r 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 ^il /FORNIX 
 
32 Cousin Pons, 
 
 more distressing. In fact, b}^ October, 1844, the num- 
 ber of houses where Pons dined had become, naturally, 
 much restricted. The poor musician, reduced to the 
 round of his own relations, had, as we shall see, extended 
 beyond all bounds the meaning of the word familj'. 
 
 Our worthy ^:>r^a3 de Rome was cousin to the first wife 
 of Monsieur Camusot, the rich silk-mercer of the rue de 
 la Bourdonnais. She had been a demoiselle Pons, sole 
 heiress of the famous house of Pons Brothers, embroi- 
 derers to the Court ; a house in which the father and 
 mother of the musician had been sleeping-partners, 
 they having founded it before the revolution of 1789. 
 Subsequentl}" the business was bought b}' Monsieur 
 Rivet, in 1815, from the father of the first Madame 
 Camusot. Camusot himself, having retired from busi- 
 ness for about ten years, was in 1844 member of the 
 General Council on manufactures, and deputy, etc. 
 The honest Pons, regarded as a friend by the whole 
 tribe of Camusot, considered himself the cousin of the 
 children whom Camusot had by his second marriage, 
 though in fact the^^ were nothing whatever to him, not 
 even connections. 
 
 The second Madame Camusot being a demoiselle 
 Cardot, Pons thus introduced himself as a relation of 
 the Camusots to the numerous family of the Cardots, 
 a second bourgeois tribe which through its marriages 
 formed a circle not less important than that of the 
 Camusots. Cardot the notary, brother of the second 
 Madame Camusot, had married a demoiselle Chiffreville. 
 The celebrated family of the Chiffrevilles, sovereign of 
 all chemical products, was closely allied in business 
 with the wholesale drug trade ; and the cock of the 
 
Cousin Pons. 33 
 
 roost of that business was for a long time Monsieur An- 
 selme Popinot, whom the revohition of July launched, 
 as we know, into the very heart of dynastic politics. 
 Pons, hanging to the skirts of the Carausots and the 
 Cardots, came into the family of the Chiffrevilles, and 
 from thence into the family of the Popinots, — always 
 in the character of a cousin of cousins. 
 
 This slight glance at the old musician's affiliations 
 will let the reader understand how it was that in 1844 
 he was received on familiar terms, first, in the house 
 of Monsieur le comte Popinot, peer of France, formerly 
 minister of agriculture and commerce ; secondly, in that 
 of Monsieur Cardot, retired notary, and now mayor and 
 deputy of an arrondissement in Paris ; thirdly, by old 
 Monsieur Camusot, deputy, member of the Municipal 
 Council of Paris and of the Council on manufactures, 
 now in expectation of a peerage ; fourthly, in the family 
 of Monsieur Camusot de Marville, son of Monsieur 
 Camusot by his first marriage, and an actual cousin, — 
 in fact the only real cousin of Sylvain Pons, though 
 once removed. 
 
 This last Camusot, who to distinguish himself from 
 his father and his half-brother had added the name of 
 his country-seat (de Marville) to his own, was in 1844 
 president of the Cour-royale of Paris. 
 
 The former notary, Cardot, having married his daugh- 
 ter to his successor, named Berthier, Pons being part 
 of the business, as it were, managed to lay hold of that 
 dinner, — " before a notarj^" as he said. 
 
 Such was the bourgeois firmament which Pons called 
 his famil}', and where he had painfully made good his 
 rights to a knife and fork. 
 
34 Cousin Pons. 
 
 Of the ten houses, the one where the old musician 
 might expect to be the most welcomed, that of the 
 president Camusot de Marville, was the one which cost 
 him the greatest pains. Alas ! the president's wife, a 
 daughter of the late Sieur Thirion, usher to the privy 
 chamber of Louis XVIII. and Charles X., had never 
 treated her husband's half-cousin kindlj^ Pons lost 
 much time in the effort to soften this terrible relation, 
 for after giving gratuitous music lessons to Mademoi- 
 selle Camusot he found it impossible to make a musician 
 of that rather florid young lad3% At the moment when 
 we encounter him, Pons, with his hand on some precious 
 article, was hurr3ing to the house of his cousin the 
 president, where he used to fancy himself entering the 
 Tuileries, so great an effect did the solemn green 
 draperies, the brown tapestries, the moquette carpets, 
 all portentously magisterial, produce upon his mind. 
 Strange ! he felt at his ease in the Hotel Popinot, rue 
 Basse-du-Rempart ; doubtless because it was filled with 
 works of art ; for the former minister had, since his en- 
 trance into political life, contracted a mania for collect- 
 ing choice things, — perhaps in opposition to the genius 
 of politics, which collects, secretly, the vilest actions. 
 
Cousin Pons. 35 
 
 IV. 
 
 ONE OP THE MANY JOYS OF A COLLECTOR. 
 
 The president de Marville lived in the rue de Hanovre, 
 in a house bought by his wife within the last ten years, 
 since the death of her father and mother the sieur 
 and dame Thirion, who had left her about a hundred 
 and fifty thousand francs of their savings. This house, 
 whose aspect on the street where it faces north is 
 rather gloomy, enjo3's a southern exposure at the back 
 on the courtj-ard, bej'ond which it overlooks a rather 
 fine garden. The magistrate occupied the whole first 
 floor, which had been under Louis XV. the residence 
 of one of the greatest financiers of that day. The 
 second floor being let to a rich old lady, the whole 
 house had a quiet and dignified appearance quite in 
 keeping with its official character. The remains of the 
 formerly magnificent estate of Marville, on the purchase 
 of which the president had spent the savings of twenty 
 years and the fortune derived from his mother, com- 
 prised the chateau, a splendid erection such as may still 
 be met with in Normandy, and a ^ood farm, which 
 brought in twelve thousand francs a j-ear. A park of 
 two hundred and fifty acres surrounded the mansion. 
 The latter luxury, princely in these days, cost the presi- 
 dent the value of over a thousand crowns ; so that his 
 land did not bring him more than nine thousand francs, 
 
S6 Cousin Pons. 
 
 in hand, as they say. These nine thousand francs 
 and his salary gave the president an income of some 
 twenty thousand francs all told, — apparentl}^ sufficient 
 lor his needs, especially as he expected the ultimate 
 half of his father's property, being, as he was, the only 
 child of the first marriage ; but the hfe of Paris and 
 the demands of their official position compelled Mon- 
 sieur and Madame de Marville to spend their whole 
 income. Up to 1834, therefore, they were pressed for 
 money. 
 
 This inventory of their property will explain why 
 Mademoiselle de Marville, a young lady twenty-three 
 years of age, was not married, in spite of a hundred 
 thousand francs dot, and in spite also of the tempting 
 bait of her future expectations, cleverh' and frequently, 
 and yet fruitlessly, put forth. Cousin Pons had listened 
 for at least five years to the mournful complaints of 
 Madame de Marville, who saw the rising 3'oung law- 
 yers all married and the newl}" appointed judges in the 
 lesser courts already fathers of families, and who had 
 vainly exhibited the brilliant prospects of Mademoi- 
 selle de Marville before the uncharmed e^'es of the 
 young Vicomte Popinot, eldest son of the primate 
 of druggists, — for whose benefit, according to envious 
 souls in the quartier des Lombards, quite as much 
 as for that of the 3'ounger Branch, the Revolution of 
 Jul}' had been made. 
 
 When Pons reached the rue Choiseul and was about 
 to turn into the rue de Hanovre, he experienced that 
 inexplicable emotion which is the torment of a pure 
 conscience, which inflicts the terror felt b}' the greatest 
 scoundrels at the sight of a gendarme, and which was 
 
Cousin Pons, 37 
 
 caused in this instance solely by the doubt as to how 
 he might be received by Madame de Marville. This 
 grain of sand, which was tearing the fibres of his heart, 
 had never 3'et worn itself smooth ; its edges only grew 
 sharper. And the servants of the house polished and 
 sharpened them still further ; for the small account the 
 Camusot family made of their Cousin Pons reacted on 
 their people, who, without proceeding to actual disre- 
 spect, considered him a species of pauper. 
 
 The chief enemy of poor Pons was a certain Made- 
 leine Vivet, a lean, dried-up old maid, the waiting- 
 woman of Madame C. de Marville and her daughter. 
 This Madeleine, in spite of a pimpled face, and perhaps 
 because of it and of the viperous sinuosities of her 
 figure, had taken it into her head to become Madame 
 Pons. In vain she spread before the eyes of the old 
 celibate the twenty thousand francs she had laid by. 
 Pons declined the pimpled happiness. Consequently, 
 this backstairs Dido, who longed to be the cousin of 
 her masters, plaj-ed spiteful tricks upon the poor musi- 
 cian. When she heard his step on the stairs she 
 would scream out, '' Ah ! here comes the poor relation," 
 trying to make him hear the words. If she waited at 
 table in the absence of the footman, she would pour veiy 
 little wine and a great deal of water into the victim's 
 glass, and give him the difficult task of getting it safely- 
 to his lips without spilling a drop, though it was almost 
 running over. She would forget to serve the worth}' 
 man until her mistress reminded her (and in what a 
 tone ! the poor cousin blushed at it) , and then she 
 would spill the gravy on his clothes. In short, it was 
 the warfare of an inferior knowing herself unpunishable 
 
38 Cousin Pons, 
 
 \)y a helpless superior. Madeleine, who was realty both 
 housekeeper and lady's maid, had lived with Monsieur 
 and Madame Camusot since their marriage. She had 
 seen her masters in the penury of their earty life in the 
 provinces, where Monsieur Camusot had been a judge 
 of the Lower Courts at Alen^on ; she had helped them 
 to live, first at Mantes, where Monsieur Camusot was 
 president of the same courts, and later, after he came 
 to Paris in 1828 and was appointed J2^^6 dHnstruction. 
 She was thus too close to the family not to have some 
 motives for revenge. The desire to plaj' her proud, 
 ambitious mistress the ill-turn of becoming her master's 
 cousin masked one of those hidden hatreds engendered 
 b^^ the gravel which makes an avalanche. 
 
 '* JVIadame, here 's 3'our Monsieur Pons, spencer and 
 all ! " cried Madeleine, running into her mistress's room. 
 *'He ought to tell me the secret of how he has made 
 that thing last for twenty-five j'ears." 
 
 Hearing a man's step in the little salon, which was 
 between the large salon and her bedroom, Madame 
 Camusot looked at her daughter, and shrugged her 
 shoulders. 
 
 "You always tell me so judicious^, Madeleine, and 
 leave me no time to decide on anything," she said, 
 angrily. 
 
 " Madame, Jean is out ; I was alone. Monsieur Pons 
 rang, I had to answer the door ; and as he is nearly 
 always at the house I could n't prevent him from com- 
 ing in. He is just out there, getting off" his spencer." 
 
 " M}^ poor Minette," said Madame Camusot to her 
 daughter, ' ' we are caught ; we shall have to dine at 
 home. Come," she added, seeing the vexed face of 
 
Cousin Pons. 39 
 
 her dear Minette, " suppose we were to get rid of hira 
 forever ? " 
 
 " Oh, the poor man ! " answered Mademoiselle Camu- 
 sot, laughing, " deprived of one of his dinners ! " 
 
 The little salon here resounded witli the fictitious 
 cough of a man who tries to say, '^ I hear you." 
 
 " Well, let him come in," said Madame Camusot to 
 Madeleine, with a shrug of her shoulders. 
 
 '' You have come so early, monsieur," said Cecile 
 Camusot, with a saucy air, " that you have caught us 
 just as my mother was beginning to dress." 
 
 Pons, who had not failed to see the shrug of Madame 
 Camusot's shoulders, was so cruelly hurt that he found 
 no compliment read}' on his lips, and was fain to con- 
 tent himself with the profound remark, " You are always 
 charming, my little cousin ! " 
 
 Then turning to the mother with a bow, " Dear 
 cousin," he added, '' 30U will not, I am sure, blame 
 me for coming earlier than usual ; for I bring yoxx 
 something you did me the pleasure to ask for — " 
 
 And the luckless Pons, who literall}^ sawed in two 
 the president, his wife, and Cecile every time he called 
 them cousin, drew from the pocket of his coat a ravish- 
 ing Uttle oblong box, made of wood from the Antilles, 
 and exquisitel}^ carved. 
 
 "Ah 1 I had forgotten it," said Madame de Marville, 
 dryly. 
 
 The exclamation was outrageous ; for it took all the 
 merit out of the attention of the good soul, whose onlj^ 
 crime was that he was a poor relation. 
 
 "Well," she resumed, "3^ou are very kind, cousin. 
 How much do I owe you for this little trifle ? " 
 
40 Cousin Pons. 
 
 The question made the poor man quiver inwardly; 
 for he had counted on pacing off the score of his dinners 
 by this choice offering. 
 
 '' I hoped 3'ou would allow me to present it to 3'ou," 
 he said in a voice of some emotion. 
 
 '' Ah, indeed ! " replied Madame Camusot, " but we 
 won't stand on ceremon}', 3'ou and I ; we know each 
 other quite well enough to speak plainly. You are not 
 rich enough to be lavish with j-our means ; is n't it 
 enough that you have taken trouble and lost 3- our time 
 running about among the shops — " 
 
 " You would not take the fan at all, my dear cousin, 
 if you had to pa}^ the value of it," returned the poor 
 man, much wounded ; " it is a masterpiece b\' Watteau, 
 who painted both sides of it. But don't disturb your- 
 self, cousin ; it did not cost me a hundredth part of its 
 value." 
 
 To tell a rich woman that she is poor is like tell- 
 ing the archbishop of Granada that his homilies are 
 worthless. Madame de Marville was too puffed-up 
 by the position of her husband and the ownership 
 of the estate of Marville and the invitations she re- 
 ceived to the court balls, not to be stabbed to the heart 
 by such a remark, especially when it came from a 
 poor musician in whose ej'es she wished to stand as 
 a benefactor. 
 
 " What stupid people the}' must be, from whom 3'ou 
 bu3^ such things ! " she hastih' remarked. 
 
 *' There is no such thing as a stupid shop-keeper in 
 Paris," answered Pons, almost dryh'. 
 
 ''Then it is 3'ou who are very clever," said Cecile, 
 to calm the debate. 
 
Cousin Pons. 41 
 
 " My little cousin, I am clever enough to know 
 Lancret, Pater, Watteau, and Greuze ; but, above all, 
 I desire to please your dear mamma." 
 
 Conceited and ignorant as she was, Madame de 
 Marville was reluctant to seem to accept the smallest 
 gift from a poor relation ; and her ignorance in this 
 case served her admirably, for she did not even know 
 the name of Watteau. If anything can express the 
 lengths to which the self-love of a collector (certainly 
 one of the keenest, for it rivals that of an author) can 
 go, it is the audacity with which Pons had just dared 
 to make head against his cousin, for the first time in 
 twenty years. Thunderstruck at his own hardihood. 
 Pons subsided into a peaceable expression of counte- 
 nance as he explained to Cecile the beauty of the deli- 
 cate carving on the sticks of this marvellous fan. But 
 to understand fully the secret of the heartsick trepida- 
 tion to which the poor man was a prey, it is needful 
 that we should give a slight sketch of the object of his 
 terror. 
 
 -^At forty-six years of age, Madame de Marville, 
 formerly small, blond, plump, and fresh, was still small, 
 but was now withered. Her prominent forehead and 
 pinched mouth, adorned in youth with delicate tints, 
 had lately altered her expression, which was naturally 
 disdainful, and given her a sullen, crabbed look. The 
 habit of absolute control in her own home gave a hard 
 and disagreeable turn to her countenance. Time had 
 changed her blond hair to a faded chestnut. The eyes, 
 still keen and caustic, revealed the haughty severity 
 of her nature, embittered by concealed envy ; for she 
 felt herself a poor woman in the midst of that circle 
 
42 Cousin Pons, 
 
 of rich mushroom-bourgeois with whom Pons was in 
 the habit of dining. She could not forgive the rich 
 druggist, the former president of the Commercial courts, 
 for becoming successively deputy, minister of state, 
 count, and peer. She could not forgive her father-in- 
 law for accepting, to the detriment of his eldest son, 
 the appointment of deputy from his arrondissement 
 at the time when Popinot was raised to the peerage. 
 Her husband had seen eighteen years' service in the 
 courts of Paris, but she was still hoping for the place of 
 councillor to the Court of Appeals, — though he was, 
 in fact, excluded from it by an incapacity which was 
 well understood at the Palais. The minister of justice 
 in 1844 regretted Camusot's appointment as president, 
 or judge, of the Cour-royale, which took place in 1834 ; 
 but he had been relegated to the chamber of indict- 
 ments, where, thanks to his old experience as an ex- 
 amining judge, he did good service in deciding arrests. 
 These mishaps and disappointments, after wearing 
 upon Madame de Marville, who was not at all bUnd to 
 the actual value of her husband, had rendered her reallj'^ 
 terrible. Her character, alwaj'S aggressive, was now 
 virulent. Aging and aged, rather than old, she had 
 learned to be sharp and incisive as a brush, for the pur- 
 pose of obtaining through fear what the world about her 
 was inclined to deny. Satirical to an extreme, she had 
 few friends. She was held in awe, for she surrounded 
 herself with a number of old women tarred with the 
 same brush, who upheld her under jjeril of retaliation. 
 
 Thus the relations of poor Pons to this devil in 
 petticoats were like those of a schoolboy to a master 
 who addressed him only with a birch. She could not 
 
Cousin Pons. 43 
 
 understand his sudden boldness, for she was ignorant 
 of the value of his gift. 
 
 *' Where did you get it?" asked Cecile, examining 
 the treasure. 
 
 '' Rue de Lappe, at a second-hand dealer's, who had 
 just got it from a chateau the}" have dismantled near 
 Dreux, at Aulna}^ — a chateau where Madame de 
 Pompadour occasionally lived before she built Menars. 
 The most splendid wainscotings ever seen have been 
 rescued from it ; they are so beautiful that Lienard, our 
 finest carver in wood, has kept two oval panels for 
 models, as the ne plus ultra of art. Such treasures ! 
 My dealer found this fan in a bonheur-du-jour of mar- 
 quetry, which I should have bought if I collected such 
 things ; for me, however, it was out of the question : 
 such a piece of furniture — it is b}' Reisener — is worth 
 from four to five thousand francs. They are just be- 
 ginning to find out in Paris that the famous German 
 and French inlayers of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and 
 eighteenth centuries have made pictures — actual pic- 
 tures — in wood. The merit of a collector is to be 
 before the fashion. Why ! five j^ears hence, in Paris, 
 they will pay for porcelains of Frankenthal, which I 
 have been collecting for the last twenty- 3'ears, twice as 
 much as they do now for the pate tendre of Sevres ! " 
 
 " What is Frankenthal? " asked Cecile. 
 
 "It is the name of the manufactory of porcelains 
 belonging to the Elector-Palatine ; it is older than our 
 manufactory at Sevres, — just as the famous gardens at 
 Heidelberg, devastated by Turenne, had the ill-luck to 
 exist before those of Versailles. Sevres has copied a 
 great deal from Frankenthal. The Germans — for we 
 
44 Cousin Pons, 
 
 must give them this credit — made admirable things 
 before we did, in Saxonj^, and also in the Palatinate." 
 
 The mother and daughter looked at each other as if 
 Pons were discoursing in Chinese ; it is hard to believe 
 how ignorant and limited to their own little round Pa- 
 risians can be. They do not even know what they 
 are being taught, though they may wish to learn it. 
 
 *' How do you know Frankenthal when you see it?" 
 
 '' Why, the signature ! " cried Pons enthusiasticalh'- ; 
 '' all these enchanting masterpieces are signed. The 
 Frankenthal bears a C and a T (for Charles-Theodore) 
 interlaced and surmounted with a prince's coronet. 
 Old Dresden has the two swords, and the number of its 
 class in gold. Vincennes signs with a horn. Vienna 
 has a y, closed and barred. Berlin has two bars ; 
 Mayence, a wheel ; Sevres, the two XX's ; and the 
 queen's-porcelain is marked with an J, meaning An- 
 toinette, surmounted hy the royal crown. In the eigh- 
 teenth century all the sovereigns of Europe were rivals 
 in the manufacture of porcelain. They enticed away 
 each other's workmen. Watteau designed dinner-ser- 
 vices for the manufactor}^ at Dresden, and his works 
 sell at an exorbitant price ; but it is necessarj- to be 
 a good judge, for Dresden is now manufacturing cop- 
 ies of them. Ah ! in those days they made exquisite 
 things, such as they will never make again." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " 
 
 ''No; never! They can never come up. to certain 
 marquetries, certain porcelains, — just as the}^ can never 
 equal the paintings of Raphael, or Titian, or Rem- 
 brandt, nor those of Van Eyck, nor even Cranach ! 
 Why, look at the Chinese ! the}^ are wonderfully clever 
 
Cousin Pons. 45 
 
 and skilful ; and yet to-daj^ thej are onl}' recopying 
 the fine specimens of their porcelain called the Grand- 
 Mandarin. Two vases of old Grand-Mandarin of the 
 best shape are worth six, eight, ten thousand francs, and 
 mere copies of them cost two hundred." 
 
 *' You are joking." 
 
 " Cousin, such prices astonish 3'ou, and yet they are 
 a mere nothing. A full dinner-service for twelve per- 
 sons in Sevres pate tendre (which is not porcelain) is 
 worth a hundred thousand francs, and that moreover 
 is the actual cost of its manufacture. A service of that 
 kind was sold at Sevres, in 1750, for fift}' thousand 
 francs. I have seen the original bill of sale." 
 
 "To come back to this fan," said Cecile, in whose 
 e3'es that treasure seemed a great deal too old. 
 
 *' You must know that I began to hunt for it as soon 
 as your dear mamma did me the honor to request a 
 fan," resumed Pons. " I looked through all the anti- 
 quity shops in Paris without finding anything of any 
 value, — for of course I wanted a masterpiece for m^' 
 dear cousin. I hoped to give her the fan of Marie- 
 Antoinette, — that most exquisite of all the celebrated 
 fans. But yesterday I was dazzled by this divine 
 masterpiece, which Louis XV. himself most assuredly 
 ordered. Do you ask wli}^ I went to the rue de Lappe 
 for a fan, — to an Auvergnat who sells brasses and 
 iron-work and gilt furniture? Well, I believe in the 
 actual intelligence of works of art ; they know con- 
 noisseurs, they call them, they sa}^ ' zit, zit ! ' " — 
 
 Madame de Marville shrugged her shoulders and 
 glanced at her daughter, unperceived b}^ Pons. 
 
 " I know the ways of those pillagers, those Auverg- 
 
46 Cousin Pons. 
 
 nats, — every one of them. ' What have you to-day, 
 Papa Monistrol ? Have you got any carved portals ? ' 
 I asked the trader, who alwa3"s lets me look over his 
 thmgs before he shows them to the large dealers. 
 When I asked him that, Monistrol told me how Lie- 
 nard, who was carving some fine things in the chapel at 
 Dreux for the civil list, had rescued all the wainscotings 
 from the fangs of Parisian dealers at Aulnay while 
 thej' were bus}^ with the porcelains and the inlaid-work. 
 ' I have n't got much,' he answered, ' not more than 
 enough to pay for mj }o\xvnQy.' Then he showed me 
 the honheur-du-jour^ — a marvel ! from designs of Bou- 
 cher, done in marquetry with such art ! — enough to 
 make a man drop on his knees ! ' See, monsieur,' he 
 said, ' I have just found this fan in a little locked drawer ; 
 the ke}' was lost, but I pried it open, — you can tell 
 me who I ought to sell it to ; ' and he drew out this 
 little carved box made of wood from the Antilles. 
 ' See,' he said, ' it is Pompadour of the flower}' gothic/ 
 ' Oh, yes,' I answered, ' the box is well enough, and I 
 might take it, — a box like that ; but as for the fan, 
 m}' good Monistrol, I have n't a Madame Pons who 
 would care for the old gem. Besides, now-a-days the}' 
 make new ones which are very pretty ; they paint them 
 on vellum in a reall}' marvellous wa}', and sell them at 
 a bargain. Don't you know there are two thousand 
 painters in Paris?' So saying, I carelessly opened 
 the fan ; but I carefully concealed my admiration, and 
 glanced coldly at those two little pictures, which have 
 a freedom, a touch, an execution truly bewitching ! I 
 held in my hands the fan of Madame de Pompadour ! 
 Watteau outdid himself when he designed it! 'How 
 
Cousin Pons. 47 
 
 much do you want for the whole piece of furniture ? ' 
 I asked. ' Oh, a thousand francs,' he said, ' I have 
 been offered that already ! ' I named a price for the 
 fan, corresponding as near as I could guess to the costs 
 of his journey. We looked each other through and 
 through, and I saw I 'd caught him. I put the fan 
 back into its box at once, so that the Auvergnat 
 should n't examine it, and I went into ecstasies over 
 the carving of the box, which is, really and truly, a 
 gem. I said to Monistrol, ' If I buy it, it is for the 
 sake of the box ; that does tempt me. As to your bon~ 
 heur-du-jour^ 3'ou can get more than a thousand francs 
 for it." Just see the chasing of that brass ! why, it's a 
 model, — you can make a great thing of it ; it has never 
 been reproduced ; like everything that was ever made 
 for Madame de Pompadour, it is unique.' And there 
 was my man, all on fire about his bonheur-du-jour. He 
 forgot the fan ; I got it for nothing in return for the 
 revelation I made him of the beauty of Reisener's 
 work ; that 's the whole of it ! Ah ! one has to be very 
 knowing to manage such bargains ; it 's a battle of eye 
 to eye ; and where 's there an eye like a Jew's or 
 an Auvergnat's?" 
 
 The inimitable pantomime, the rapture of the old 
 artist, which made him, as he recounted the triumph 
 his craftiness had won from the ignorance of the trader, 
 a model worthy of a Dutch painter, were all lost 
 upon the mother and daughter, who exchanged a frigid 
 and contemptuous glance which meant, " What an old 
 oddity ! " 
 
 "Does that sort of thing amuse you?" asked Ma- 
 dame de Marville. 
 
48 Cousin Pons. 
 
 Pons, chilled to the bone b}^ such a question, longed 
 to rush at Madame de Marville and pommel her. 
 
 " Wh}^, m}' dear cousin," he said, "it's the hunt of 
 masterpieces ! we are face to face with adversaries who 
 protect the game ; it is trick for trick, diamond cut 
 diamond ; a treasure, a masterpiece to wrest from Nor- 
 mans, Jews, and Auvergnats ! Why, it 's like a fairy 
 tale, a princess guarded by magicians ! " 
 
 "How do you know it is Wat — what did you call 
 him?" 
 
 " Watteau, my dear cousin, — one of the greatest 
 French painters of the eighteenth century ! Here, don't 
 you see the signature?" he cried, showing her one of the 
 pastorals, which represented a ring danced b^^ fictitious 
 shepherdesses and great lords as their swains. " What 
 swing ! what animation ! what color ! And it is done — 
 with a stroke as it were ! like the flourish of a writins:- 
 master, no effort ! you don't perceive the work ! On the 
 other side, see ! a dance in a ball-room ! It is winter 
 and summer! What ornamentation, and how well- 
 preserved ! Don't you see the ferule is of gold, and on 
 each side it has a little ruby, which I 've cleaned up." 
 
 " If that is so, cousin, I really cannot accept a gift 
 of such value from you. You had much better invest 
 the money where it will bring you some return," said 
 Madame de Marville, who would have liked nothing 
 better than to keep the magnificent fan. 
 
 "It is high time that having served Vice it should 
 now be in the hands of Virtue ! " said the worth}" man, 
 recovering self-possession. "It has taken a hundred 
 years to bring about such a miracle. You may be sure 
 that no royal princess has anything comparable to this 
 
Cousin Pons, 49 
 
 treasure, for unfortunately human nature is so consti- 
 tuted that it does more for a Madame de Pompadour 
 than for a virtuous queen." 
 
 " Very well, I accept it," said Madame de Marville, 
 laughing. '' Cecile, my angel, go and tell Madeleine to 
 see that the dinner is worthy of our cousin." 
 
 She meant by that to square the account ; the mes- 
 sage, spoken aloud contrary to the rules of good breed- 
 ing, was so like giving change for a payment that Pons 
 blushed like a young girl detected in a fault. The 
 gravel was very coarse, and rolled about his heart for 
 some time. Cecile, a very freckled 3'Oung woman, whose 
 bearing, infected with pedantry, was an imitation of her 
 mother's judicial severity with a touch of the latter's 
 sharpness, disappeared at once, leaving poor Pons in 
 the clutches of his terrible relation. 
 
50 Cousin Pons, 
 
 V. 
 
 ONE OF THE THOUSAND AFFRONTS A POOR RELATION 
 HAS TO BEAR. 
 
 " She is very sweet, my little Lili," said Madame de 
 Marville, using the childish abbreviation formerly given 
 to the name of Cecile. 
 
 " Charming!" echoed the old musician, twirling his 
 thumbs. 
 
 " I can't understand the times we live in," said his 
 cousin. ' ' What is the good of having a president of the 
 Cour-royale of Paris and a commander of the Legion 
 of honor for your father, and a millionnaire deputy, a 
 future peer of France, and the richest of all the whole- 
 sale silk merchants for your grandfather, 1 should like 
 to know ? " 
 
 The devotion of the president to the new dynasty 
 had recently won him the ribbon of a commander of 
 the Legion of honor, a favor attributed by envious ac- 
 quaintances to the friendship which allied him with 
 Popinot. That minister, in spite of his natural modest}', 
 had allowed himself, as we have seen, to be made a 
 count, — " for the sake of my son," he used to 'say to 
 his numerous friends. 
 
 ''Money is what everybody wants in these days," 
 answered Cousin Pons; "none but the rich are re- 
 spected and — " 
 
Cousin Pons. 51 
 
 *' What a state of things it would have been," in- 
 terrupted Madame de Marville, " if Heaven had left me 
 my little Charles ! " 
 
 *' With two children you would have been poor," re- 
 plied her cousin. "That's the result of the equal 
 division of property. But don't worry yourself, my 
 beautiful cousin, Cecile will end by making a good 
 marriage. I don't see such an accomplished girl 
 an3'where." 
 
 This was how Pons debased his soul before his am- 
 phitr3'ons ; he repeated their ideas, and uttered plati- 
 tudes upon them, after the fashion of a Greek chorus. 
 He dared not surrender himself to the originality of the 
 true artist, which had welled up within him in his 
 3'outh, with many a delicate trait now nearly smothered 
 b}^ the habit of effacing himself, and which other 
 people forced back whenever, as at this moment, it 
 reappeared. 
 
 " But I was married with a twenty thousand francs 
 dot, onlj' — " 
 
 " Ah ! in 1819, my cousin," interrupted Pons ; *' and 
 besides, it was you^ a woman of mind, a young girl 
 under the protection of Louis XVIII." 
 
 "But my daughter is an angel of perfection; she 
 has a fine mind, she is full of heart ; she will have a 
 hundred thousand francs in marriage, without count- 
 ing her expectations ; and here she is, still on our 
 hands — " 
 
 Madame de Marville went on talking about herself 
 and her daughter for twenty minutes, giving vent to 
 the dismal complaints peculiar to mothers who are in 
 the power of a marriageable daughter. During the last 
 
52 Cousin Pons. 
 
 twenty years, •when the old man had dined weekly 
 with his cousin Camusot, he had never heard a single 
 word of the president's personal affairs, or of his life, 
 or his health. yPons was, moreover, a species of gutter 
 for domestic confidences ; his well-known and necessary 
 discretion offering the strongest security, — a necessary 
 discretion indeed, for a single chance word would have 
 closed to him the doors of ten houses. His j^^oeation of 
 listener was therefore encouraged by constant approba^ 
 tion ; he smiled at all he heard, blamed no one and 
 excused no one ; to him the}' were all in the right. In_ 
 fact, he could no longe r be., rated as a man ; he__waa-a- 
 stomach. In the course of her long tirade Madame de 
 Marville admitted, though not without some precau- 
 tions, that she was inclined to accept blindly any pro- 
 posals for her daughter that might present themselves. 
 She went so far as to say that she should be satisfied 
 with a man forty-eight years old, provided he had an 
 income of twenty thousand francs. 
 
 " Cecile is in her twenty -third year, and if she should 
 be so unlucky as to reach twenty-five or twent3"-six it 
 would be excessivelj' difficult to many her. Tbe world 
 asks wh}" a 3'oung girl ' hangs fire ' so long. Already 
 people in our circle are talking about her, and we have 
 exhausted all the commonplace reasons : ' She is verj- 
 3'oung.' — ' She is too fond of her parents to leave 
 them.' — * She is happy at home.' — ' She is fastidious, 
 and wants a distinguished name.' We are getting 
 ridiculous ; I feel it. Besides, Cecile is weary of wait- 
 ing ; she suffers, poor little thing." 
 
 *' Why does she suffer? " asked Pons, foolishly. 
 
 " Because," replied the mother in the tone of a 
 
Cousin Pons. 53 
 
 duenna, ** she is humiliated b}^ seeing all her friends 
 married before her." 
 
 ' ' M}' dear cousin, what has happened since I last 
 had the pleasure of dining here, to make 3'ou think of 
 men who are forty-eight years old ? " asked the poor 
 musician, humblj'. 
 
 " This has happened," answered Madame de Mar- 
 ville ; " we were to have had an interview with a privy 
 councillor whose son is thirty years old and has a con- 
 siderable fortune, and for whom Monsieur de Marville 
 would have obtained through the Treasury a place as 
 referee in the Court of Exchequer, — he is there already 
 as a supernumerary. We have just been informed that 
 this young man has had the folly to go off to Italy in 
 the train of a divinit}' of the hal Mabille. It 's a dis- 
 guised refusal. They don't want to give us tlie 3'oung 
 man, whose mother is dead, and who has in his own 
 right an income of thirt}^ thousand francs, while wait- 
 ing for his father's fortune. • So you must forgive our 
 ill-humor, cousin ; 3'ou have come just at the cnsis." 
 
 While Pons was trying to find the complimentary 
 reply which invariabl}' came to him too late in presence 
 of the amphitr3'ons of whom he stood in awe, Made- 
 leine entered with a note for Madame de Marville, and 
 waited for an answer. The missive was as follows : — 
 
 " Let us pretend, dear mamma, that this note is sent from 
 the Palais by my father, and that he tells you to take me to 
 dine with his friend and renew the aifair of my marriage. 
 The cousin will then go away, and we can follow out our 
 plans at the Popinots." 
 
 "How did 3'our master send this note?" asked 
 Madame de Marville, hastily. 
 
54: Cousin Pons. 
 
 "By a porter from the Palais," answered the grim 
 Madeleine, boldly. 
 
 This reply of the old waiting- worn an proved to her 
 mistress that she had brewed the plot in concert with 
 the disappointed Cecile. 
 
 " Say that my daughter and I will be there at half- 
 past five." 
 
 As soon as Madeleine disappeared, Madame de 
 Marville turned to Pons with the sham courtesy that 
 rasps a sensitive soul roughty, like the effect produced 
 on the tongue of an epicure by a mixture of vinegar 
 and milk. 
 
 " My dear cousin," she said, " the dinner is ordered ; 
 you must eat it w^ithout us, for my husband writes from 
 the court-room to sa}^ that the councillor still wishes the 
 marriage, and we are to dine with him to-day : 3'ou 
 understand that there is no ceremony between us. 
 Make 3'ourself entirely at home. You see the frank- 
 ness with which I treat you ; I make no mystery of it. 
 You would not wish me to lose a marriage for my 
 little angel?" 
 
 "I? my dear cousin, on the contrary I desire of 
 all things to find her a husband ; but in the circle I 
 visit — " 
 
 " Of course it is not likety there," she interrupted 
 rudely. " Well, then, you will stay? Cecile shall come 
 and sit with you while I dress." 
 
 " Oh, cousin, I can go and dine elsewhere," said the 
 poor man. Though cruell}^ hurt by the manner in which 
 she had made him feel his indigence, he was even more 
 frightened by the prospect of being left alone with the 
 servants. 
 
Cousin Pons, 55 
 
 ** Why should you? the dhiner is prepared, the ser 
 vants will eat it." 
 
 When he heard the insulting speech Pons started up 
 erect, as though the knob of a galvanic battery had 
 touched him ; he bowed coldly- to his cousin and made 
 for his spencer. The door of Cecile's bedroom, which 
 opened into the little salon, was a-jar, so that as he 
 glanced before him into a mirror, Pons saw the young 
 girl in fits of laughter, nodding to her mother with pan- 
 tomimic gestures which revealed some base mystifica- 
 tion to the old man. He went slowh' down the staircase, 
 with difficulty restraining his tears. He felt he was being 
 driven from the house, yet without knowing v^hy. 
 
 '' I am too old," he said ; " the world hates old age\ 
 and povert}^, — two hideous things. I will never agaiar^ 
 dine an^^where without an invitation." 
 
 Heroic words ! 
 
 The door of the kitchen, which was on the ground- 
 floor and faced the porter's lodge, was open, as it fre- 
 quently is in houses that are occupied by their owners, 
 and where the porte cochere is consequentl}'' shut ; the 
 old man could therefore hear the laughter of the cook 
 and the footman, to whom Madeleine was relating the 
 trick just played upon him, for she did not expect him 
 to evacuate the premises so hastil}'. The footman 
 highly- approved of any joke against a retainer of the 
 house, who, as he said, gave him nothing but " a bit of 
 a crown " at the end of the year. 
 
 " Yes, but if he takes offence and never comes back," 
 remarked the cook, '' it will be three francs the less for 
 all of us on New Year's day." 
 
 " Well, how should he hear of it? " said the footman. 
 
5Q Cousin Pons, 
 
 " Bah ! " cried Madeleine, " a little sooner "or a little 
 later, what does it matter? He bores the masters of all 
 the houses where he dines, and before long the}^ '11 all 
 turn him out." 
 
 At this moment the old man called to the porter, 
 *'The door, if you please." The cry, uttered in griev- 
 ous accents, was followed by a profound silence in the 
 kitchen. 
 
 " He was listening," said the footman. 
 
 ''Well, no help for it, — or rather, so much the 
 better," retorted Madeleine; "he's a dead rat." 
 
 The poor man, who had not lost a syllable of the 
 kitchen-talk, heard even these last words. He returned 
 home along the boulevards in a state such as an old 
 woman might have been in after a deadl}- struggle with 
 assassins. He walked with convulsive swiftness, talk- 
 ing to himself, for his bleeding honor drove him like a 
 straw before a furious wind. At last, about five o'clock, 
 he reached the boulevard du Temple, without knowing 
 how he got there ; and yet, strange to say, he felt not 
 the slightest appetite. 
 
 In order to comprehend the complete upset which the 
 return of Pons at this hour produced in his own home, 
 the explanations heretofore promised as to Madame 
 Cibot must now be given. 
 
Cousin Pons, 
 
 VI. 
 
 SPECIMEN OP DOORKEEPERS (mALE AND FEMALE). 
 
 The rue de Normandie is one of those streets 
 where, if we advance into the middle of it, we might 
 believe ourselves in the provinces ; grass grows there, 
 a passing step is an event, and the inhabitants all 
 know each other. The houses date from the period 
 under Henr}^ IV., when a quarter was laid out in which 
 each street was to bear the name of a province, and in 
 the centre of which a fine square was to be dedicated to 
 France herself The idea of the quartier de 1' Europe 
 was a repetition of this plan. The world repeats itself 
 everj'where and in ever^'thing, — even in speculations. 
 The house in which the old musicians lived was an old 
 mansion between court and garden ; but the front of 
 the house, on the street, had been built at a time when 
 the Marais — during the last century — was the extreme 
 of fashion. The two friends occupied the whole of the 
 second floor of the mansion. It was a double house, 
 belonging to Monsieur Pillerault, an octogenarian, who 
 left the superintendence of it to Monsieur and Madame 
 Cibot, his doorkeepers for more than twent3--six years. 
 Now, as the emoluments of a doorkeeper in the Marais 
 are not great, the Sieur Cibot added to his tithe of a 
 sou per franc, and his log levied upon each load of 
 
58 Cousin Pons. 
 
 wood, the resources of his personal industry ; he was a 
 tailor, like many another concierge. In course of time 
 he had ceased to work for the master-tailors ; for, as 
 a result of the confidence his neighbors of the smaller 
 bourgeoisie placed in him, he enjoyed a monopoly of 
 the repairs, darns, and renovations "as good as new," 
 in a perimeter of three streets. The porter's lodge was 
 large and airy, and adjoined a bedroom. Thus the 
 Cibot household was considered highl}- fortunate b^' all 
 the other concierges of the arrondissement. 
 
 Cibot — a stunted little man, grown olive-colored by 
 dint of perpetually sitting cross-legged like a Turk, on 
 a table which raised him to the height of a barred win- 
 dow looking on the street — earned about fifty sous a 
 day at his trade. He still worked at it, though he was 
 fift3'-eight 3'ears old ; but fifty-eight happens to be the 
 prosperous age for a concierge, for by that time he has 
 fitted into his lodge, and the lodge holds him as an 
 oyster-shell holds the oyster; above all, he is " known 
 to the neighborhood." 
 
 Madame Cibot, formerly a handsome oyster- woman, 
 had left her stand at the Cadran-Bleu out of love for 
 Cibot, when she was twentj-eight years of age, having 
 passed through the usual adventures which a beautiful 
 oyster-seller encounters without ever seeking them. 
 The good looks of the women of the people seldom last 
 long, especialty when the}' are trained like wall-fruit at 
 the door of a restaurant. The scorching blaze of the 
 kitchen hardens their features, the dregs of the bottles 
 drunk in company with the waiters filter through their 
 complexions ; and no bloom wilts quite as quickly as that 
 of a handsome oyster-woman. Fortunate!}' for Madame 
 
Cousin Pons, 69 
 
 Cibot, a legitimate marriage and life in a porter's lodge 
 came in time to preserve her good looks ; she continued 
 to be the model of a Rubens, and retained a vigorous 
 beauty, which her rivals in the rue de Normandie calum- 
 niated, and called blowsj. Her fresh tints might be 
 compared to those appetizing mounds of Jsigny butter 
 ^ to be seen in the markets ; yet in spite of her corpu- 
 lence, she displayed astounding agility in the exercise 
 of her functions. Madame Cibot had now reached an 
 age when her style of woman resorts to the razor. Is 
 not that as good as sa3'ing she was fort3-eight 3'ears 
 old? A female doorkeeper with a moustache is the 
 best guaranty of order and securit}' for the owner of a 
 house. If Delacroix could have seen Madame Cibot 
 proudl}^ leaning on the handle of her broom, he would 
 certainly have sketched her as Bellona. 
 
 The position of the Cibot couple was destined, 
 strangely enough, to affect in future da^'s that of the 
 two Nut-crackers ; and the historian, if he would be 
 faithful, is obliged to enter into some details respecting 
 the porter's lodge. The house brought a rental of about 
 eight thousand francs ; for it had three suites of apparte- 
 ments, double in depth, upon the street, and three more 
 in the old mansion between the court and garden. In 
 addition to these, a trader in old iron, named Remonencq, 
 occupied a shop which opened on the street. This Re- 
 monencq had evolved within a few months into a dealer 
 in curios, and knew so well the bric-a-brac quous value 
 of Pons that he bowed to him from the depths of his 
 shop whenever the old musician went out of the house or 
 returned to it. The porter's fee, the sou per franc, 
 brought about four hundred francs a year to the Cibot 
 
60 Cousin Pons. 
 
 household, which, moreover, got its lodging and its fire- 
 wood for nothing. As the united wages of husband 
 and wife averaged seven or eight hundred francs a 
 3^ear, \hQj made up, counting their New Year's gratui- 
 ties, an income of sixteen hundred francs, all of which 
 they spent ; for the pair lived at a better rate than the 
 body of the common people. "You can onl}^ live 
 once," Madame Cibot used to say. She was born 
 during the Revolution, and was, as we see, ignorant of 
 the catechism. 
 
 Through her former relations with the Cadran-Bleu, 
 Madame Cibot had acquired certain culinar}^ accom- 
 plishments which made her husband an object of envy 
 to all his male companions. Thus it happened that at 
 their present ripe age, with their feet on the threshold 
 of old age, the pair had laid hy barely a hundred francs. 
 Well clothed and well fed, they enjoyed throughout the 
 neighborhood the consideration due to twenty-six years 
 of strict integrity. If they owned no property, at least 
 they " had n't none of other people's," as Madame Cibot, 
 who was lavish with her negatives, frequentl}' remarked. 
 Both were proud of their honest lives open to the day- 
 light, of the esteem which half-a-dozen streets bestowed 
 upon them, of the autocratic power which their proprie- 
 tor allowed them to exercise over the premises ; and yet 
 the}^ groaned in secret at having no invested means. 
 Cibot complained of twinges in his hands and legs, and 
 Madame Cibpt deplored the fact that her poor Cibot 
 was compelled to work hard at his age. The day will 
 come when, after thirty years of such a life, a concierge 
 will accuse the government of injustice, and demand 
 the decoration of the Legion of honor ! Every time 
 
Cousin Pons. 61 
 
 the gossips of a neighborhood tell the tale of some 
 servant who, after eight or ten 3'ears' service, gets a 
 snug bequest of three or four hundred francs' annuity, 
 doleful complaints go from lodge to lodge, — which may 
 give an idea of the jealousies that pervade the lower 
 calhngs in Paris. 
 
 '' There now ! it will never happen to us poor fellows 
 to get mentioned in a will ! We 've no chance. We 
 ai-e more useful than the servants, any day. We are 
 trusted with everything ; we make out the receipts, we 
 collect the cash ; and yet we are treated like dogs, 
 neither more nor less ! " 
 
 ' ' There ain't nothing but ill luck ! " said Madame 
 Cibot. "If I'd left Cibot to his den and gone and 
 made myself a cook, we 'd have had thirtj^ thousand 
 francs invested by this time," she cried, as, with her 
 hands on her big hips, she stood gossiping with a 
 neighbor. "I hain't taken life right. Talk about 
 being lodged and warmed, and wanting for nothing, 
 indeed ! " 
 
 When, in 1836, the two friends arrived, and occupied 
 together the whole of the second floor of the old man- 
 sion, they occasioned a sort of revolution in the Cibot 
 household ; in this wise : Schmucke, and also his friend 
 Pons, was accustomed to employ the doorkeepers, male 
 or female, of the houses where he lived, to take charge 
 of his rooms. The two musicians therefore agreed, when 
 they settled in the rue de Normandie, to make an ar- 
 rangement w4th Madame Cibot, who forthwith became 
 their housekeeper for the consideration of twenty-five 
 francs a month, — twelve francs fifty centimes for each 
 of them. At the end of a year this portress- emeritus 
 
G2 Cousin Pons. 
 
 reigned over the household of the two old bachelors, 
 just as she reigned over the house of Monsieur Pille- 
 rault (the great uncle of Madame la comtesse Popinot) ; 
 their affairs were her affairs, and she alwa3's called 
 them " m}' two gentlemen." At last, finding the Nut- 
 crackers as meek as sheep, easy to get on with, never 
 suspicious, mere babes as it were, she began, with the 
 heart of a woman of the people, to protect and adore 
 them, and to serve the old men with such genuine devo- 
 tion that she sometimes lectured and warned them, pro- 
 tecting them the while against the many frauds which 
 in Paris swell all household expenses. For twenty- 
 five francs a month the two bachelors, unintentionally 
 and unawares, acquired a mother. As soon as the3' 
 perceived Madame Cibot's real value, the two musicians 
 artlessly presented her with little gifts and thanks and 
 praises, which drew closer still the bonds of the domestic 
 alliance. Madame Cibot preferred a thousand times 
 being appreciated at her true value to an}' pa3'ment, — 
 a sentiment w^iich tends, if well understood, to eke out 
 the wages. Cibot himself went of errands, mended the 
 clothes, and did all else that was in his line, for his 
 wife's gentlemen, at half price. 
 
 Finally, at the beginning of the second 3'ear, a new 
 element of mutual friendship was developed in the close 
 relation between the second floor and the porter's lodge. 
 Schmucke concluded a bargain with Madame Cibot, 
 which satisfied his own laziness and his desire to live 
 without giving his mind to mundane affairs. For the 
 sum of thirty sous a day, or forty-five francs a month, 
 Madame Cibot engaged to supply him with breakfast 
 and dinner. Pons, finding his friend's breakfast very 
 
Cousin Pons. 63 
 
 satisfactor}', made a like bargain for his own breakfast 
 at eighteen francs a month. This system of suppl}-, 
 which threw a nice little monthly sum into the receipts 
 of the lodge, made the two tenants inviolable beings, 
 angels, cherubim, divinities. It is very doubtful if the 
 King of the French, who understands such matters, is 
 as well served as were the two Nut-crackers. For them, 
 the milk came pure from the can ; they read gratui- 
 tously the newspapers of the first and third floors, whose 
 tenants got up late, and who were told, if they in- 
 quired, that their papers had not 3'et come. Madame 
 Cibot, moreover, kept the appartement and the old 
 man's clothes and the landing, and indeed everything, in 
 a state of Flemish cleanliness. Schmucke, poor fellow, 
 enjoyed a happiness he had never dared to hope for ; 
 Madame Cibot made his life easy. He paid about six 
 francs monthly for his washing, which she did herself, 
 together with its mending ; and he spent fifteen francs 
 besides for tobacco. These three items of expense 
 made a total monthly sum of sixty-six francs ; which, 
 multiplied by twelve, amounted to seven hundred and 
 ninety-two francs a year. Add two hundred and 
 fift3'-eight francs for rent and extras, and we have a 
 thousand and fift}'. Cibot made Schmucke's clothes, 
 and the average of that expense was a hundred and 
 fifty. So this profound philosopher lived at a cost of 
 twelve hundred francs a year. How many people there 
 are in Europe whose sole desire is to reside in Paris, 
 who will be agreeabl}^ surprised to hear that they can 
 live there happily in the rue de Normandie, in the 
 Marais, under the protection of a Madame Cibot, for 
 twelve hundred francs a 3'ear! 
 
64 Cousin Pons, 
 
 Madame Cibot was amazed when she saw Pons com- 
 ing home at five in tlie afternoon. Not enl}- liad such 
 a thing never happened, but "her monsieur" did not 
 even see her, and did not bow to her. 
 
 "Well, well, Cibot!" she said to her husband. 
 "Monsieur Pons has either turned millionnaire or 
 crazj." 
 
 "It looks like it," returned Cibot, letting fall the 
 sleeve of a coat in which he was making, to use the 
 slang of his trade, un poignard. 
 
Cousin Pons. 65 
 
 VII. 
 
 A LIVrNG EDITION OF THE FABLE OF THE 
 TWO PIGEONS. 
 
 At the moment when Pons was mechanically return- 
 ing home, Madame Cibot was getting Schmucke's dinner 
 read}'. It consisted of a certain ragout, whose appetiz- 
 ing odor was wafted through the courtyard, and was 
 made of scraps of boiled beef bought at a cook-shop and 
 fricasseed in butter with onions cut in fine strips, until 
 the butter was wholly absorbed b}' the meat and onions, 
 so that this backstairs delicacy- had the appearance of 
 something fried. This dish, lovingly concocted for 
 Cibot and Schmucke, between whom Madame Cibot 
 divided it equally, accompanied by a bottle of beer and 
 a bit of cheese, sufficed the old German music-master 
 for his dinner. Some days it was the boiled beef fricas- 
 seed with onions ; other da3's there were odds and ends 
 of chicken saute ; then again, slices of cold beef with 
 vinegar and parsley, and a fish cooked with a sauce 
 of Madame Cibot's own invention, in which a mother 
 might have eaten her own children without perceiving 
 it ; on other occasions a dish of venison, according to 
 the quality or the quantity sold second-hand from the 
 restaurants of the boulevards to the hucksters of the 
 rue Boucherat. Such was Schmucke's bill of fare ; he 
 made no complaint, and was satisfied with all his 
 
 5 
 
66 Cousin Pons, 
 
 " goot Matame Zipod" gave him. So, from day to 
 da}^, the good Madame Cibot lessened the fare, until 
 she managed to supply it at a cost to herself of twenty 
 sous. 
 
 " I must go up and see if nothing hain't happened to 
 him, — the poor dear man ! " said Madame Cibot to her 
 spouse ; " here 's Monsieur Schmucke's dinner, done to 
 a turn." 
 
 Madame Cibot covered the earthenware dish with a 
 common china-plate, and then, in spite of her age, she 
 reached the second floor just at the moment when Pons 
 opened Schmucke's door. 
 
 '' Vas ees de madder, my goot frent?" asked the 
 German, frightened by the convulsed face of Pons. 
 
 " I will tell you all ; but I 've come to dine with you." 
 
 "To tine! to tine!" cried Schmucke, delighted. 
 " Pud dad ees imbossible ! " he added, remembering 
 the gastronomic habits of his friend. 
 
 At til is moment the^ld German perceived Madame 
 Cibot, who was listening, according to her legitimate 
 rights as housekeeper. Seized by one of those inspira- 
 tions which only come to the heart of a true friend, he 
 went straight up to her and drew her out upon the 
 landing. 
 
 " Matame Zipod, my goot Bons lofes goot dings to 
 eat. Go to der Gadran-Ploo, and gate a naice liddel 
 tinner, — Anchofies, magaroni, — a tinner fit for Lu- 
 gullus ! " 
 
 '' What's that? " demanded Madame Cibot. 
 
 " Eh ! " said Schmucke ; " vy, it ees ein frigandeau 
 of feal, it is a goot feesh, a pottle of Porteaux, — efery- 
 ding dat ees goot and tainty, — rice groquettes, some 
 
Cousin Pons. 67 
 
 smoaked pagon. Bay for it ; doan't say a vort. 1 11 
 gif 3^011 de money, myself, in de morning." 
 
 Schmucke came back, rubbing his hands with a joj^ous 
 air ; but his face fell gradually back into an expression 
 of stupefaction as he listened to the sorrows that had 
 suddenly overwhelmed the heart of his friend. He en- 
 deavored to console him by depicting the world from his 
 own point of view. Paris was a perpetual tornado ; 
 men and women were whirled about in the mazes of a 
 furious waltz ; you must never expect anything of so- 
 ciety which only looks at the surface, and " nefer ad de 
 inderior," he said. He related for the hundredth time 
 how, from year to year, the only three pupils that he loved, 
 by whom he was cherished, for whom he would have laid 
 down his life, from whom he even received a little pen- 
 sion of nine hundred francs, to which each contributed 
 the equal share of three hundred francs, had so utterly 
 forgotten, year after year, to come and see him, were so 
 carried away by the violent current of Parisian life that he 
 had not been received by them, when he called, for more 
 than three years. (It is true that Schmucke presented 
 himself at the houses of these great ladies at ten o'clock 
 in the morning.) And finally, he asserted that his little 
 pension was paid quarterly by a notary. 
 
 '' And yet," added he, " dey are hearts of cold ; dey 
 are my liddel Zaind-Zeegilias, lofely laties, — Matame 
 de Bordentuere, Matame Fantenesse, Matame ti Dillet. 
 , Ven I zee dem it ees in der Jambs-Elysees ; dey doan't 
 zee me — pud dey lofe me, and I gan go and tine mit 
 dem, and dey vould be clad. I gan go to der goundry- 
 houses ; pud I breffare to pe mit my frent Bons, be- 
 gause I gan zee him at all hours, ven I laike." 
 
68 Cousin Pons. 
 
 Pons took Schmucke's hand within both of his, and 
 wrung it with a movement by which his whole soul was 
 communicated ; the two old men remained thus for 
 some minutes, like lovers who meet again after long 
 absence. 
 
 " Tine mit me, here, effry tay ! " cried Schmucke, in- 
 wardly blessing Madame de Marville's cruelty. " Zee ! 
 ve vill prig-a-brag togedder ; and der teffel shall nefare 
 get his dail eenzide our toors." 
 
 To explain the meaning of this truly heroic offer " ve 
 vill prig-a-brag togedder," it must be admitted that 
 Schmucke was in a state of crass ignorance as to bric-k- 
 bracology. It took the whole force of his friendship 
 to keep him from breaking the treasures in the salon 
 and in the appartement given up to Pons for a museum. 
 Schmucke, wholly devoted to music, a composer for his 
 own happiness, looked upon all the little follies of his 
 friend, as a fish invited to a flower-show at the Luxem- 
 bourg might have looked upon the choicest blossoms. 
 He respected those marvels of art solel}^ because of the 
 respect which Pons manifested as he dusted his treas- 
 ures. He responded, "Yes, dad ees breddy ! " to the 
 admirations of his friend, just as a mother replies with 
 unmeaning phrases to the gestures of a child that cannot 
 yet talk. Schmucke had seen Pons change his clock 
 seven times since the two friends had lived together, 
 always exchanging it for one which he considered more 
 choice. Pons possessed at the present moment a mag- 
 nificent clock, made of ebony b}^ Boule, inlaid with brass 
 and carved in Boule's earliest manner. Boule had two 
 manners, just as Raphael had three. By the first he 
 wedded brass to ebony ; in the second he immolated him- 
 
Cousin Pons. 69 
 
 self, against his convictions, to tortoise-shell, and pro- 
 duced masterpieces solel}' to vanquish his competitors, 
 who had invented the tortoise-shell and mother-of-pearl 
 inla}-. In spite of Pons's learned disquisitions, Schmucke 
 could not see the slightest difference between the mag- 
 nificent clock in Boule's first manner and any of its ten 
 predecessors. But because they made his friend happy 
 Schmucke took even more care of these " blaj-dings," 
 as he called them, than the collector himself. It is not 
 surprising, therefore, that Schmucke's heroic speech had 
 the eff'ect of calming his friend's despair, for the " ve 
 vill pric-a-prac togedder " of the worthy German meant, 
 *' I will spend some money on brig-a-brag if 3'ou will 
 only dine here." 
 
 ''Dinner is read}', gentlemen," said Madame Cibot, 
 with surprising composure. 
 
 We can readily understand Pons's astonishment at 
 seeing and enjoying the dinner wliicb he owed to 
 Schmucke's friendship. Such emotion, so rare in life, 
 does not come from the steady devotion which makes 
 two men say to each other perpetually-, " I am 30ur 
 other self," for to that they grow accustomed ; no, it 
 is caused by the comparison which such proofs of the 
 happiness of domestic intimacj' afford to the brutal sel- 
 fishness of the ways of the world. It is such experi- 
 ence of the world which ceaselessly links anew lover to 
 lover, and friend to friend, when two true souls are 
 wedded either by love or friendship. Pons wiped great 
 tears from his eyes, and Schmucke was obliged to dry 
 the moisture in his. They said nothing, but they loved 
 each other the more ; and the}' nodded little signs to 
 each other, whose balm soothed the anguish of the gravel 
 
70 Cousin Pons. 
 
 ground by Madame de Marville into the heart of Pons. 
 Schraucke rubbed his hands till he nearly peeled off the 
 skin, for he suddenly conceived a scheme which stuns a 
 German only when rapidly forced out of his brain, con- 
 gealed, as it is, by respect for the sovereign princes. 
 
 " My goot Bons," he began. 
 
 "I guess what you want: you wish that we should 
 dine together every day. " 
 
 " I vish dat I vas zo reech as to tine like dat effry 
 taj'," answered Schmucke, sadly. 
 
 Madame Cibot, to whom Pons occasionally gave 
 tickets for the theatre, — a gift which put him on the 
 same level in her maternal heart as her boarder 
 Schmucke, — here made a proposal, which was as 
 follows : — 
 
 "My goodness!" she said; *' for three francs I'll 
 give 3'ou a dinner, — without no wine, — that'll make 
 3^ou lick the dishes and leave 'em so clean they won't 
 want no washing." 
 
 "It ees drue," cried Schmucke. "I tine pedder 
 mit vat Matame Zipod gooks for me, dan oaer beoble 
 who eat der King's deeshes." 
 
 In the fervor of his new hope, the reverent German 
 went so far as to imitate the irreverence of the minor 
 newspapers, by calumniating the fare paid for at so 
 much a head at the royal table. 
 
 " You don't say so ! " answered Pons. " Well, then, 
 I '11 try it to-morrow." 
 
 As he heard the words, Schmucke sprang from one 
 end of the table to the other, dragging the cloth, the 
 dishes, and the water-bottles after him, and seized 
 Pons in a close embrace, comparable to that of one 
 
Cousin Po7is. 71 
 
 gas catching hold of another gas for which it has an 
 affinit}'. 
 
 " Vat choj ! " he cried. 
 
 " Monsieur will dine here everj' day ! " proudly ex- 
 claimed Madame Cibot, with tender emotion. 
 
 Without knowing the circumstance to which she 
 owed the accomplishment of her dream, the worthy 
 dame descended into the porter's lodge much as 
 Josepha comes upon the scene in " WiUiam Tell." She 
 rattled down the plates and dishes, crying out, — 
 
 "Cibot! go and get two coffees at the cafe Ture, 
 and tell the waiter ihey are for me ! " 
 
 Then she sat down with her hands upon her sturdy 
 knees, and looked out of the window at the opposite 
 wall. 
 
 " I '11 go this very evening and consult Madame Fon- 
 taine," she cried. 
 
 Madame Fontaine was the fortune-teller of all the 
 cooks, lacqueys, and porters in the Marais. 
 
 " Since those two gentlemen came to live in this 
 house we've put two thousand francs in the savings 
 bank. In eight years ! what luck ! I wonder if I 
 had n't better not earn nothing out of Monsieur Pons's 
 dinner, and that'll encourage him to dine at home? 
 Ma'ame Fontaine's hen can advise me about that." 
 
 As she had seen no heirs belonging either to Pons or 
 Sehmucke, Madame Cibot for the last three years had 
 indulged the hope of a mention in the wills of " her 
 gentlemen ;" and her zeal redoubled under the pressure 
 of a cupidit}^ which had sprouted rather late in life, hke 
 her beard, — which up to that time had been the beard 
 of integrity. 
 
72 Cousin Pons. 
 
 By dining out every day, Pons had hitherto escaped 
 the absolute servitude in which it pleased Madame 
 Cibot to hold her gentlemen. The nomadic life of the 
 old troubadour-collector had hitherto scared the vague 
 ideas of testamentar}^ seduction which curvetted through 
 the brain of Madame Cibot, but which, from the date 
 of this memorable dinner, took the shape of a formida- 
 ble plan. Fifteen minutes later she reappeared in the 
 dining-room, armed with two excellent cups of coffee, 
 flanked by two petit verres of Kirchwasser. 
 
 '"• Long lif Matame Zipod ! " cried Schmucke ; " she 
 has tefined joost vat ve vanted." 
 
 After a few lamentations from poor Pons, which 
 Schmucke combatted with such billings and cooings 
 as the sitting pigeon ought to lavish on the traveller 
 pigeon, the two friends went out together. Schmucke 
 was unwilling to leave his friend to himself in the 
 trouble of mind which the masters and servants at the 
 Camusot's had occasioned him. He knew Pons, and 
 was sure that cruelly sad reflections were likety to seize 
 him even on his magisterial seat in the orchestra, and 
 thus destroy all the good effect of his home-coming to 
 the nest. When Schmucke brought Pons back at mid- 
 night, he still had him by the arm, and, like a lover 
 escorting an adored mistress, he pointed out to him 
 the spots where the pavement ended, or where it be- 
 gan ; he warned him of all the gutters ; he would fain 
 have had the pavement cotton, the skies blue, and the 
 angels whispering in his friend's ear the music which 
 the}' sang in his. He had conquered the last prov- 
 ince which was not already his own in that other 
 heart ! 
 
Cousin Pons. 73 
 
 For nearly three months Pons dined ever}" day with 
 Schmucke. At first he was obliged to retrench eighty 
 francs a month from the sum he usually spent on his 
 collections ; for his wine cost him about thirtj^-five 
 francs a month in addition to the fortj'-five francs for 
 liis dinner. Then, notwithstanding all the painstaking 
 and Teutonic buffooner}'^ of Schmucke, the old artist 
 regretted the well-cooked dishes, the little glasses of 
 liqueur, the good coffee, the chat, the empty civilities, 
 the guests, and the gossip of the houses where he for- 
 merly dined. We cannot break up the habits of thirty- 
 six 3'ears in the decline of life. Wine at a hundred 
 and thu'ty francs a hogshead is poor liquid to pour 
 into the glass of an epicure ; and each time Pons car- 
 ried the glass to his lips he recalled with poignant regret 
 the exquisite wines of his amphitryons. So, by the end 
 of three months the sharp suffering which had almost 
 broken his sensitive heart was allayed ; and he thought 
 of the pleasures of society just as an old man regrets a 
 mistress whom he has abandoned for her infidelities. 
 Though he tried to hide the melancholy which consumed 
 him, it was evident that the old musician was attacked 
 by one of those mysterious diseases whose seat is in the 
 moral being. To explain the nostalgia caused by a 
 sluittered habit, we need only point to one of the thou- 
 sand nothings which, like the fine rings of a coat of mail, 
 wrap the soul in a network of iron. One of the keenest 
 pleasures in the former life of Pons — a pleasure com- 
 mon to a poor relation sponging for a dinner — was the 
 surprise, the gastronomic effect, of some unexpected 
 dish, some daint}^, added triumphantly by the mistress 
 of a bourgeois house to give a festal air to her dinner. 
 
74 Cousin Pons. 
 
 This tickling charm to his stomach was lacking at home, 
 for Madame Cibot always proudly informed him of the 
 bill of fare. The periodic piquanc}^ of daily life had 
 totally disappeared. His dinner was eaten without the 
 unanticipated dainty which in the households of our 
 ancestors went by the name of " the covered dish." 
 
 Schmucke was unable to comprehend all this : Pons 
 was too delicate to complain. But if there is one thing 
 more distressing than genius misunderstood, it is a 
 stomach not understood at all. The heart whose love 
 is rebuffed (a drama, by the bj^, greatly overdone) rests 
 upon a false want ; for if the creature deserts us, we can 
 at least love the creator ; he still has treasures to bestow. 
 But the stomach ! Nothing can be compared to its 
 sufferings ; for after all, and before all, it is the seat of 
 life ! Pons regretted certain custards, true poems ! cer- 
 tain white sauces, masterpieces ! certain truffled chick- 
 ens, paragons ! but above all, those famous Rhine carp 
 which can be found only in Paris, and with what condi- 
 ments ! Pons would sometimes cr}^ aloud, "Oh, So- 
 phia ! " as his thoughts turned to the cook of the house 
 of Popinot. A casual observer, hearing this cr\', would 
 have supposed that the good soul was thinking of his 
 mistress, when in fact his mind was on something far 
 more choice, — a fat carp, accompanied b}- a sauce 
 which was clear in the sauce-boat, and thick on the 
 tongue ! — a sauce worth}^ of the prix Monty on ! The 
 remembrance of those eaten dinners made the poor 
 victim of gastric nostalgia grow considerably thinner, t 
 
 At the beginning of the fourth month, — that is, 
 towards the end of January, 1845, — the young flute 
 (who, like nearly all Germans, was called Wilhelm, and 
 
Cousin Pons, 75 
 
 Schwab to distinguish him from the other Wilhelms, — 
 which, however, did not distinguish him from the other 
 Schwabs) thought necessar}' to enlighten Schmucke on 
 the condition of the leader of the orchestra, which had 
 given rise to much commbnt at the theatre. It was 
 the evening for the first performance of a piece in which 
 the old German was to play some of his supernumerary 
 instruments. 
 
 "That worthy old Pons is getting feeble; there's 
 something out of tune in his bellows, — his eye is sad, 
 the movement of his arm is shak}'," said Wilhelm 
 Schwab to his compatriot, pointing to the good soul 
 as he climbed to his desk with a funereal air. 
 
 ** At sixty years of age people are all like that," an- 
 swered Schmucke in German. 
 
 Schmucke — like the mother in the '' Chronicles of 
 Canongate," who to keep her son twent3^-four hours 
 longer caused his execution — was capable of sacrificing 
 Pons for the pleasure of dining with him every day. 
 
 ''Everybody at the theatre is anxious about him," 
 continued Wilhelm ; '' and, as Mademoiselle Heloise 
 Brisetout, our leading danseuse, says, he does n't 
 even make a noise when he blows his nose ! " 
 
 The old musician usually seemed to be blowing a 
 horn when he blew his nose ; for that long and capa- 
 cious member resounded in his handkerchief, and the 
 racket was a cause of frequent complaint from Madame 
 de Marville to her Cousin Pons. 
 
 " I would give a great deal to amuse him," said 
 Schmucke, "he is getting so melancholy." 
 
 "Look here!" cried Schwab. "Monsieur Pons 
 always seems such a superior being to us poor devils 
 
76 Cousin Pons. 
 
 that I don't like to ask him to my wedding. I 'm to be 
 married — " 
 
 " How married?" demanded Schmucke. 
 
 "Oh! ver}^ properh%" answered Wilhelm, — who 
 thought Schmucke's queer question meant a jest, of 
 which that perfect Christian was incapable. 
 
 " Come, gentlemen, take your places," said Pons, 
 looking round the orchestra at his little army as he 
 heard the director's bell. 
 
 They plaj^ed the overture of the "Devil's Bride," — 
 a fairy piece which ran through two hundred repre- 
 sentations. Between the first two acts Wilhelm and 
 Schmucke were left alone in the deserted orchestra. 
 The atmosphere of the theatre was up to about thirty- 
 two degrees Reaumur. 
 
 " Tell me about 3- our marriage," said Schmucke. 
 
 " There ! don't 3^ou see the 3'oung man in that pro- 
 scenium box? Do you recognize him?" 
 
 "Nein — " 
 
 *' Ah ! that's because he has got yellow gloves, and 
 shines with a glow of opulence ; he is my friend, Fritz 
 Brunner, of Frankfort-on-the-Main." 
 
 " He that used to come and sit in the orchestra 
 beside you ? " 
 
 " The VQYy same. It is hard to believe in such a 
 metamorphosis, isn't it?" 
 
 This hero of the promised tale was one of those 
 Germans whose face contains the sombre mockery 01 
 the Mephistopheles of Goethe and the good-natured 
 jollity' of the novels of Auguste Lafontaine, of placid 
 memory" ; cunning as well as simplicity, the hard eager- 
 ness of the counting-room and the deliberate laisser- 
 
Cousin Pons. 77 
 
 Ciller of a member of the Jockey Club ; above all, the 
 profound disgust of life which put a pistol into the 
 hand of Werther, who was far more wear}' of the Ger- 
 man princes than he was of Charlotte. It was a truly 
 typical German face, with much shrewdness and much 
 simplicity, showing stupidity as well as courage, a 
 knowledge of life producing weariness, an experience 
 that any childish fancy rendered fruitless, a constant 
 abuse of beer and of tobacco, — but, as if to heighten 
 the effect of all these antitheses, a devilish glance came 
 from the handsome, tired blue eyes. Dressed with the 
 elegance of a banker, Fritz Brunner presented to the 
 gaze of the audience a bald head in the coloring of a 
 Titian, on each side of which curled a small quantity 
 of bright blond hair, which want and debauchery had 
 left upon his head that he might have cause to pay a 
 hairdresser when the da}^ of his financial resuscitation 
 came. His face, once fresh and handsome like the 
 Christ of the great masters, had acquired certain sharp 
 tones, which red moustachios and a tawny beard made 
 almost sinister. The pure blue of his eyes had grown 
 cloudy in his struggles with grief; the endless prostitu- 
 tions of Paris had blurred the line of the lids and the 
 contour of the eyes; where once a mother had seen with 
 delight a divine reflection of her own. This premature 
 philosopher, this youthful old man, was the product of 
 a step-mother. 
 
 Here begins the singular history of a prodigal son of 
 P>ankfort-on-the-Main, — the most extraordinarj^ and 
 out-of-the-way affair that ever happened in that well- 
 conducted, though central, town. 
 
78 Cousin Pons. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IN WHICH WE SHALL SEE THAT PRODIGAL SONS ALWAYS 
 END BY BECOMING BANKERS AND MILLIONNAIRES, PRO- 
 VIDED THEY BELONG TO FRANKFORT-ON-THE-MAIN. 
 
 Monsieur Ged^on Brunner, father of the present 
 Fritz, one of those famous innkeepers of Frankfort- on- 
 the-Main who practise, in collusion with the bankers of 
 that town, the depreciations authorized b}^ law upon the 
 pockets of tourists, an honest Calvinist to boot, had 
 married a converted Jewess, to whose dot he owed the 
 beginning of his fortune. The Jewess died, leaving a 
 son Fritz then twelve years old, to the guardianship 
 of his father, and under the special supervision of a 
 maternal uncle, a furrier at Leipsic, — the head of the 
 house of Virlaz & Co. Brunner the father was forced 
 b}' this uncle, who was not as soft as his furs, to turn 
 the lad's fortune into solid money and place it in the 
 banking-house of Al-Sartchild, without using it. In re- 
 venge for this Jewish exaction, Pere Brunner married 
 again, alleging the impossibilitj^ of keeping his immense 
 inn without the fostering eye and arm of a wife. He 
 married the daughter of a brother innkeeper, considering 
 her a pearl of price ; but he had had no experience of 
 what an only daughter, indulged by father and mother, 
 could be. The second Madame Brunner was a speci- 
 
Cousin Pons. 79 
 
 men of what young German women become when they 
 are frivolous and ill-tempered. She wasted her hus- 
 band's fortune, and avenged the first Madame Brunner 
 by making him in his own home the most wretched 
 man to be found in the whole territory of the freetown 
 of Frankfort, — where, they saj', millionnaires are now 
 procuring a municipal law to compel wives to cherish 
 their husbands exclusively. This German dame loved 
 the vinegar which her countrymen commonly call 
 Rhine-wine ; she loved the article-Paris ; she loved 
 to ride on horseback ; she loved dress. In short, the 
 only expensive things she did not love were women. 
 She took an aversion to little Fritz, and would soon 
 have driven him craz}", if that j^outhful product of Cal- 
 vinism and the Mosaic dispensation, though cradled in 
 Frankfort, had not been placed under the guardianship 
 of the house of Virlaz at Leipsic ; it must be added, 
 however, that his uncle Virlaz, wrapped up in his furs, 
 kept watch of nothing but the lad's silver marks, and 
 left his nephew a prey to the step-mother. 
 
 This hyena of a woman was all the more savage 
 against the cherubic son of the beautiful Madame 
 Brunner, because, in spite of her efforts, she had no 
 children of her own. Prompted by a diabolical idea, 
 this evil-minded German woman drove young Fritz, 
 when onl}' twentj^-one years of age, into a career of 
 dissipation. She flattered herself that English horses, 
 Rhine- vinegar, and the Margarets of Goethe would soon 
 eat up the son of the Jewess and his fortune ; for 
 Uncle Virlaz had died and left the little Fritz a hand- 
 some property just at the time the latter attained his 
 majority. But although the green baize of watering 
 
80 Cousin Pons. 
 
 places and the friends of the flowing bowl (among 
 whom was Wilhelm Schwab) used np the capital of 
 Virlaz, the prodigal son himself was kept alive by the 
 will of God to serve as a warning to the young fry of 
 Frankfort-on-the-Main, where all parents used him as a 
 scarecrow to keep their sons well-conducted and sub- 
 missive behind their iron counters, well lined as the^^ 
 were with silver dollars. 
 
 Instead of dying in the flower of his age, Fritz 
 Brunner had the pleasure of burying his step-mother 
 in one of those delightful cemeteries where the Ger- 
 mans, under pretence of honoring the dead, give loose 
 to their frantic passion for horticulture. The second 
 Madame Brunner died before the authors of her being. 
 Old Brunner was so used up, — both in mone}', which she 
 had extracted from his coffers, and by sufferings which 
 she had made him endure, — that this luckless inn-keeper 
 of herculean constitution, beheld, at the age of sixty- 
 seven, his fine proportions shrunken as if the famous 
 fish of the Borgias had gnawed him. Not to inherit 
 the fortune of his wife after enduring her for ten years 
 made the man another ruin of Heidelberg, — though re- 
 stored from time to time by the bills of travellers, just 
 as they restore the remains of Heidelberg to keep uj) 
 the enthusiasm of tourists who rush to see the beau- 
 tiful ruin so " wonderfullj' preserved." All Frankfort 
 talked about Brunner as if lie were a bankrupt, and 
 people pointed at him with their fingers, sajdng to each 
 other, — 
 
 '' Just see to what condition a bad wife, whose prop- 
 erty you can't inherit, and a bad son, brought up Uke 
 a Frenchman, may bring us to !" 
 
Cousin Pons, 81 
 
 In Italy and in German}^ Frenchmen bear the blame 
 of all misfortunes, and are targets for every ball ; " but 
 the god pursuing his destiny " — for the rest see the 
 ode of Lefranc de Pompignan. 
 
 The rage of the proprietor of the Grand Hotel de 
 Hollande was not wreaked merely upon travellers whose 
 bills felt the weight of his anger: when his son was 
 totally ruined, Gedeon, regarding him as the indirect 
 cause of his misfortunes, refused him bread or water, 
 salt, fire, lodging, or a pipe! — which in a German 
 inn-keeping parent is the last degree of paternal male- 
 diction. The authorities of the place, not taking into 
 account the original wrong-doing of the father, looked 
 upon him as the most unhappy man in Frankfort-on-the- 
 Main, and accordingly came to his aid ; they expelled 
 Fritz from the territory of their Free- town, making 
 German war upon him. Justice is neither more hu- 
 mane nor more intelligent in a Free-town than it is else- 
 where, albeit that town is the seat of the German Diet. 
 It is seldom that a magistrate reascends the stream 
 of crimes and misfortunes, to find the pool from whence 
 the first thread of water flowed. If Brunner forgot his 
 son, the friends of the son imitated the father. 
 
 Ah ! if this history could have been plaj-ed before the 
 foot-lights, before the e3'es of this audience, among 
 whom journalists, lions, and even a few Parisian women 
 were inquiring from whence came the deeply tragic face 
 of that German who had suddenly risen to the surface 
 of the gay world of Paris, on the occasion of a first 
 representation, alone, in a proscenium box — it would 
 have been a far finer spectacle than the fairy pla}' 
 of the '' Devil's Bride," though that w^as the two- 
 
82 Cousin Pons. 
 
 hundred thousandth representation of the sublime 
 parable pla3'ed in Mesopotamia three thousand 3'ears 
 before Christ. 
 
 Fritz went on foot to Strasburg, and there he met 
 with something which the prodigal son of the Bible did 
 not find in the far country of sacred Scripture. Herein 
 is revealed the superiority of Alsace, where beat those 
 generous hearts that are born to show Germany the 
 beauty and excellence of the fusion of French wit and 
 Intelligence with the more solid German qualities. Wil- 
 helm Schwab, who had lately inherited the property of 
 his father and mother, possessed at this time a hundred 
 thousand francs. He opened his arms to Fritz, he 
 opened his heart, he opened his house, he opened his 
 purse. To describe the moment when Fritz, dustjs 
 wretched, and quasi-leprous, received a piece of actual 
 gold from the hand of a true friend on the other bank 
 of the Rhine, would be to launch into an ode, and Pin- 
 dar alone, in his own Greek, could pour it forth to hu- 
 manit}', — a lesson to revive expiring friendship. Put 
 the names of Fritz and Wilhelm with those of Damon 
 and Pythias, Castor and Pollux, Orestes and P3lades, 
 Dubreuil and Pmeja, Pons and Schmucke, and all the 
 fancy names which we give to the two friends of Mono- 
 motapa ; for La Fontaine, man of genius that he was, 
 made semblances of friendship, without bod}' and with- 
 out life. Add these new names to their compeers ; 
 and with all the more reason because Wilhelm ate his 
 patrimony in compan}' with Fritz, just as Fritz had 
 formerly drunk up his fortune with Wilhelm ; at the 
 same time smoking, be it remarked, every known 
 species of tobacco. 
 
Cousin Pons. 83 
 
 The two friends swallowed up this inheritance, strange 
 to say, in the beer-gardens of Strasburg, in the stupid- 
 est, dullest, and most vulgar fashion, with ballet-girls of 
 the Strasburg theatres, and Alsatians of easy virtue. 
 Every morning they said to each other, " We must pull 
 up, we must decide on a plan, and do something with 
 the httle that remains to us." 
 
 " Bah ! one day more," Fritz would exclaim ; " and 
 to-morrow — " 
 
 Ah ! to-morrow ! In a spendthrift's life To-day is 
 a great coxcomb, but To-morrow is a great coward, who 
 takes fright at the courage of his predecessor. To-day 
 is the braggadocio of ancient comedy ; To-morrow is 
 the Pierrot of our pantomimes. When the two friends 
 reached their last thousand-franc note they took their 
 places in a diligence which carried them to Paris, where 
 they lodged under the eaves of the Hotel du Rhin, rue 
 de Mail, kept by one Graff, formerly head-waiter with 
 Gedeon Brunner. Fritz got a place as clerk, at a salary 
 of six hundred francs, with the Keller Brothers, to whom 
 Graff recommended him. Graff, the proprietor of the 
 Hotel du Rhin is the brother of Graff the famous tailor. 
 The tailor took Wilhelm as bookkeeper. Graff con- 
 sidered these places due to the two prodigals in return 
 for his apprenticeship at the Brunner inn. These two 
 facts — a ruined friend recognized by a rich friend, and 
 a German hotel-keeper doing his best for two penniless 
 compatriots — might lead some people to suppose that 
 the present history is a novel ; but truth is so like 
 fiction, that fiction in these days takes unheard-of pains 
 to look like truth. 
 
 Fritz, a clerk at six hundred francs, and Wilhelm, 
 
84 Cousin Pons, 
 
 bookkeeper at the same salary, soon found the diffi- 
 culty of living in so enticing a city as Paris. There- 
 fore, during the second year of their stay, in 1837, 
 Wilhelm, who played the flute with some talent, got 
 a place in the orchestra led b}' Pons, to earn occasional 
 butter for his bread. As to Fritz, he could onlj' eke 
 out his salary by displaj'ing the financial capacity- of a 
 descendant of the Virlaz. In spite of his assiduit}', 
 however, perhaps because of his ver^- talents, the Fane- 
 fourtois only reached two thousand francs in 1843. 
 Poverty, divine stepmother, did for the two young men 
 what their own mothers had been unable to do : she 
 taught them econoni}', the world, and life ; she gave 
 them the high and stern education which she drives 
 like a spur into great men, who are all unhapp}^ in their 
 youth. Fritz and Wilhelm, being no more than ordi- 
 nary mortals, did not give ear to all the lessons of Pov- 
 erty : they battled against her coercions, they found 
 her bosom hard, her arms fleshless ; and the}^ had no 
 e3'es to see, beneath her rags, that fair}' Urgela who 
 yields to the caresses of men of genius. Nevertheless, 
 they learned the full value of money, and they pledged 
 each other to cut its wings if ever again it crossed their 
 threshold. 
 
 " Well, Papa Schmucke, I '11 explain it all in two 
 words," replied Wilhelm, who forthwith recounted In 
 German .and at great length the whole historj'. 
 '* Pere Brunner is now dead. He was, unknown to 
 his son or to Monsieur Graff, with whom we lodged, 
 one of the first promoters of the Baden railroads, from 
 which he realized enormous profits, and has left four 
 
Cousin Pons, 85 
 
 millions. I am playing the flute to-night for the last 
 time. If this were not a first representation I should 
 have left the theatre several days ago, but I did not 
 wish to fail of my word." 
 
 '•'• Very right, young man," said Schmucke, in his own 
 language. " But whom are you to marry?" 
 
 " The daughter of Monsieur Graff, our host, the 
 proprietor of the Hotel du Rhin. I have loved Made- 
 moiselle Emilie for seven years ; she has read so many 
 romantic novels that she has refused all offers for my 
 sake, without an}' idea of what ma}' come of it. This 
 young lad}^ will be yery rich ; she is the only heiress of 
 the Graffs, those tailors in the rue Richelieu. Fritz 
 gives me five times the sum we made ducks and drakes 
 with at Strasburg, — five hundred thousand francs ! 
 He puts a million of francs into a banking-house, 
 where Monsieur Graff, the tailor, will also put five 
 hundred thousand ; mj^ bride's father allows me to in- 
 vest the dot^ which is two hundred and fifty thousand 
 francs, in the same way, and he himself goes in as a 
 sleeping partner for as much more. The house of 
 Brunner, Schwab, & Co. will thus have a capital of 
 two million five hundred thousand francs. Fritz has 
 just bought shares to the amount of fifteen hundred 
 thousand francs in the Bank of France, to guarantee 
 our standing. It is not his whole fortune, for he has 
 his father's houses in Frankfort, which are rated at a 
 million ; he has alread^^ rented the Grand Hotel de Hol- 
 lande to a cousin of the Graffs." 
 
 '' You were looking rather gloomily at your friend," 
 answered Schmucke ; " are you uneasy about him? " 
 *' I am uneasy, — anxious about his happiness," said 
 
86 Cousin Pons. 
 
 Wilhelm. " Look at him: is that the face of a con- 
 tented man ? I am afraid of Paris for him ; I would 
 like to see him do as I am doing. The old devils ma}^ 
 be roused again. Of our pair of heads, his was never 
 the best weighted. That evening dress, that opera- 
 glass, all worry me. If you only knew how difficult 
 it is to persuade Fritz to marry ! He has a horror of 
 what these French people call ' paying court ' to a wo- 
 man. We shall have to launch him into the famil}' 
 life suddenl}^ just as in England they launch a man 
 into eternity." 
 
 During the excitement which breaks forth at the 
 conclusion of all new pieces, the first flute gave his in- 
 vitation to the leader of the orchestra. Pons accepted 
 joyfully. Schmucke saw, for the first time in three 
 months, a smile upon the face of his friend. He 
 brought him home to the rue de Normandie in perfect 
 silence ; recognizing in that flash of joy the depth of 
 the trouble that was gnawing into Pons. That a man 
 so truly noble, so disinterested, so pure in feeling, 
 should have such weaknesses ! — this was what petri- 
 fied the stoic Schmucke, and his heart grew sad ; for 
 he felt the necessity of renouncing the daily sight of his 
 " goot Bons" sitting opposite to him at table; he 
 knew it must be done for Pons's own sake, and he 
 doubted if the sacrifice were possible. The thought 
 drove him crazy. 
 
 The proud silence maintained by Pons, in his refuge 
 on the Aventinus of the rue de Normandie, had of 
 course been observed. Madame de Marville, being 
 delivered from her parasite, concerned herself little 
 about him ; she thought, as did her charming daughter, 
 
Cousin Pons. 87 
 
 that the old man had discovered the trick plaj-ed by 
 the lovely Lili. Not so, however, with the president. 
 Monsieur Camusot de Marville, a round, fat little 
 man, had grown pompous since his advancement at 
 court, admired Cicero, preferred the Opera-Comique 
 to the Italian opera, compared one actor with another, 
 followed the crowd step by step, repeated as his own 
 all the opinions of the ministerial journals, and in 
 rendering judgment paraphrased the ideas of the last 
 councillor who had spoken. This magistrate, whose 
 traits of character were very well understood, and 
 whose position obliged him to take a serious view of 
 the affairs of life, was especiallj^ tenacious of familj- 
 ties. Like most husbands who are ruled b}' their 
 wives, the president asserted an independence in little 
 things, which was respected by his wife. Though for 
 as much as a month he accepted the empty reasons 
 which Madame de Marville gave him to account for 
 the disappearance of Pons, he ended by thinking it 
 very strange that the old musician, a friend of forty 
 3'ears' standing, came no longer to the house, especially 
 after making so important a gift as the fan of Madame 
 de Pompadour. This fan, declared by Comte Pop- 
 inot to be a rare masterpiece, won for Madame de 
 Marville at the Tuileries, where the treasure was 
 passed from hand to hand, a number of compliments, 
 which flattered her vanity exceedingl}- ; people extolled 
 the beauties of> the ten ivory sticks, each of which 
 showed carvings of exquisite delicac}^ A Russian 
 lady (the Russians always think they are in Russia) 
 offered Madame de Marville, in the drawing room of 
 the Comtesse Popinot, six thousand francs for this 
 
88 Cousin Pons. 
 
 extraordinary fan, smiling to see it in such hands; for 
 it was, we must admit, the fan of a duchess. 
 
 " It can't be denied that our poor cousin understands 
 such foohsh trifles," said Cecile to her father, the day 
 after this offer was made. 
 
 " * Foohsh trifles ' ! " exclaimed the president. " Why, 
 the Government is about to give three hundred thou- 
 sand francs for the collection of the late Monsieur du 
 Sommerard, and to spend, in conjunction with the city 
 of Paris, nearl}' a million in buying and repairing the 
 Hotel Cluny to hold the ' foolish trifles ' 3'ou talk about. 
 Those ' foolish trifles,* my dear child, are often the only 
 evidence we have of departed civilizations. An 'Etrus- 
 can pot, a necklace, which are worth sometimes forty, 
 sometimes fifty thousand francs, are 'foolish trifles' 
 that reveal to our eyes the perfection of the arts at the 
 time of the siege of Troy, and prove to us that the Etrus- 
 cans were Trojans who had taken refuge in Italj'." 
 
 Such was the fat little president's style of pleasantry ; 
 he usually took a tone of ponderous irony with his wife 
 and daughter. 
 
 " The vast variety of knowledge which these ' foolish 
 trifles ' require, Cecile," he resumed, " is a science called 
 archaeolog}'. Archaeology comprises sculpture, paint- 
 ing, architecture, keramics, cabinet and ebon}' work 
 (which is a wholly modern art), the goldsmith's trade, 
 laces, tapestries, embroideries, in short, all the creations 
 of human labor." 
 
 '' Then Cousin Pons must be quite a learned man? " 
 said Cecile. 
 
 ' ' Bless me ! why does n't he come here now ? " de- 
 manded the president, wdth the air of a man roused to 
 
Cousin Pons, 89 
 
 a fact by the process of sundry smouldering thoughts 
 suddenly striking home to his mind. 
 
 " He has probably taken offence at some trifle," said 
 Madame de Marville. "Perhaps I was not grateful 
 enough for the gift of the fan. I am, as you know, 
 quite ignorant — " 
 
 " You ! one of Servings best pupils ! " cried the presi- 
 dent, — " you don't know Watteau ! " 
 
 " I know David, Gerard, Gros, and Girodet and 
 Guerin and Monsieur de Forbin and Turpin de Crisse." 
 
 " You ought to have — " 
 
 " Pra}^, what ought I to have done, monsieur?" said 
 his wife, looking at him with tlie air of the Queen of 
 Sheba. 
 
 "You ought to have known all about Watteau, my 
 dear ; he is very much the fashion," said the president, 
 with a humility which denoted his many obligations to 
 his wife. 
 
 This conversation took place a few days before the 
 first representation of the " Devil's Bride," at which, 
 as we have said, the whole orchestra was struck by the 
 feeble health of the old leader. Before long, all the 
 families accustomed to see Pons at their dinner-tables 
 and to send him upon their errands made inquiries 
 about him among themselves, and a great deal of 
 uneasiness was felt in the circle where the good soul 
 usually gravitated, which was not lessened by the fact 
 that several persons saw him at his post in the theatre. 
 Notwithstanding the pains with which Pons avoided his 
 old friends when he met them, he at last came face to 
 face with the late minister, Comte Popinot, at Monis- 
 trol's, — one of the daring and illustrious second-hand 
 
90 Cousin Pons. 
 
 dealers of the new boulevard Beaumarchais, mentioned 
 In- Pons to Madame de Marville, whose crafty enthu- 
 siasm for the business runs up the price of curiosities 
 from da}^ to da}', because, as the}" say, such treasures 
 are getting so rare that there will soon be no more of 
 them. 
 
 "My dear Pons, why do we no longer see j'ou?" 
 said Comte Popinot. " We miss you ver}" much, and 
 Madame Popinot does not know what to make of this 
 desertion." 
 
 " Monsieur le comte," replied the old man, " it was 
 intimated to me, in the house of a relation, that at my 
 age people are de trap in societ}- . I have never been 
 received with much courtes}", but at least I was never 
 insulted. I have asked nothing of an}- one," he said, 
 with the pride of an artist. " In return for civilities, 
 I have often made myself useful to those who received 
 me. But it appears that I have made a mistake. I 
 am expected to fetch and carry at ever}" one's beck and 
 call, in return for the honor I receive in dining among 
 my friends, my relations. "Well ! I have resigned my 
 place of ' poor relation.' At home, every day, I have 
 that which no table has offered me elsewhere, — a true 
 friend." 
 
 These words, full of bitterness, which the old artist 
 had the faculty still further to enforce by tone and 
 gesture, so impressed the peer of France that he drew 
 the worthy man aside and said to him, — 
 
 **My old friend, tell me what has happened. Con- 
 fide to me who it is that has wounded yo\x. You will 
 allow me, I am sure, to point out to you that in my 
 house no one has failed in paying you proper respect." 
 
Cousin Pons. 91 
 
 '' You are the only exception that I make," said the 
 poor man. *' Besides, were it otherwise, you are a 
 great lord, a statesman, and your occupations would 
 excuse everything." 
 
 Pons, subjected to the diplomatic tact which Popinot 
 had acquired in the manipulation of men and public 
 business, ended by relating his ill-usage in the house 
 of Monsieur Camusot de Marville. Popinot took up 
 the victim's wrongs so warmly, that he went home 
 and told the whole story to Madame Popinot, an ex- 
 cellent and worthy woman, who made certain rep- 
 resentations to Madame de Marville the first time 
 they met each other. . The count himself said a few 
 words to the president, and a family explanation en- 
 sued in the Camusot de Marville household. Though 
 Camusot was not altogether master in his own home, 
 his remonstrances were in this case too well founded 
 on facts and justice not to compel his wife and daugh- 
 ter to recognize the truth of them ; both admitted 
 the wrong, but threw the blame upon the servants. 
 The servants, called up and scolded, obtained their 
 pardon only b}' full confessions, which proved to the 
 president that Pons had had good reason to absent 
 himself. Like the masters of all households ruled 
 by the wives, Camusot displa3'ed much marital and 
 judicial dignity, declaring that all the servants should 
 be sent away and should lose all the advantages 
 their long services might deserve, if in future his 
 Cousin Pons, and all others who did him the honor 
 to come to his house, were not treated as he him- 
 self was treated. This last remark made Madeleine 
 smile. 
 
92 Cousin Pons. 
 
 " You have but one chance for forgiveness," said 
 the president, '' and that is, to make your excuses to 
 my cousin and ask his pardon. Go and tell him that 
 3' our situation in my house depends entirely on him, 
 and that I shall send you away if he cannot forgive 
 you." 
 
Cousin Pons, 93 
 
 IX. 
 
 IN WHICH PONS PRESENTS TO MADAME DE MAEVILLE AN 
 ARTICLE FAR MORE PRECIOUS THAN A FAN. 
 
 The next day the president went off at an earl}^ hour 
 to pay a visit to his cousin before the sitting of the 
 court. The apparition of Monsieur le president de 
 Marville, ushered in by Madame Cibot, was an event. 
 Pons, who received that honor for the first time, fore- 
 saw an apology. 
 
 *' My dear cousin," said the president after the formal 
 greeting was over, " I have at last learned the cause of 
 your absence. Your conduct increases, if possible, the 
 esteem I feel for you. I shall say but one word. My 
 servants are dismissed. My wife and daughter are in 
 despair ; they wish to see you and to make you an ex- 
 planation. In all this, my dear cousin, there is only 
 one innocent person, and that is an old judge. Do 
 not punish me for the thoughtlessness of a giddy young 
 girl, whose heart was set on dining with the Popinots ; 
 above all, when I have come mj'self to make our peace 
 with you, and to admit that all the fault is on our side. 
 A friendship of thirtj'-six years, even supposing it 
 changed, has still its rights. Come, sign a peace by 
 dining with us to-night ! " 
 
 Pons involved himself in a diffuse reply, and finally 
 contrived to explain to his cousin that he was to be 
 
94 Cousin Pons. 
 
 present that evening at the marriage of a musician of 
 his orchestra, who was about to discard his flute and 
 become a banker. 
 
 ''Well, then, to-morrow.'* 
 
 "My dear cousin, Madame la comtesse Popinot has 
 done me the honor to send me a letter of such cordial 
 invitation that — " 
 
 " The da}^ after to-morrow, then." 
 
 " On that day the partner of my first flute, a German, 
 a Monsieur Brunner, gives a return party to the bride 
 and bridegroom." 
 
 ' ' You are well worthy of such contention for the 
 pleasure of receiving 3'ou," said the president. " Well, 
 then, Sunday next, — a week's notice, as they saj^ at the 
 Palais." 
 
 '' But that day we dine with Monsieur Graff", the 
 flute's father-in-law." 
 
 " Then Saturday ! Between now and then, j^ou will 
 have time to comfort a little girl who has shed many 
 tears for her fault. God asks nothing bat repentance, 
 and you must not be more exacting with poor little 
 Cecile than the Father of us all." 
 
 Pons, taken on his weak side, fell back into formulas 
 that were more than polite, and accompanied the presi- 
 dent to the very landing of the staircase. An hour later, 
 all the servants made their appearance at his lodgings. 
 They behaved after the manner of servants, and were 
 cringing and wheedling ; the}^ even wept ! Madeleine 
 took Monsieur Pons apart, and threw herself at his 
 feet. 
 
 " It was I, monsieur, who was the guilty party ; and 
 monsieur knows how I love him," she said, bursting 
 
Cousin Pons. 95 
 
 into tears. '' It was revenge, which made my blood 
 boil ; and monsieur must lay the blame for all this mis- 
 erable business to that. We shall lose our annuities ! 
 Monsieur, I was beside myself, and I cannot let my 
 fellow-servants suffer for m}^ folly. I see, now, that 
 fate has not destined me for monsieur. I have grown 
 reasonable ; I see that I had too much ambition, — but 
 I love you, monsieur. For ten years I have thought 
 of no happiness but of making yours, — of taking care 
 of you. What a noble fate ! Oh I if monsieur only 
 knew how I love him ! Monsieur must have seen it in 
 all my bad ways. If I died to-morrow, what do 3'ou 
 think would be found? — my will drawn in your favor, 
 monsieur, — yes, monsieur ; it is put away in my trunk 
 under my jewels." 
 
 B}^ sounding this chord, Madeleine put the old bach- 
 elor through those enjoj^ments of vanity which come from 
 the knowledge that we have inspired a passion, even 
 though the passion itself is displeasing. After nobly 
 forgiving Madeleine, he took the whole household back 
 into favor, and promised to request his cousin Madame 
 de Marville to keep them in her service. Pons felt with 
 ineffable delight that he was restored to his habitual 
 enjoj-ments without committing any mean or unworthy 
 action. People had come to him ; the dignity of his 
 character would be enhanced. But when it came to 
 explaining his triumph to his friend Schmucke, he saw 
 with pain that his other self was sad, and full of unut- 
 tered doubts. Nevertheless, when the good German 
 saw the sudden change in Pons's countenance, he ended 
 b}^ cheerfull}^ sacrificing the ha[)piness he had enjoyed of 
 having his friend all to himself for nearly four months. 
 
96 Cousin Pons. 
 
 Moral maladies have one great advantage over phy- 
 sical maladies ; the}' can be cured instantl}', by the fulfil- 
 ment of the desire the privation of which gave birth to 
 them. Pons, after this morning, was no longer the same 
 being. The sad and broken old man made way for the 
 contented Pons, who had lately carried the fan of Ma- 
 dame de Pompadour to his cousin's wife. Schmucke, 
 however, fell into long reveries over this transformation, 
 without comprehending it ; for genuine stoicism can 
 never explain to itself French social subserviency. Pons 
 was a true Frenchman of the Empire, in whom the gal- 
 lantry of the last century was mingled with the devotion 
 to women expressed in the celebrated ballad, " Partant 
 pour la Syrie," and others. Schmucke buried his 
 trouble in his heart under the flowers of German philos- 
 ophy ; but at the end of a week he had grown quite 
 yellow, and Madame Cibot employed much artifice to 
 get him to see the " doctor of the quarter." The physi- 
 cian feared an icterus, and left Madame Cibot con- 
 vulsed with terror at the learned word, which merely 
 means jaundice. 
 
 That evening, perhaps for the first time, the two 
 friends dined out together. To Schmucke it was like 
 a trip into Germany ; for Johann Graflf, the master of 
 the Hotel du Rhin, and his daughter Emilie, Wolfgang 
 Graff the tailor, and his wife, Fritz Brunner and Wil- 
 helm Schwab were all Germans. Pons and the notarj^ 
 were the only Frenchmen admitted to the banquet. 
 The tailor and his wife, who owned a fine house in the 
 rue de Richelieu between the rue Neuve-des-Petits- 
 Champs and the rue Villedo, had educated their niece ; 
 whose father feared, not without reason, to let her 
 
Cousin Pons. 97 
 
 come in contact with the people of all kinds who fre- 
 quented his hotel. These worthy people, loving the 
 child as if she were their own daughter, gave up their 
 ground-floor to the young couple. There, too, the 
 banking-house of Brunner, Schwab, and Co. was to be 
 estabUshed. As these arrangements were made a month 
 back, to give time for Brunner, the author of all this 
 felicity, to come into possession of his inheritance, the 
 suite of rooms of the wedded pair had been handsomely 
 restored and refurnished by the famous tailor. The 
 counting-rooms of the bank were placed in a wing which 
 connected a magnificent warehouse with the old man- 
 sion standing between the court and garden. 
 
 As they walked from the rue de Normandie to the 
 rue de Richelieu, Pons extracted from the absent-minded 
 Schmucke the details of the story of the modern prodi- 
 gal for whom Death had killed the fatted inn-keeper. 
 Pons, just reconciled to his nearest relations, was speed- 
 ily seized with the notion of marrying Fritz Brunner 
 to Cecile de Marville. It so chanced that the notary of 
 the brothers Graff was the son-in-law and successor of 
 Cardot, having been assistant head-clerk in his office 
 before succeeding to the business. They were all " rela- 
 tions " with whom Pons frequently dined. 
 
 " Ah ! is that you. Monsieur Berthier ? " said the old 
 musician, extending his hand to his ex-amphitryon. 
 
 " Why don't 3'ou ever come and dine with us now?" 
 asked the notary. ' ' My wife was quite uneasy about 
 you. We saw j'ou at the first representation of the 
 * Devil's Bride,' and our uneasiness was turned into 
 curiosity." 
 
 ''Old men are sensitive," answered Pons. "They 
 7 
 
98 Cousin Pons, 
 
 have the misfortune of being a century behind the times. 
 But how can they help it ? Is n't it enough to represent 
 that in which they were born ? they can never belong to 
 that in which they die." 
 
 "Ah!" said the notary, with a knowing air, "we 
 can't keep pace with two centuries at the same time." 
 
 " Look here ! " said the musician, drawing the j'oung 
 notary into a corner, " suppose you were to marry my 
 cousin Cecile de Marville to — " 
 
 "Ah! why should I?" exclaimed the notary. "In 
 this century, when luxury has got down to the porter's 
 lodge, young men hesitate to couple their fate with that 
 of a daughter of a judge in the Cour-roj'ale, w^hen he 
 will onl}^ give her a dot of a hundred thousand francs. 
 There is no such thing now-a-days as a woman who 
 costs her husband less than three thousand francs a year ; 
 that is, in the class to w^hich the husband of Mademoi- 
 selle de Marville must belong. The income of such a 
 dot won't pa}" the costs of dress for such a wife. A 
 3'oung man, with fifteen or twenty thousand francs a 
 year, lives in a pretty entresol ; the world doesn't ex- 
 pect him to make a splurge ; he can live with one ser- 
 vant. He puts all his means into his pleasures ; he has 
 no proprieties to consider, except those his tailor takes 
 charge of; courted by all the designing mothers, he 
 is one of the kings of Parisian fashion. On the other 
 hand, a wife must have an establishment. She wants 
 a carriage of her own ; if she goes to the theatre she 
 must have a box, whereas a bachelor can take a staP. 
 In short, she is the absorber of the fortune which the 
 unmarried man formerly spent upon himself. Now, 
 just think of a husband worth thirty thousand francs a 
 
Cousin Pons, 99 
 
 year. As the world is now, a rich bachelor, if he mar- 
 ries, becomes a poor devil who has to consider whether 
 he can afford to go to Chantilly. Bring on the children, 
 and poverty is felt at once. Now, as Monsieur and 
 Madame de Marville are barely fift}^ expectations have 
 fifteen or twenty 3^ears to run ; no man wants to carry 
 them in his purse for that length of time ; and let me 
 tell you the gangrene of such calculation is so deep in 
 the heart of the young rattle-pates who dance the polka 
 with the lorettes at Mabille, that they all study both 
 sides of the problem without needing a notary to explain 
 matters. Between ourselves. Mademoiselle de Marville 
 leaves a young fellow's heart too calm for his head to 
 get turned, and all her pretenders have made these 
 anti-matrimonial reflections. If some young man in 
 the enjoyment of his reason and twenty thousand francs 
 a year does appear on the horizon as a possible alli- 
 ance, satisfactory to ambitious ideas, Mademoiselle de 
 Marville has so little charm — " 
 
 ' ' Why so ? " asked the astonished musician. 
 
 " Ah ! — " exclaimed the notary. " All young men, 
 now-a-days, even if they are as ill-favored as you and 
 I, my dear Pons, have the impertinence to require a dot 
 of six hundred thousand francs, a well-born young 
 woman, very handsome, very well brought up, without 
 defects, — a paragon, in short." 
 
 " Then you think it will be very hard to marry my 
 cousin ? '* 
 
 ''She will stay unmarried just so long as her father 
 and mother can't make up their minds to give her 
 Marville for a portion. If they had chosen to do this, 
 she would have been Vicomtesse Popinot by this time. 
 
100 Cousin Pons. 
 
 But here is Monsieur Brunner ; now we must read the 
 deed of association for the house of Brunner & Co. and 
 the marriage contract." 
 
 As soon as the introductions and the compliments 
 were over, Pons, invited by the parents to sign the 
 contract, Ustened to the reading of the deeds, and then 
 about half-past five o'clock the company proceeded to 
 the dining-room. The dinner was one of those sump- 
 tuous repasts which the merchant classes give when 
 they lay aside all thoughts of economy ; in this case it 
 testified to the relations which Grafl" of the Hotel du 
 Rhin held with the chief caterers of Paris. Never did 
 Pons or Schmucke enjoy such fare. There were dishes 
 that "beguiled the mind," — German nudeln of un- 
 speakable delicacy, smelts incomparably fried ; a ferra 
 from Geneva with a true Genovese sauce, and a cream 
 for the plum-pudding which would have astonished the 
 famous doctor who, they say, invented it in London. 
 It was ten o'clock before the company left the table. 
 The amount of Rhine wine and French wine that was 
 imbibed would amaze a dandy, for no one knows the 
 quantity of liquid a German can absorb while sitting 
 calm and tranquil. We must dine in Germany, and 
 see the bottles coming on one after the other, like wave 
 after wave flowing in upon the lovely shores of the 
 Mediterranean, and disappearing -as if Germans had 
 the absorbing powers of sand or sponge ; but all deco- 
 rously, without French clatter. The talk remains as. 
 virtuous as the discourse of a usurer ; the faces flush 
 like those of a bridal couple in the frescos of Cornelius 
 or Schnor, yet imperceptibly ; and recollections rise, 
 like the smoke of their pipes, slowly and deliberatel3\ 
 
Cousin Pons, 101 
 
 Towards half-past ten Pons and Schmucke found 
 themselves sitting on a bench in the garden on either 
 side of their former flute, without knowing exactly 
 how they got there, or what had led them to explain 
 all the particulars of their characters, their opinions, 
 and their misfortunes. In the midst of this jumble of 
 disclosures Wilhelm told, with much vigor and vinous 
 eloquence, how anxious he was to marry Fritz. 
 
 "What should you say to something like this for 
 your friend Brunner?" cried Pons in Wilhelm's ear: 
 " A charming 3'oung girl, sensible, twenty-four years of 
 age, belonging to a highly distinguished family, — the 
 father occupying a very high position as a magistrate, 
 — a hundred thousand francs for a dot, and expecta- 
 tions of a million ! " 
 
 "Stop!" cried Schwab. "I'll go and speak to 
 Fritz about it at once." 
 
 And the two musicians saw Brunner and his friend 
 promenading up and down before their eyes, listening 
 alternately to each other's remarks. Pons — whose 
 head felt rather heavy, and who, without being abso- 
 lutely drunk, had as much hghtness in his ideas as he 
 had weight in the capsule that contained them — looked 
 at Fritz through the diaphanous cloud exhaled bj^ wine, 
 and chose to see on his countenance the aspirations of 
 married happiness. Schwab shortlj' brought up and 
 presented to Monsieur Pons his friend and partner, who 
 thanked the old gentleman cordially for the interest he 
 deigned to take in him. A conversation followed, in 
 which the two celibates — Pons and Schmucke — cried 
 up marriage, and declared, without malicious meaning, 
 that it was " the end of man." When the ices and 
 
102 Cousin Pons, 
 
 the tea and the punch and the cakes were served in the 
 new appartement of the bride and bridegroom on the 
 ground-floor, the hilarity of* these worth}' people — most 
 of them drunk — rose to its highest pitch when they 
 were informed by Schwab that the head-partner of the 
 new banking-house was about to follow the example of 
 his associate. 
 
 Schmucke and Pons returned home along the boule- 
 vard at two in the morning, philosophizing, till they 
 cracked their brains, on the musical harmony of all 
 things here below. 
 
 On the morrow Pons went to visit his cousin, Madame 
 de Marville, full of the deepest joy at the thought of 
 rendering good for evil. Poor, dear, noble soul ! He 
 did indeed attain to the sublime, as every one will agree 
 because we are now living in an age when they give the 
 Mont3'on prize to those who do their dut}' and follow 
 the precepts of the gospel. '" Ah ! they will feel under 
 immense obligations to their poor relation," he said to 
 himself as he turned the corner of the rue de Choiseul. 
 
 A man less absorbed than Pons in his own satisfac- 
 tion, — a man of the world, a suspicious man, would have 
 taken note of the mother and daughter at his re-entrance 
 into the house. But the poor musician was a mere 
 child, an artist full of simple naivete, unknowing of 
 anything but moral excellence, just as he knew only the 
 beautiful in art. He was delighted with the caresses 
 which Madame de Marville and her daughter bestowed 
 upon him. The worth}' soul, who had seen vaudeville, 
 drama, and comedy played for a dozen years before his 
 eyes, was unable to perceive the grimaces of the social 
 comedy, — to which, perhaps, he had become blunted. 
 
Cousin Pons, 103 
 
 Those who frequent Parisian salons, and who have al- 
 read}- perceived the cold, dry harshness of body and soul 
 in Madame de Marville, — eager only for honors, and 
 enraged at her own virtue, — and who have felt her hy- 
 pocritical piety and the haughtiness of a nature accus- 
 tomed to control ever}' one about her, can well imagine 
 the hidden hatred she felt for her husband's cousin ever 
 since the day when she put herself in the wrong. All her 
 demonstrations of friendship, and those of her daughter, 
 covered a formidable desire for revenge, evidently set 
 aside for the time being. For the first time in her life 
 Amelie de Marville had been openly to blame in the 
 e3'es of the husband over whom she domineered. More- 
 over, she was now compelled to appear cordial to the 
 author of her defeat. There is no analogy to this con- 
 dition of mind except in the rancorous hypocrisies which 
 last for years in the sacred college of cardinals, or in the 
 chapters of religious orders. 
 
 At three o'clock, the hour at which the president 
 came back from the court-room, Pons had scarcelj' fin- 
 ished telling the marvellous tale of his acquaintance with 
 Monsieur Frederic Brunner, of the wedding-feast which 
 lasted till morning, and all else concerning the aforesaid 
 Brunner. Cecile had gone straight to the point bjvin- 
 quiring how Frederic dressed, what sort of figure and 
 style he had, and also the color of his hair and eyes ; 
 and when she had convinced herself that his appearance 
 was distinguished, she admired the generositj' of his 
 character. 
 
 " To give five hundred thousand francs to a friend in 
 misfortune ! Oh, mamma, I shall have a carriage and 
 a box at the opera ! " 
 
104 Cousin Pons, 
 
 As for Madame de Marville, her thoughts were ex- 
 pressed in one sentence. 
 
 *' My dear Httle gh'l, yoxi may be married in a fort- 
 night." 
 
 All mothers call their danghters "little girls" when 
 the}^ are twenty-three years old. 
 
 " But," said the president, "we must have time to 
 make proper inquiries. I will never give my daughter 
 for the asking." 
 
 " As for inquiries," remarked Pons, " Berthier drew 
 up the deeds ; and as to the young man himself, 3'ou 
 remember what 3^ou told me, my dear cousin?" he 
 added, turning to Madame de Marville. " Well, he is 
 over fort}^, and half his head is bald. Pie wants to get 
 a family haven from the storms of life ; and I have not 
 dissuaded him. All tastes are in human nature." 
 
 '' All the more reason to see Monsieur Frederic Brun- 
 ner," said the president. "I don't wish to give my 
 daughter to a valetudinarian." 
 
 " Well, my dear cousin," said Pons, still addressing 
 Madame de Marville, " 3'ou can, if you hke, see and 
 judge of m}^ aspirant ; for, with your views, one inter- 
 view will suffice." 
 
 Cecile and her mother made a gesture of delight. 
 
 '' Frederic, who is quite a distinguished amateur, 
 has begged me to let him see my little collection," con- 
 tinued Cousin Pons. '* You have never seen my pic- 
 tures, my curiosities : come at the same time. You 
 can appear as two ladies brought by my friend 
 Schmucke ; and you can make acquaintance with the 
 intended without being compromised. Frederic shall 
 be kept in ignorance of who you are." 
 
Cousin Pons. 105 
 
 " A very good plan ! " cried the president. 
 
 The consideration now shown to the despised para- 
 site may be imagined. On that day the poor man was 
 Madame de Marville's cousin ; the happy mother, sink- 
 ing her hatred under waves of joy, gave him looks and 
 words and smiles which sent the worthy soul into an 
 ecstasy at the thought of the good he was doing, and 
 the future which he saw opening before him. Should 
 he not find at the Brunners, the Schwabs, the Graffs, 
 just such dinners as the one he had eaten the night be- 
 fore ? He saw a land flowing with milk and honey, and 
 a mai-vellous array of " covered dishes," gastronomic 
 surprises, and exquisite. wines. 
 
 " If our Cousin Pons brings about such a marriage," 
 said the president to his wife, when Pons had departed, 
 *' we ought to give him an annuity equal to his salary as 
 leader of the orchestra." 
 
 " Certainly," answered Madame de Marville. 
 
 Cecile was commissioned, in case she liked the 
 young man, to make the musician accept this ignoble 
 munificence. 
 
 The next day the president, anxious to have authentic 
 proof of Monsieur Frederic Brunner's property, went to 
 see the notary. Berthier, informed of his coming by 
 Madame de Marville, had sent for his new client Schwab, 
 the ex-flute. Dazzled by such a distinguished alliance 
 for his friend (Germans all value social distinctions, for 
 in Germany a woman is called Mrs. General, Mrs. 
 Councillor, Mrs. Advocate), Schwab was as fluent as a 
 collector of bric-a-brac who thinks he is about to trick 
 a dealer. 
 
 " Above all," said the father of Cecile to Brunner's 
 
106 Cousin Pons, 
 
 representative, " as I intend to give my daughter a deed 
 of the estate of Marville, I wish to marr}^ her under the 
 dotal S3'stem. Monsieur Brunner must put a million of 
 francs into land, to increase the Marville property-, and 
 make a real estate settlement which shall secure my 
 daughter and her children from the uncertainties of a 
 bank." 
 
 Berthier stroked his chin, thinking to himself '' the 
 president is doing it handsomely." 
 
 Schwab, after getting the dotal sj'stem fully explained 
 to him, answered heartily for his friend. That clause 
 pledged the very thing he had often heard Fritz desire, 
 and secured him against ever faUing back into povert3\ 
 
 *' There are at this moment about twelve hundred 
 thousand francs' worth of farm and meadow lands for 
 sale," said the president. 
 
 " A million of shares in the Bank of France will be quite 
 sufficient to guarantee us," said Schwab. "Fritz does 
 not wish to put more than two millions into the busi- 
 ness ; he will do what jou wish, Monsieur le president." 
 
 The president made his womenkind almost frantic 
 with delight when they heard his news. Never did so 
 rich a capture fall so readilj" into the conjugal net. 
 
 "You shall be Madame Brunner de Marville," said 
 the father to his daughter. " I shall get your husband 
 to agree to add your name to his, and, later on, he can 
 get letters of naturalization. If I become peer of France 
 he shall succeed me." 
 
 Madame de Marville employed five days in preparing 
 her daughter. On the day of the interview she dressed 
 Cecile with her own hands, equipping her with as much 
 care as the admiral of the blue bestowed upon the 
 
in Pons. 107 
 
 armament of the Queen of England's pleasure-j^acht 
 when she started on her trip to German3\ 
 
 Pons and Schmucke, on their side, cleaned and dusted 
 the museum, the whole appartement, and the furniture, 
 with the agility of sailors swabbing the decks of an 
 admiral's flag-ship. Not a speck of dust was left on 
 the wood-carvings ; all the brasses shone. The glass 
 over the pastels was rubbed clear, and gave to view the 
 works of Latour and Greuze, and Liautard, the illustri- 
 ous painter of the Chocolate-girl, — the gem of this style 
 of painting, whose beauty is, alas ! so fugitive. The in- 
 imitable polish of the Florentine bronzes flashed its 
 rays. The colored glass in the windows glowed with 
 splendid color. Each treasure sparkled in its own 
 place, and uttered its own note to the soul in this con- 
 cert of masterpieces arranged by two musicians, the 
 one as true a poet as the other. 
 
108 Cousin Pons. 
 
 A GERMAN IDEA. 
 
 Clever enough to avoid an entrance upon the as- 
 sembled company, the ladies arrived first and took pos- 
 session of the ground. Pons presented Schraucke to 
 his relations, in whose ejes the worthy German seemed 
 an idiot. The two ignoramuses with their minds full of 
 a bridegroom who was quadruply a millionnaire, paid 
 very httle attention to the art elucidations of Pons. They 
 glanced with careless eyes at the enamels of Petitot, 
 which were spread on the red-velvet ground of three 
 marvellous frames. The flower-pieces of Van Huj'sum 
 and David de Heim, the insects of Abraham Mignon, the 
 Van Eycks, the Albert Diirers, the genuine Cranachs, 
 the Giorgiones, Sebastian del Piorabos, Backhuysens* 
 Hobberaas, and Gericaults, — all those marvels of paint- 
 ing did not even prick their curiositj' ; they were waiting 
 for the sun which was to light up this wealth. The 
 beauty of certain Etruscan jewels and the actual value 
 of the snuff-boxes did, however, surprise them, and they 
 were expressing civil raptures over the Florentine 
 bronzes when Madame Cibot announced Monsieur 
 Brunner. The ladies refrained from turning round, but 
 they took advantage of a superb Venice glass framed in 
 a huge mass of carved ebony, to examine this phoenix 
 of matrimonial aspirants. 
 
Cousin Pons. 109 
 
 Frederic, warned by Willielm, had brushed together 
 his few remaining hairs. He wore a becoming pair of 
 trousers of a soft though dark shade, a silk waistcoat 
 of supreme elegance and the newest cut, a shirt of the 
 finest linen, hemstitched in Holland, and a blue cravat 
 with white lines. His watch-chain came from Florent 
 and Chanor, and so did the knob of his cane. As for 
 his coat, Pere Graff himself had cut it out of his best 
 cloth ; and a pair of gants de suede proclaimed the man 
 who had already squandered the fortune of his mother. 
 From the polish of his varnished boots it was easy to 
 guess at the little coupe and pair of horses standing be- 
 fore the door, even if the ears of the two women had not 
 already heard it rolling along the street. 
 
 When the rake of twenty is the chr3'salis of a banker, 
 he develops at forty into an observer, all the more keen 
 because Brunner had learned the advantage a German 
 can obtain by apparent simpHcity. On this occasion, 
 he put on the reflective air of a man who is making 
 his choice between family life on the one hand and 
 the dissipations of a bachelor on the other. Such an 
 expression in a Gallicized German seemed to Cecile 
 the very height of the romantic. She saw another 
 Werther in the nephew of Virlaz. Where is the young 
 girl who fails to make her own Httle romance out of the 
 history of her marriage? Cecile thought herself the 
 happiest of women when Brunner, examining the rare 
 works of art collected through a period of forty years, 
 grew very enthusiastic, and estimated them for the first 
 time at their real value. 
 
 " He is a poet," thought Mademoiselle de Marville. 
 *' He imagines millions in these things." 
 
110 Cousin Pons, 
 
 Now, a poet is a man who does not calculate, who 
 will leave his wife mistress of his fortune, — a man 
 easy to lead, and to amuse with trifles. 
 
 Every pane of the two windows in the old man's 
 room was of Swiss painted glass, the least valuable of 
 which was worth a thousand francs ; and there were 
 sixteen of such treasures, which amateurs travel in 
 search of now-a-days. In 1815 these panes cost from 
 six to ten francs. The price of the sixt^' pictures 
 contained in this rare collection, all of them pure 
 masterpieces, never retouched and perfectly authentic, 
 could not be ascertained except in the heat of competi- 
 tion. Inclosing each picture was a frame of immense 
 value, showing specimens of every workmanship, — 
 the Venetian frame, with its heavy ornamentation, hke 
 that of the present English silver-ware ; the Roman 
 frame, so remarkable for what artists call the fla-fla ; 
 the Spanish frame, with its bold leafage ; the Flemish 
 and German frames, with their naive figures ; the tor- 
 toise-shell frame, inlaid with pewter, brass, mother-of- 
 pearl, and ivory ; the ebony frame, the box- wood frame, 
 the brass frame, the Louis XIII., Louis XIV., Louis XV., 
 and Louis XVI. frames, — in short a unique collection 
 of the finest models. Pons, more fortunate than the 
 museums of Dresden and Vienna, possessed a frame 
 made by the famous Brustholme, the Michael Angelo 
 of wood-carving. 
 
 Mademoiselle de Marville, very naturally, asked for 
 explanations about each new treasure. She made Brun- 
 ner teach her to understand these marvels ; and she 
 was so artless in her exclamations, she appeared so 
 delighted to hear from Frederic about the value and 
 
Cousin Pons. Ill 
 
 the beauty of the pictures, the carvings, and the 
 bronzes, that the German thawed out, — his face became 
 really youthful. In short, on both sides they went some- 
 what further than was intended at the first interview ; 
 especially one which was held to be accidental. 
 
 The meeting lasted three hours. Brunner offered his 
 hand to Mademoiselle Cecile to assist her down the 
 staircase. As she went down with judicious slowness, 
 Cecile, still conversing on the fine arts, expressed her 
 surprise at the enthusiasm of her admirer for the curios 
 of her cousin Pons. 
 
 " Do 3'ou really think we have just seen a great deal 
 of wealth ? " she asked. 
 
 "Eh! mademoiselle, if vour cousin would only sell 
 me his collection, I would pay him to-night eight hun- 
 dred thousand francs for it ; and I should not be 
 making a bad bargain. The pictures alone would bring 
 more at a public sale." 
 
 "I believe it, if you tell me so," she answered; 
 " and it must be true, because 3'OU care chiefly for such 
 things." 
 
 " Oh, mademoiselle ! " exclaimed Brunner, " m}' sole 
 reply to that reproach is to beg Madame de Marville's 
 permission to call upon her, for the happiness of seeing 
 you again." 
 
 " How clever she is, the little thing!" thought Ma- 
 dame de Marville, who ^as following at the heels of her 
 daughter. " With the greatest pleasure, monsieur," 
 she said aloud. " I hope 3'Ou will come with our Cousin 
 Pons on Monday, at the dinner hour. My husband, 
 the president, will be delighted to make your acquain- 
 tance. Thank you, cousin," she whispered, and she 
 
112 Cousiii Po7is. 
 
 pressed Pons's arm so significant!}^ that the sacramental 
 phrase ' ' we are one for life and death " would scarcely 
 have seemed to him more binding. She actuallj^ em- 
 braced him with the glance which accompanied the 
 words, " Thank 3'ou, cousin." 
 
 After putting the young lad}^ into the glass coach, 
 and watching it till it disappeared round the corner of 
 the rue Chariot, Brunner talked bric-k-brac to Pons, 
 who talked marriage. 
 
 " So 3'ou don't see any objection?" said Pons. 
 
 "Ah!" replied Brunner, "the girl is insignificant, 
 and the mother is rather sharp, — we '11 see about it." 
 
 " There 's a fine fortune to come," remarked Pons ; 
 " over a million." 
 
 "Next Monday, then!" repeated the millionnaire. 
 " If 3^ou are willing to sell your collection, I am ready 
 to give 3'Ou five or six hundred thousand francs for it." 
 
 " Ah ! " cried the old man, who did not know he was 
 so rich. " But I could not part with what makes me 
 happy. I could only sell my collection to be delivered 
 after my death." 
 
 " Well, we will see about it." 
 
 "Two affairs on hand ! " said Pons to himself, though 
 he thought chiefly of the marriage. 
 
 Brunner bowed to Pons and disappeared, carried oflT 
 by his elegant equipage. Pons watched the departure 
 of the little coupe without noticing Remonencq, who 
 was smoking on his threshold. 
 
 The same evening Madame de Marville met all the 
 Popinots at her father-in-law's, having gone to consult 
 him on the subject of the marriage. In her desire to 
 satisfy a small vengeance very natural to the heart of 
 
Cousin Pons. 113 
 
 mothers who have failed to capture a son and heir, 
 Madame de Marville let it be known that Cecile was 
 about to make a splendid marriage. 
 
 *' Who is Cecile going to marry? " went from lip to 
 lip ; and Madame de Marville, not intending to betray 
 herself, gave so many hints, whispered so many confi- 
 dences (which were confirmed, be it said, by Madame 
 Berthier), that on the morrow the tale took the following 
 shape in the bourgeois empyrean, where Pons was once 
 more accomplishing his gastronomic evolutions. 
 
 Cecile de Marville was about, they said, to marry a 
 young German who had made himself a banker out of 
 pure generosit}', for he was worth four millions ; he was a 
 hero of romance, a perfect Werther, charming, kind- 
 hearted, who had sown his wild oats and had fallen dis- 
 tractedly in love with Cecile. It was love at first sight, 
 and all the more marked because when they met she 
 was rivalled by all the painted madonnas collected by 
 her cousin Pons, etc. 
 
 The succeeding day several persons called to congrat- 
 ulate the famil}- , solely to find out if the golden goose 
 reall}' existed ; thereupon Madame de Marville made 
 a series of admirable variations on the theme, which 
 mothers would do well to consult, as in former days 
 they consulted the " Complete Letter- writer." 
 
 '* No marriage is actually made," she said to Madame 
 Chifi'reville, " until we get back from the church and 
 the mairie ; and so far, the matter has scarcelj^ gone be« 
 yond the preliminaries. I depend upon your friendship 
 not to speak of our hopes." 
 
 *' You are most fortunate, madame ; marriages are 
 very difficult to arrange, now-a-days." 
 
 8 
 
114 Cousin Pons, 
 
 *' Ah ! it was all done by accident ; but marriages are 
 often made in that wa3^" 
 
 "So you are really going to marry Cecile?" said 
 Madame Cardot. 
 
 '' Yes," replied Madame de Marville, fully compre- 
 hending the spitefulness of the " realh'." "We are 
 fastidious ; and that has dela3'ed Cecile's marriage. But 
 at last we have found all we wanted, — fortune, amiabil- 
 ity, good character, and good looks. My dear little girl 
 deserves them all. Monsieur Brunner is a charming 
 man, very distinguished ; he loves luxury, he under- 
 stands life, he adores Cecile and loves her sincerely ; 
 and therefore, in spite of his millions, she accepts him. 
 We did not really expect so much, — but such advan- 
 tages are not to be despised." 
 
 "It is not so much the fortune as the affection in- 
 spired by m}^ daughter which has influenced us," she 
 said to Madame Lebas. " Monsieur Brunner is in such 
 hurry that he wants the marriage to take place without 
 any legal delaj^s." 
 
 " He is a stranger — " 
 
 " Yes, madame ; and I frankly admit that I am glad 
 of it. It is not so much a son-in-law as a son tliat 
 I am getting in Monsieur Brunner. His delicacy is 
 reall}' delightful. You can't think with what readi- 
 ness he agreed to marry under the dotal sjstcm. 
 That is a great security for the family. He has bought 
 twelve thousand francs' worth of meadow-lands around 
 Marville." 
 
 Another day there were fresh variations on the same 
 theme. Monsieur Brunner did everything in princely 
 style ; he never counted costs ; if Monsieur de Marville 
 
Cousin Pons. 115 
 
 was able to obtain letters of naturalization for him (and 
 the government clearly owed the president that little 
 bit of patronage) he would in the end become a peer of 
 France. The exact amount of his fortune was not 
 known, but he had the finest horses and equipages in 
 all Paris, etc. 
 
 The pleasure the Camusots took in proclaiming their 
 hopes was proof enough that the triumph was unhoped 
 for. 
 
 Immediate^ after the interview at Cousin Pons's, the 
 president, prompted by his wife, invited the minister of 
 justice, his colleague on the bench, and the procureur- 
 general to dine with him on the day he was to receive this 
 phoenix of sons-in-law. The three great men accepted 
 the invitation, though it was given at short notice ; for 
 each understood the part the father of a family wanted 
 them to play, and they readily came to his assistance. 
 In France, people are always very willing to help the 
 mother of a family in fishing for a rich son-in-law. The 
 Comte and Comtesse Popinot also lent their presence to 
 complete the glory of the occasion, although the invi- 
 tation seemed to them in bad taste. There were, in 
 all, eleven guests. Cecile*s grandfather, old Monsieur 
 Camusot, and his wife, were of course not absent from 
 the dinner, which was intended, through the distin- 
 guished position of the guests, to definitel}^ commit 
 Monsieur Brunner, — announced, as we have seen, as 
 one of the richest capitalists in all Germany, a man of 
 great taste (for he loved the " little girl "), and the future 
 rival of the Nucingens, Kellers, and du Tillets. 
 
 "It is our family da}'," said Madame de Marville, 
 with well-studied simplicity, to the individual she looked 
 
116 Cousin Pons. 
 
 upon as her son-in-law, as she told him who the other 
 guests were to be. " None but our intimates will be 
 here. First, the father of m3^ husband, who has been 
 promised, as you know, a peerage ; then Monsieur le 
 comte and Madame la comtesse Popinot, whose son was 
 not rich enough for Cecile, — but we are not the less good 
 friends ; the minister of justice, m}' husband's colleague 
 on the bench, and the procureur-general ; in short, 
 all our friends. We shall be obliged to dine a little 
 later than usual, because of the Chamber, which is 
 never up till six o'clock." 
 
 Brunner looked significantl}^ at Pons, and Pons 
 rubbed his hands, as if to say, " Such are our friends — 
 m}' friends ! " 
 
 Madame de Marville, clever manager that she was, 
 had something special to sa}" to her cousin, so as to 
 leave Cecile tete-k-tete for a moment with her Werther. 
 Cecile chattered a good deal, and managed to let Fre- 
 deric see a German dictionar}-, a German grammar, and 
 a Goethe, which she had hidden. 
 
 ''Ah! you are studjing German?" said Brunner, 
 coloring. 
 
 None but a French woman la3'S such a trap. 
 
 " Oh ! " she exclaimed, " how malicious you are ! It 
 is not fair, monsieur, to spy into m}^ secret places. I 
 do wish to read Goethe in the original," she added ; "I 
 have studied German for the last two years." 
 
 " You must find the grammar verj^hard to understand ; 
 I see you have only cut ten pages," remarked Brunner, 
 naively. 
 
 Cecile, confused, turned aside to conceal her blushes. 
 A German never resists that sort of demonstration ; he 
 
Cousin Pons. 117 
 
 took Cecile by the hand and looked at her, as the be- 
 trothed in the novels of Auguste Lafontaine, of modest 
 memory, may have looked at each other. 
 
 '' You are angelic ! " he said. 
 
 Cecile made a coquettish little gesture, as if to say, 
 "Ah, and you! — who would not love you?" Then 
 she whispered in her mother's ear, as the latter returned 
 with Pons, " Mamma, all goes well ! " 
 
 The aspect of a family at such a crisis is not to be 
 described. All the guests were glad to see a mother 
 lay hold of a good match. They congratulated with 
 ambiguous words and double-barrelled meaning first the 
 lover, who pretended not to understand them, then 
 Cecile, who understood everything, and also Madame de 
 Marville, who went about collecting compliments. Every 
 drop of Pons's blood rang in his ears, and he fancied he 
 saw the footlights of his own theatre when Cecile, in a 
 low voice and with ingenuous diffidence, told him of 
 her father's intentions as to the annuity of twelve hun- 
 dred francs, — a benefaction which the old artist posi- 
 tivety declined, giving as a reason the revelation which 
 Brunner had made to him of the real value of his 
 collection. 
 
 The minister, the chief-justice, the procureur-general, 
 and the Popinots departed, leaving none but old Mon- 
 sieur Camusot, and Monsieur Cardot the former notary, 
 assisted by his son-in-law Berthier. The worthy Pons, 
 feeling that it was now a family party, thanked Monsieur 
 and Madame de Marville very awkwardly for the offer 
 which Cecile had just made to him. Simple-hearted 
 being ! such men are all alike, and follow their first 
 impulse. Brunner, who saw a b ribe m the offer, began, 
 
 UKIVERSITi: 
 
118 Cousin Pons, 
 
 like a true Israelite, to feel suspicious, and assumed & 
 cold, reflective, calculating manner. 
 
 " My collection, or its value, will one da}^ belong to 
 your family, whether I sell it now to my friend Brunner 
 or whether I keep it," said Pons, revealing to the 
 astounded family that he possessed articles of great 
 value. 
 
 Brunner observed the revulsion of feeling shown by 
 these ignorant people towards a man who thus passed 
 from a state of indigence to one of wealth, just as he 
 had alread}^ observed the indulgent petting which the 
 father and mother bestowed upon Cecile, the idol of 
 their house ; and he took a sudden fanc}^ to excite the 
 amazement and the exclamations of these respectable 
 bourgeois to a still higher pitch. " I told Mademoiselle 
 that the pictures of Monsieur Pons were worth a certain 
 sum to me ; but at the price now given for such unique 
 works of art, no one can foresee how high the value of 
 the collection might prove to be, if it were offered at 
 public sale. The sixty pictures alone would bring a 
 million. I saw several among them worth fifty thou- 
 sand francs." 
 
 " It is a good thing to be your heir," said the former 
 notar}' to Pons. 
 
 ••' Wy heir will be my cousin Cecile," said the worthy 
 man, clinging to the relationship. 
 
 A murmur of admiration for the old musician ran 
 through the room. 
 
 " She will be a rich heiress," said Cardot, laughing, 
 as he took leave. 
 
 Old Camusot, the president and his wife, Cecile, 
 Brunner, Pons, and Berthier were thus left together ; 
 
Cousin Pons. 119 
 
 for it was supposed by all parties that the formal 
 demand for the hand of Cecile would now be , made ; 
 and no sooner were they left alone than Brunner put 
 what the parents took to be a leading question. 
 
 " I am led to believe," said Brunner, addressing 
 Madame de Marville, "that Mademoiselle is an only 
 daughter?" 
 
 " Most certainly," she answered, with pride. 
 
 " You will find no difficulties whatever," said Pons, 
 intending to bring Brunner at once to the point. 
 
 Brunner became thoughtful, and a fatal silence spread 
 a cold chill through the room ; if Madame de Marville 
 had proclaimed her daughter an epileptic, the effect 
 could not have been more extraordinar3\ The presi- 
 dent, feeling that his daughter ought not to be present, 
 made her a sign, which Cecile understood ; she left the 
 room. Brunner remained silent. The others looked 
 at each other. The situation became embarrassing. 
 Old Camusot, who was a man of experience, led the 
 German into Madame de Marville's bedroom, under 
 pretence of showing him the fan which Pons had dis- 
 covered. Judging that some difficulty had arisen in 
 Brunner's mind, he made a sign to his son and his 
 daughter-in-law and Pons to leave them alone together. 
 
 " Here is the little masterpiece," said the old silk- 
 mercer, displaying the fan. 
 
 "It is worth at least five thousand francs," said 
 Brunner, after examining it. 
 
 " I think 3^ou came, monsieur, to ask the hand of 
 my granddaughter? " said the future peer of France. 
 
 " Yes, monsieur," said Brunner ; " and I beg 3'ou to 
 believe that no alliance could be more flattering to me. 
 
120 Cousin Pons, 
 
 I shall never find a young lady more lovelj', more 
 amiable, and who would suit me better than Mademoi- 
 selle Cecile ; but — " 
 
 " Ah, there must be no buts ! " exclaimed old Camu- 
 sot; " or, at least, let me know at once thev reason of 
 them, my dear sir." 
 
 " Monsieur," saidBrunner, gravety, " I am very glad 
 that no promises have been made on either side ; for 
 the fact of her being an only daughter — a fact so de- 
 sirable for all men except myself, and of which I was in 
 total ignorance — is to me an insuperable objection." 
 
 "Is it possible, monsieur," said the old man, dumb- 
 founded, " that so great an advantage should seem to 
 you a defect? Your conduct is most extraordinarj^, 
 and I wish to know your reasons for it." 
 
 " Monsieur," said the German, stolidly, " I came 
 liere tiiis evening with the intention of asking the presi- 
 dent for his daughter's hand. I wished to offer Made- 
 moiselle Cecile a brilliant future and so much of my 
 fortune as she would deign to accept; but an only 
 daughter is a spoiled child, whose parents have indulged 
 her in having her own way, and who has never known 
 opposition. I see here what I have seen in other fami- 
 lies where they idolize this kind of divinit}^ Your 
 granddaughter is not only the idol of the house ; her 
 mother, Madame de Marville, wears the — 3'ou know 
 what I mean ! Monsieur, I saw my father's home 
 turned into a hell for just this reason. My step- 
 mother, the cause of all my troubles, was an only 
 daughter, idolized by her parents, the most charming 
 of brides ; and yet she became a devil incarnate. I 
 have no doubt that Mademoiselle Cecile is an exception 
 
Cousin Pons. 121 
 
 to the rule ; but I am no longer a young man ; I am 
 forty 3'ears old, — and this difference between our ages 
 will occasion a separation of interests which will pre- 
 vent me from making the happiness of any young lady 
 who is accustomed to see her mother do as she likes, 
 and to whom that mother listens as if to an oracle. 
 What right have I to ask Mademoiselle Cecile to change 
 all her habits and ideas for me ? Instead of a father 
 and mother indulgent to her smallest caprices, she would 
 encounter the selfishness of a middle-aged man. If she 
 resisted, the vanquished party would be the middle-aged 
 man. I therefore behave like a man of honor ; I with- 
 draw. But I wish to take all the blame of this rupture 
 upon myself; and if it is necessary to explain why I have 
 onl}^ paid one visit here — " 
 
 " If these are your reasons, monsieur,'* said Mon- 
 sieur Camusot, '' however singular they may be, they 
 are certainly plausible." 
 
 " Monsieur, do not doubt my sincerity," said Brun- 
 ner, interrupting him eagerly. ''If you will find me 
 some poor girl, one of a large family of children, with- 
 out fortune, — of which there are so man}^ in France, 
 — I will marry her, if her character is such as to 
 justify my doing so." 
 
 During the silence which followed this speech Frederic 
 Brunner left the grandfather, went back into the salon, 
 where he bowed politely to the father and mother, and 
 withdrew. Cecile reappeared, a living commentary 
 upon the escape of her Werther, and as pale as death ; 
 she had heard ever}^ word from her mother's wardrobe, 
 where she had hid herself 
 
 '•Refused!" she whispered to her mother. 
 
122 Cousin Pons. 
 
 "And why?" demanded Madame de Marville, ad- 
 dressing the perplexed grandfather. 
 
 ' ' On the fine pretence that an only child is sure to be 
 a spoilt one," he answered. " And he is not altogether 
 wrong," added the old man, seizing the occasion to 
 cast blame upon his daughter-in-law, who had been 
 a thorn in his side for the last twenty years. 
 
 "My daughter will die of it! — You have killed 
 her ! " said Madame de Marville to Pons, supporting 
 Cecile, who thought it becoming to justify the words by 
 sinking into her mother's arms. 
 
 The president and his wife carried Cecile to a sofa, 
 where she finally fainted away. The grandfather rang 
 for the servants. 
 
Cousin Pons, 123 
 
 XI. 
 
 PONS BURIED UNDER GRAVEL. 
 
 ''I SEE the plot he has hatched," said the angry 
 mother, pointing to Pons. 
 
 Pons started up as if the last trump were sounding in 
 his ears. 
 
 " He was determined," continued Madame de Mar- 
 ville, whose eyes were like two fountains of green bile, 
 " to repay a harmless joke b}^ an insult. Who will ever 
 believe that this German is in his right senses ? Either 
 he is the accomplice of an atrocious revenge, or he is 
 crazy. I hope, Monsieur Pons, that in future you will 
 spare us the annoyance of seeing 5^ou in this house, to 
 which 3'ou have tried to bring shame and dishonor." 
 
 Pons, turned to stone, stood with his eyes on a pat- 
 tern of the carpet, twirling his thumbs. 
 I ''What! are you still there? — monster of ingrati- 
 tude ! " cried the furious woman, turning round. " We 
 'are never at home, neither j'our master nor I," she 
 added, addressing the servants, " when Monsieur Pons 
 calls again. Go and fetch the doctor, Jean. And you, 
 Madeleine, get some hartshorn." 
 
 To Madame de Marville's mind the reason alleged by 
 Brunner was a mere pretext to hide some hidden mo- 
 itive ; but the breaking off of the marriage was onl}^ the 
 more certain. With the rapidit}^ of thought which is 
 
124 Cousin Pons, 
 
 characteristic of women under extreme circumstances, 
 she saw that the only way to repair the damage of such 
 a defeat was to call it a premeditated vengeance on the 
 part of Pons. This infernal scheme, if attributed to 
 him, would redeem the honor of the family. True to 
 her hatred of the old man, she turned a mere female sus- 
 picion into a fact. Women, as a general thing, have a 
 particular creed and morality of their own ; they believe 
 in the truth of all that serves their interests and their 
 passions. Madame de Marville went further still : she 
 spent the evening in persuading the president to believe 
 as she did ; and by the next morning he was fuWy con- 
 vinced of his cousin's guilt. Every one will think Ma- 
 dame de Marville's conduct horrible ; yet man}^ a mother 
 would do the same under the like circumstances, — they 
 would all rather sacrifice the honor of a stranger than 
 that of a daughter. Metliods maj^ change, the inten- 
 tion will be the same. 
 
 The old musician left the house hastily ; but his step 
 was slow along the boulevards, and he entered the theatre 
 mechanically. Between the acts he answered Schmucke 
 in such a vague manner that the latter hid his fears, 
 thinking that Pons was out of his mind. To a nature 
 so childlike as that of Pons, the scene which had just oc- 
 curred took the proportions of a catastrophe. To have 
 roused such horrible hatred where he had meant to be- 
 stow happiness, was the total overthrow of his existence. 
 He felt in the ejxs, the gestures, the voice of Madame 
 de Marville an implacable enmity. 
 
 The next day Madame Camusot de Mar-sdlle reached 
 a great determination, exacted by circumstances, and 
 assented to by the president. They resolved to give 
 
Cousin Pons. 125 
 
 Cecile the Marville estate as a dot^ with the hotel in the 
 rue de Hanovre, and a hundred thousand francs. In 
 the course of the morning, Madame de Marville went to 
 call on the Comtesse Popinot, perceiving plainly that 
 the only way to cover up such a defeat was by an imme- 
 diate marriage. She related the shocking vengeance 
 and the frightful deception perpetrated by Pons. Tlie 
 story seemed plausible to the Popinots as soon as they 
 heard tliat the reason given for the rupture was the 
 singular objection to an only daughter. Madame de 
 Marville dwelt on the brilliant advantage of being called 
 Popinot de Marville, and the immense amount of the 
 dot. Even at the price of land in Normand}^ where it 
 brings in only two per cent, the estate was worth about 
 nine hundred thousand francs, and the hotel in the rue 
 de Hanovre was valued at two hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand more. No reasonable family could decline such 
 an alliance ; the Comte and Comtesse Popinot accord- 
 ingl}' accepted it. Then, as they were now concerned 
 in the honor of the familj' into which they wei-e about 
 to marry, the}" promised their concurrence in explaining 
 the catastrophe of the previous evening. 
 
 Soon after, at the house of the same old Camusot, 
 grandfather of Cecile, and in presence of the same per- 
 sons before whom, a few days earlier, Madame de Mar- 
 ville had chanted the Brunner-litan}^, the same woman, 
 whom no one dared to contradict, bravely took the lead 
 in explanations. 
 
 " Really, in these daj^s," she said, " 3"0U can't take 
 too many precautions in arranging a marriage, — above 
 all, when jo\i have to do with foreigners." 
 
 " Why so, madame? " 
 
126 Cousin Pons, 
 
 "What has happened?" inquired Madame Chiffre- 
 ville. 
 
 " Did you not hear of our adventure with that Brun- 
 ner, who had the audacity to aspire to Cecile? He 
 turns out to be the son of a German eating-house 
 keeper! the nephew of a man who sells rabbit- 
 skins ! " 
 
 ''Is it possible? And you so cautious ! " said a lady. 
 
 "These adventurers are so clever! But Berthier 
 discovered the plot. This German has a friend, — a 
 poor devil who plays the flute ; he is connected with 
 a man who keeps a common lodging-house in the rue 
 de Mail, and with some tailors — actually tailors ! We 
 are told he has led a most debauched life, and that no 
 fortune is safe in hm hands. He has alreadj^ squan- 
 dered that of his mother." 
 
 " Mademoiselle would have been ver}^ unhappy," re- 
 marked Madame Berthier. 
 
 " How did 3'ou happen to meet him? " inquired old 
 Madame Lebas. 
 
 " It was a piece of revenge on the part of Monsieur 
 Pons. He introduced this fine friend of his simply to 
 overwhelm us with ridicule. This Brunner (the name 
 means ' fountain ; ' but he claimed to be a great lord) 
 is in poor health, bald, and has bad teeth ! To see him 
 once was enough for me." 
 
 " But the great fortune which 3'ou mentioned?" said 
 a young woman, timidly. 
 
 " The fortune is not as large as they said it was. 
 The tailor, the lodging-house man, and Brunner him- 
 self have scraped together all they possess to start a 
 banking-house. What is a banking-house when it first 
 
Cousin Pons, 127 
 
 starts ? A mere opportunity for ruin ! A woman who 
 goes to bed a millionnaire may wake up reduced to live 
 on her own dot ! At the first look, the first word of the 
 man, — who knows nothing of the customs of good 
 society, — we made up our minds about him. You can 
 see by his gloves, his very waistcoat, that he is nothing 
 better than a workman, — the son of a German who 
 keeps a low cook-shop, without honorable feelings, a 
 beer-drinker, and who smokes — ah, madame, fancy ! 
 — twenty-five pipes a da}' ! What a fate for m}' poor 
 Lili ! I still shudder at it ! But God saved us. More- 
 over, Cecile did not like the man. How could we have 
 suspected such a scheme on the part of a relation, a 
 constant visitor at the house ? — a man who has dined 
 with us at least twice a week for twenty years, whom 
 we have loaded with benefits, and who kept up the farce 
 so audaciously that h© actually announced before the 
 keeper of the seals, the chief-justice, and the jorocwrewr- 
 general that he meant to make Cecile his heir ! This 
 Brunner and Monsieur Pons were in league to make 
 each other out worth millions. Ah, I assure you, 
 ladies, that you would all of 3'ou have been taken in 
 by this deception, — planned, as it was, by artists." 
 
 In a short time the united families of Popinot and 
 Camusot and their adherents had won an easy victor}^ 
 before the world, — where no one took up the cudgels 
 for poor Pons, the parasite, the dissembler, the miser ; 
 the false-hearted being, sunk beneath contempt, re- 
 garded as a viper, warmed in the bosom of families 
 only to sting them ; a man of extraordinary malicious- 
 ness, a dangerous buflToon to be forgotten as soon as 
 possible. 
 
128 Cousin Pons, 
 
 A month after the rejection of the false Werther, 
 poor Pons, leaving his bed, where he had been 13'ing a 
 prey to nervous fever, walked slovvlv along the boule- 
 vards in the sun, leaning upon the arm of his faithful 
 Schmucke. People sitting on the boulevard du Temple 
 no longer laughed at the two Nut-crackers, when they 
 saw the decrepit gait of one and the touching solicitude 
 shown by the other for his convalescent friend. Bv the 
 time the}^ reached the boulevard Poissonniere Pons had 
 recovered a little color, as he breathed the atmosphere 
 of the boulevards with its stimulating properties ; for 
 wherever a crowd congregates the air is so life-giving 
 that even in the filthy Ghetto at Rome, swarming with 
 Jews, malaria is never known. Perhaps, too, the sight 
 of all that once gave him daily pleasure — the grand 
 drama of Paris — ma}" have had its effect upon the in- 
 valid's mind. In front of the Theatre des Varietes 
 Pons left Schmucke, with whom he had been walk- 
 ing arm in arm, except at moments when the con- 
 valescent quitted his friend to examine some novelty 
 newl}" exhibited in a shop-window. He came suddenly 
 face to face with Comte Popinot, and advanced to 
 meet him with much respect ; for the former minister 
 was one of the men whom Pons chiefly esteemed and 
 venerated. 
 
 " Monsieur," said the peer of France, severely, " I 
 wonder you have so little tact as to bow to a person 
 who is allied to the familj' you have attempted to cover 
 with shame and mortification bj' a revenge which none 
 but an artist could have concocted. Remember, mon- 
 sieur, that from this day forth you and I are completely 
 strangers to one another. Madame la comtesse Popinot 
 
Cousin Pons, 129 
 
 shares the indignation with which the world regards 
 3-our conduct to the Marviiles." 
 
 The count passed on, leaving Pons struck down as if 
 b}' lightning. Never do the passions of men, nor jus- 
 tice, nor political necessit}^, nor the great social forces 
 of the world, consider the inward state of the being 
 whom they strike. The statesman, driven by family" 
 interests to crush the poor old man, had not observed 
 the physical weakness of that redoubtable enemy. 
 
 "Vat ees der madder, mein boor frent?" cried 
 Schmucke, growing as pale as Pons himself. 
 
 " Another stab in the heart," said the old man, sup- 
 porting himself on Schmucke's arm. " Perhaps none 
 but the good God has the right to do good ; and that 's 
 why those who meddle with his work are so cruelly 
 punished." 
 
 This artist's sarcasm was a mighty effort on the part 
 of the excellent creature, who wanted to chase awa}' the 
 terror he saw on his friend's face. 
 
 " I dink zo," answered Schmucke, simply. 
 
 The whole thing was incomprehensible to Pons, to 
 whom neither the Camusots nor the Popinots had sent 
 a billet defaire part of Cecile's marriage. On the bou- 
 levard des Italiens, Pons saw Monsieur Cardot coming 
 towards him. Warned by the allocution of Comte Po- 
 pinot, he took care not to stop a man with whom he 
 formerly dined every fortnight, and merely bowed to 
 him ; but Cardot, a mayor and deputy, looked at him 
 indignantly and did not return the salutation. 
 
 '^ Go and ask him what it is they have against me," 
 said the old man to Schmucke, who knew the details of 
 the catastrophe that had happened to Pons. 
 
 9 
 
130 Cousin Pons. 
 
 ** Monsir," said Schmucke to Cardot, diplomaticalty, 
 " my frent Bons ees regovering from an eelness, and 
 zo, perhaps, 3'ou gan not regogoize heem." 
 
 " I recognize him perfectly." 
 
 " Denn, vat haf you all accainst heems? " 
 
 " Your friend is a monster of ingratitude ; if he re- 
 covers, it is because, as the proverb says, ' ill weeds live 
 in spite of everything/ The world has good reason to 
 distrust artists ; they are as malicious and spiteful as 
 monkeys. Your friend endeavored to degrade his own 
 family and to destroy the reputation of a young girl, 
 merely to revenge a harmless jest. I will not hold the 
 slightest communication with him ; I shall try to forget 
 that I ever knew him, — that he even exists. These 
 sentiments, monsieur, are those of my familj^, of his, 
 and of all persons who former!}' did monsieur the honor 
 to receive him in their houses." 
 
 " Pud, monsir, you are ein reazonaple mann ; zo vill 
 3^ou bermid me to egsblain der madder for you ? *' 
 
 "Remain his friend yourself, monsieur, if you can 
 still find it in your heart to do so," answered Cardot ; 
 " but go no further, for I warn 3'ou that I shall include 
 in the same condemnation all persons who attempt to 
 justify his conduct." 
 
 ' ' I gan joustivy heems ! " 
 
 " His conduct is unjustifiable, indefensible." 
 
 The deput}' of tlie Seine passed on without allowing 
 himself to hear another word. 
 
 " The two legislative powers are against me," said 
 poor Pons, smiling, when Schmucke related these sav- 
 age denunciations. 
 
 " Eferyding ees accainst us," answered Schmucke, 
 
Cousin Pons. 131 
 
 monrnfulh'. *' Led us go home ; zo vill ve meet no 
 more vools." 
 
 It was the first time in his docile, lamb-like existence 
 that Schmucke used such language. Never had his 
 half-divine meekness been so ruffled. He would have 
 smiled at any ill usage of himself, but to stand by and 
 see it showered on his glorious Pons, — that unrecog- 
 nized Aristidesj that modest genius, that soul without 
 bitterness, that treasure of loving-kindness, that heart 
 of pure gold ! He felt the wrath of an Alceste, and he 
 called the detractors of Pons "fools." In his placid 
 nature such emotion was equivalent to the mad furies of 
 Roland. With wise precaution, Schmucke drew Pons 
 toward the boulevard du Temple, and Pons allowed 
 himself to be led, for the sick soul was in the condition 
 of a wrestler who can no longer count the blows. Fate, 
 however, willed that nothing within the range of his 
 little world should be lacking to the calamity of the poor 
 musician. The avalanche that rolled over him was to 
 contain every element of destruction, — the chamber of 
 peers, the chamber of deputies, relations, strangers, the 
 strong, the weak, and the innocent ! 
 
 As they returned along the boulevard Poisonniere, 
 Pons saw the daughter of this same Monsieur Cardot, 
 a young woman who had gone through enough trouble 
 of her own to make her merciful. Guilty of misconduct 
 supposed to be kept secret, she had since made herself 
 the slave of her husband. She was the only lad}' in the 
 houses where Pons dined whom he ventured to address 
 by her Christian name: he called her " Fehcie," and 
 sometimes fancied that she really understood his nature. 
 The gentle creature seemed annoyed at meeting her 
 
( 
 
 132 Cousin Pons, 
 
 Cousin Pons (the title was alwa3-s given to him, although 
 he held no real relationship to the family of the second 
 wife of his cousin, old Camusot) ; but as it was now 
 impossible to avoid him, Felicie Berthier stopped short 
 before the miserable man. 
 
 " I did not think a^ou wicked, cousin," she said, " but 
 if a quarter of what I hear is true, 3^ou are a base man. 
 Oh ! don't defend yourself," she added, hastily, seeing 
 that Pons made a gesture to that effect ; '' it is useless 
 for two reasons : first, I have no right to accuse or to 
 judge or to condemn an}^ one,. knowing by mj'self that 
 those who seem most to blame have many excuses to 
 offer ; secondly, because your defence can do no good. 
 Monsieur Berthier, who has drawn the marriage con- 
 tract between Mademoiselle de Marville and the 
 Vicomte Popinot, is so irritated against 3'ou that he 
 would be ver}^ angry if he knew I had said a single 
 word to 3'ou, though for the last time. Ever3" one 
 is against 3'ou." 
 
 " I see it only too well, madame," answered the poor 
 old man in a broken voice, bowing respectfullj- to the 
 notar3''s wife. 
 
 He resumed his painful walk, leaning so heavil3' on 
 Schmucke's arm as to betray to the old German his ph3'- 
 sical faintness, though it was bravel3' controlled. This 
 third encounter was like the judgment of the lamb lying 
 at the feet of God. The wrath of that angel of the poor, 
 that symbol of the peoples, shuts the portals of heaven. 
 The two friends reached home without exchanging a 
 word. In certain circumstances of life we can bear no 
 more than to feel a friend at our side. Spoken conso- 
 lation irritates the wound and reveals its depth. The 
 
Cousin Pons, 133 
 
 old pianist had, as we see, the genius of friendship, the 
 delicac}' of those who, having suffered, know the needs 
 of suffering. 
 
 This walk was to be the last ever taken hy the worthy 
 Pons. He went from one illness to another. Naturally 
 of a bilious-sanguine temperament, the bile now passed 
 into his blood, and he was seized with violent inflamma- 
 tion of the liver. These successive attacks being the 
 only illnesses of his life, he knew no doctbr ; and Ma- 
 dame Cibot, with an intention that was excellent in the 
 first instance and even maternal, called in the doctor of 
 the neighborhood. In every " quarter" of Paris there 
 is a doctor whose name and residence are unknown to 
 any but the lower classes. This physician, who takes 
 care of the women in childbirth and bleeds the neighbor- 
 hood, is to his profession what the servant-of-all-work 
 is in domestic service. Compelled to be good to the 
 poor, and sufficiently expert by reason of long practice, 
 he is universally beloved. Doctor Poulain, brought to 
 the sick man by Madame Cibot and recognized by 
 Schmucke, listened, without much heed, to the com- 
 plaints of the old musician, who had passed the night 
 in scratching his skin, which had become insensible to 
 the touch. The state of the eyes, suffused with yellow, 
 was in keeping with this sj'mptom. 
 
 ' ' You have had some violent grief within a day or 
 two ? " said the doctor to his patient. 
 
 " Alas ! yes," answered Pons. 
 
 " You have the disease which monsieur, here, only 
 just escaped," said the doctor, pointing to Schmucke, 
 *' the jaundice. But it won't amount to anything," he 
 added, writing a prescription. 
 
/ 
 
 134 Cousin Pons, 
 
 In spite of these consoling words, the doctor gave the 
 sick man one of those keen scientific glances in which 
 the sentence of death, concealed b}' customary compas- 
 sion, is guessed by those who are interested in knowing 
 the truth. Madame Cibot darted an inquiring \o6k into 
 the physician's eyes, and was not misled by the tone of 
 the professional words, nor by the deceptive expression 
 of Doctor Poulain's face, and she followed him when he 
 left the room. 
 
 " Do 3*ou really think it will be nothing?" she said 
 to him on the landing. 
 
 '' My dear Madame Cibot, your gentleman is a dead 
 man ; not because the bile has got into his blood, but 
 because of a moral break-down. Still, with a great deal 
 of care the patient may pull through. He must be taken 
 away from here ; he ought to travel — " 
 
 ''And who'll pay for it?" said the woman. "He 
 has n'fc got no means but his salary ; and his friend lives 
 on a bit of an annuity some great ladies give him, — 
 charitable ladies, to whom I dare sa}^ he did some ser- 
 vice. The}^ ain't nothing but babes, them two ; I 've 
 taken care of 'em for nine years." 
 
 "I have spent my life in seeing people die, not of 
 thei4' illnesses, but of that great and incurable disease, 
 the want of mone}'. There 's man}^ a garret where, so 
 far from getting paid for my visit, I am obliged to leave 
 a five-franc piece on the table." 
 
 " Poor dear Monsieur Poulain ! " said Madame Cibot. 
 " Ah! if 30u'd only got the income of some o' them 
 skinflints in this very quarter, who ain't nothing better 
 nor devils let loose, you'd be the very image of the 
 good God on earth." 
 
Cousin Pons, 135 
 
 The doctor, who owed to the good-will and confidence 
 of the concierges of his arrondissement the little prac- 
 tice which scarcely sufficed to feed him, raised his e3'es 
 to heaven and thanked Madame Cibot with a grimace 
 worthy of Tartu fe. 
 
 " Then 30U think, dear Monsieur Poulain, that with 
 a great deal o' care our dear patient may get over it?" 
 
 " Yes, if his moral system is not too much pulled 
 down by his trouble." 
 
 "Poor man! what can have troubled him? There 
 ain't no better man. He hain't got his equal on earth, 
 except his friend. Monsieur Schmucke. I'll find out 
 what 's upset him ; and I '11 make 'em wince, whoever 
 the}" be, that have worried my gentleman." 
 
 " Listen to me, my dear Madame Cibot," said the 
 doctor, after he reached the porte-cochere. " One of 
 the chief symptons of the disease your gentleman has 
 got is constant anxiety about mere nothings ; and as 
 it is not likely that he can afford a nurse, you will have 
 to take care of him ; therefore — " 
 
 "Is it of Monsieur Pons that you are speaking?" 
 asked the dealer in old iron-work, who was smoking 
 his pipe ; and as he spoke he looked round his door- 
 post to join in the conversation. 
 
 " Yes, Papa Remonencq," replied Madame Cibot. 
 
 " Well, then ! he is richer than Monsieur Monistrol 
 himself," said the Auvergnat, " and all the other curi- 
 osity men. I know enough about the trade to tell you 
 the dear man has got treasures." 
 
 " Goodness ! I thought you were making fun of me 
 the other day when I showed 3'ou them antiquities while 
 my gentlemen were out," said Madame Cibot. 
 
136 Cousin Pons, 
 
 In Paris, where the pavements have ears and the 
 doors a tongue and window-shutters eyes, there is 
 nothing more dangerous than to talk in a porte-cochere. 
 The last words exchanged there, like the postscript to 
 a letter, often contain revelations as dangerous for those 
 who let them be heard as for those who hear them. A 
 single example will suffice to corroborate the case which 
 presently appears in our history. 
 
Cousin Pons. 137 
 
 XII. 
 
 **l'OR est UN CHIMERE." — WORDS BY SCRIBE, MUSIC 
 BY MEYERBEER, SCENERY BY REMONENCQ. 
 
 One of the chief hair-dressers in the da3^s of the Em- 
 pire — a period at wliich men bestowed much care upon 
 their heads — came early one morning out of a house 
 where he had been dressing the hair of a prettj- woman. 
 In that house he had the custom of all the rich ten- 
 ants ; among them flourished an old bachelor, protected 
 b}^ a housekeeper who detested '* her gentleman's '* 
 heirs. The ci-devant young man fell seriousl^' ill, and 
 a consultation of all the famous doctors (not as yet 
 dubbed "princes of science") was called in. These 
 doctors, leaving the house accidentally at the same 
 time as the hair-dresser, and stopping to bid each other 
 good-by at the front door, were talking truth and sci- 
 ence with the freedom they display among themselves 
 when the consultation farce is over. 
 
 " He is a dead man," said Doctor Haudry. 
 
 " He has n't a month to live," replied Desplein, " un- 
 less, indeed, by a miracle." 
 
 The hair-dresser heatd the words. Like all hair-dress- 
 ers he had an understanding with the servants. Impelled 
 by iniquitous cupidit3% he ran back to the old bachelor's 
 appartement, and offered the housekeeper a large pre- 
 
138 Cousin Pons, 
 
 mium if she would persuade the sick man to invest the 
 greater part of his fortune in an annuity. The chief 
 item of the fortune of the dying man, who was fifty-six 
 years old, and seemed nearl}- twice that age by reason 
 of his dissipations, was a magnificent house in the rue 
 Richelieu, worth at this time about two hundred and 
 fi'fty thousand francs. This house, greatly coveted b}' 
 the hair-dresser, was, through the persuasions of the 
 housekeeper, made over to him for an annuity of thirty 
 thousand francs. All this took place in 1806. The 
 hair-dresser, long since retired from business, is now a 
 man of seventy, and is still paying, in 1846, the annuity 
 granted fort}' jears ago. As the ci-devant 3'oung man 
 is now ninety-six, quite childish, and married to his 
 housekeeper, he may last some time longer. The hair- 
 dresser, having paid the woman thirty thousand francs 
 bonus, finds that this piece of landed propertj^ has cost 
 him over a million. However, the house to-day is worth 
 from eight to nine hundred thousand francs. 
 
 In imitation of the hair-dresser, Remonencq had over- 
 heard the last words said b^' Brunner to Pons on the 
 steps of his door, the day that phoenix-lover was pre- 
 sented to Cecile. He therefore longed to penetrate into 
 the old man's museum. Remonencq, who Uved on good 
 terms with Madame Cibot, was soon admitted into the 
 appartement of the two friends while they were out of 
 the way. Dazzled by such treasures, he saw a coup a 
 raonter^ — which means in dealer's slang, a fortune to 
 steal, — and he turned the project over and over in his 
 mind for five or six days. 
 
 "I wasn't joking," he said to Madame Cibot and 
 the doctor. "Let us talk the matter over, and if the 
 
Cousin Pons. 139 
 
 good gentleman would like an annuity of fifty thousand 
 francs, I '11 go a hamper of wine if you. — " 
 
 "What are yow dreaming of?" said the doctor to 
 Remonencq. " Fifty thousand francs annuity! Wh}^ 
 if the good man is as rich as that, and is doctored by 
 me and cared for by Madame Cibot, he may get well ; 
 liver-complaints are the sign of a good constitution." 
 
 " Did I say fifty? Why, a gentleman, on those very 
 steps that 3'ou are standing on, proposed to pay him a 
 hundred and fifty thousand francs for the pictures alone, 
 damn it ! " 
 
 Hearing this assertion, Madame Cibot looked at the 
 doctor with a strange expression ; the devil lit up sinis- 
 ter fires in her orange-colored eyes. 
 
 "Come, come! don't listen to such idle tales," said 
 the doctor, pleased to know that the patient could pay 
 for his visits. 
 
 "Monsieur le docteur," said Remonencq, "if my 
 dear Madame Cibot would let me bring an expert to 
 examine the articles now that the poor gentleman is 
 in his bed, I '11 pay the mone}- down in two hours, — 
 even if it comes to a hundred and fifty thousand 
 francs." 
 
 "Well, well, my good friend!" said the doctor. 
 * ' Madame Cibot, be sure not to contradict or anno}' 
 the poor man. You must be very patient ; for ever}-- 
 thing will irritate and fatigue him, even your attentions. 
 You must make up jour mind that nothing will please 
 him." 
 
 " That '11 be mighty hard on me ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 "Come, listen to me," resumed the doctor, sternly. 
 *' The life of Monsieur Pons is in the hands of those 
 
140 Cousin Pons. 
 
 who take care of him ; therefore I shall come and see 
 him twice a day probably; I shall begin my rounds 
 here." 
 
 The doctor had suddenly passed from the profound 
 indifference he felt for the fate of his sick poor to a 
 tender solicitude, as he recognized the possibihty of the 
 wealth so insisted upon by the speculator. 
 
 *' He shall be nursed like a king ! " cried Madame 
 Cibot, with sham enthusiasm. 
 
 She waited till the doctor had turned the corner of 
 tlje rue Chariot before continuing the conversation with 
 R^monencq. The man finished his pipe, with his back 
 against the casing of his shop-door. He did not take 
 the position accidentally ; he wished to compel Madame 
 Cibot to come to him. 
 
 The shop, once used as a cafe, remained just as it 
 was when the Auvergnat first hired it. The words 
 ' ' Cafe de Normandie " were still to be read on the 
 long sign which is placed above the window-panes in 
 all modern shops. The Auvergnat had had the words 
 ''Remonencq, dealer in old iron-work; buys second- 
 hand merchandise," painted (probably for nothing) with 
 a brush and some black paint, in the space which was 
 left under the name " Cafe de Normandie." Of course, 
 the mirrors, tables, chairs, sideboards, and all the furni- 
 ture of the cafe had been removed. Remonencq had 
 hired, for six hundred francs, the dismantled shop, the 
 back-shop, the kitchen and one bedroom above the 
 ground-floor, where in former days only the waiter had 
 slept, for the bedrooms belonging to the Cafe de 
 Normandie were situated elsewhere. Of the primitive 
 luxury once displayed by that establishment nothing 
 
Cousin Pons. 141 
 
 remained but a plain light-green paper on the walls of 
 the shop, and the strong iron bars and bolts of the 
 shop- window. 
 
 Remonencq had come there after the Revolution of 
 Jul}" in 1831, and had begun by displaying cracked 
 bells, old pans, iron-work of all kinds, old scales, and 
 weights now legally discarded by the law relating to the 
 new weights and measures, — which by the bye the 
 Government alone does not obey, for it still leaves 
 among its copper coins the old one and two sous-pieces 
 of the reign of Louis XVI. The Auvergnat, who was 
 cleverer than Siny five of his compatriots put together, 
 purchased sets of second-hand kitchen utensils, old 
 frames, old brasses, chipped porcelains. Graduall}', 
 by dint of emptying and replenishing his stores, the 
 shop had grown to look like the scene of a farce by 
 Nicolet. The character of the merchandise improved ; 
 the dealer played the daring but sure game of doubling 
 his venture at each remove ; a game whose effect is plain 
 to the eyes of all loungers sufficiently philosophical to 
 study the progressive growth in value of the articles 
 exhibited by these intelligent dealers. To ironmonger3^ 
 earthenware, and tinware, succeed brasses, frames, and 
 wood-carvings. After these come porcelains. Soon the 
 shop, passing through an era of wretched pictures and 
 rubbish, becomes a museum. At last the day dawns 
 when the window-panes are cleaned, the interior is 
 fitted up ; the Auvergnat abandons his velveteen waist- 
 coats and takes to wearing coats ; he is seen to be a 
 dragon mounting guard over real treasures ; he is sur- 
 rounded by masterpieces of all kinds ; he has grown to 
 be a keen connoisseur ; he has increased his capital ten- 
 
142 Cousin Pons. 
 
 fold, and can no longer be taken in by others of his ilk, 
 for he knows all the tricks of his trade. The monster 
 is there, like an old woman surrounded by young girls 
 whom she offers for sale. Beauty and miracles of art 
 are nothing to this man, who is both coarse and culti- 
 vated, who calculates his profits, and sneers at all igno- 
 rance of art. Before long he takes to comedy ; affects 
 to love his pictures and his marquetry ; feigns poverty, 
 or invents a tale of cost-prices and offers to show the 
 bills of sale. He becomes a Proteus ; within the space 
 of an hour he is Jocrisse, Janot, Merry-Andrew, 
 Mondor, Harpagon, or Nicodemus, as it suits him. 
 
 After the second 3'ear, rare clocks, armor, and old 
 pictures began to appear in Remonencq's shop, which was 
 kept during his many absences by his sister — a large 
 and very ugly woman — who had come from Auvergne 
 on foot at his request. This female Remonencq — a 
 species of idiot with a vague e^'e, dressed like a Japanese 
 idol — never abated one penny of the price her brother 
 instructed her to ask. She also took charge of the 
 housekeeping, and solved the apparentlj' insoluble prob- 
 lem of sustaining life on starvation commons. The pair 
 lived on bread and herrings, trimmings from the mar- 
 kets, scraps of vegetables picked out of the waste stuff 
 left b}' the hucksters in the corners of their premises. 
 The}^ allowed themselves twelve sous a day for their 
 food, bread included, and the woman sewed or spun to 
 earn tliem. 
 
 This development of business in the case of R(^mo- 
 nencq, who original^ came to Paris as a messenger, and 
 did errands from 1825 to 1831 for the curiositj'-shops 
 on the boulevard Beaumarchais and the coppersmiths of 
 
Cousin Pons, 143 
 
 the rue de Lappe, is the normal histor}^ of most of the 
 bric-a-brac dealers of Paris. The four races chiefly 
 emplo3'ed in this trade — Jews, Normans, Auvergnats, 
 and Savoyards — have each the same instincts, and 
 make their fortune by the same means. Their code 
 binds them to spend nothing, make small profits, and 
 accumulate their profits and the interest of their profits ; 
 the code has now become a charter. 
 
 At tliis particular time Remonencq, in conjunction 
 with his old employer Monistrol, scoured the Banlieue 
 of Paris — which, as we know, covers a radius of one 
 hundred and twenty miles — in all directions for curi- 
 osities in their own line. After fourteen years of such 
 traflSc he had amassed sixty thousand francs and a shop 
 full of treasures. He gained little in the shop itself, 
 and only stayed in the rue de Normandie because the 
 rent was low ; but he sold his gatherings to the larger 
 dealers, and was satisfied with a moderate profit. He 
 transacted all his business in the Aavergne patois, called 
 charabia. The man nourished a dream ; he longed for 
 a shop on the boulevards ; he wished to be among the 
 rich dealers in antiquities, and to come directly in con- 
 tact with amateurs. He was cut out for a trader, and 
 a formidable one. His face had a coating of the dust 
 of iron-filings (for he did his work himself) , which was 
 glued to the skin by perspiration, and added to the in- 
 scrutability of his countenance, already endowed through 
 the habit of physical endurance with the stoic impassa- 
 bilit^' of the old soldiers of 1799. In person, Remonencq 
 was short and thin ; and his little eyes, set in his head like 
 those of a pig, revealed in each cold blue iris the con- 
 centrated greed and the crafty cunning of the Jews, 
 
144 Cousin Pons, 
 
 without their apparent humility, — which merety covers 
 the profound contempt they feel for Christians. 
 
 The relations between Remonencq and the Cibots 
 were those of benefactor and beneficiaries. Madame 
 Cibot, persuaded that the Auvergnats were very poor, 
 let them buy the cold pieces of Cibot's and Schmucke's 
 dinner for a mere nothing. The Remonencqs paid two 
 centimes and a half for a pound of dry crusts with a 
 little crumb to them ; the same for a pan of potatoes, 
 and so forth. The crafty Remonencq was supposed to 
 do no business on his own account. He claimed to 
 represent Monistrol, and declared he was a prey to the 
 rich dealers ; consequently the Cibots sincerelj^ pitied 
 the Remonencqs. For eleven 3'ears the male Auvergnat 
 had worn, and never worn out, the velveteeu jacket, the 
 velveteen trousers, and the velveteen waistcoat of his 
 kind ; but these garments, sacred to Auvergnats, were 
 riddled with patches put in gratis by Cibot. All Jews, 
 as we see, are not Israelites. 
 
 "Weren't you making fun of me, Remonencq?** 
 said Madame Cibot. "Could Monsieur Pons have 
 such wealth and live the life he does ? He has n't 
 never a hundred francs in the house." 
 
 " People with hobbies are alwa^'s like that," answered 
 Remonencq, sententiously. 
 
 " You don't believe, not reallj', that my monsieur has 
 got seven hundred thousand francs ? " 
 
 "Yes, he has, in the pictures alone. He*s got one 
 I 'd pay him fifty thousand francs for, if it starved me to 
 do it. You know those little brass frames, with the 
 portraits on red velvet inside of them? Well, thej^ are 
 enamels by Petitot, and I know a monsieur in the 
 
Cousin Pons. 145 
 
 government — he was once a druggist — who pa3's a 
 thousand francs apiece for such miniatures." 
 
 " There 's thirt}' of 'em in the two frames ! " said his 
 listener, her eyes dilating. 
 
 " Well, then, joxx can judge for yourself what treas- 
 ures he 's got." 
 
 Madame Cibot's head swam, and she turned sud- 
 denly on her heel. At that moment she conceived the 
 idea of worming herself into the old man's will, in imi- 
 tation of those servant-mistresses whose annuities ex- 
 cited the envy and the cupidity of the whole Marais. 
 Her imagination darted into the country about Paris ; 
 she saw herself in all her glory as" the mistress of a 
 country-house, where she should be waited on like a 
 queen, and end her days taking care of her poultry-yard 
 and her garden ; Cibot too, poor man, who deserved 
 happiness, like all neglected and misinterpreted angels. 
 
 Remonencq saw a certainty of success in Madame 
 Cibot's abrupt movement. As a chineur (such is the 
 slang name for collectors of second-hand treasures, 
 from the verb cJmier^ to go in quest of old things, and 
 drive bargains with their ignorant possessors) , — as a 
 chineur the first difficulty is to get into houses. It 
 is hard to imagine all the wiles a la Scapin, the tricks 
 h la Sganarelle, the seductions k la Dorine, which 
 these curiosity-hunters invent to worm themselves into 
 the middle-class houses they desire to explore. It is 
 a comedy worthy of any theatre, and is always based, 
 as in this case, on the rapacity of servants. For thirt}^ 
 pieces of silver or a few wares, servants, and above all, 
 those in the country or the provincial towns, will help 
 the chineur to bargains which often bring him in a 
 
 10 
 
 K 
 
.146 Cousin Pons. 
 
 ■I^ousand or two thousand francs. There is a certain ser- 
 ^e of old Sevres, pate tendre, whose capture, if related, 
 would show as much diplomatic craft as the Congress of 
 Munster, and all the cleverness displaj^ed at Nimeguen, 
 Utrecht, Ryswick, or Vienna, — which indeed is often 
 surpassed by the chineurs^ whose comedy is far more 
 frank and unabashed than that of the diplomatists. 
 These men have ways of action which dive as deeply 
 into the depths of personal interest as those so labori- 
 ously sought after by ambassadors to break up the 
 best cemented alliances. 
 
 "I've finel}^ stirred up that woman .Cibot," said the 
 brother to the sister, as he returned to his seat on a 
 broken straw-chair ; ' ' and I 'm going to consult the only 
 man who is up to such things, that Jew of ours, — a 
 regular Jew, who won't touch a thing under fifteen per 
 cent." 
 
 Remonencq had read Madame Cibot's heart. In 
 women of her stamp to will is to act; they stick at 
 nothing to attain success ; they go direct from the 
 strictest integrity to the deepest villan}-. Honesty, 
 like all other human sentiments, must be divided into 
 two honesties, a positive and a negative honest}'. 
 The Cibots' honesty was negative ; such people are 
 upright so long as they meet with no opportunity to 
 enrich themselves. Positive honesty is always up to 
 its knees in temptation and never yields to it; take 
 for instance that of a waiter who receives the pa3'ments 
 at a cafe. A crowd of evil intentions rushed into 
 Madame Cibot's heart and mind when the flood-gates 
 of self-interest were set open by the devilish sugges- 
 tions of her neighbor. She went up — flew up, to 
 
Cousin Pons. 147 
 
 speak accurately — from the lodge to the appartement 
 of her two gentlemen, and presented herself, with a 
 face of assumed tenderness, at the door of the room 
 where Pons and Schmucke were lamenting. As he 
 saw her enter, Schmucke made a sign that she should 
 say nothing before the patient about the doctor's real 
 opinion ; for this friend, this devoted German, had 
 read the truth in the doctor's eyes ; Madame Cibot 
 answered by a shake of her head, expressive of the 
 deepest grief. 
 
 "Well, my dear gentleman, how do 3'ou feel?" she 
 said, standing at the foot of the bed with her arms 
 a-kimbo, and her eyes lovingly fixed upon the sick 
 man : but what eyes ! what spangles of gold flashed 
 up in them ! as terrible to an observer as the glance 
 of a tiger. 
 
 "Very ill," answered poor Pons; "I have not^he 
 least appetite. (Ah ! what a thing the world is ! 'Ohe 
 cried, pressing the hand of Schmucke which hera his 
 own, as the good friend sat beside his pillow and talked 
 with him, no doubt, about the causes of his illness. 
 " How much better for me, my good Schmucke, if I 
 had followed your advice ! if I had dined here every day 
 since our union ! if I had renounced this world, which 
 has rolled over me like a tumbrel over an egg, — and 
 why ! '* 
 
 "Come, come, my good monsieur; don't be so 
 gloomy," said Madame Cibot; "the doctor has told 
 me the truth — " 
 
 Schmucke twitched her dress. 
 
 " And you '11 get over it with care, a deal o' care ; so 
 now, be easy. Have n't you got a good friend, — not to 
 
148 Cousin Pons. 
 
 speak o* me, — a woman as '11 nurse yovi like a mother 
 nurses her first baby? I pulled Cibot through an ill- 
 ness when Monsieur Poulain said he could n't get well 
 nohow and put the weights, as they say, on his eyes, 
 and gave him up for dead. Now 3'OU ain't nigh so bad 
 as that, thank God ! not that 3'ou ain't pretty bad ; but 
 3^ou trust me. I'll pull you through ; you be easy, and 
 don't fidget that way," she added, drawing the bed- 
 clothes over the patient's hands. ' ' Don't you never 
 worrj' ; Monsieur Schmucke there, and I, we '11 sit up 
 nights with you. You '11 be nursed better nor a prince ; 
 and besides, ain't you rich enough to have all yoxx 
 want ? I 've talked to Cibot, — poor dear man, what '11 
 he do without me ! but I 've made him listen to reason, 
 for don't you see, we both love you, — and he's given 
 his consent that I should stay up here nights. Hey ! 
 that 's a mighty sacrifice for a man like him ; I tell you 
 he loves me as much as he did the first day ! I don't 
 know what ails him ; it 's living in that bit of a lodge, 
 where he's always tied to my apron-strings. Here, 
 don't uncover yourself hke that," she cried, darting to 
 the head of the bed, and puUing the bedclothes over 
 Pons's chest; ''if you don't behave pretty, and do all 
 the doctor orders you — for that man 's the image of the 
 good God on earth — I won't take care of }■ ou. You 
 must obey me, you know." 
 
 " Yes, Matame Zipod, he vill opey 5^ou," answered 
 Schmucke ; " zo vill he, for his goot frent Schmucke, 
 dry to lif. I gan bromise dat." 
 
 '' And you must n't get impatient," went on Madame 
 Cibot; "for joxxv disease will make 3'ou enough so 
 without your natural want o' patience getting no worse. 
 
Cousiii Pons. 149 
 
 God sends us trouble, my dear, good monsieur, to 
 punish us for our faults. Have n't you got no little 
 faults to reproach yourself with ? " The sick man shook 
 his head. "Oh, don't tell fibs. Didn't you love no 
 one when you were young? Weren't you never up to 
 no mischief ? Come, now, hain't you somewhere got a 
 love-child that hasn't got bread, nor fire,'' nor home? 
 I know men ! — monsters ! — they love one day, and 
 then, click ! the}^ don't think o' nothing, not so much as 
 paying for a month's nursing. Poor women ! " 
 
 " No one ever loved me but Schmucke and my poor 
 mother," said Pons, sadly. 
 
 *' Nonsense, you 're not a saint. Were n't you never 
 young? You must have been a good-looking fellow 
 once. At twenty, good as you are, I 'd have loved 
 you!" 
 
 " I was always as ugly as a toad," said Pons, 
 despondently. 
 
 " That's all modesty ; jo\x may say that for yourself, 
 you are modest." 
 
 "No, no, Madame Cibot; I tell 3'ou I was always 
 ugl}^ ; no one ever loved me." 
 
 " I like that ! you, indeed ! " she persisted. " Try to 
 make me believe you 're as innocent as a babe unborn ! 
 you a musician, a theatre-man ! Wh}', if a woman told 
 me so, I should n't believe her." 
 
 " Matame Zibod ! you moost not irridade him," cried 
 Schmucke, as he saw Pons writhing like a worm in his 
 bed. 
 
 " Now, you hold youv tongue ! You 're both of 3'Ou 
 two old rakes. Suppose you ain't handsome, what o' 
 that ? There ain't no ugl}' cover that has n't its pot, as 
 
150 Cousin Pons. 
 
 the proverb says. Cibot made the handsomest oyster- 
 woman in all Paris love him, and you are a deal better- 
 looking nor he. You 're none too good. Pooh ! you 've 
 played your little games. And God's a-punishing you, 
 like he did Abraham, for deserting 3'our children." 
 
 Here the sick man found strength to make another 
 gesture of denial. 
 
 '' Don't you mind ! it won't prevent your living to be 
 as old as Mathusalem." 
 
 *' Let me alone ! " cried Pons. *' I never knew what 
 it was to be loved. I have got no children ; I 'm alone 
 upon earth." 
 
 "You don't really mean it? " said the woman eagerly. 
 *' You're so good! and women, don't you know, love 
 goodness ; that 's what wins 'em : and so I thought in 
 3'Our best days you must have — " 
 
 ''Take her away!" whispered Pons to Schmucke; 
 " she worries me." 
 
 '' Hain't Monsieur Schmucke got no children neither? 
 Hey, you are all like that, you old bachelors ! " 
 
 '' I ! " exclaimed Schmucke, springing to his feet. 
 
 '* Come, come, you'll say presently you haven't got 
 no heirs neither ! Did ye spring like mushrooms, now, 
 out o' the ground ? " 
 
 " Zilenze ! " cried Schmucke; and with that the 
 good German heroicall}^ seized Madame Cibot round 
 the waist, and dragged her from the room in spite of 
 her cries. 
 
Cousin Pons, 151 
 
 XIII. 
 
 TREATS OF THE OCCULT SCIENCES. 
 
 " At your age to ill use a woman ! " cried Madame 
 Cibot, struggling in Schmucke's arms. 
 
 *' Toan'd sgream ! " 
 
 " You, the best of the two ! Ha ! I did wrong to 
 talk o' love to old fellows ; I put it into j^our head, 
 monster that 3'ou are ! " shrieked Madame Cibot, seeing 
 that Schmucke's eyes sparkled with anger. "Help! 
 help ! I 'm seized ! " 
 
 "You are ein vool ! " answered Schmucke. "Dell 
 me, vat has de togdor zaid ? " 
 
 "Why do you insult me?" cried Madame Cibot, 
 sobbing, as soon as she was released. "I, who would 
 go through fire and water for you ! Ah ! they say it 
 takes a long time to find out what men are, — how true 
 that is ! My poor old Cibot would never use me so, not 
 he ! I, who behaved like a mother to 3'ou, for I hain't 
 got no children, and as I was saying to Cibot, — yes, no 
 later nor j^esterda}^ — ' My friend,' said I, ' God knew 
 what he was a-doing of when he would n't let us have 
 no children, for I 've got two babes upstairs.' There ! 
 by the soul of my mother! that's just what I did say 
 to him." 
 
 "Vat has de togdor zaid?" demanded Schmucke 
 furiously, and for the first time in his life he stamped 
 his foot. 
 
152 Cousin Pons. 
 
 " Well, he said," answered Madame Cibot, drawing 
 Schmucke into the dining-room, "he said our dearly 
 beloved darling was going to die if he did n't have no 
 proper care. But here I am, spite o' your ill usage ; 
 for 3'ou did ill use me, — j'ou, whom I took to be so 
 quiet. Is that the kind o' man you are? To go and 
 insult a woman at your age, 3'ou old scoundrel ! " 
 
 ' ' Sgountrel ! I ! — toan'd 3^ou know I gan no one 
 lof only Bons?" 
 
 "Well, that's all right; you'll let me alone, won't 
 you?" she answered, smiling at him. "You'd better; 
 for Cibot would break any man's bones who insulted his 
 honor." 
 
 " Dake goot gare of heems, m}- littel Matame Zipod," 
 returned Schmucke, trying to take Madame Cibot's hand. 
 
 " There ! you 're at it again ! " 
 
 " Leesten to me ; all I haf ees yours eef zo be as ve 
 gan zafe heem." 
 
 " Well ! I'll go to the apothecary's and get what's 
 wanted ; for you see, monsieur, this illness is going to 
 cost a deal ; and how will you manage that ? " 
 
 "I vill vork. I eenzeest dat Bons moost be gared 
 for laike a brinz." 
 
 "He shall be, my good Monsieur Schmucke, and 
 don't 3'ou fret about nothing. Cibot and I, we 've got 
 two thousand francs laid b}*, — the}' are 3'ours ; it 's a 
 long time, I can tell you, since I 've spent a penny of 
 my own for 3'ou two." 
 
 " Goot greechur ! " said Schmucke, wiping his ejes. 
 " Vat a heart ze has ! " 
 
 "Dry those tears that honor me; they are my re- 
 ward!" cried the Cibot melodramatically. "There 
 
Cousin Pons. 153 
 
 ain't a more disinterested creature nor me. But don't 
 you go in to Monsieur Pons with your eyes streaming ; 
 for if you do, he '11 think he 's worse nor what he is." 
 
 Schmucke, touched by this show of feeling, got hold 
 at last of Madame Cibot's hand, and wrung it. 
 
 ''Forgive me!" said the quondam oyster- woman, 
 throwing Schmucke a tender glance. 
 
 '* Bons," said the good soul, going back to his friend, 
 "MatameZipod ees ein anchel, — ajaddering anchel, 
 pud ein anchel, all de zame." 
 
 ''Do you think so? I have grown suspicious of 
 (every one this last month," said the sick man, shaking 
 his head. " After such troubles as mine I can't believe 
 in any one but God, — and you ! " 
 
 " Ged pedder, and ve vill lif togedder laike keengs,'* 
 cried Schmucke. 
 
 " Cibot," screamed his wife, out of breath, rushing 
 into the porter's lodge. " Ah ! my friend, our fortune 
 is made ! My two gentlemen have n't got no heirs, and 
 no natural children, and no nothing. I'm going to 
 Madame Fontaine to get her to tell our fortune on the 
 cards, and say how much annuity we are to get." 
 
 "Wife," said the little man, "it's ill waiting for 
 dead men's shoes." 
 
 ' ' My gracious ! are you going to plague me now ? " 
 she said, giving him a friendly tap. "I know what I 
 know. Monsieur Poulain sa^'s Monsieur Pons is going 
 to die ! We shall be rich ! I shall be put in the will, 
 I '11 take good care o' that ! You stitch away here, — 
 5'OU won't be long at your trade now. We shall re- 
 tire into the countrj', somewhere out there round 
 
154 Cousin Pons, 
 
 Batignolles ; hey ! a handsome house, and a fine 
 garden ! you '11 like to take care of that, and I '11 have 
 a servant ! " 
 
 " Well, neighbor, how are 3'ou getting on upstairs?" 
 asked Remonencq. ' ' Have you found out what that 
 collection is worth ? " 
 
 '' No, no, not yet. Can't get on as fast as all that, 
 my good man. I began by finding out something much 
 more important." 
 
 "More important!" cried Remonencq; *'why, 
 what 's more important ? " 
 
 " Come, come, my lad, you let me sail the ship," 
 said Madame Cibot, domineeringly. 
 
 " Well, but a fair percentage on a hundred thousand 
 francs will make you live like a bourgeoise for the rest 
 of your da^'s." 
 
 *' Don't you worry. Papa Remonencq. When it is 
 necessary to know what those things the old fellow has 
 picked up are worth, I '11 see about it." 
 
 And Madame Cibot, after going to the apothecary's 
 to get the doctor's prescription made up, decided to put 
 off* her consultation with Madame Fontaine till the 
 morrow, fancjing that she should find the faculties of 
 that oracle more crisp and fresh in the early morning 
 before the clients arrived, — for there was often a crowd 
 at Madame Fontaine's. 
 
 After being, for forty 3'ears, the rival of the celebrated 
 Mademoiselle Lenormand, whom she survived, Madame 
 Fontaine was at the present time the oracle of the Ma- 
 rais. Few persons have any idea of what such fortune- 
 tellers are among the lower classes in Paris, or of the 
 enormous influence they exercise over the decisions of 
 
Cousin Pons. 155 
 
 uneducated persons. Cooks, porters, kept mistresses, 
 workpeople — all those whose lives are based on hopes — 
 consult the privileged beings who possess the strange and 
 inexplicable power of looking into futurit3\ The belief 
 in occult science is far more widelj" spread than men of 
 science, lawyers, notaries, doctors, magistrates, or phi- 
 losophers, imagine. The masses have indestructible 
 instincts. Among those instincts, the one so foolishh^ 
 called superstition is as much in their blood as it is in 
 the brains of superior persons. More than one French 
 statesman consults these fortune-tellers. Judicial as- 
 trology (a grotesque conjunction of terms) is to the 
 incredulous nothing more than speculation or traffic on 
 an innate sentiment, perhaps the strongest of all in our 
 nature, — curiosity. Such sceptics positively deny the 
 relation that divination establishes between human des- 
 tiny and the shaping of it which is obtained through the 
 seven or eight principal methods that judicial astrology 
 emplo3'S. But it is with occult science as it has been 
 with so man}^ natural phenomena ignored by freethinkers 
 and materialistic philosophers, — that is to say, all 
 those who hold exclusivel}^ to visible facts, solid results, 
 the yieldings of the retort, or the scales of modern 
 physics and chemistry. Occult science has neverthe- 
 less existed and continued to advance, though without 
 making much progress, because for the last two cen- 
 turies the finer minds have abandoned the study of it. 
 
 According to the matter-of-fact view of divination, 
 to believe that the past events of a man's life and the 
 secrets known only to himself can instantly be revealed 
 on the cards which he shuffles and cuts, and which the 
 reader of his horoscope divides, by some mysterious rule, 
 
156 Cousin Pons. 
 
 into various little heaps, is an absurdity. Yet steam 
 was condemned as an absurdity ; so is aerial navigation ; 
 so was the invention of gunpowder, the printing-press, 
 spectacles, the art of engraving, and even the last great 
 invention of the present da3% the daguerreotype. If any 
 one had gone to Napoleon and told him that a building 
 or a man projects, at all moments and perpetually, an 
 image upon the atmosphere, and that all existing ob- 
 jects have, within that atmosphere, a perceptible and 
 obtainable spectre or shape, he would have promptly 
 sent his informant to Charenton, just as Richelieu sent 
 Salomon de Caux to Bicetre, when that Norman martyr 
 offered him the vast conquest of steam navigation. Nev- 
 ertheless, that is what the discovery of Daguerre has 
 proved to the world. Well, then, if God has, to certain 
 clear-seeing e^^es, imprinted the destiny of every man 
 upon his physiognomy (meaning by that wo^;d the expres- 
 sion of his whole body) , why should not the hand be an 
 epitome of that physiognomy, inasmuch as it is in itself 
 the whple of human action, and the sole means of its 
 manifestation ? Hence chiromancy'. Society copies God. 
 To predict the coming events of a man's life by the as- 
 pect of his hand, is a feat not at all more extraordinary in 
 one who possesses the faculties of a Seer than it is for any 
 of us to tell a soldier that he will fight, a law3'er that he 
 will speak, a shoemaker that he will make shoes, a hus- 
 bandman that he will manure the earth and till it. Let 
 us take a striking instance. Genius is so visible in 
 man, that the most ignorant of his fellows walking the 
 streets of Paris recognizes a great artist as he passes 
 along. He is like a spiritual sun whose rays light up 
 all on whom they fall. Observe also that the deficien- 
 
Cousin Pons, 157 
 
 cies of an imbecile are revealed immediately by an in- 
 version of the impression produced by genius. Com- 
 monplace men, on the other hand, pass almost unnoticed. 
 Most observers of social and Parisian human nature can 
 tell at a glance the profession of men who pass them 
 in the street. In these days the m3'steries of the 
 witches' Sabbath, so fully pictured by the great masters 
 of the sixteenth century, are mysteries no longer ; the 
 Egyptian sorcerers, male and female, progenitors of 
 that strange race, the G^'psies of Bohemia, coming origi- 
 nally from India, simply made their votaries eat has- 
 chisch. The phenomena produced b}' that drug amply 
 explain the broomsticks of the witches ; their flights up 
 the chimney's ; the real visions^ so to speak, of old 
 women changed to young ones ; the frenzied dances, and 
 the entrancing music which filled the phantasmagoric 
 dreams of those pretended worshippers of the Devil. 
 
 In these daj's so many authentic and established facts 
 have come to light b}' means of the occult sciences, that 
 before long those sciences will be taught just as we now 
 teach chemistry and astronomy. It is surprising that at 
 this moment in Paris where they are creating professor- 
 ships of the Slav and Mantchoo and other futile litera- 
 tures of the North, they have not revived, under the name 
 of Anthropology, the teaching of occult philosophy, — 
 one of the glories of the ancient University. In this re- 
 spect, German}^ a nation so great and yet so childlike, has 
 outrun France, for there the}^ have revived this science, 
 — a science far more useful than the various Philosophies 
 which are, in point of fact, all the same thing. 
 
 That certain created beings should have the power of 
 foreseeing events in the germ of causes, just as a great 
 
158 Cousin Pons. 
 
 inventor sees an art or a science in some natural phe- 
 nomenon unobserved hy the ordinar}' mind, is by no 
 means one of those abnormal exceptions to the order of 
 things that excite a clamor ; it is simply the working 
 of an obscure natural faculty, which is, in a measure, the 
 somnambulism of the spirit. This proposition, on which 
 every method of deciphering the future rests, may or 
 ma}" not be called absurd, — the fact remains. Observ^e 
 also that for the Seer to predict the general events of 
 the future is no greater exhibition of power than to re- 
 veal the secrets of the past. In the creed of the incred- 
 ulous the past and the future are ahke undiscoverable. 
 If past events have left their traces, it is reasonable to 
 infer that coming events have their roots. Whenever a 
 soothsayer tells 3'ou, minutely, facts of your past life 
 known to yourself alone, he can surelj^ tell joxx the events 
 which existing causes will produce. The moral world is 
 cut out, so to speak, on the pattern of the natural world ; 
 the same effects will be found everywhere, with the differ- 
 ences proper to varied environments. Thus, just as 
 the bod}" is actually projected upon the atmosphere, and 
 leaves within it the spectre which the daguerreotype 
 seizes, so ideas, real and potential creations, imprint 
 themselves upon what we must call the atmosphere of the 
 spiritual world, produce effects upon it, remain there 
 spectrally (it is necessary to coin words to express these 
 unnamed phenomena) ; and hence, certain created beings 
 endowed with rare faculties can clearly perceive these 
 forms, or these traces of ideas. •^ 
 
 "•^ Balzac here, as elsewhere, shows himself well grounded in doctri nes 
 now-a-days called theosophical, though they antedate theosophy by 
 thousands of years. The phenomenon so lucidly described in the above 
 
Cousin Pons. 159 
 
 As to the means employed to obtain such visions, 
 the mai'vel of them is readily explained as soon as the 
 hand of the inquirer has arranged the objects by the aid 
 of which he is to be shown the incidents of his life. All 
 things are linked together in the phenomenal world. 
 Every motion springs from a cause ; every cause is a 
 part of the Whole ; consequently the whole exists in 
 the slightest motion. Rabelais — the greatest mind in 
 the humanit}' of modern times, a man who combined 
 within himself Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Aristophanes, 
 and Dante — declared, three centuries ago, that man was 
 a microcosm ; Swedenborg, the great Swedish prophet, 
 said that the earth was man : the prophet and the pre- 
 cursor of scepticism met upon the ground of this greatest 
 of all formulas. All things are predestined and fore- 
 known in the life of man as in the life of his planet. 
 The smallest chances and changes, even the most futile 
 and insignificant, are under a law. Consequentl}^, great 
 events, great purposes, great thoughts, have their 
 necessary reflex in lesser thoughts, lesser actions ; and 
 this law is so strict, that if some conspirator were 
 to shuffle and cut a pack of cards, he would write, 
 in so doing, the secrets of his conspiracy to be read 
 b}' the Seer, otherwise called Bohemian, gypsy, fortune- 
 teller, charlatan, etc. As soon as we admit necessity, 
 that is to say, the connection of causes, judicial as- 
 trology will be seen to exist, and will become what 
 it once was, a vast science ; for it comprises that 
 faculty of deduction which made Cuvier so great, 
 
 passage is tliat of the Astral Light. Desbarrolles, in his remarkable 
 book on Chiromancy, has much to say about Balzac's knowledge of 
 occult science. — Tb. 
 
160 Cousin Pons, 
 
 using it, however, spontaneous^, and not as that 
 fine genius did, laboriously in studious hours with the 
 midnight oil. 
 
 Judicial astrology, that is, divination, reigned for 
 seven centuries ; not as to-da^^ over the masses, but 
 over the loftiest minds, over sovereigns, over queens, 
 over the wealthy. One of the greatest sciences of 
 antiquity, animal magnetism, sprang from the occult 
 sciences, just as chemistry issued from the retorts of 
 the alchemists. Phrenology, physiognomies, and neu- 
 rology were still other products of it ; and the creators 
 of those sciences (st\'led novel) made but one error, — 
 an error common to all inventors, — that of generalizing 
 from isolated facts whose generating cause still escapes 
 anal3'sis. In due time the Church, modern Philosophy, 
 and Law joined hands to proscribe, persecute, and ridi- 
 cule the mysteries of the Kabbala and its adepts ; 
 thence came a most unfortunate gap of a century in the 
 supremacy and study of occult science. Nevertheless, 
 the masses and manj' persons of intelligence, w^omen 
 especiall}^, have continued to do homage to the m^ steri- 
 ous power of those who are able to lift the veil of the fu- 
 ture. They go to them to bu}' hope, courage, strength, — 
 in other words, all that religion alone can give. So 
 this science is still practised, though not without cer- 
 tain risks. Sorcerers of the present da}-, being safe 
 from torture, thanks to the tolerance won by the en- 
 cj'clopedists of the eighteenth century, can now be 
 arraigned only in the criminal police courts, and there, 
 only in case they practise fraud, or terrifj' their clients 
 for the purpose of extorting money, — offences which 
 come under the charge of swindling. Unfortunately 
 
Cousin Pons, 161 
 
 such swindling, and even actual crimes, too often ac- 
 company the exercise of this sublime faculty. Let us 
 explain the reason why. 
 
 The splendid gifts which make a Seer are usually 
 found among those whom societ}' calls " common, or un- 
 clean." These brutish beings are the chosen vessels in 
 whom God has poured the elixirs which amaze humanit}'. 
 Such beings have furnished the prophets, the Saint 
 Peters, the hermits of history. Whenever thought can 
 be kept to its integrity, rounded as it were within itself, 
 when it is not frittered in conversation, or spent in 
 schemes, in literarj' work, in the speculation of science, 
 in administrative effort, in the conceptions of an in- 
 ventor, in the service of war, it is apt to burn with 
 repressed fires of prodigious intensity, just as the un- 
 cut diamond holds its rays within itself. Let the occa- 
 sion come, and at once this spiritual force breaks out ; 
 it has wings to waft it over space, the eye divine that 
 sees the all of existence : yesterday it was carbon ; to- 
 morrow, under the flow of the mysterious fluid which 
 pervades it, it is a diamond of the purest water. Men 
 of superior mind, with all the facets of their intel- 
 lect well worn, can never exercise these supreme pow- 
 ers unless through miracles, which God occasionally 
 permits. Thus it happens that necromancers and for- 
 tune-tellers, both male and female, are nearly alwaj^s 
 mendicants with untutored minds, beings apparently of 
 coarse fibre, pebbles rolled over and over by the tor- 
 rents of povert}' , ground down in the ruts of existence, 
 where they have exhausted only their physical endur- 
 ance. The prophet, the seer, is Martin the laborer, who 
 made Louis XVIU. tremble as he told him a secret 
 
 11 
 
162 Cousin Pons. 
 
 known only to the king ; it is a Mademoiselle Lenor- 
 mand, a cook like Madame Fontaine, some half-idiotic 
 negro-woman, some herdsman living among his horned 
 beasts, a fakir- sitting on the bank of a pagoda, who 
 by killing the flesh has won for the spirit the untold 
 powers of somnambulic faculties. It is in Asia that 
 the heroes of occult science have been found through- 
 out all time. 
 
 It often happens that persons gifted with these pow- 
 ers who in their ordinary lives remain their ordinary 
 selves, — for the}^ fulfil as it were the same ph^'sical 
 and chemical functions as the conducting medium of 
 an electric current, sometimes mere inert metal, then 
 again the channel of mysterious fluids, — these peo- 
 ple, sinking back into their natural condition, betake 
 themselves to practices and schemes which bring them 
 into the police-courts ; and even, as in the case of the 
 famous Balthazar, to prison or the galleys. A proof 
 of the enormous power which necromancy wields over 
 the masses, is that the life or death of a poor musi- 
 cian depended on the horoscope which Madame Fon- 
 taine was about to draw for Madame Cibot. 
 
 Though certain repetitions are inevitable in so exten- 
 sive a work, and one so laden with detail as a complete 
 history of French society in the nineteenth century must 
 necessarily be, it is useless to depict the den of Madame 
 Fontaine, which has already been described in " Les 
 Comediens sans le savoir." It is necessary, however, 
 to remark that Madame Cibot frequented Madame Fon- 
 taine, who lived in the rue Vieille-du-Temple, very 
 much as the habitues of the Cafe Anglais go to break- 
 fast at that estabhshment. Madame Cibot, a very old 
 
Cousin Pons, 163 
 
 customer, often carried in her train the young people 
 and gossips of the neighborhood, enticed by curiosit3^ 
 
 The old servant who served as a marshal to the 
 oracle, opened the door of the sanctuary without giving 
 notice to her mistress. 
 
 '' It is Madame Cibot ! Come in," she added, " there 's 
 no one here." 
 
 ' ' Well, my dear, what has brought you so early ? " 
 said the sorceress. 
 
 Madame Fontaine, then sixty-eight years of age, 
 deserved that title for her personal appearance, which 
 was worthy of the Parcse. 
 
 *' I'm all upside down ; give me the Grand Magic ! " 
 cried Madame Cibot ; *' my fortune is at stake." 
 
 And she forthwith explained the situation and de- 
 manded a prophecy on her sordid hopes. 
 
 " You do not know what the Grand Magic really is," 
 said Madame Fontaine, solemnly. 
 
 ''No, I hain't never been rich enough to play that 
 game ! A hundred francs ! No, indeed ! where do 3'ou 
 suppose I could have got a hundred francs? But now ! 
 yes, to-day I want it ! " 
 
 "I don't often try it, my dear," said Madame Fon- 
 taine. ' ' I only give it to rich people on great occa- 
 sions, and then they pay me twenty-five louis. The 
 truth is, don't you see, it tires me, it wears me out. 
 The Spirit shakes up my vitals — down there, in my 
 stomach. It is like stirring the caldron, as they did in 
 the olden time." 
 
 ''But when I tell you, my good Ma'ame Fontaine, 
 that my fortune depends on it!" 
 
 "Well, I owe 3'ou so many consultations — yes, I 
 
164 Cousin Pons. 
 
 will give myself up to the Spirit," answered Madame 
 Fontaine, her withered face showing an expression of 
 terror that was not simulated. 
 
 She left the dirty sofa, on which she had been sitting 
 in the chimney-corner, and went to a table, covered 
 with a green cloth so worn that the threads could be 
 counted in it, on the left of which a toad of enormous 
 dimensions lay asleep beside an open cage, which was 
 inhabited by a black hen with ruffled feathers. 
 
 ''Astaroth! here, m}^ son!" said the old woman, 
 giving a slight tap with a long knitting-needle on the 
 back of the toad, which looked up at her intelligentl}' . 
 ''And you, Mademoiselle Cleopatra! attention!" she 
 added, giving another little tap on the beak of the old 
 hen. Madame Fontaine then wrapped herself in medi- 
 tation, remaining motionless for several minutes. She 
 looked like a dead woman ; her eyes were turned up- 
 ward so that only the whites were seen. Suddenly she 
 stiffened herself, and said in a cavernous voice : — 
 
 "I am here!" 
 
 Then, after automatically strewing some grain for 
 Cleopatra, she took up the cards, shuffled them cojivul- 
 sively, and made Madame Cibot cut them, all the while 
 sighing deeply. While this spectre of death in a dirty 
 turban, wrapped in a sinister mantle, examined the 
 grains of millet, and ordered her toad Astaroth to 
 creep over the cards which were spread on the table, 
 Madame Cibot felt cold chills running down her back, 
 and shuddered. It is only great behefs which give great 
 emotions. To have or not to have an annuity — that 
 was the question, as Shakspeare says. 
 
Cousin Pons, 1(35 
 
 XIV. 
 
 A CHARACTER OUT OF HOFFMAN. 
 
 At the end of seven or eight minutes, in the course of 
 which the sorceress opened and read from a conjuring 
 book in a sepulchral voice, and examined the grains of 
 millet which the hen had left, and the track made bj the 
 toad as it crept awaj', she turned her livid eyes upon 
 the cards, and expounded their meaning. 
 
 ''You will succeed! though nothing will happen as 
 you expect," she said. '' You will have many steps to 
 take, but 3^ou will gather the fruits of your labor. You 
 will do great wrong : it will be with you as it is with all 
 those who are near sick people and covet their wealth. 
 You will be helped in your evil deeds by people of con- 
 sequence. Later, \ou will repent in the agonies of 
 death ; for you will die, assassinated b}' two escaped 
 convicts, — one, a small man with red hair, the other 
 old and bald, — on account of the property which you 
 will be supposed to have, in the village to which you will 
 retire with your second husband. Go, mj^ daughter; 
 you are free to act, or to remain as you are." 
 
 The inward fire which lit the torches in the hollow 
 eyes of the skeleton so dead and cold apparently, 
 suddenly went out. No sooner was the horoscope 
 pronounced than Madame Fontaine seemed dazed, 
 and in all respects like a somnambulist when suddenly 
 
166 Cousin Pons. 
 
 awakened ; she looked about her with a bewildered 
 air, then she recognized Madame Cibot, and expressed 
 surprise at the horror depicted on her face. 
 
 "What is it, my daughter?" she said, in a voice 
 quite different from the one in which she had prophe- 
 sied ; '' are you satisfied ? " 
 
 Madame Cibot looked at the sorceress as if stupefied, 
 and was unable to answer. 
 
 '^ Ah ! you would have the Grand Magic ! I treated 
 you as an old acquaintance. Give me the hundred 
 francs — " 
 
 '' Cibot — to die ! " cried her client. 
 
 "Have I told 3-ou dreadful things?" asked Madame 
 Fontaine, quite simpl3\ 
 
 " Why, yes ! " said Madame Cibot, pulling the hun- 
 dred francs from hei: pocket and putting them on a 
 corner of the table. " To die ! assassinated ! " 
 
 "See there, now! you would have the Grand 
 Magic ! You need n't be troubled ; all people who are 
 killed by the cards don't die." 
 
 " But ain't it likel}^ Ma'ame Fontaine?" 
 
 "Ah! my good woman, I don't know anything 
 about it myself! You would rap at the door of the 
 future, and I pulled the cord, — that 's all, and ITe 
 came." 
 
 "He? who is he? " asked Madame Cibot. 
 
 "Well! the Spirit, or whatever it is," replied the 
 sorceress, impatiently. 
 
 " Good-by, Ma'ame Fontaine," cried her votar3\ 
 " I did n't know what the Grand Magic was : you 've 
 frightened me dreadfully, I can tell you." 
 
 " Madame does not put herself into that state twice 
 
Cousin Pons. 167 
 
 a month," said the servant- worn an, following Madame 
 Cibot to the landing. " She will die of it some day; 
 it tires her so. Now she '11 eat some mutton-chops and 
 sleep for three hours." 
 
 Once in the street, Madame Cibot did as inquirers 
 after advice of all kinds invariablj- do : she believed in 
 the prophecy so far as it was favorable to her wishes, 
 and doubted the rest. The nex4: day, confirmed in her 
 resolutions, she thought onl}^ of finding some wa3^ of en- 
 riching herself b}^ getting hold of a part of the Pons mu- 
 seum, and for a time her mind dwelt on no other thought. 
 The phenomenon which we lately explained, — that of 
 the concentration of moral force in common people, who 
 never having wasted their intellectual faculties, like the 
 educated classes, in daily activity, find those faculties 
 in full strength and power at the moment when their 
 minds become possessed of the formidable weapon called 
 a fixed idea, — now appeared with great vigor in Ma- 
 dame Cibot. Just as a fixed idea can manage wonder- 
 ful escapes and give rise to miracles of sentiment, this 
 woman, urged by cupidity, became as powerful as a 
 Nucingen at bay, and as readj-witted beneath her stu- 
 pidity as the bewitching La Palferine. 
 
 A few da3's later, seeing Remonencq opening his shut- 
 ters about seven o'clock in the morning, she went up to 
 him as stealthily as a cat. 
 
 " How shall I manage to find out the truth about the 
 value of those things my gentlemen have scraped to- 
 gether ? " she asked him. 
 
 "Oh! that's eas}' enough," he replied in his horri- 
 ble Auvergnat dialect, which for the clearness of this 
 narrative we refrain from reproducing here. " If you '11 
 
168 Cousin Pons. 
 
 deal fair with me I '11 bring you an appraiser, a very 
 honest man, who will know the value of those pictures 
 to a penny." 
 
 ''Who is that?" 
 
 "Monsieur Magus, a Jew, who only does business 
 now for his own pleasure." 
 
 Elie Magus, too well known to the readers of the 
 "Comedy of Human Life" to require a description here, 
 had lately retired from the business of selling pictures 
 and curiosities, in which as a merchant he followed the 
 same S3'stem that Pons pursued as an amateur. The 
 celebrated judges and appraisers, the late Henry, Mes- 
 sieurs Pigeot and Moret, Theret, Georges, and Roehn, 
 in fact all the experts of the Musee, were mere chil- 
 dren compared to -Elie Magus, who could discover a 
 masterpiece under the dirt of ages, and who knew all 
 the schools and the signature of all the paintere. 
 
 This Jew, who came originall}' from Bordeaux, gave 
 up his business in 1834, without, however, giving up the 
 squahd appearance and habits which he retained, like 
 the majority of the Jews, with the fidelity of the race to 
 its traditions. Persecution compelled the Jews of the 
 Middle Ages to go in. rags, so as to disarm suspicion 
 and have the right to complain and whine, an/i thus 
 draw attention to their poverty. These compulsions of 
 the olden time have produced, as alwa3's happens, a race- 
 instinct, an endemic vice. Elie Magus, by dint of buy- 
 ing diamonds and reselling them, of selling pictures 
 and laces, choice bric-a-brac, enamels, fine carvings, 
 and old jewelry at second-hand, possessed an immense 
 fortune of unknown amount, acquired in this business 
 which has since grown so considerable. The number 
 
Cousin Pons, 169 
 
 of such dealers hac increased tenfold within the last 
 twenty years in Paris, where sooner or later all the 
 curiosities of the world make their appearance. As 
 for pictures, there are but three cities in which thej' can 
 be said to be sold, — Rome, London, and Paris. 
 
 Elie Magus lived in the Chaussee des Minimes, a 
 long, narrow street leading to the Place Roy ale, where 
 he owned an old mansion, bought, as they say, for a 
 song in 1831. This building contained one of the finest 
 and most superbly decorated appartements of the Louis 
 XV. period, for it was the old H6tel de Maulaincourt. 
 Built by the celebrated judge of the Cour des Aides, it 
 escaped, thanks to its situation, the pillage of the Revo- 
 lution. If the old Jew, contrary to the traditions of his 
 race, came to the determination of owning it, we may be 
 sure he had his reasons. The old man was ending his 
 career, as we all end, by riding a hobby into a mania. 
 Though as miserly by nature as his friend the late Gob- 
 seek, he allowed his admiration for the masterpieces he 
 dealt in to get the better of his thrift ; and his taste, 
 becoming more and more refined and difficult to sat- 
 isfy, had of late grown into the sort of passion which is 
 only permissible to kings when they are rich and lov- 
 ers of art. Like the second king of Prussia, who never 
 praised a soldier unless the man were over six feet 
 high, and who spent inordinate sums of money in add- 
 ing to his live gallery of grenadiers, the old dealer grew 
 enthusiastic over none but immaculate pictures, left as 
 the hand of the master painted them, and of the highest 
 order of execution. Elie Magus was never absent from 
 the great sales ; he visited all the picture marts, and 
 travelled over the whole of Europe for that purpose. 
 
170 Cousin Pons. 
 
 His nature, bound down to lucre, cold as an iceberg, 
 nevertheless grew impassioned at the sight of a master- 
 piece, — precisely as a libertine, weary of pleasure, grows 
 eager at the sight of a perfect 3'oung girl, and devotes 
 himself to a quest for beauty without defects. This 
 Don Juan among pictures, this worshipper of the ideal, 
 found greater enjoyment in such worship than the miser 
 finds in the contemplation of his gold. He lived in 
 a harem of beautiful pictures. 
 
 These masterpieces, lodged as the children of princes 
 ought to be lodged, occupied the whole of the first floor 
 of the old mansion, which Elie Magus had restored with 
 the utmost splendor. Before the windows hung curtains 
 of Venetian gold brocade ; on the floors were the mag- 
 nificent rugs of La Savonnerie, a royal manufactory of 
 carpets at Chaillot. The pictures, numbering about a 
 hundred, were in the choicest frames, regilt with ex- 
 quisite taste 1)3' the onl}^ gilder that Elie Magus consid- 
 ered conscientious, — by Servais, whom the old Jew 
 taught to use English gilding, a leaf infinitely superior to 
 that of the French gold-beaters. Servais is to the art 
 of gilding what Thouvenin was to the art of binding, — 
 an artist in love with his own work. The windows of 
 this suite were protected by iron shutters. The master 
 himself lived in two small rooms with attic roofs, on the 
 second floor, poorly furnished, full of his ragged cloth- 
 ing and smelling of his race. He was ending his life 
 just as he had lived it. 
 
 The ground-floor, wholly filled with pictures, which the 
 Jew still continued to barter, and with cases arriving 
 from foreign countries, contained also an immense ate- 
 lier, where Moret (the best restorer of our day and a man 
 
Cousin Pons, 171 
 
 the Musee ought to employ) worked almost exclusively 
 for Elie Magus. There too was the appartement of his 
 daughter, the fruit of his old age, a Jewess as beautiful 
 as all of her race when they show the Asiatic type in its 
 purity and grandeur. Noemi, watched over by two 
 fanatical Jewish servants, was guarded at the outposts 
 by a Polish Jew named Abramko, who had been com- 
 promised under extraordinary circumstances during the 
 Polish insurrection, and rescued by EUe Magus for pur- 
 poses of self-interest. Abramko was the porter of the 
 silent, gloomy, desolate house, and he lived in a lodge 
 protected hy three dogs of remarkable ferocity, — one a 
 Newfoundland ; another a Pyrenees hound ; the third 
 an English bull-dog. 
 
 Relying on such protection, the Jew was able to 
 travel from home without fear, and sleep the sleep of 
 the just, dreading no assault upon his daughter, who 
 was his chief treasure, nor upon his pictures, nor 5^et 
 upon his gold. Abramko was paid every j-ear two 
 hundred francs more than the preceding j^ear, on the 
 express understanding that he should have nothing at 
 all at the death of his master, who was meantime train- 
 ing him to become the money-lender of the quarter. 
 Abramko never admitted an}' one into the house until 
 he had examined him through the formidable iron 
 grating of the door. This Pole — a man of herculean 
 strength — adored Ehe Magus, just as Sancho Panza 
 adored Don Quixote. The dogs, shut up during the 
 day, were let out at night, and compelled by an astute 
 arrangement of the old Jew to keep, each of them, to 
 his appointed station, — one in the garden, at the foot 
 of a pole at the top of which hung a piece of meat ; the 
 
172 Cousin Pons, 
 
 second in the court3'ard, at the foot of a similar pole ; 
 and the third in the great hall on the ground-floor. It 
 is needless to remark that the dogs, who thus b}' instinct 
 guarded the premises, were themselves guarded by hun- 
 ger, and that the loveliest female of their race could not 
 have enticed them away from those poles ; no attrac- 
 tions whatever could have got them to leave that meat. 
 If a stranger appeared, they thought he was after it ; 
 and it was only given to them in the morning when 
 Abramko got up. This devilish sort of submission had 
 one immense advantage : the dogs never barked. Elie's 
 wit advanced them to the grade of savages, and they 
 had each become as wily as a Mohican. On one occa- 
 sion certain ill-disposed persons, misled by this silence, 
 thought it would be easy to ' ' crack " the Jew's strong- 
 hold. One of them, sent ahead to scale the wall of the 
 garden, attempted to descend on the other side. The 
 bull-dog let him alone, though he heard him perfecth', 
 until the man's leg came within reach of his jaw, when 
 he bit the foot off at the ankle and ate it np. The rob- 
 ber had the nerve to recross the wall, stepping on the 
 bone of his leg, and fell fainting into the arms of his 
 companions, who carried him off. This fact, when it 
 appeared in the " Gazette des Tribunaux," which did 
 not fail to report such a delightful episode of the Pari- 
 sian night, was called a hoax. 
 
 Magus, at this time seventj'-five j-ears old, was quite 
 likel}' to live to be a hundred. Rich as he was, he lived 
 like Remonencq. Three thousand francs defra3'ed all 
 his expenses, including the luxuries he allowed his 
 daughter. No existence was ever more methodical 
 than his. He rose at daybreak, and ate a bit of bread 
 
Cousin Pons. 173 
 
 rubbed over with garlic, — a breakfast which sufficed 
 him till the dinner-hour. The dinner, monastic in its 
 frugalit}', was a family repast. From the time he got 
 up until midday the old fanatic roamed about the rooms, 
 which were adorned by his pictures. He dusted ever}^- 
 thing himself, both furniture and paintiugs, and admired 
 all in turn, without any sense of weariness. Then he 
 went downstairs to see his daughter, and drank his fill 
 of paternal happiness. After that he started on his 
 quests around Paris, — looked into all the auction- 
 rooms, went to the exhibitions, etc. When he discov- 
 ered some masterpiece which fulfilled all the require- 
 ments he deemed essential, the man's life seemed to 
 take on new vigor : he had a bargain to make, a Maren- 
 go to win, and he laid scheme after scheme to get his 
 new sultana at the lowest price. Magus had a map of 
 Europe on which the locations of the great masterpieces 
 were laid down ; and he commissioned his co-religionists 
 in all countries to watch every sale in his interests, un- 
 der promise of a recompense. But what recompenses 
 they were for such pains ! 
 
 The two lost pictures of Raphael, so long and so per- 
 sistently searched for by the Raphaelites, were in the 
 possession of Elie Magus. He owned also the original 
 of Giorgione's mistress, — the woman for whom the 
 painter died, — and the other so-called originals are only 
 copies of this glorious canvas, which in the old Jew's 
 estimation was worth five hundred thousand francs. 
 Magus also treasured the masterpiece of Titian, — 
 ''His Entombment;" a picture painted for Charles V., 
 and sent by the great master to the great emperor with 
 a letter written wholly in Titian's hand, which letter is 
 
174 Cousin Pons, 
 
 glued to the bottom of the canvas. He had, moreover, 
 the original sketch bj the same painter from which all 
 the portraits of Philip II. were made. The ninety-seven 
 other pictures were of the same calibre and distinction. 
 Magus scorned our Musee, drenched as it is with sun- 
 light, which makes havoc with the noblest pictures as 
 it streams through the casements with the force of a 
 lens. No picture-gallery^ is safe unless lighted from the 
 ceihng. Magus opened and closed the Winds of his 
 museum himself, and took as much care and as many 
 precautions for his pictures as he did for his daughter, 
 — his other idol. Ah, the old picture-maniac well 
 knew the laws of painting ! To his mind the master- 
 pieces had a life of their own, their diurnal times and 
 seasons ; their beauty depended on the light which came 
 at certain moments to tint them. He talked of them as 
 the Dutch used to talk of their tulips ; and he went to 
 see such or such a picture at the hour when the splendor 
 of its glory shone forth, if the weather were fine and 
 clear. 
 
 In the midst of these still and silent pictures the little 
 old man himself was a living picture as he stood there, — 
 clothed in a shabb}' frock-coat, an antiquated silk waist- 
 coat, a pair of dirtj^ trousers, with his bald head, hollow 
 cheeks, menacing pointed chin, and stubbly, strag- 
 gling white beard ; with his mouth empt}' of teeth, his 
 bon}', fleshless hands, his nose long and angular as an 
 obelisk, his wrinkled, frigid skin, and his eyes keen as 
 those of the dogs, — smiling at these glorious creations 
 of genius. A Jew surrounded by his millions will 
 always be one of the finest sights humanity can offer. 
 Our great actor, Robert Medal, sublime as he is, has 
 
Cousin Pons, 175 
 
 never attained to the poetry of it. Paris is the first 
 city in the world for its collection of such originals, — 
 originals of a kind that have a worship in their hearts. 
 The hobbyists of London end by growing disgusted 
 with the objects of their adoration, just as the}^ grow 
 disgusted with life itself; whereas in Paris such mono- 
 maniacs live forever with their fancies in a happy con- 
 cubinage of spirit. You will often meet such beings as 
 Pons or Elie Magus, shabbily clothed, with their nose 
 in the air, like that of the secretary in perpetuit}^ of the 
 French Academ}', — seeming to care for nothing, to 
 feel nothing ; paying no attention to women or to the 
 shops ; wandering as it were hap-hazard, their pockets 
 empty, their brains apparently still emptier, — and 3'ou 
 ask yourself to what Parisian tribe such beings can be- 
 long. Well, those men are millionnaires, collectors, 
 the most passionately^ devoted souls upon earth ; people 
 who are capable of putting themselves within the grasp 
 of the law to get possession of a, tazza, a painting, a 
 choice treasure, — as in fact Elie Magus did on one 
 occasion, in Germany. 
 
 Such was the great expert to whom Remonencq took 
 Madame Cibot with the utmost secrecy. The Auverg- 
 nat was in the habit of consulting the Jew whenever 
 they chanced to meet on the boulevards. Magus, at 
 various times, had made Abramko lend money to 
 Remonencq, whose honesty in such matters he could 
 rely on. The Chaussee des Minimes being only a few 
 steps from the rue de Normandie the accomplices were 
 there in ten minutes. 
 
 "You are going to see," said Remonencq, "the 
 
176 Cousin Pons. 
 
 wealthiest of all the famous curiositj'-dealers ; the 
 greatest connoisseur there is in Paris." 
 
 Madame Cibot was therefore dumbfounded when she 
 found herself in presence of a little old man, wrapped 
 in a wadded great-coat, past darning even by the hand 
 of Cibot, who was overlooking the work of his restorer, 
 a painter employed in repairing pictures in a cold room 
 on the vast ground-floor ; then, catching a glance from 
 his eyes, as full of cold malevolence as those of a cat, 
 she trembled. 
 
 " What do 3'ou want, Remonencq? " he said. 
 
 *' It is about estimating some pictures," answered the 
 Auvergnat. '' There 's no one in Paris but 3'ou who can 
 tell a poor coppersmith like me what he ought to give 
 for them, when he has n't, as you have, millions to 
 spend." 
 
 " Where are they ? " said Elie Magus. 
 
 "Here is the concierge of the house where their 
 owner lives ; I 've arranged with her — " 
 
 *' What is the owner's name?" 
 
 " Monsieur Pons," said Madame Cibot. 
 
 '* I don't know him," said Magus, with an indifferent 
 air, gently pressing his own foot against that of the 
 restorer. 
 
 Moret, the restorer, who knew the value of Pons's 
 collection, had suddenty looked up. The Jew's warn- 
 ing could only have been given under the eyes of such 
 a pair as Remonencq and Madame Cibot. But he 
 had taken the moral measure of the woman hy a 
 glance of his eyes, which were as sure as the scales in 
 which a money-changer weighs his gold. The pair were 
 undoubtedly ignorant that Pons and Elie Magus had 
 
Cousin Pons. 17T 
 
 often measured swords. In fact, those fierce amateurs 
 were filled with envy of each other. The old Jew 
 actuall}^ staggered for a moment. He had never hoped 
 for a chance to penetrate that well- watched harem. The 
 . Pons collection alone could rival the Elie Magus collec- 
 tion. The Jew had followed twenty j^ears later the same 
 S3^stem as Pons ; and in his capacity as amateur-dealer 
 the Pons gallery had been as tightly closed against him 
 as against the late Du Sommerard. Pons and Magus 
 were both jealous at heart of all approach. Neither 
 liked the celebrity which the owners of choice galleries 
 usually court. To examine the magnificent collection 
 of the poor musician was, for Elie Magus, as great a 
 happiness as for a lover of women to slip into the bou- 
 doir of a beaut}^ whom his friend sedulously hides from 
 him. 
 
 The great respect shown by Remonencq to this queer 
 individual, and the prestige which all visible power be- 
 stows, made Madame Cibot obedient and complying. 
 She lost the autocratic tone she was in the habit of 
 using to the tenants and her " two gentlemen," ac- 
 cepted the terms proposed by Magus, and agreed to let 
 him into the Musee-Pons that very day. It was lead- 
 ing the enemy into the heart of the fortress, plunging 
 a knife into the bosom of Pons, who for the last ten 
 years had strictly forbidden her to admit a soul, no 
 matter who, inside the sacred portals, the key of which 
 he carried on his person ; and Madame Cibot had faith- 
 fully obej-ed him so long as she shared the opinions of 
 Schmucke on the subject of bric-a-brac. The fact was, 
 that worthy German, when discoursing about those 
 magnificent " pauples," and deploring the follies of 
 
 12 
 
178 Cousin Pons, 
 
 Pons, had inculcated in Madame Cibot's ample breast 
 a profound contempt for all such antiquities, and 
 had thus for a long time protected the Musee-Pons 
 from invasion. 
 
 Now that Pons was confined to his bed, Schmucke 
 did his friend's work at the theatre and in the schools. 
 The poor German, who saw the sick man only in 
 the morning and after he came home to dinner in the 
 evening, endeavored to supply their domestic needs by 
 doing their joint work and keeping together their whole 
 clientele ; but all his strength was spent on the task, for 
 his inward grief overpowered him. Noticing the sad- 
 ness of the poor man, the pupils and the people at the 
 theatre who knew about the illness of poor Pons asked 
 for news of him, and the grief of the old musician was 
 so genuine that he received, even from the careless and 
 indifferent, that grimace of conventional sensibility which 
 Paris bestows on the direst catastrophes. Schmucke suf- 
 fered doubh' , — in his own grief and in his friend's suf- 
 ferings. He talked of Pons during half the time of each 
 lesson, and interrupted his instructions so often to won- 
 der how his friend was feeling, that the 3'oung pupils 
 listened with real interest to his accounts of the old 
 man's illness. He would rush to the rue de Normandie 
 between two lessons, merely to see Pons for ten minutes. 
 Alarmed at the emptiness of their common purse, and 
 uneasy at the way Madame Cibot for the last fifteen 
 days had been running up their expenses, the poor 
 music-master nevertheless felt his inward anguish con- 
 trolled by a courage of which he had never believed 
 himself capable. For the first time in his life he was 
 anxious to earn money, so that the home might want 
 
Cousin Pons. 179 
 
 for nothing. At times when some pupil, realty touched 
 by the trouble of the two friends, would ask Schmueke 
 how he could bear to leave his friend so much alone, he 
 answered with a sublime smile of ingenuous credulit}', — 
 
 '' Matemoizelle, he has Matame Zipod, — a drayzure ! 
 a bearl ! Bons ees daken gare of laike a brinz." 
 
 So while Schmueke was trotting the streets, Madame 
 Cibot was mistress of the appartement and of the pa- 
 tient. How could Pons, who had eaten nothing for fif- 
 teen days, and laj' helpless on his back, and was lifted 
 by Madame Cibot and placed on a sofa when she made 
 his bed, — how could he watch his self-styled guardian 
 angel ? 
 
 Madame Cibot had made her visit to EHe Magus 
 while Schmueke was eating his breakfast. She got 
 home just as the German was bidding the sick man 
 good-b}'. Since the revelation made to her of Pons's 
 wealth she rarely left her old celibate, and brooded 
 over him like a hen. She daily settled herself on a 
 comfortable sofa at the foot of the bed, and diverted 
 the patient's mind by telling him the sort of gossip such 
 women excel in. She grew coaxing, gentle, watchful, 
 careful for his comfort, and wormed herself into the 
 old man's thoughts with a cleverness that was truly 
 Machiavellian, as we shall presently have occasion to 
 see. 
 
180 Cousin Pons. 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE CACKLE AND SCHEMES OF AN OLD WOMAN. 
 
 Much alarmed by the prediction of tlie oracle's Grand 
 Magic, Madame Cibot had sworn to herself that she 
 would succeed in her plans by none but gentle means, 
 and get into " her gentleman's " will only by evil-doings 
 that should be strictly moral. Her ten j^ears' ignorance 
 of the value of the Pons Museum were just so many 
 years of disinterested devotion and integrity in hand ; 
 and she now proposed to draw upon that magnificent 
 capital. Since the da}' when Remonencq, with a golden 
 word, had hatched a serpent hidden in its shell for over 
 twentj'-five years in the heart of this woman, — namely, 
 the desire for riches, — she had nourished the viper on 
 the poisonous leaven which lies like a sediment at the 
 bottom of such hearts : we shall now see how she exe- 
 cuted the advice which the serpent hissed into her ear. 
 
 " Well, has he taken his drink, the dear cherub; is 
 he better?" she said to Schmucke. 
 
 " No pedder! mj- tear Matame Zipod, no pedder!" 
 answered the German, wiping away a tear. 
 
 "Pooh! you mustn't never get so frightened, my 
 dear monsieur ; take it easy. If Cibot lay at the point 
 of death, I could n't be no sorrier nor you. There, there ! 
 our dear cherub has got a good constitution. And 
 then, don't you see, he seems to have lived virtuous. 
 You never know how long virtuous folks can last ! He 
 
Cousin Pons. 181 
 
 is very ill, that 's true ; but with all the care I give him 
 I'll pull him through. You be eas}', and go about 
 your work ; I '11 keep him company, and see that he 
 drinks his pints o' barley-water." 
 
 "Pud for you, I moost tie of anchziety," said 
 Schmucke, pressing the hand of his good housekeeper 
 in both his own, with a look full of confidence. 
 
 Madame Cibot entered the sick man's bedroom wip- 
 ing her eyes. 
 
 "What is the matter, Madame Cibot?" asked Pons. 
 
 "Monsieur Schmucke has just stuck a knife in my 
 heart ; he 's crying over you as if 3'ou were dead ! " she 
 answered. " Though you are prett}' bad, you are not 
 bad enough to be cried over ; but I 've got such a ten- 
 der heart ! My goodness ! what a fool I am to love 
 people like that, and to care more for you than I do for 
 Cibot. After all, 3'ou ain't nothing to me ; we ain't 
 related, except through the first woman ; and yet, on 
 m}' word of honor, here am I all harrowed up as soon 
 as an3'thing 's the matter with 3'ou. I 'd cut my hand 
 off' — the left one, of course — here, this minute, if I 
 could see you getting about again, eating your meals 
 and filibustering with them dealers, like 3'ou used to. If 
 I 'd had a child I think I should love it just as I love 
 3'ou, that I should ! Come, take your drink, m3' dar- 
 ling, — here, diink it all down ! Won't you ? do as I 
 tell you, now ! Did n't the doctor sa3' , ' If Monsieur 
 Pons don't want to go to Pere-la-Chaise, he must drink 
 ever3' da3^ as man3' pailsful o' water as an Auvergnat 
 sells '? Come, come, 3'ou must drink ! " 
 
 " But I do driuk, m3- good Cibot ! so much, so much, 
 that m3^ stomach is half a-float," murmured Pons. 
 
182 Cousin Pons, 
 
 '' There, that's right," said his nurse, putting down 
 the empty glass. "You will save 3'our life that way. 
 Monsieur Poulain said he had a patient like you, who 
 had n't never no nursing ; his children abandoned him, 
 and he died of this very disease just because he would n't 
 drink nothing ! So you must drink, don't you see, m}' 
 lamib ! — they only buried him two months ago. If yon 
 die, you '11 carry off with you that good Schmucke — 
 why, he 's like a child, he is. Ah, don't he love 3'ou, 
 that dear lamb of a man ! No, there ain't no woman 
 ever loved a man like that ! He can't eat nor drink, 
 and he 's grown so thin the last fifteen days that he 
 ain't no more nor a bag o' bones like you. — Why, it 
 makes me jealous ; for I love 3'ou too : but I have n't 
 come to that pass yet — I hain't lost my appetite, on the 
 contrar}' ; and what with running up and down stairs my 
 legs get so tired I just fling myself down at night like a 
 lump o' lead. I declare I neglect my poor Cibot so that 
 Mademoiselle Remonencq has to get him his victuals, 
 and he blows me up because they 're bad. As for that, 
 I tell him, we should all learn how to suffer for others, 
 and that you are a deal too ill for me to leave you ; you 
 can't do without a nurse, and I shan't have no strange 
 nurse here — I ! who have taken care of you and your 
 affairs for nigh ten years ! I know what hired nurses 
 are ! they eat enough for ten, and they want their wine 
 and their sugar and their warming-pans and their easy 
 times ; and then, goodness, how the}^ rob a sick man 
 if he don't put 'em in his will ! Get a nurse in here for 
 a day, and to-morrow you 'II miss a picture, or some 
 curiosity or other — " 
 
 " Oh, Madame Cibot ! " cried Pons, beside himself at 
 
Cousin Pons, 183 
 
 the idea, ' ' don't leave me ! don't let anj-body touch 
 anj'thing ! " 
 
 "• I am here," she answered. " As long as I have the 
 strength, I'll be here ; make yourself easy ! Monsieur 
 Poulain, who maybe had an eye to your treasures, did n't 
 he w^ant me to get 3'OU a nurse though? But I just 
 snuffed him out. ' There ain't no one but me,' I said 
 to him, ' that monsieur likes ; he knows my wa3's, and 
 I know his.' He held his tongue then, and I said, ' As 
 for nurses, they are all thieves ! I hate them kind o' 
 women ; ' and said he, ' Yes, they are full o' schemes : 
 there was once an old gentleman,' — observe now, it was 
 the doctor said this, — ' and a Madame Sabatier, a 
 woman thirtj'-six 3'ears old, who used to sell slippers 
 at the Palais,' — you know the row of shops they 
 pulled down at the Palais?" 
 
 Pons made a sign in the affirmative. 
 
 " Well, that woman never got on. Her man would 
 drink ; and they saj- he died at last of spontaneous com- 
 bustion. She was a handsome woman ; but if the 
 truth must be told, even that did n't profit her, though 
 she had lawyers among her friends. So when she came 
 to the last crust she went out nursing women in childbed, 
 and lived when at home in the rue Barre-du-Bec. One 
 time she went to nurse an old gentleman who had (sav- 
 ing 3-our presence !) a disease o' the kidneys, and they 
 tapped him like an artesian well ; and that took such 
 a deal o' care, she had to sleep on a flock-bed in the 
 gentleman's room. That 's easily believable. But you 
 will tell me * men don't respect nothing ; they are all 
 selfish.* Well, now, you see, she was always there, 
 talking to him and cheering him up. She told him 
 
184 Cousin Pons. 
 
 stories and got him to talk, just as we are now — ain't 
 we? — chattering to each other ; and she found out that 
 his nephews (for he had some nephews) were perfect 
 monsters ; thej' had made him very unhappy ; and, to 
 cut a long story short, he was just d3ing of the illness 
 those nephews caused. Well, now, m}' dear monsieur, 
 she saved his hfe, and then he married her ; and the}- 've 
 got a splendid child. Madame Bordevin, that keeps 
 the butcher's shop corner of the rue Chariot, is her rela- 
 tion, and she was the godmother. Eh, that was a piece 
 of luck ! I 'm married, that 's true ; but I hain't got 
 no children ; and I ma}^ say this, that it 's Cibot's fault. 
 Enough ! But what should we ever have done, Cibot 
 and I, with a family, when we have n't got a sixpence 
 laid by after thirty years of honest dealings ? Think of 
 that, my good monsieur ! What comforts me is that 
 I 've never taken a farthing of other folks' property*, — 
 never did I wrong any one ! Now, just suppose that 
 in six weeks you are on 3^our i)ins again, sauntering 
 along the boulevard, and that^'ou 'd put me, let 's saj-, in 
 your will ; well, now, I should n't have no peace till I'd 
 found up 3^our heirs to give it back to 'em. I 'm afraid 
 o' mone}' that I don't earn by the sweat o' my brow. 
 People might say to me, ' Ma'ame Cibot, you need n't 
 feel that way, for you 've fairly earned it. You took care 
 o' those gentlemen as if they were your own babes ; you 
 must have saved them a thousand francs a year.' In my 
 place, don't you see, monsieur, there 's many cooks that 
 has got ten thousand francs snugly laid by. So it ain't 
 no wonder the neighbors say, ' It 's only justice, Ma'ame 
 Cibot, that your good gentleman should leave \o\x a 
 little annuity.' Well, I tell 'em, 'No; I'm disinter- 
 
Cousin Pons, 185 
 
 ested.' I don't know how women can do good out o* 
 selfishness. 'Tis n't doing good at all, is it, monsieur? 
 I don't go to church, that 's true : I have n't got the 
 time ; but mj^ conscience tells me what 's right to 
 do. There, there, now don't twist round that way, my 
 lamb, and don't scratch yourself. Goodness ! how yel- 
 low 3'ou are getting ! You are so yellow that j^ou are 
 almost brown ! How queer that a couple o' weeks can 
 make you look like a lemon ! Well, as I was sajdng, 
 honesty is poor folks' property ; they need to have some. 
 Well, let 's suppose the worst does come to the worst 
 with you : I shall be the first to tell you to leave all 3'ou 
 are worth to Monsieur Schmucke. It 's your dut}^ to do 
 so; for isn't he all the family you've got? and don't 
 he love you, that man, like a dog loves his master? " 
 
 " Ah, yes ! " said Pons. '' I have had none but him 
 to love me all my life." 
 
 "Oh, monsieur!" said Madame Cibot, "that ain't 
 kind. Don't I love 3'ou?" 
 
 " I did n't say that, my good Madame Cibot." 
 
 " There you go, and take me for a servant, a common 
 cook, who hain't got no heart ! My goodness ! I may 
 well wear myself out taking care o' two old bachelors 
 for eleven j-ears, and thinking o' nothing but their com- 
 fort! Don't I rummage over ten fruit-shops, and let 
 people make jokes on me, just to get you the best Brie 
 cheese ? Don't I scour the market for j^our fresh but- 
 ter? Don't I take care of all your property? Have I 
 broken, or cracked, or even chipped, a single thing in 
 ten years ? Yes, that 's it ! Take care of 'em just as 
 a mother takes care of her children, and they'll fling 
 you a ' Good Madame Cibot,' which tells you plainly 
 
186 Cousin Pons, 
 
 there ain't a scrap o' feeling for you in the heart of an 
 old gentleman you 've cared for like the son of a king ; 
 for the little King o' Rome was n't never cared for as 
 you 've been ! Will you bet me they took care of him as 
 I've taken care o' j'ou? why, he died in the flower of 
 his age ! Look here, monsieur, you ain't just ; 3'ou 're 
 ungrateful. You treat me so just because I 'm a poor 
 concierge. Good gracious ! You think, like the rest 
 of 'em, that I 'm no better nor a dog — " 
 
 '' But, my dear Madame Cibot — " 
 
 " Come, come, you who know such a deal, tell me 
 wh}' we door-keepers should be treated like that? Why 
 ain't we allowed feelings ? Why do people sneer at us 
 in these days when the}^ talk about equality? Ain't I 
 worth as much as an}" other woman, — I, who was 
 once as pretty a woman as any in all Paris? They 
 called me the ' beautiful 03'ster-girl,' and I used to have 
 seven or eight declarations of love a ds^y. I could have 
 them still, for that matter ! Look here, monsieur, don't 
 3'ou know that scrap of a man, that old iron-dealer 
 down below? Well, if I was a widow, — supposition, 
 of course, — he'd marr}- me blindfold ; for he has n't no 
 eyes for any one but me, and he 's forever saying : ' Oh, 
 what fine arms you 've got, Madame Cibot ! I dreamed 
 last night they were bread, and I was the butter being 
 spread on 'em ! ' Look, monsieur, there 's a pair of arms 
 for you ! " 
 
 Here she turned up her sleeve and showed a reallj' 
 magnificent arm, as white and fresh as her hand was red 
 and wrinkled, — a plump, round, dimpled arm, which 
 came forth from its swathing of coarse merino as a blade 
 is drawn from the scabbard, dazzling the eyes of the 
 
Cousin Pons. 187 
 
 worth}' Pons, who did not venture to gaze at it too 
 long. 
 
 ' ' They Ve opened as many hearts as my knife has 
 opened oysters," she resumed. " Well, they belong to 
 Cibot, and I 'm doing very wrong to neglect that poor 
 dear ; he 'd throw himself over a precipice only to please 
 me. And you, monsieur, for whom I 'd do ever3'thing, 
 — 3'ou don't call me nothing, only your ' good Ma'ame 
 Cibot' — " 
 
 " Do listen to me," said the sick man. '' I can't 
 call 3'ou my mother, nor my wife — " 
 
 *' Never, never in my life will I attach myself to any 
 one again — " 
 
 "Do let me speak!" cried Pons. ''I mentioned 
 Schmucke just now — " 
 
 ''Monsieur Schmucke! Ah, there's a h^art in- 
 deed ! " she said. " He loves me, he does, just because 
 he 's poor. It is riches that makes men unfeeling ; and 
 you are rich. Well, get a nurse, if you want one, and 
 see the life she '11 lead you ! She '11 torment jow like a 
 bumble-bee ! The doctor says you must n't only drink, 
 and she '11 onl}' let you eat ! She 'II get you into yonx 
 grave for the sake of robbing you ! You don't deserve 
 a Madame Cibot ! But go 3-our ways. When Mon- 
 sieur Poulain comes, tell him to send 3'ou a nurse — " 
 
 ' ' What the devil ! Just listen to me ! " cried the 
 angr}^ patient, springing up. ' ' I was not speaking of 
 a woman when I mentioned my friend Schmucke. I 
 know well enough there are no hearts that truly love 
 me but yours and Schmucke's — " 
 
 " Don't get so excited ! " cried the Cibot, darting 
 upon Pons, and laying him back in his bed by force. 
 
188 Cousin Pons. 
 
 " How can I help loving you? " said poor Pons. 
 
 '' Love me, do you? really and truly? There, there, 
 forgive me, monsieur," she said, wiping her eyes. 
 *'Yes, I know how you love me, — just as rich folks 
 love a servant when they throw 'em an annuity of six 
 hundred francs ; like they fling a bone to a dog in his 
 kennel." 
 
 "Oh! Madame Cibot," cried Pons, "what do you 
 take me for ? You don't know me ! " 
 
 ' ' Ah ! 5'OU do love me better nor that ? " she ex- 
 claimed, meeting Pons's eyes. " You do love 3'our poor 
 old Cibot like a mother? Well, that 's right ; I am your 
 mother, and you are both of you my children ! Ah ! if 
 I did but know the people that have made 3'ou unhappy, 
 I 'd risk the police-court, and even a jail, to tear their 
 ej'es out. Such folks deserve to be put to death at the 
 barriere Saint-Jacques, — and even that 's too good a 
 fate for such villains. You, so good and tender, — for 
 you 've got a heart of gold ; 3'ou were born into the 
 world to make some woman happy. Yes, any one 
 can see that ; you were made for it ! From the very 
 first I 've said, seeing how you lived with Monsieur 
 Schmucke : ' Monsieur Pons has just wasted his life ; he 
 was cut out for a good husband.' Ah ! you were a man 
 to love a woman ! " 
 
 " Yes," said Pons, " and 3"et I never had one ! " 
 
 " Really and trul}^?" she exclaimed, taking his hand 
 with an insinuating air. "Don't you know what it is 
 to have a mistress who would go all lengths for 3-ou ? 
 It ain't possible ! If I were in your place I would n't 
 go to the other world without knowing the greatest 
 happiness there is in this. Poor dear ! If I was what 
 
Cousin Pons. 189 
 
 I used to be, on my honor I 'd leave Cibot for 3'ou ! 
 With a nose like 3'ours, — for you 've got a fine, proud 
 one ! — how did it happen, my poor cherub? Perhaps 
 you '11 tell me it is n't all women who have an eye for a 
 man, — and that's true enough; they do marry so at 
 hap-hazard, it is pitiable to see 'em ! I thought you had 
 mistresses b}' the dozen, — dancers, actresses, duchesses ; 
 for 3'Ou ain't never at home. I used to sa}^ to Cibot, 
 when I 'd see you setting off, ' There 's Monsieur Pons 
 going gallivanting.' Yes, honor bright ! that 's just 
 what I did say to him ; I was so sure 3'Ou were fond 
 o' women. Wliy, Heaven created you for love. I saw 
 that the very first da}^ you dined here with Monsieur 
 Schmucke. And did n't he cry about it all the next da}', 
 and sa}' to me, ' Matame Zipod, he tit tine here ! ' He 
 made me cry like an ox myself. Ah ! and was n't he 
 miserable when you began your rovings over again? 
 Poor man ! I never saw no such desolation. You are 
 quite right to make him your heir ; he 's a whole family 
 in himself, the blessed man ! No, don't you forget him ; 
 for if you do, God won't never receive you into Para- 
 dise. He don't let no one in there who is n't grateful 
 enough to leave his friends an annuity." 
 
 Pons made vain attempts to reply. The Cibot talked 
 as the wind blows. A way might be found to stop a 
 steam-engine ; but the tongue of a Parisian concierge of 
 the feminine gender is assuredly too much for the genius 
 of any inventor. 
 
 " I know what 3'Ou are going to saj-," she resumed. 
 *' Now, it don't kill nobody to make his will when he's 
 sick, and if I was in your place I wouldn't neglect that 
 poor dear sheep now, for fear of accidents. He 's the 
 
190 Cousin Pons. 
 
 blessed fool of the good Lord ; he knows nothing about 
 nothing : and if I was yon I would n't leave him to the 
 mercy of those harpies the lawj-ers, nor relations neither, 
 who are the scum of the earth. There has n't one been 
 to see 3'OU all these twenty days that you 've been so ill. 
 You don't mean to give your property- to such people, I 
 hope? Do 3^ou know, I'm told these things 3'ou've 
 got here are worth having?" 
 
 *'Well, yes," said Pons._ 
 
 "Remonencq, who knows you are an amateur, and 
 who sells such things second-hand, sa3's he '11 give you 
 an annuit}^ of thirty- thousand francs if 3'ou '11 let him 
 have 3'our pictures after 3'our death. Now, there 's a 
 chance ! In 3'our place I 'd take it. I thought at first 
 he was making fun o' me when he said it. You ought 
 to tell Monsieur Schmucke the value of those things ; 
 he 's a man the3' could cheat like a bab3\ He has n't 
 the slightest idea what those fine things are worth ; he 
 knows so little about it, he 'd give 'em away for a song, 
 — unless, for love of you, he kept 'em all his life : that is, 
 if he outlives 3'Ou ; for, more like, 3'our death will kill 
 him. But I shall be here, I shall ; and I '11 protect 
 him against ever3^bod3' — I and Cibot." 
 
 *' Dear Madame Cibot ! " said Pons, touched b3' the 
 simple good feeling of the lower classes which seemed to 
 run through her detestable garrulit3', " what would be- 
 come of me without 3'Ou and Schmucke? " 
 
 " Yes, yes, we are the only friends you 've got in this 
 world ; that 's true enough. But two kind hearts are 
 worth all the famiUes put together. Don't talk to me 
 of families ! The3^ are like what that old actor said of 
 the tongue, — all that 's best, and all that 's worst. 
 
Cousin Pons. 191 
 
 Where 's your family ? Have you got any relations ? I 
 never saw none of 'em." 
 
 *' It is they who have laid me on a sick bed ! " cried 
 Pons bitterly. 
 
 "Ha! then you have got relations ? " exclaimed the 
 Cibot, starting up as if her chair had suddenly turned 
 to a red-hot ploughshare. " They must be a nice set, 
 your relations ! Here 's twenty days — yes, this very 
 morning, twenty days — that you 've been at death's 
 door, and there ain't none of 'em has come to ask how 
 you are ! If that is n't more than flesh and blood can 
 stand ! If I were you, I 'd rather leave my money to 
 the Foundling Hospital than give 'em one penny." 
 
 " Eh ! my dear Madame Cibot, I meant to leave all I 
 possessed to my young cousin, the daughter of my first- 
 cousin. Monsieur Camusot, — you know whom I mean? 
 The gentleman who came here to see me nearly two 
 months ago." 
 
 " Ah, 3'es ! a little fat man who sent his servants to 
 beg your pardon for his wife's folly. The waiting-maid 
 asked me a lot of questions about you. Affected old 
 thing ! I 'd half a mind to dust her velvet jacket for her 
 with tlie handle o' my broom. Who ever heard of a 
 lady's maid with a velvet jacket ? The world 's tinned 
 upside down : what 's the use of making revolutions ? 
 Yes, yes, dine twice a day, if you can, you rich rascals ; 
 but I say the laws will be useless, there won't be noth- 
 ing sacred, if Louis-Philippe don't keep up a proper dis- 
 tinction o' classes ! I 'd like to know how we are all 
 going to be equal, if a waiting-maid is to have a velvet 
 jacket, and I, Madame Cibot, with thirty years' honesty 
 to boast of, hain't none ? A pretty state o' things I 
 
192 Cousin Pons. 
 
 People ought to be seen for what they are. A lady's 
 maid is a lady's maid, just as I 'm a concierge. What 
 do they wear epaulets with that big bullion for, in the 
 army? Everybod}^ in their own rank, I say ! I '11 tell 
 3'ou what '11 be the upshot of all this, — France will be 
 ruined ! Under the Empire things went different, did n't 
 the}", monsieur? That 's just what I said to Cibot ; said 
 I : ' Look here, m^^ man, a house where thej^ keep ladj-'s 
 maids in velvet jackets is like folks without no bowels 
 o' compassion.' " 
 
 " Compassion ! ah, that 's just it ! " exclaimed Pons. 
 And thereupon he recounted all his griefs and mortifica- 
 tions to Madame Cibot, who poured forth invectives 
 against his relations, and testified extreme tenderness 
 for him at each pause in the melanchol}^ tale, until at 
 last she wept ! 
 
 To understand the possibilit}' of this sudden intimacy 
 between the poor musician and Madame Cibot, it is 
 enough to consider the situation of an old cehbate, 
 grievousl}" ill for the first time in his life, stretched upon 
 a bed of suffering, alone in the world, having to pass 
 each day face to face with his own thoughts, and find- 
 ing the time hang all the heavier under the indefina- 
 ble sufferings with which liver diseases blacken even the 
 brightest lives, because, deprived of his usual occupa- 
 tions, he hungered for the streets of Paris and longed 
 for those sights which they offer gratis. Such absolute 
 and gloomy solitude, such pain preying on the moral 
 even more than on the plij'sical being, — the starvation 
 of life, as it were, — drives a celibate, and above all one 
 whose nature is weak and whose heart is tender, to 
 attach himself to whoever takes care of him ; just as a 
 
Cousin Pons. 193 
 
 drowning man clings to a plank. Pons therefore lis- 
 tened eagerly to Madame Cibot's cackle. Schmucke, 
 Madame Cibot, and Monsieur Poulain were to him the 
 whole of humanit}^, and the bedroom was his universe. 
 If all sick persons concentrate their minds on the little 
 round which their ejes can see, and if their egotism takes 
 the form of subordinating themselves to the people and 
 things about them, we may imagine what an old bach- 
 elor, without domestic affections and never having 
 known love, was capable of doing. During the last 
 twenty days Pons had actuallj' been brought to regret, 
 now and then, that he had not married Madeleine Vivet. 
 Therefore in those same twenty da3's Madame Cibot 
 had already- gained an immense hold over her patient's 
 mind, and he thought himself a lost man without her ; 
 as to Schmucke, he was only a second self for the poor 
 patient. Madame Cibot's wonderful art consisted, un- 
 known perhaps to herself, in giving utterance to Pons's 
 own thoughts. 
 
 ''Ah! here comes the doctor," she said, as the bell 
 rang. 
 
 She left Pons all alone, knowing perfectl}' well that 
 the Jew and Remonencq had arrived. 
 
 '* Don't make any noise, gentlemen," she said, " lest 
 he should suspect something ; for he 's as ticklish as a 
 toad about those treasures of his ! " 
 
 " It will be enough just to walk through the room," 
 said the Jew, who had come provided with an opera- 
 glass and a magnifier. 
 
 13 
 
194 Cousin Pons. 
 
 XVI 
 
 DEPRAVITY DISCUSSED. 
 
 The room which held the chief part of the Pons col- 
 lection was one of those ancient salons such as French 
 architects formerly designed for the nobility, twent}'- 
 five feet wide by thirty feet long, and thirteen feet in 
 height. All the pictures which the old man possessed, 
 sixtj'-eight in number, were hung on the four walls of 
 this salon, which was panelled in wood and painted 
 white and gold ; but the white which had 3'ellowed and 
 the gold which had tarnished with time, gave harmoni- 
 ous tones which did not conflict with the eflTect of the pic- 
 tures. Fourteen statues, raised on short columns, were 
 placed either in the angles of the room or between the 
 pictures, on corbels made by Boule. Buffets of ebony, 
 all carved, and of regal richness, were fastened round 
 the walls above the wainscoting ; these buflfets held the 
 bric-^-brac. A row of sideboards in carA^ed wood, placed 
 down the centre of the room, were also covered with 
 the choicest treasures of human toil, — ivories, bronzes, 
 carvings, enamels, jewelry, porcelains, etc. 
 
 As soon as the Jew set foot in this sanctuary, he went 
 straight to four masterpieces, which he knew to be the 
 finest in the collection, four pictures painted by masters 
 whose works were lacking in his own. They were to him 
 what the flora of distant countries are to naturalists, — 
 desiderata which drive them to journey from the setting 
 
Cousin Pons. 195 
 
 to the rising sun, to the tropics, over deserts, over prai- 
 ries, across savannas, and through the depths of virgin 
 forests. The first picture was b}' Sebastian del Piombo, 
 the second by Fra Bartolommeo della Porta, the third 
 a landscape by Hobbema, and the last the portrait of 
 a woman by Albrecht Diirer — four jewels ! Sebastian 
 del Piombo is, in the art of painting, a brilliant central 
 point in whom three schools meet, each in its highest 
 excellence. Originally a Venetian painter, he went to 
 Rome and took the style of Raphael under the direc- 
 tion of Michael Angelo, who wished to pit him against 
 Raphael, and contest, in the person of a lieutenant, 
 the supremacy of that sovereign pontiff of Art. Thus 
 this indolent genius brought together Venetian color, 
 Florentine composition, and the Raphaelesque manner 
 in the few pictures which he deigned to paint, the 
 sketches for which were made, it is said, by Michael 
 Angelo. The perfection attained by this painter, thus 
 armed with triple power, will be seen 'by any one who 
 studies the portrait of Baccio Bandinelli in the Musee 
 of Paris, — a picture which may challenge comparison with 
 Titian's Man of the Glove, or the portrait of the Old Man 
 in which Raphael combined his own perfection with that 
 of Correggio, or the picture of Charles VIII. by Lio- 
 nardo da Vinci, without detriment to its fame. These 
 four pearls are of the same water, the same quality of 
 light, the same fulness, the same brilliancy, the same cal- 
 ibre. Human art can go no farther. It is superior to 
 Nocture, which can only make the original live its da3^ 
 Pons possessed another work of this great genius, this 
 immortal but incurably indolent palette, — a Knight of 
 Malta in prayer, painted on slate, of a freshness, a finish, 
 
196 Cousin Pons. 
 
 and a depth greater even than those qualities in the 
 portrait of Baccio Bandinelli. The Hol}^ Familj- of Fra 
 Bartolommeo would readil)' have been taken for a Raph- 
 ael b}" many connoisseurs ; the Hobbema would have 
 brought sixty thousand francs at auction ; and as to the 
 Albrecht Dtirer, this portrait of a woman was doubtless 
 a pendant to the famous Holzschuer of Nuremberg, for 
 which the kings of Bavaria, Holland, and Prussia have 
 on several occasions vainly offered two hundred thou- 
 sand francs. Was she the wife, or tlie daughter, of the 
 Chevalier Holzschuer, the friend of Albrecht DUrer? 
 That the pictures were once a pair ma}^ be considered 
 imdeniable ; for the woman in the Pons collection is in 
 an attitude which requires a pendant, and the heraldic 
 insignia are painted in the same position in both pic- 
 tures. Moreover, the cetatis suce XL I, is in perfect 
 accordance with the age given on the portrait so relig- 
 iously guarded by the Holzschuer family in Nuremberg, 
 which has 'been lately engraved. 
 
 The tears stood in Elie Magus's eyes as he looked, 
 one after the other, at these masterpieces. 
 
 '' I will give 3'ou two thousand francs' commission for 
 each of those pictures if you will help me to get them 
 for forty thousand francs," he whispered in Madame 
 Cibot's ear, who stood open-mouthed at a fortune thus 
 tumbling from heaven at her feet. 
 
 The admiration, or, to speak more truly, the ecstasy, 
 of the Jew had produced such disorder in his mind and 
 in his miserly habits that for once, as we see, his Jewish 
 soul was overthrown. 
 
 "What about me?" said R^monencq, who knew 
 nothing of pictures. 
 
Cousin Pons. 197 
 
 '* Everything here is of equal vakie," whispered 
 Magus sl^'ly : "take any ten of the pictures on the 
 same terms, and your fortune is made." 
 
 The robbers looked at each other, all three in the 
 grasp of the most voluptuous of enjoj'ments, — the grati- 
 fication of success in the pursuit of fortune ; at that 
 moment the sick man's voice rang out and vibrated like 
 the sound of a bell. 
 
 *' Who is there? " cried Pons. 
 
 " Monsieur, lie down again ! " exclaimed the Cibot, 
 springing towards Pons and forcing him back into his 
 bed. " Goodness ! do 3'ou want to kill yourself ? Wh}^, 
 it was n't the doctor, it is that good Remonencq, who 
 is so uneasy about 3'ou that he came to ask how you 
 are. You are so beloved, all the house is astir about 
 you. What are 3'Ou afraid of ? " 
 
 "But it seems to me that there are several persons 
 there," said the sick man. 
 
 "Several? well done ! Are j^ou dreaming? You'll 
 end by going crazy, take my word for it. There ! look 
 here ! " 
 
 So saying, she opened the door quickly, and made 
 a sign to Magus to go away, and to Remonencq to come 
 forward. 
 
 " Well, m}" good monsieur," said the Auvergnat, for 
 whose instruction the woman had spoken, " I came 
 to hear how you are ; the whole house is in a fright 
 about you. People don't like a death in the house ! 
 Besides, Papa Monistrol, whom you know very well, 
 sent me to sa\^ that if you wanted an}' monej^, he was 
 at 3'our service." 
 
 " He sent you here to give a look at my bibelots," 
 
198 Cousin Pons. 
 
 said the old collector, with a bitterness that was full 
 of suspicion. 
 
 In diseases of the liver the victims nearlj- alwaj's de- 
 velop sudden and special antipathies ; the}' concentrate 
 their ill-humor on some object or on some person, it 
 does not matter what or who. Pons, who already im- 
 agined that some one was after his treasure, was pos- 
 sessed with the fixed idea of protecting it ; and he was 
 constantl}' sending Schmucke back and forth to see if 
 any one had slipped into his sanctuary. 
 
 " Your collection is fine enough to tempt the chi- 
 neurs^'' said Remonencq astutely. " I don't understand 
 high-class curiosities ; but monsieur is thought to be 
 such a great connoisseur that, though I am not up in 
 such things, I'd buy some of them from monsieur with 
 my eyes shut. Now, if monsieur wanted any money, — 
 nothing costs like these cursed illnesses. I 've known 
 my sister to spend thirty sous in ten days for medicines 
 when her blood is out of order ; though she 'd have got 
 well just as soon without them. Doctors are cheats, 
 who profit b}^ our weakness to — " 
 
 " Thank you, monsieur, I need nothing; good-day," 
 said Pons, looking uneasily at the Auvergnat. 
 
 "I'll show him the way out," said Madame Cibot in 
 a low voice to her patient, "for fear he should touch 
 anything." 
 
 "Yes, yes," answered Pons, thanking her with a 
 look. 
 
 Madame Cibot shut the door of the bedroom, — an ac- 
 tion which at once roused the sick man's suspicion. 
 She found Magus standing motionless in front of the 
 four pictures. This immobility, this rapt admiration, 
 
Cousin Pons. 199 
 
 can be understood only b}^ those whose souls are open 
 to the ideal, to the ineffable emotion caused b}' the per- 
 fection of a work of art. Such people remain rooted 
 on their feet for hours before the Jocunda of Lionardo 
 da Vinci, the Mistress of Titian, the H0I3' Family of 
 Andrea del Sarto, the Children of Dominichino gar- 
 landed with flowers, the little cameo of Raphael or his 
 portrait of the Old Man, — the greatest of all the great 
 masterpieces of art. 
 
 " Get away without making any noise," said the 
 Cibot. 
 
 The Jew went slowly out, walking backwards as he 
 went, gazing at the pictures as a lover looks at a mis- 
 tress to whom he is forced to bid adieu. When he 
 reached the landing, Madame Cibot, to whom this 
 earnest contemplation had supplied a few ideas, tapped 
 Magus on his skinny arm. 
 
 ''You must give me four thousand francs for each 
 picture ; if not, no bargain," she said. 
 
 " I am so poor ! " said Magus. " If I want these pic- 
 tures, it is for love, pure love of art, my good lady." 
 
 " You're such a dry stick, m}- old fellow," said the 
 woman, "that I don't believe in no such love. But if 
 3'ou don't promise me sixteen thousand francs here to- 
 daj', in presence of Remonencq, to-morrow I '11 make 
 it twent}' thousand." 
 
 " I promise the sixteen," answered the Jew, alarmed 
 at her avidit3\ 
 
 " What can he swear b}'? he's onlj^ a Jew," said the 
 Cibot to Remonencq. 
 
 "You can trust him," said the Auvergnat; "he's 
 as honest a man as I am." 
 
200 Cousin Pons. 
 
 '•' Hey ! and j^ou?" she demanded. *' If I give you 
 some o' the pictures to sell, what will j'oii pay me? " 
 
 " Half the profits," said Remonencq promptly. 
 
 " I 'd rather have a sum down ; I 'm not in business," 
 said Madame Cibot. 
 
 ''You understand it pretty well, though!" said Elie 
 Magus, smiling ; " 3'ou would make a fine dealer." 
 
 " I 've offered to go into partnership with her, body 
 and estate," declared Remonencq, taking Madame 
 Cibot's plump arm and rapping it with the force of a ham- 
 mer. " I don't ask an}' other capital than her beauty ! 
 You are very wTong to hold on to 3'our Turk of a Cibot 
 and his shears. Is it a little tailor who can make a 
 rich woman of a beauty like you? Ah, what a figure 
 you 'd cut in my shop on the boulevard, in the middle 
 of all the curiosities, chattering to the customers and 
 twisting 'em round 3'our finger ! Come, j-ou give up that 
 lodge of 3'ours as soon as 3'oa 've made 3^our haul here, 
 and see how well we '11 get on together." 
 
 ''Made my haul here!" exclaimed Madame Cibot. 
 " I ain't capable of taking so much as the value of a 
 pin! Do 3'ou hear me, Remonencq? I'm known in 
 all the quarter for an honest woman, I am ! " 
 
 Her eyes flamed. 
 
 " There, there, don't get angry ! " said Elie Magus ; 
 "the man seems to love 3'ou too well to meap any 
 offbnce." 
 
 " Hey! how she would draw the customers!" cried 
 the Auvergnat. 
 
 "Now, be fair, both of 3'Ou," resumed Madame 
 Cibot, pacified, "and consider for 3'ourselves how I'm 
 placed. Here 's ten 3'ears that I 've been wearing 
 
Cousin Pons. 201 
 
 myself out, body and soul, for those two old bachelors, 
 and they hain't never given me a single thing except 
 words. Remonencq can tell you I feed 'em at a loss ; 
 I lose twenty to thirty sous a day on 'em. All my sav- 
 ings have gone that way. I swear it by the soul of my 
 mother, — the only author of my being that I 've ever 
 known, — it 's as true as I 'm born, and as the dayhght 's 
 above us : and may my coffee poison me if I lie one 
 penny's worth. Well, then, here 's one on 'em going to 
 die, that 's sure ; and it 's the richest of the pair whom 
 I 've treated like they were my own children. Now would 
 you believe, m}^ dear monsieur, that I 've been telling 
 him for twenty days he's at death's door (for Monsieur 
 Poulain has given him over) ; and yet this skinflint 
 won't say a word about putting me in his will any more 
 than if he did n't know me. My word of honor ! no- 
 body gets their rights unless they take 'em. Talk to 
 me of trusting to the heirs, indeed ! That 's likely ! 
 Such talk stinks in my nostrils. People are all scum ! " 
 
 " That's true," said EUe Magus artfully ; " and it is 
 such as we," he added, looking at Remonencq, " who 
 are really the honest men." 
 
 "Oh! no offence; I wasn't speaking of 3"0u," said 
 Madame Cibot. " Present company, as the old actor 
 said, is always accepted. I'll swear to 3'ou those two 
 old b^ielors owe me nearly three thousand francs ; the 
 little I had saved up is all gone for their medicines and 
 expenses. And suppose they did n't give me nothing for 
 all I 've advanced ! 1 'm such a fool, with my honesty, 
 that I don't like to speak to 'em about it. Now, you 
 know what business is, my good monsieur : would you 
 advise me to go to a lawyer ? " 
 
202 Cousin Pons. 
 
 " A lawyer ! *' cried Remonencq ; *' you know a deal 
 more than all the lawj^ers put together ! " 
 
 The sound of a heavy body falling on the floor of the 
 dining-room echoed through the wide vault of the 
 staircase. 
 
 "Good God!" cried Madame Cibot, "what's the 
 matter? I do believe my old gentleman has tumbled 
 headlong ! — " 
 
 She gave a push to her accomplices, who rushed 
 downstairs with agilit}^, and then flew into the dining- 
 room, where she saw Pons, in his nightshirt, lying at full 
 length upon the floor in a dead faint. She seized the 
 old man, lifted him like a feather, and carried him to 
 his bed. When she had laid him back in it, she put 
 a burnt goose-quill to his nose, wet his temples with 
 eau-de-cologne, and brought him to his senses. 
 
 "Without 3'our slippers, in your shirt-tails! It's 
 enough to kill you ! Why do you suspect me ? If 
 that's how it's to be, good-by to you! After serving 
 you ten years, and paying out mj' own monej^ for you, 
 and spending all my savings so as not to worry that poor 
 Monsieur Schmucke, who goes crying down the stairs 
 like a babj^, — this is to be m3' reward, is it? You spy 
 upon me! Well, God has punished you, and that's 
 right ! And here if I have n't given myself a strain 
 lifting you in my arms ! And perhaps I 'm injured for 
 the rest of my life ! Goodness ! and there 's the door 
 that I left open ! " 
 
 " Whom were j^ou talking to? " 
 
 "What an idea!" cried the Cibot. "Am I your 
 slave ? I have n't got to render no account to you o' my 
 doings. Don't you know, if you behave so to me, I '11 
 
Cousin Pons. 208 
 
 put my foot down and leave you right there? Then 
 3'ou can hire a nurse." 
 
 Pons, terrified at this threat, unconsciousl}' revealed 
 to Madame Cibot the lengths to which she could go with 
 this sword of Damocles. 
 
 "It is because I am so ill," he said piteous!}'. 
 
 "Oh! I dare say!" she answered roughly, leaving 
 Pons quite bewildered, a prey to remorse, admiring the 
 clamorous devotion of his nurse, and so full of self- 
 reproach that he did not feel the cruel hurt of his fall 
 upon the flagging of the dining-room, by which he had 
 just aggravated the eflects of his disease. Madame 
 Cibot saw Schmucke coming up the stairway. 
 
 "Come, monsieur, come! I've bad news for you. 
 Monsieur Pons is out of his head. Fancy ! he got up 
 without an3'thing on, and followed me, and he fell down 
 right there at full length. If 3'ou ask him why he did 
 it, he don't know. He 's wrong in his head. I did 
 nothing to provoke such violence, except that I was 
 talking to him about his early loves. But there ! you 
 can't trust no man ; they are all old rips — " 
 
 Schmucke listened to Madame Cibot as if she were 
 talking Hebrew. 
 
 " I 've given mj'self such a wrench that I 've got a hurt 
 that will last me all mj- days ! " she added, seeming 
 to suffer excruciating pain, and suddenly- resolving to 
 make the most of an idea that came from a slight fatigue 
 she felt in her muscles. " I am a fool ! When I saw 
 him there on the ground, I took him up in my arms and 
 carried him to his bed like a child, that I did ! And now 
 I just feel such a strain ! Ah, I 'm ill ! I must go 
 down. Take care of the patient. I must send Cibot for 
 
204 Cousin Pons, 
 
 Monsieur Poulain, and see what 's the matter with me. 
 I 'd rather die than be a crippled creature ! " 
 
 She grasped the balusters and dragged herself down 
 the staircase, making many contortions and uttering such 
 plaintive moans that the other lodgers, much alarmed, 
 came out from their appartements on the different land- 
 ings. Schmucke supported the sufferer, shedding tears 
 and explaining her great devotion. All the house, and 
 soon all the neighborhood, heard of Madame Cibot's 
 noble deed ; she had done herself, they said, a mortal 
 injur}^ b}' lifting one of the Nut-crackers in her arms. 
 Schmucke, as soon as he could get back to Pons, told 
 him about the sad condition of their factotum, and each 
 gazed at the other, saying, " What will become of us 
 without her?" Schmucke, observing the change in 
 Pons's appearance produced b}^ his strange freak, dared 
 not scold him. 
 
 " Gonvound dat prig-a-prag ! It hat pedder pe purned 
 dan gill my frent ! " he cried, after Pons had told him 
 the cause of the accident. *'It meks 3'ou tout dat 
 goot Matame Zipod, who has her zafings lentet to us ! 
 Dat ees not raight — but it ees eelness, I know dat ! " 
 
 "Ah! what an illness! I am changed; I feel it,'* 
 said Pons. ''I don't wish to make you unhappy, my 
 good Schmucke." 
 
 " Sgold me," said Schmucke, " pud leaf Matame 
 Zipod aloan." 
 
 Doctor Poulain cured Madame Cibot in a few daj's of 
 the internal injury she pretended to have suffered ; and 
 his reputation became really illustrious throughout the 
 Marais for the skill manifested in this cure, which was 
 called miraculous. To Pons, the doctor attributed his 
 
Cousin Pons. 205 
 
 patient's recover}^ to her excellent constitution ; and she 
 resumed her attendance upon the two old gentlemen on 
 the seventh day, to their great satisfaction. This event 
 increased the power and tyrann}' of Madame Cibot a 
 hundred-fold over the household arrangements of the 
 two Nut-crackers, who during this week had been 
 forced to run into debt, the debts being paid by her. 
 She profited by the circumstance to obtain from 
 Schmucke (and with what ease !) a receipt for the two 
 thousand francs which she declared she had lent to the 
 two friends. 
 
 " Ah ! what a doctor Monsieur Poulain is," she said 
 to Pons. "He'll save your life, my dear monsieur, 
 for he 's dragged me out o' my coffin. M}' poor Cibot 
 thought I was dead ! Well, now. Monsieur Poulain 
 must have told 3^ou I did n't think of nothing but yow 
 when I was lying there on my bed. 'My God,' I used 
 to sa}^ ' take me ; but let my dear Monsieur Pons live !' " 
 
 "Poor dear Madame Cibot, you came near having 
 a fatal hurt through me ! " 
 
 " Ah ! if it had n't been for Monsieur Poulain, I should 
 have been put to bed with a shovel by this time. Well, 
 as that old actor used to say, ' When 3'ou 're at the bot- 
 tom of the grave, you can turn a summerset.' Philos- 
 ophy is a good thing. How have you got along without 
 me?" 
 
 " Schmucke nursed me," said the patient; "but our. 
 purse and our pupils have fared badl}'. I am sure I 
 don't know how Schmucke has managed." 
 
 " Pe galm, Bons ! " cried Schmucke; "our goot 
 Matame Zipod ees our panker." 
 
 " Don't speak of that, my dear lamb ; 3'ou 're both of 
 
206 Cousin Pons. 
 
 you my children," returned the Cibot. " My savings 
 are safe with you. I 'm not afraid ; 3'ou 're as sound as 
 the Bank of France. As long as Cibot and 1 have a 
 bit of bread, you shall have half of it — 'taint worth 
 talking about." 
 
 " Boor Matame Zipod ! " said Schmucke, as he went 
 away. 
 
 Pons said nothing. 
 
 " Would you believe it, mj precious," said Madame 
 Cibot, noticing that her patient was uneasy, " when death 
 was hanging over me — for, I tell you, it stared me 
 in the face — the thing that worried me most was the 
 thought of 3'ou poor dears left alone to yowv own de- 
 vices, and m}^ poor Cibot without a farthing. My sav- 
 ings are such a trifle that they wouldn't be worth 
 speaking of, if it was n't for Cibot, in case of mj' death. 
 Poor angel ! that man has taken care of me as if I was 
 a queen; he moaned over me like a calf, he did. But 
 I felt sure o' 3^ou ; I give 3'ou m}^ word o' that. I said 
 to m3'self: 'Don't you be afraid, Ma'ame Cibot; your 
 gentlemen won't never leave 3'Ou to starve.' " 
 
 Pons made no answer to this attack ad testameiitum^ 
 though Madame Cibot paused for a reply. 
 
 " I will tell Schmucke to take care of 3'Ou," he said 
 at length. 
 
 '' Ah ! " cried the woman, '' anything you do will be 
 right ; I can trust you and 3'our heart. Don't sa3' no 
 more ; it makes me ashamed, m3- dear, good cherub. 
 Don't think o' nothing but getting well. You '11 live 
 longer nor the rest of us." 
 
 Profound anxiet3" filled Madame Cibot's heart, and 
 she resolved to get some explanation from Pons as to 
 
Cousin Pons. 207 
 
 the amount of the legacy he intended to leave her. As 
 a preliminary step, she went to call on Doctor Poulain 
 in his own home that evening, after she had served 
 Schmucke's dinner, the old German being now in 
 the habit of taking his meals by the bedside of his 
 friend. 
 
208 Cousin Pons, 
 
 XVII. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF ALL FIRST APPEARANCES IN PARIS. 
 
 Doctor Poulain lived in the rue d'Orleans. He oc- 
 cupied a small ground-floor appartement consisting of 
 an antechamber, a salon, and two bedrooms. An oflSce 
 which adjoined the antechamber and communicated with 
 the doctor's bedroom had been converted into a studj'. 
 A kitchen, one servant's bedroom, and a small cellar 
 belonging to this suite of rooms were in the wing of 
 the house, a vast structure, erected in the daj's of 
 the Empire on the site of a former mansion, the 
 garden of which still remained. This garden was 
 divided among the three appartements on the ground- 
 floor. 
 
 The suite of rooms belonging to the doctor had seen 
 no change for forty years. The paint, papering, and 
 decorations were all of the Empire. More than a gen- 
 eration of dirt and smoke had defaced the mirrors and 
 friezes, the patterns of the wall-papers, the ceilings, 
 and the paint on the woodwork. This httle abode, in 
 the depths of the Marais, cost a thousand francs a year. 
 Madame Poulain, the doctor's mother, a woman sixty- 
 five years of age, was spending her last years in the 
 second bedroom. Her husband had been a breeches- 
 maker, and she worked at the trade, on gaiters, leath- 
 ern breeches, braces, and waistbands ; in fact, on all the 
 
Cousin Pons, 209 
 
 various parts of that garment, now fallen into disuse. 
 She never went out into the street, being full}" occupied 
 by the care of the doctor's housekeeping and the manage- 
 ment of his one servant, and took the air only in the gar- 
 den, which was entered by a glass door leading from the 
 salon. On the death of her husband — which happened 
 twent}" years before the time of which we are writing — 
 she had sold the business to her forewoman, who agreed 
 to let her keep enough work to enable her to earn thirty 
 sous a day. She had sacrificed everything to the educa- 
 tion of her only son, in the effort to give him a vocation 
 superior to that of his father. Proud of her ^sculapius, 
 and confident of his success, she still continued to 
 sacrifice herself to his interests, — happ}' in taking 
 care of him, in economizing for his benefit, thinking 
 only of his comfort, and loving him with an intelligent 
 good sense not shown hy all mothers. Thus Madame 
 Poulain, who remembered very well that she had once 
 been a mere work-woman, never injured her son by 
 showing her defects, or exposing herself to ridicule, — 
 for the good woman used her s's yqyj much as JVJadame 
 Cibot used her negatives. She always hid herself in her 
 bedroom whenever, b}' chance, some important patient 
 came to consult the doctor, or when his fellow-collegians 
 and comrades in the hospital made their appearance. The 
 doctor, therefore, was never obliged to blush for his 
 mother, — whom, indeed, he reverenced, and whose de- 
 fects of education were well compensated by this sublime 
 species of tenderness. The sale of her business had 
 yielded about twenty thousand francs, which she had put 
 into the Grand-Livre in 1820; and the eleven hundred 
 francs dividend therefrom represented the whole of her 
 
 14 
 
210 Cousin Pons. 
 
 means. So for several j^ears the neighbors saw the 
 famil}^ linen stretched on lines in the doctor's third of 
 the garden. Madame Poulain and her one servant 
 washed at home as a matter of economy. This small 
 domestic detail had done the doctor much harm among 
 those who did not choose to recognize his talent because 
 they saw his poverty. The eleven hundred francs paid 
 the rent, and in earlier years the leather-stitching of 
 Madame Poulain — a fat, comfortable little old woman 
 — had sufficed for all the wants of their humble house- 
 hold. After twelve years' persistence along this stony 
 path, the doctor had come to earn about three thousand 
 francs a year ; so that Madame Poulain now Imd an in- 
 come of something like five thousand francs to lay out. 
 To any one who knows Paris, this will seem just enough 
 for the strict necessaries of life. 
 
 The salon where the patients were accustomed to wait 
 was meanl}^ furnished with the vulgar and well-known 
 mahogan}^ sofa covered with 3'ellow Utrecht velvet 
 embossed with a pattern of flowers, four armchairs, 
 six common chairs, a pier-table, and a tea-table, — 
 which had all been the property of the late breeches- 
 maker, and his particular choice. The clock, kept 
 under a glass-case between two Egyptian candelabra, 
 was in the shape of a lyre. It was a question how the 
 curtains which hung at the windows could possibly have 
 been preserved so long ; for they were made of yellow- 
 calico, with a pattern of red geometrical rosettes from 
 the manufactory at Jouy. (Obcrkampf, the Bavarian 
 manufacturer who first established calico print-works 
 at Jou3^-en-Josas, near Versailles, received the thanks 
 of the Emperor in 1809 for these atrocious products of 
 
Cousin Pons. 211 
 
 his cotton industry.) The doctor's study was furnished 
 in the same stj'le, the paternal bed-chamber having sup- 
 plied the wherewithal. The aspect of the room was 
 stiff, dismal, and poverty-stricken. What patient could 
 possibly believe in the skill of a doctor without re- 
 nown who had barely any furniture ? — in these days, 
 too, when the art of advertising is all powerful, and 
 when they gild the lamps on the Place de la Concorde 
 to console the poor man and coax him to believe himself 
 a rich citizen ! 
 
 The antechamber served as a dining-room. The ser- 
 vant sat there at her sewing when not employed in the 
 kitchen or in company with the doctor's mother. A 
 glance sufficed to show the decent poverty which per- 
 vaded this melancholy room (which was left empty dur- 
 ing the greater part of the day), as the eye rested on the 
 little red muslin curtain covering the solitary window 
 looking out upon the court. The cupboards held scraps 
 of sodden pates, chipped plates, endless corks, the nap- 
 kins of a week's use, — in short, all the necessary igno- 
 minies of the humbler Parisian households, whose next 
 stage inevitably lands them in the pouch of a rag-picker. 
 Thus it happened that in these days, when the new five- 
 franc piece lurks in all minds and rolls on all tongues, 
 the doctor, though thirty years of age and possessed of 
 a mother without relations, was still a bachelor. In the 
 course of ten years he had never met with the smallest 
 pretext for a love-afl^air in the families to which his pro- 
 fession gave him access ; for the healing art took him 
 among those whose sphere in life very much resembled 
 his own, — that is to say, minor clerks and the smaller 
 dealers and manufacturers. His richest clients were 
 
212 Cousin Pons. 
 
 butchers, bakers, and the retail shopkeepers of the 
 neighborhood, — people who commonl}' attributed their 
 cure to Nature, and paid the doctor only fort}' sous for 
 his visit, for the reason that he came on foot. In the 
 medical profession a cabriolet is of more consequence 
 than skill. 
 
 A life of commonplace events, without opportunities, 
 ends bj" reacting upon even the most venturous mind. 
 A man conforms to his fate, and accepts the mediocrity 
 of his life. Doctor Foulain, after ten 3-ears' practice, 
 was still at the toil of Sisyphus, without the sense of 
 despair which made its first years so bitter. Neverthe- 
 less he cherished a dream ; for every soul in Paris has 
 his own visions : Remonencq had his ; so had Ma- 
 dame Cibot. Doctor Poulain hoped to be called to some 
 rich and influential invalid, and to obtain by means of 
 this patient — whom he should infallibly cure — an ap- 
 pointment as surgeon-in-chief to some hospital, or the 
 position of doctor in a prison, or to the theatres of the 
 boulevard, or in some government office. He had 
 already obtained by such means the place of physician 
 to the mairie. Called in b}^ Madame Cibot, he had 
 attended and cured Monsieur Pillerault, the owner of 
 the house to which she and her husband were door- 
 keepers. Monsieur Pillerault, great-uncle of Madame 
 la comtesse Popinot, who was wife of a minister, took 
 an interest in the young man whose secret poverty he 
 fathomed while making a visit of acknowledgment at 
 the doctor's home ; and he obtained from his great- 
 nephew the minister, who deeply respected him, the sit- 
 uation at the mnyor's office which Poulam had retained 
 for five 3'ears, the meagre emoluments of which had come 
 
Cousin Pons, 213 
 
 just in time to keep him from carrying out a rash deci- 
 sion to emigrate. To leave France is to a Frenchman 
 like going to his own funeral. Doctor Poulain liastened 
 to thank the Comte Popinot ; but the doctor in charge 
 of the department over which the minister presided, 
 proved to be the illustrious Bianchon, and Poulain rec- 
 ognized that he could never hope for that place himself. 
 Thus the poor man, after flattering himself for a brief 
 moment that he had won the protection of an influential 
 statesman, one of the twelve or fifteen cards which an 
 astute hand shuffles on the green baize of the council- 
 board, was cast floundering back into the Marais, 
 where he struggled among the poor and the lesser 
 bourgeoisie, and fulfilled the duty of recording deaths 
 at a salary of twelve hundred francs a year. 
 
 Doctor Poulain, once a somewhat distinguished med- 
 ical student, and now a prudent practitioner, did not 
 lack experience. His deaths caused no scandal, and 
 he was able to study all diseases in animd vili. Im- 
 agine, therefore, the gall on which he fed ! Tiie expres- 
 sion of his face, already strained and melancholy-, was 
 sometimes frightful. Put the gleaming eyes of a Tar- 
 tufe and the sharpness of an Alceste into a bit of yellow 
 parchment, and then picture to yourself the deportment, 
 the attitudes, the glance of a man who knew himself 
 to be just as skilful a doctor as the celebrated Horace 
 Bianchon, and yet was held down in obscurit}' b}- an 
 iron hand ! Doctor Poulain could not help comparing his 
 poor earnings, of ten francs on his fortunate days, with 
 those of Bianchon, which amounted daily to five or six 
 hundred. Does not this reveal to us all the hatreds of 
 democracy? Moreover, this man of ambition, thus held 
 
214 Cousin Pons. 
 
 down, had no cause for self-reproach. He had done 
 his best, and wooed fortune by the invention of certain 
 purgative pills like those of Morrison. He intrusted 
 the enterprise to a comrade at the hospital, a student 
 who had subsequently become a druggist. But the said 
 druggist, having fallen in love with a dancer at the 
 Opera Comique, ended in bankruptcy ; and the patent 
 for the purgative pills being unfortunately taken out in 
 his name, this discovery enriched his successor only. 
 The bankrupt departed for Mexico, the land of gold, 
 carrying with him a thousand francs of poor Poulain's 
 savings, who, by w^ay of consolation, was treated by 
 the dancer as a usurer when he attempted to recover 
 his money. Since his fortunate attendance on Pillerault, 
 not a single rich patient had sent for him. Poulain 
 scoured the Marais on foot like a lean cat, and on a 
 round of some twenty visits earned from two sous to 
 forty. The remunerative client was to him the phan- 
 tasmal bird known in all sublunary realms under the 
 name of the phoenix, or white crow. 
 
 A young lawyer without cases, a young doctor with- 
 out patients, are the two extreme expressions of decent 
 Despair, — that chill, silent Despair which is pecuUar to 
 the city of Paris ; Despair clothed in black trousers 
 whose whitening seams recall the zinc of a gutter, 
 in a waistcoat of too-shin}" satin, in a hat sacredly 
 cared for, old gloves, and a cotton shirt. It is a poem 
 of sadness, — sombre as the Secrets of the Conciergerie. 
 Other forms of poverty — those of the poet, the artist, 
 the actor, the musician — are cheered by a gayety 
 springing naturall3" from the arts and from the careless 
 ease of the Bohemia into which we launch and which 
 
Cousin Pons, 215 
 
 leads to the Tliebaides of genius. But to the two black 
 coats which go a-foot, worn b}' the two professions for 
 whom all things are like an open wound, and to whose 
 sight humanit}^ shows only its shameful aspect, the 
 dreary dead levels of their opening career give to such 
 men a sinister and scheming expression, through which 
 flashes of accumulated hatred and ambition dart forth, 
 like the first flames of a smothered fire. When two 
 college friends meet, after twenty years* separation, 
 the rich man avoids his poorer comrade and does not 
 recognize him ; he is terrified by the gulf which fate has 
 opened between them. The one has traversed life in the 
 chariot of fortune, or on the golden clouds of success ; 
 the other has^ plodded along the subterranean ways of 
 Parisian sewers, and carries their stigmata upon him. 
 How many old comrades avoided the doctor at the mere 
 sight of his coat and waistcoat ! 
 
 It is now easy to see why Doctor Poulain consented 
 to play his part in the comedy of Madame Cibot's 
 illness. His ambitions and all his eager desires can be 
 imagined. Not finding the slightest sign of injury in 
 an}' of her organs, observing the regularit}' of her pulse, 
 tlie perfect ease of all her movements, and hearing her 
 distressing cries, he understood she had some good 
 reason for pretending to be at death's door. As the 
 rapid cure of this serious illness was likel}' to make him 
 talked of in the arrondissement, he exaggerated Ma- 
 dame Cibot's pretended rupture, and talked of taking it 
 in time and reducing it. He exhibited certain sham 
 remedies, and put his patient through a fictitious opera- 
 tion which was crowned with success. He hunted up, 
 in the arsenal of Desplein's extraordinary cures, a pecu- 
 
216 Cousin Pons. 
 
 liar case and applied it to Madame Cibot, modestly at- 
 tributing the cure to the great surgeon, whose imitator 
 he claimed to be. Such are the tricks of men who are 
 endeavoring to rise in Paris ; the}' turn even the genius 
 of others into ladders for themselves. But as all things 
 wear out, even the rungs of a ladder, the recruits in each 
 profession are occasionally at a loss for the wood with 
 which to make their foothold. Sometimes the Parisian 
 turns refractor^'. Weary of building pedestals, he sulks 
 like a spoiled child, and discards his idols ; or, to speak 
 more accuratel}-, men of talent are sometimes lacking 
 to his adoration : the vein which gives the ore of genius 
 has its lacunce. The Parisian rebels at this, and refuses 
 to gild or worship the inferior gods. 
 
 Madame Cibot, entering with her accustomed brusque- 
 ness, surprised the doctor at table with his old mother, 
 eating a salad Of lamb's-lettuce, — the cheapest of all 
 the salads, — w^ith nothing for dessert but a thin wedge 
 of Brie cheese, a dish sparsely filled with dried fruits 
 called ''the four mendicants," — figs, nuts, almonds, 
 and raisins in which the stalks predominated, — and a 
 plate of miserable shrunken apples. 
 
 "Mother, you can sta}-," said the doctor, retaining 
 Madame Poulain by the arm ; " it is Madame Cibot, of 
 whom I spoke to 3'ou." 
 
 "My respects to you, madame ; the same to you, 
 monsieur," said Madame Cibot, taking the chair the 
 doctor gave her. ' ' Ah ! 3'our mother is ver}^ fortu- 
 nate to have a son so full o' talent. He 's ni}^ savior, 
 madame ; he has dragged me from the tomb ! " 
 
 The widow Poulain thought Madame Cibot charming 
 as she listened to these praises of her son. 
 
Cousin Pons, 217 
 
 *' I 've come to tell 3'ou, 1113' dear Monsieur Poiilain, 
 that our dear Monsieur Pons is very ill, and I want to 
 speak to you about him." 
 
 " Let us go into the salon," said Doctor Poulain, call- 
 ing Madame Cibot's attention to the servant with a 
 significant sign. 
 
 Once in the salon, the Cibot explained at much length 
 her situation as to the Nut-crackers. She related the 
 story of her loan with many embellishments, and re- 
 counted the immense services she had rendered Mon- 
 sieur Schmucke and Monsieur Pons for more than ten 
 3ears. According to her account, the two old men 
 would never have survived without her maternal care. 
 She posed as an angel, and told so many lies, well 
 watered with tears, that she ended by touching the 
 heart of old Madame Poulain. 
 
 " You understand, my dear monsieur," the Cibot said 
 as she finished, " I really must know what Monsieur Pons 
 intends to do for me in case of his death. That's an 
 event I don't want nohow ; for the care o' them innocent 
 babes, you see, ma'am, is my very life, and if I lose one 
 I shall alwaj's take care o' the other. Nature cut me out 
 for a model o' maternity. I don't know what would be- 
 come o' me if I had n't no one to think of and care for like 
 an infant. So, if Monsieur Poulain is willing, he would 
 do me a service, for which Pd be very grateful, if he 
 would just speak to Monsieur Pons for me. Goodness ! 
 a thousand francs' annuity, — is that too much, Fd like 
 to know? It is just so much laid by for Monsieur 
 Schmucke ; for my dear patient told me he was going 
 to leave me to that poor German, who is to be his heir, 
 so he says. But what 's a man who can't put two and 
 
218 Cousin Pons. 
 
 two together in French, and who's capable of going 
 off to German}^ if he feels lonely after his friend dies ? " 
 
 '^ My dear Madame Cibot," said the doctor, becoming 
 very grave, " such matters don't concern ph^'sicians, 
 and the practice of mj^ profession would be taken from 
 me if it were known that I meddled with the testamen- 
 tary dispositions of a client. The law does not permit 
 a doctor to receive a legacy from his patient." 
 
 "What a fool of a law! for w^hat's to hinder me 
 from dividing my legacy with you?" returned the 
 Cibot instantly". 
 
 "I will go even further," said the doctor. "My 
 professional conscience forbids me to speak to Mon- 
 sieur Pons of his death. Jn the first place, he is not 
 in sufficient danger to require me to do so ; and next, 
 such a conversation might excite him and put him in 
 a state that would do him real harm, and render his 
 illness fatal." 
 
 " But I don't make no bones o' telling him to put his 
 affairs in order, and he ain't none the worse," returned 
 the Cibot. " He 's used to it ; you needn't be afraid." 
 
 ' ' Don't sa}' anything more about it, m}^ dear Madame 
 Cibot. These things are not within the province of vny 
 profession ; they belong to the notaries -7- " 
 
 "But, my dear Monsieur Poulain, supposing Mon- 
 sieur Pons asked 3-ou himself how he was, and whether 
 he ought n't to attend to his affairs, — would n't you be 
 willing to tell him it's good for people's health to get 
 'em all settled? And then, you know, you could slip 
 in a little word about me — " 
 
 " Oh ! of course if he speaks to me about making his 
 will, I sha'n't prevent him," said the doctor. 
 
Cousin Pons. 219 
 
 *' Well, that's all I ask ! " exclaimed Madame Cibot. 
 *' I came to thank you for your care of me," she added, 
 slipping a twisted bit of paper containing three gold 
 pieces into his hand. " That 's all I can do just now. 
 Ah! if I were rich, my dear Monsieur Poulain, you 
 should be rich too ; for you 're the image o' the good 
 God on this earth. Yes, ma'am, you 've got an angel 
 for a son ! " 
 
 So saying, she got up ; Madame Poulain bowed to her 
 with a kindly air, and the doctor showed her out to the 
 landing. There this horrible Lady Macbeth of the 
 streets was suddenly dazzled by a gleam of infernal 
 light : she perceived that the doctor had made himself 
 her accomplice by accepting a fee for the pretended 
 cure of her pretended injury. 
 
 " How is it, my good Monsieur Poulain," she said to 
 him, " that after pulling me through m}' accident, you 
 should refuse to save me from poverty by merely sa3'ing 
 a few words ? " 
 
 The physician felt that he had let the devil catch him 
 b^' a hair of liis head, and that the hair was now twisted 
 round the pitiless hook of the fiend's red claw. Terri- 
 fied at losing his integrit}' for so slight a cause, he an- 
 swered the woman's diabolical suggestion by an idea 
 that was not less diabolical. 
 
 '' Listen to me, my dear Madame Cibot," he said, 
 drawing her back into the antechamber and leading the 
 way to his study. ''I am going to pay the debt of 
 gratitude I am under to j-ou, to whom, indeed, I owe 
 my situation at the mairie." 
 
 " We '11 go halves," she said quickly. 
 
 " In what? " asked the doctor. 
 
220 CousiJi Pons. 
 
 '' In the legac}'," answered the woman. 
 
 '' You do not know me," replied the doctor, taking 
 the tone of Valerius Publicola. " Don't sa}^ another 
 word about it. I have a college friend, a very intelli- 
 gent fellow, with whom I am all the more intimate 
 because we have had just about the same luck in life. 
 When I was stud3ing medicine, he was studying law ; 
 while I was an interne at the hospital he was engrossing 
 law-papers with Maitre Couture. Son of a shoemaker, 
 just as I am the son of a breeches-maker, he has n't 
 found much lively S3'mpathy in this world, neither has 
 he found much cash ; for, after all, cash is onl}^ ob- 
 tainable through sympathy. He could n't buy a prac- 
 tice anywhere except in the provinces, at Mantes. 
 Now, those provincials are so incapable of understand- 
 ing Parisian cleverness that they found fault with him 
 in every way-." 
 
 " Scum ! " exclaimed the Cibot. 
 
 "Yes," resumed the doctor, "they combined so closely 
 against him that he was forced to sell his practice in 
 order to get back certain deeds which they construed 
 into evidence of his wrong-doing. The procureur-du- 
 roi was mixed up in it ; that functionary came from 
 those parts, and made common cause with his country- 
 people. The poor fellow, who is even more out-at- 
 elbows than I am, and who lives as I do, is named 
 Fraisier. He has taken refuge in this arrondissement, 
 where he is reduced to practise before the juge-de- 
 paix and the criminal police-courts, though he is a bar- 
 rister. He lives close by, in the rue de la Perle. Call 
 at No. 9 and go up three pairs of stairs ; on the 
 landing you will see, printed in gold letters on a small 
 
Cousin Pons, 221 
 
 bit of red morocco, ' Office of Monsieur Fraisier/ 
 Fraisier attends special to lawsuits among the work- 
 ing-classes and the poor of this arrondissement, and 
 he does it at y^ry moderate prices. He is an honest 
 man ; for I don't need to tell 3'ou that, with his capa- 
 bilities, if he were a scoundrel he would be rolling in 
 his chariot. I will see my friend Fraisier this evening 
 You can go to his place early to-morrow morning. He 
 knows Monsieur Louchard, the bailiff, Monsieur Taba- 
 reau, the sheriffs officer. Monsieur Yitel, the juge-de- 
 paix^ and Monsieur Trognon, a notary ; he is already 
 launched among the most important business men of 
 the neighborhood. If he is willing to take charge of 
 your interests, you could get Monsieur Pons to consult 
 him ; and you '11 find him, let me tell j^ou, another self. 
 Onl}^ mind you don't make to him, as 3'ou did to me, 
 proposals which will wound his sense of honor ; he has 
 good sense, and he will understand you. When it comes 
 to paying for his services, I '11 be jour go-between." 
 
 Madame Cibot looked at the doctor with a sinister 
 expression. 
 
 " Is n't he the lawyer," she asked, " who pulled that 
 shopkeeper in the rue Vieille-du-Temple, that Madame 
 Florimond, out of the bad scrape she got into about her 
 good friend's will ? " 
 
 " The same," said the doctor. 
 
 *' Wasn't it a shame," cried the Cibot, "that after 
 he'd won her cause and got her two thousand francs a 
 year, she would n't marr}^ him when he asked her, and 
 thought she was quit of her debt b}^ giving him a dozen 
 linen shirts and twenty-four handkerchiefs, — a regular 
 trousseau I " 
 
222 Cousin Pons, 
 
 ''My dear Madame Cibot, the ' trousseau,' as yon 
 call it, was worth a thousand francs, and Fraisier, who 
 was then just setting np in this neighborhood, wanted 
 the things badly. Besides, she paid his bill without 
 a word. That affair brought Fraisier a great deal of 
 business, and he is now very busy, among the same 
 class that I have to do with ; our clients are much the 
 same." 
 
 "None but the righteous thrive here below," said 
 Madame Cibot. *'Well, good-bj^, and thank you, my 
 dear Monsieur Poulain." 
 
 Here begins the drama, or, if 3'ou like it better, 
 the terrible comedy, of the death of an old ceUbate 
 delivered over, by force of circumstances, to the ra- 
 pacity of covetous natures grouped around his bed, — 
 a rapacity which in this case found auxiliaries in the 
 keenest of all passions, that of a picture-maniac ; in 
 the hungry eagerness of Monsieur Fraisier, who, when 
 you see him in his den, will make 3'ou shudder ; in the 
 thirst of an Auvergnat capable of an3'thing, even a 
 crime, to laj^ hold of money. This comedy, to which 
 what has gone before may be considered as the intro- 
 duction, employs as actors all the personages who, so 
 far, have filled the scene. 
 
Cousin Pons. 223 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 A MAN OF LAW. 
 
 The degradation of that title is one of the curiosi- 
 ties of manners and morals which for adequate explana- 
 tion require volumes. Write to a law3'er, and address 
 him as " a man of law," and you will offend him as 
 surely as you would offend a wholesale merchant of 
 colonial produce by directing a letter to him as ''Mr. 
 So-and-so, grocer." A tolerably large number of per- 
 sons who ought to know — since these refinements of 
 social breeding are their all of knowledge — are still 
 unaware that the designation "man of letters" is the 
 worst insult that can be offered to an author. The 
 word " monsieur" is a striking example of the life and 
 death of words. "Monsieur" really means " mon- 
 seigneur." This title — formerl}'^ of importance, and 
 still applied to kings b}^ the transformation • of " sieur" 
 into "sire" — is given to everybody in these daj's. 
 And yet the use of the word " messire," which is noth- 
 ing more than a corruption of " monsieur" and its 
 equivalent, raises a storm in the republican newspapers 
 if b}" chance it is noticed in a burial permit ! Magis- 
 trates, counsellors, jurists, judges, barristers, minis- 
 terial officers, solicitors, attorne3's, notaries, and special 
 pleaders are the varieties under which all those who 
 administer justice, or who live by it, are classed. The 
 
224 Cousin Pons, 
 
 lowest rungs of the ladder are the '' practitioner" and 
 the '' man of law." The practitioner — vulgarly called 
 the bailiff's follower — is a hap-hazard lawyer. He is 
 employed to look after the execution of the law and 
 the judgments rendered ; he may in fact be called 
 the executioner of the civil cases. As to the " man 
 of law," so called, he is the special reproach of the 
 profession. He is to the realm of law what the " man 
 of letters " is to literature. Rivalry, which eats into 
 all professions in France, has invented terms of dis- 
 paragement. Every profession has its own form of 
 insult. The contempt which breathes in the terms 
 *' man of law " and " man of letters " is confined to the 
 singular. It is perfectl}^ proper, and wounds no one, 
 to say " men of letters " and '* lawj^ers." But in Paris 
 each profession has its fag-end, — its individual fol- 
 lowers who drag it down to the level of street practice 
 and to the demands of the body of the people. Thus 
 the " man of law," the pettifogger, is to be found in cer- 
 tain quarters ; just as we find the money-lender making 
 loans by the week in the vicinity of the markets, — an 
 individual who is to the realm of banking what Monsieur 
 Fraisier was to the bar. It is curious to observe that 
 the common people are as much in awe of the better 
 class of the legal profession as thej^ are of a fashionable 
 restaurant. They go to the pettifogger just as they 
 drink at a wine-shop. To keep at their own level is 
 the rule of all classes in the social sphere. It is only 
 exceptional natures who desire to climb the heights, 
 who feel no degradation in the presence of superiors, 
 who make for themselves a place, — as Beaumarchais let 
 fall the watch of a nobleman, intending to humble him. 
 
Cousin Pons. 225 
 
 But such parvenus, ' especially those who are clever 
 enough to hide their beginnings, are splendid exceptions 
 to the rule. 
 
 The next da}^ at six o'clock in the morning, Madame 
 Cibot reconnoitred the house in the rue de la Perle 
 where her future counsellor, the Sieur Fraisier, man of 
 law, had taken up his abode. It was one of the old 
 houses inhabited by the lesser bourgeoisie of former 
 days, and was entered by a narrow passage. The 
 ground-floor — occupied partly by the porter's lodge, 
 and partly b}^ the shop of a cabinet-maker, whose work- 
 rooms and warehouses incumbered the whole of the little 
 inner courtyard — was divided in two by the passage 
 and the well of the staircase, from whose walls damp- 
 ness had thrown out the saltpetre. The house looked 
 as if it had the leprosy. 
 
 Madame Cibot went straight to the lodge, where she 
 found a fellow-porter of Cibot's, a shoemaker, with a 
 wife and two 3'oung children, living in a space ten feet 
 square, lighted from the little court-yard. A cordial 
 understanding was set up between the two women so 
 soon as Madame Cibot had announced her occupation, 
 given her name, and spoken of her house in the rue de 
 Normandie. After a quarter of an hour employed in 
 preliminary gossip, — during which time the wife was 
 getting ready the breakfast of the shoemaker and the 
 two children, — Madame Cibot led the conversation to 
 the tenants, and spoke of the man of law. 
 
 "I have come to consult him," she said, " on busi- 
 ness. One of his friends. Monsieur le docteur Poulain, 
 sent me here. You know Monsieur Poulain ? " 
 
 " I should think so ! " said the portress of the rue de 
 16 
 
226 Cousin Pons. 
 
 la Perle. " He saved my little girl when she had the 
 croup." 
 
 " He saved me too, ma'am. What sort of man is 
 this Monsieur Fraisier?" 
 
 " He is a man, mj^ dear lad}^, from whom at the end 
 of the month it is very difficult to wring the money for 
 carrying up his letters." 
 
 That answer was quite sufficient for the inteUigent 
 Cibot. 
 
 '' People can be poor and honest," she said. 
 
 *' I hope so," answered Fraisier's portress. " As for 
 us, we don't roll in silver or gold, or even copper ; 
 but we have n't a farthing that belongs to others." 
 
 In these words the Cibot recognized her own senti- 
 ments. 
 
 '' Well, an}^ how," she said, " you think I may trust 
 him?" 
 
 . "Ah! when Monsieur Fraisier does mean well by 
 any one, I 've heard Madame Florimond say he had n't 
 his equal." 
 
 " Why did n't she marry him ? " asked Madame Cibot 
 quickly. " She owed him her fortune. It would n't be 
 a bad thing for a pettj^ shopkeeper who had been kept 
 b}^ an old man to marry a law^'er." 
 
 "Do 3'ou want to know why?" said the portress, 
 drawing Madame Cibot into the passage. ' ' You 're 
 going up to him, are n't you ? Well, you '11 know why 
 as soon as you get into his room." 
 
 The staircase, lighted from the courtyard by windows 
 whose sashes pushed up and down, showed plainly that 
 the tenants, with the exception of the owner and Mon- 
 sieur Fraisier, were mechanics b}^ trade. The muddy 
 
Cousin Pons, 227 
 
 stairs bore traces of all their callings, in the shape of 
 broken buttons, fragments of tin, scraps of gauze, bits 
 of straw matting, and the like. The apprentices on the 
 upper floors had scrawled obscene caricatures upon the 
 walls. The last words of the portress excited the curi- 
 osity of Madame Cibot, and very naturally decided her 
 to consult this friend of Doctor Poulain, reserving to 
 herself the choice of employing him after she had 
 formed an opinion of him. 
 
 " I wonder sometimes how Madame Sauvage can 
 stay in his service," said the portress by way of com- 
 mentary, as she followed Madame Cibot. ' ' I accom- 
 pany j^ou, ma'am," she added, " because I have to carry 
 up the milk and the newspaper of my proprietor." 
 
 When they reached the second floor above the entre- 
 sol, Madame Cibot found herself face to face with a 
 door of a villanous description. The paint, a mongi-el 
 red, was plastered with a layer of black dirt a foot 
 square, shch as the hands deposit after a certain 
 length of time and which architects attempt to counter- 
 act in the better class of houses by putting glass shields 
 above and below the locks. The wicket of the door, 
 choked with dusty cobwebs (like those that caterers col- 
 lect to give the look of age to their wine-bottles), served 
 no purpose except to justify the nickname of ''the 
 prison-door," — a name that was sustained, moreover, 
 by the trefoil iron work, the formidable hinges, and the 
 huge nail-heads with which the door was studded. Some 
 miser, or some pamphleteer at war with all the world, 
 must have invented such defensive apparatus. A leaden 
 gutter through which the waste-water of each household 
 was poured added its quota to the evil savors of the 
 
228 Cousin Pons. 
 
 staircase, whose ceilings were decorated with arabesques 
 sketched in candle-smoke. And what arabesques ! The 
 bell-rope, at the end of which hung a filthy brass olive, 
 rang a little bell, whose feeble tinkle betrayed a crack in 
 its metal. Every surrounding object added some touch in 
 harmony with the general effect of this hideous picture. 
 
 The Cibot heard the noise of a heavy step and the 
 asthmatic breathing of a powerful woman ; and then 
 Madame Sauvage revealed herself. She was one of 
 those old women of whom Adrien Brauwer had a vision 
 when he drew his "Witches starting for their Sab- 
 bath," — a woman five feet six inches tall and un- 
 healthily fat, with the face of a grenadier and far more 
 beard than Madame Cibot could show, arraj^ed in a 
 frightful gown of the cheapest cotton fabric, witli a 
 bandanna round her head and curl-papers made of her 
 master's old prospectuses, wearing in her ears gold 
 rings that were in the shape of carriage-wheels. This 
 female cerberus held in her hand a small tin saucepan, 
 much indented, from which the dripping milk wafted an 
 additional odor upon the staircase, where its nauseous 
 sour fumes mingled with the other smells. 
 
 " What may you want, ma'am?" demanded Madame 
 Sauvage, as she flung a menacing glance at the Cibot, 
 whom she thought too well dressed, — a glance all the 
 more murderous because her eyes were naturall}' blood- 
 shot. 
 
 "I came to see Monsieur Fraisier, from his friend 
 Doctor Poulain." 
 
 " Oh, come in, ma'am ! '* returned the Sauvage in a 
 tone suddenly reduced to amiability, proving that she 
 had been told to expect this early visit. 
 
Cousin Pons, 229 
 
 Then, after making a theatrical courtesy, the semi- 
 male servant of Monsieur Fraisier abruptly opened the 
 door of an office looking upon the street, in which sat 
 the former ban-ister of Mantes. This study was ex- 
 acth' like all the little offices of third-class law3'ers, where 
 the shelves and boxes are of painted black wood, and 
 the digests, in true clerical fashion, are so old as to be 
 covered with the cobwebs of antiquity, where the red 
 tape straggles down with lamentable untidiness, where 
 the floor is gray with dust, the ceiling yellow with 
 smoke, and the paper-boxes smell of the gambols of 
 mice. The mirror on the chimnej'-piece was dim ; the 
 fire-dogs, of cast iron, held a meagre log ; the clock, of 
 modern marquetry, was worth about sixt}' francs, and 
 had been bought in at some sale made b}' legal author- 
 ity ; the candlesticks, which flanked the clock, were of 
 pewter, though they pretended to rococo shapes that 
 were badly rendered, and the painting in various 
 places had peeled off and exposed the metal. Monsieur 
 Fraisier, a small and sicklj' looking man with a red face, 
 and blotches which proclaimed his vitiated blood, who 
 was perpetuall}^ scratching his right arm, and wore a 
 wig set far back on his head, leaving to view a brick- 
 colored skull of sinister expression, now rose from a 
 cane arm-chair where he was seated on a circular cush- 
 ion of green morocco. He assumed a polite manner 
 and a fluted voice, saying, as he pushed forward a 
 chair, — 
 
 '' Madame Cibot, I believe." 
 
 "Yes, monsieur," answered the woman, who sud- 
 denly lost her habitual assurance ; she was scared by 
 the voice, which sounded a good deal like the door-bell, 
 
230 Cousin Pons. 
 
 and also by a glance which was even more lividl}- green 
 than the greenish eyes of her future adviser. The office 
 was so redolent of its Fraisier that the ver}^ atmosphere 
 might be called pestilential. Madame Cibot at once 
 understood why Madame Florimond had refused to 
 become Madame Fraisier. 
 
 '' Poulain spoke to me of 3'ou, my good lady," said 
 the man of law in the falsetto tones that people vul- 
 garly term ' 'mincing," but which kept their sharp and 
 acrid qualities like a vin-du-pays. 
 
 Here he attempted to cover himself up by drawing 
 over his sharp knees, which were clothed with some 
 threadbare woollen stuff, the two sides of an old dress- 
 ing-gown made of printed calico, from which the wad- 
 ding took the libert}^ of oozing through numerous rents ; 
 but the weight of this wadding dragged down the flaps 
 and exposed to view a close-fitting under-shirt, now 
 black with wear. After tightening, with a foppish air, 
 the cords of the refractory garment so as to show the 
 slenderness of his waist, Fraisier took the tongs and 
 put together two bits of burned wood which had long 
 avoided each other, like quarrelsome brothers. Then, 
 seized with a sudden idea, — 
 
 '' Madame Sauvage ! " he cried. 
 
 ''Well!" 
 
 " I am not at home to any one." 
 
 "Lord! I know that," answered the virago in a 
 domineering tone. 
 
 " That 's my old foster-mother," said the man of law, 
 somewhat confused, to Madame Cibot. 
 
 " She ain't no beauty," replied his visitor. 
 
 Fraisier laughed, and slid the bolt of the door, to 
 
Cousin Pons. 231 
 
 make sure that his housekeeper should not come and 
 interrupt the Cibot's confidences. 
 
 " Well, madame, explain 3'our business," he said, 
 sitting down, and again trying to drape his dressing- 
 gown over his knees. " Any one who is recommended 
 to me b}^ the sole friend I have in the world may count 
 upon me — yes, absolutely." 
 
 Madame Cibot talked for half an hour before the man 
 of law allowed himself to utter one word of interruption ; 
 he had the air of a young soldier listening to a veteran 
 of the Old Guard. This silence and Fraisier's submis- 
 sive air, together with the attention he seemed to lend to 
 her flux of gabble, specimens of which we have already 
 heard in the Cibot's conversations with poor Pons, 
 caused that suspicious female to forget some of the 
 precautions which the ignoble surroundings of the man 
 had suggested to her. When she paused, expecting 
 advice, the little lawyer, whose green eyes with black 
 speckles had been stud3'ing his future client, was sud- 
 denly seized with what is called a " graveyard cough," 
 and had recourse to an earthenware bowl full of herb- 
 tea, which he emptied. 
 
 *'If it hadn't been for Poulain, I should be dead 
 alread}^, my dear Madame Cibot," Fraisier replied to 
 the motherly glance she cast upon him. '' He has given 
 me back my health." 
 
 He seemed to have lost all remembrance of his cli- 
 ent's tale, and she began to think of leaving a man 
 evidently in such a dying state. 
 
 "Madame, in all matters of bequest or inheritance 
 it is necessary to be sure of two things before proceed- 
 ing to take any steps," he said atj last, — " first, is the 
 
 [{ UNIVERSITY 
 
232 Cousin Pons, 
 
 property worth taking anj^ trouble about ; seconcll}', who 
 are the legal heirs? for if the bequest is the boot}', the 
 heirs are the enemy." 
 
 Madame Cibot told about Remonencq and Elie Ma- 
 gus, and said the two wily confederates had valued the 
 pictures at six hundred thousand francs. 
 
 '' Will they pay that price for them ? " asked the late 
 barrister of Mantes. " For 3'ou see, madame, men of 
 business don't believe in pictures. What is a picture? 
 Forty sous worth of canvas, or a hundred thousand 
 francs worth of paint. The hundred-thousand-franc 
 paintings are very well known, — though there's many 
 a fancy price put upon them, even on the most famous. 
 A well-known moneyed man, whose gallery was much 
 lauded and visited and engraved, — actually engraved ! 
 — ^was thought to have spent miUions upon it. He 
 died, — for people do die ; and behold, his genuine mas- 
 terpieces did n't fetch two hundred thousand francs ! 
 You must bring me your connoisseurs. Now let us 
 hear about the heirs." 
 
 And Fraisier resumed his attitude of attention. When 
 he heard the name of the president Camusot, he shook 
 his head with a grimace which made Madame Cibot pa}^ 
 extreme attention to him. She tried to read that brow, 
 that infamous countenance, and felt she had to do with 
 a masked battery. 
 
 " Yes, my good monsieur," she repeated, " my Mon- 
 sieur Pons is own cousin to the president Camusot de 
 Marville ; he 's everlastingly prating to me of the rela- 
 tionship. The first wife of Monsieur Camusot, the 
 great silk-dealer — " 
 
 " The one they have just made peer of France — " 
 
Cousin Pons, 233 
 
 " — was a demoiselle Pons, first cousin to Monsieur 
 Pons." 
 
 '' Therefore the Camusot de Marvilles are first 
 cousins once removed — " 
 
 " The}^ are nothing at all, for they've quarrelled with 
 him." 
 
 Monsieur Camusot de Marville, before coming to 
 Paris, had been for five 3'ears, as we know, president 
 of the justice-courts at Mantes. Not only was he well 
 remembered there, but he continued to hold relations 
 with the place ; for his successor, the judge with whom 
 he was most intimate during his stay, was still president 
 of the court, and consequently knew Fraisier through 
 and through. 
 
 ''Are you aware, madame," said the latter, when 
 Madame Cibot had closed the red sluice-gates of her 
 inundating mouth, "are you aware that you will have 
 as your chief enemy a man who seuds people to the 
 scaffold?" 
 
 The Cibot gave a leap on her chair which made her 
 look like the toy called a jack-in-the-box. 
 
 " Be calm, my dear ladj^" resumed Fraisier. *' Noth- 
 ing more natural than that you should n't know what 
 the president of the Cour-royale in Paris really is ; but 
 you ought to have known that Monsieur Pons has a 
 legal heir and next of kin. Monsieur le president de 
 Marville is the sole heir of j'our patient ; but he is col- 
 lateral in the third degree, therefore, according to law, 
 Monsieur Pons his the right to leave his property to 
 whom he will. You seem not to know that the daugh- 
 ter of Monsieur de Marville married, about six weeks 
 ago, the eldest son of Monsieur le comte Popinot, peer 
 
234 Cousin Pons, 
 
 of France, formerly minister of commerce and agricul- 
 ture, one of the most influential men in the politics of 
 the day. This marriage makes the president even more 
 formidable than he is as sovereign of the assizes." 
 
 The Cibot shuddered at the word. 
 
 ''Yes, it is he who sends you there," said Fraisier. 
 " Ah ! my dear lady, you don't know what a red robe 
 is. It is bad enough to have a black one like mine. 
 If you see me as I am to-day, ruined, blighted, dying, it 
 is because I once unconsciously ran against a little pro- 
 vincial procureiir-du-roi. I was forced to sell m}^ prac- 
 tice for a song, and was happ}' to escape with the loss of 
 my whole fortune. If I had attempted to resist I could n't 
 have kept my professional status. And there 's another 
 thing 3'ou don't seem to know. If the matter concerned 
 president Camusot alone, it might be managed ; but 
 he has a wife, let me tell 3'ou ! and if 3'ou were face to 
 face with that woman, you would tremble as if you had 
 one foot on the scaffold, and your hair would stand on 
 end. Madame de Marville is vindictive enough to 
 spend ten 3'ears in coiling a net about 3'Ou in which you 
 would perish. She drives her husband just as a child 
 spins its top. She once caused a charming 3'oung fel- 
 low to commit suicide in the Concierge rie, and turned 
 the hair of a count white, with an accusation of forger3' ; 
 she came near causing one of the greatest nobles of the 
 court of Charles X. to be deprived of his civil rights, 
 and she actuall3' procured the overthrow of the procur- 
 eur-general^ Monsieur de Grandville." 
 
 '' He that lives in the rue Vieille du Temple, at the 
 corner of the rue Saint-Fran9ois ? " said Madame Cibot. 
 
 ''The same. They sa3^ she wants to make her hus- 
 
Cousin Pons. 235 
 
 band minister of justice ; and I 'm not sure that she 
 won't get her ends. If she took it into her head to send 
 us both to the assizes and to the gallej's, I, who am as 
 innocent as the babe unborn, I should at once get a 
 passport and take ship for the United States ; so well 
 do 1 know what 'justice' means. Madame de Marville 
 has stripped herself and her husband of all their prop- 
 ert}' so as to many her only daughter to the young 
 Vicomte Popinot (who is to be, they sa}', the heir of 
 your proprietor. Monsieur Pillerault) ; and the end of it 
 is that they are reduced to live on the president's salarj'. 
 You may believe me, my dear lady, under the circum- 
 stances, Madame de Marville won't let your Monsieur 
 Pons' s property escape her. I 'd rather face a battery 
 of guns loaded with grapeshot than feel I had such a 
 woman against me." 
 
 '' But," insisted the Cibot, " they Ve quarrelled." 
 " What does that signify? " said Fraisier. " All the 
 more reason ! To kill a relation you quarrel with, 
 that's one thing; but to inherit his property, that's 
 another, — it's a pleasure." 
 
 " But the good man has a holy horror of his relations. 
 He keeps telling me that those people — I remember 
 their names. Monsieur Cardot, Monsieur Berthier, and 
 the rest — have crushed him as you'd crush an egg 
 under a tumbril." 
 
 " Do you want to be crushed in the same way? " 
 ''Good God ! " exclaimed the woman. " Ah ! Ma- 
 dame Fontaine was right when she said I 'd meet with 
 obstacles ; but, after all, she said I 'd succeed." 
 
 " Listen to me, my dear Madame Cibot. You 
 may possibly squeeze thirty thousand francs out of this 
 
236 Cousin Pons, 
 
 affair ; but as to inheriting the propertj^ j^ou must put 
 that out of your head. Poulain and I talked over jour 
 affair last night — " 
 
 Here Madame Cibot gave another leap in her chair. 
 
 ' ' Hey ! What 's the matter ? " 
 
 " If you know all about it, what have you let me 
 talk like a magpie for?" 
 
 '-'' Madame Cibot, I knew all about your affair, but 
 I did n't know all about Madame Cibot ! Every client 
 has his or her own nature." 
 
 Thereupon Madame Cibot cast upon her future coun- 
 sel a singular look, in which all her suspicions burst 
 forth; and Fraisier intercepted the look. 
 
Cousin Pons, 237 
 
 XIX. 
 
 fraisier's secret intention. 
 
 " I resume," said Fraisier. " You see you formerly 
 put our friend Poulain into relations with old Monsieur 
 Pillerault, the great uncle of Madame la comtesse Popi- 
 not ; and that 's one of 3'our claims to my services. 
 Poulain goes to see your proprietor every two weeks 
 (now, remark this !), and he has learned all these details 
 from him. This old merchant was at the marriage of 
 his great-great-nephew (for he is an uncle of expecta- 
 tions ; he has an income of some fifteen thousand francs, 
 and for the last twent3^-five years he has lived like a 
 monk, — has n't spent a thousand crowns a 3"ear). He 
 told Poulain about the marriage. It appears that all 
 this fuss arose because your old man, the musician, 
 tried, out of revenge, to disgrace the Marville family. 
 There are two sides to a shield ; your sick man may 
 call himself innocent, but other people think him a 
 monster." 
 
 " I should n't be a bit surprised if he was," cried the 
 Cibot. ''Just imagine! Here's ten years that I've 
 been paying out my savings on him, and he knows it ; 
 and he ain't willing to name me in his will, — no, mon- 
 sieur, he ain't ; he 's as obstinate as a mule about it. 
 I 've talked at him for ten days, and the old cur don't 
 budge no more than the trey in a lotter3% He don't 
 
238 Cousin Pons. 
 
 open his lips ; he just stares at me — with such an air ! 
 The most I can get out of him is that he '11 recommend 
 me to Monsieur Schmucke." 
 
 ' ' Does he mean to make a wiU in favor of this Mon- 
 sieur Schmucke ? " 
 
 *' He 's going to leave him everj'thing." 
 
 " Now, listen, my dear Madame Cibot. In order to 
 have any just ideas and to make any plan at all, I 
 must know this Monsieur Schmucke, 1 must see the 
 collection which you say is the bulk of the property, 
 and I must have a conference with that Jew 3'ou men- 
 tioned ; and then you must let me direct 3^ou." 
 
 *' We '11 see about that, my good Monsieur Fraisier." 
 
 " What do 3'ou mean, — see about it? " said Fraisier, 
 shooting a venomous glance at the Cibot, and speaking 
 in his natural voice. " Am I, or am I not, your coun- 
 sel? Let's understand each other." 
 
 The Cibot felt that he had taken her measure, and 
 cold chills ran down her back. 
 
 " You have my entire confidence," she answered, 
 feeling herself at the mercy of a tiger. 
 
 '' We lawyers are accustomed to being betrayed by 
 our clients. Look well at your position : it is splendid ! 
 If you follow my advice in every particular, you shall 
 have — I '11 guarantee it — thirty or forty thousand 
 francs out of that property. But remember, there are 
 two sides to the finest coin. Suppose Madame de Mar- 
 ville finds out that Monsieur Pons's property is worth a 
 million, and that 3'Ou want a slice of it? — There are 
 always persons — ready — to tell these things," he said, 
 in a parenthesis. 
 
 This parenthesis, slowly delivered, with two pauses, 
 
Cousin Pons. 239 
 
 made the Cibot shudder ; and she instantly thought 
 that Fraisier himself was ready to make the revelation. 
 
 ' ' — My dear client, in ten minutes she could make 
 Monsieur Pillerault turn you out of your situation at 
 an hour's notice ! " 
 
 "What harm would that do me?" said the Cibot, 
 springing to her feet like a Bellona. '' I should still 
 be the housekeeper of my two gentlemen." 
 
 " Yes, and seeing that, she would lay a trap for 
 j'ou ; and you would wake up some fine morning in a 
 dungeon, — you and yonv husband, — accused of a 
 capital crime ! " 
 
 " I ! " shrieked the Cibot. "I, who haven't got a 
 penny of other people's property ! I ! I ! — " 
 
 And she talked on for five minutes, while Fraisier 
 watched this great artist executing her concerto of self- 
 praise. He was cold and satirical ; his eye pierced the 
 woman like a stiletto. Inwardl}' he was laughing, and 
 his dry wig shook. He was Robespierre in the days 
 when the French Sylla wrote verses. 
 
 "Wh}^? And how? Under what pretext?" she 
 cried, as she ended her oration. 
 
 " Do you want to know how you can be brought to 
 the guillotine ? " 
 
 The Cibot turned as pale as death. The phrase fell 
 upon her neck like the knife of the law, and she looked 
 wildly at Fraisier. 
 
 " Now listen to me, my dear child," resumed Fraisier, 
 checking a movement of satisfaction which the woman's 
 terror caused him. 
 
 "I'd rather let the whole thing go," murmured the 
 Cibot. 
 
240 Cousin Pons, 
 
 And she tried to rise. 
 
 " Stop ! — for 3'ou ought to see 3'our own danger. I 
 owe it to jou to tell 3^ou the truth/' said Fraisier im- 
 periously. ' ' The scheme is a battle ; and you will be 
 carried farther than you think for. You '11 get drunk 
 on the idea, and strike hard — " 
 
 Another gesture of denial from Madame Cibot, who 
 came near choking. 
 
 " Come, come, my little mother," said Fraisier with 
 horrible familiarit}^, " you '11 go pretty far — *' 
 
 " Do you take me for a thief ? " 
 
 " You 've got a receipt from Monsieur Schmucke that 
 did n't cost you much. Ha, ha ! my fine woman, jou 
 are here in a confessional ! Don't tr}^ to deceive 3'our 
 confessor, — above all when that confessor can read 
 your heart ! " 
 
 The Cibot was terrified at the insight of the man, and 
 now understood the meaning of the close attention with 
 which he had listened to her. 
 
 *' Well," said Fraisier, "you must admit that Ma- 
 dame de Marville won't let 3'Ou outrun her in the race 
 for the property. You '11 be suspected ; 3^ou '11 be 
 watched. You '11 succeed in getting into your gentle- 
 man's will : very good ! And some fine morning Justice 
 will step in, and get hold of some herb- tea, and find 
 arsenic in the dregs ; and you and your husband will be 
 arrested, tried, and condemned, for having attempted 
 to kill the sieur Pons, before 3'ou 've had a chance to 
 touch your legacy. I defended a poor woman at Ver- 
 sailles who was as innocent as 3'ou would be in a Hke 
 case. Matters went just as I tell you ; and all I could 
 do for her was to save her life. The poor thing 
 
Cousin Pons, 241 
 
 had twenty years of hard labor, and is now in Saint- 
 Lazare." 
 
 The terror of Madame Cibot was at its height. Pale 
 as a ghost, she looked at the pinched little man with the 
 livid green eyes as some poor Moorish woman, faithful 
 to her religion, might have looked at the Inquisitors 
 when she heard them condemn her to the stake. 
 
 " Do you say, my good Monsieur Fraisier, that if I 
 follow your advice, and trust my interests to j-ou, that 
 I shall get something without nothing to fear ? " 
 
 '' I will guarantee you thirty thousand francs," said 
 Fraisier, feeling sure of his ground. 
 
 '' Well, now, you know how I love that dear Monsieur 
 Poulain," she said in her most wheedling tone. " It was 
 he who told me to come and see you ; and the worthy 
 man did n't send me here to be told I should be guillo- 
 tined as a poisoner." 
 
 She burst into tears, for the verj^ idea of the guillotine 
 made her flesh creep ; her nerves were strained, terror 
 gripped her heart, and she lost her self-control. Fraisier 
 enjoyed his triumph. When he perceived her momen- 
 tary hesitation and the danger of losing his chance, he 
 made up his mind to master the woman, terrify her, 
 stupefy her, and hold her at his mercy, bound hand and 
 foot. The Cibot, who had entered the office as a fly 
 flutters into a spider's web, was destined to stay there, 
 netted, entangled, and used as provender for the ambi- 
 tion of the man of law. In fact, Fraisier was resolved 
 to get the support of his declining 3'ears, ease, happi- 
 ness, and public consideration out of this affair. It had 
 been calmly and soberly gone over in all its bearings, 
 examined as it were with a magnifying-glass, by himself 
 
 .16 
 
242 Cousin Pons. 
 
 and Poulain, the preceding evening. The doctor had 
 sketched Schmucke to his friend, and their shrewd minds 
 at once sounded the depths of all hypotheses, and took 
 into account the dangers as well as the resources of the 
 enterprise. Fraisier, with a rush of enthusiasm, ex- 
 claimed : "The success of both our lives is in it!" 
 He promised Poulain a place as surgeon-in-chief of a 
 hospital in Paris, just as he promised himself the posi- 
 tion of juge-de-paix of an arrondissement. 
 
 To become a juge-de-paix! To this man full of 
 ability, a doctor of law without a gown, it was an 
 object so difficult to attain that he thought of it as the 
 lawyers in the Chamber think of a judge's robe, or the 
 Italian priests of the tiara. The thought seemed folly. 
 The present justice, Monsieur Vitel, before whom Frai- 
 sier's cases were caUed, was a man sixtj'-nine 3'ears old 
 and rather sickly, who thought of retiring from the 
 office ; and Fraisier talked to Poulain of becoming his 
 successor just as Poulain talked to Fraisier of a rich 
 heiress whom he meant to marry after he had saved her 
 life. Few persons realize how many eager desires are 
 Inspired b3^ the various official stations in Paris. To 
 live in Paris is the first desire of Frenchmen. Let the 
 simplest office become vacant, and a hundred women 
 will rise as one man and work upon all their friends tc 
 obtain it. A probable vacancy among the twenty-four 
 tax-collectors of Paris will rouse a perfect riot of ambi- 
 tion in the Chamber of Deputies. Such places are in 
 the gift of the government, and are made an affair of 
 state. The salary of a juge-de-paix in Paris is about 
 six thousand francs a 3'ear, and the registration of^that 
 office brings in at least a hundred thousand more. It 
 
Cousin Pons, 24 C 
 
 is one of the most coveted posts in the legal profes- 
 sion. Fraisier, appointed juge-de-paix^ and the friend 
 of the surgeon-in-chief of a great hospital, could marrj^ 
 wealth and help Poulain to do likewise ; it would be a mu- 
 tual lending of hands. The night had passed its leaden 
 roller over these dreams of the late barrister of Mantes, 
 and a formidable scheme had germinated and sprouted, 
 fertile in promise and full of intrigues. The Cibot was 
 the pin-bolt of the drama. The efiect of the sudden 
 revolt of that implement maj^ therefore be imagined. 
 Fraisier had not foreseen it ; but the man of law promptly 
 crushed the bold effort at escape, by bringing to bear 
 upon the woman the whole force of his venomous nature. 
 
 "My dear Madame Cibot, don't be troubled," he 
 said, taking her hand. 
 
 His own hand, cold as the skin of a snake, produced 
 a terrible impression on Madame Cibot, and caused a 
 ph3'sical reaction which checked her agitation ; tlie 
 toad Astaroth of Madame Fontaine seemed to her less 
 dangerous to touch than that poison-phial before her, 
 capped with a red wig, and whose voice was like the 
 creaking of a door. 
 
 " Don't think I 've frightened 3'ou without cause," 
 resumed Fraisier, who observed this fresh movement 
 of repulsion. "The circumstances which have made 
 Madame de Marville's terrible reputation are so well 
 known at the Palais-de-Justice, that any one you choose 
 to ask will tell you about them. The great noble who 
 was so nearly deprived of his civil rights is the Mar- 
 quis d'Espard. The Marquis d'Esgrignon is the one 
 that jgst escaped the galleys. The gallant young man, 
 rich, handsome, and full of promise, who was to have 
 
244 Cousin Pons, 
 
 married a daughter of one of the first famihes in France, 
 but who hanged himself in a cell at the Conciergerie, 
 was the celebrated Lucien de Rubempre, whose fate 
 roused all Paris for the time being. It was connected 
 with the bequest of his mistress, the famous Esther, who 
 left him several millions, and he was accused of having 
 poisoned her. The young poet was absent from Paris 
 at the time the woman died, and did not even know he 
 was her heir. No one could be more innocent than 
 that. Well, after he had undergone an examination b}^ 
 the president, Camusot de Marville, he hanged himself 
 in his cell. Justice, like the healing art, has its vic- 
 tims : in the one case yon die for societj^ ; in the 
 second, for science," added Fraisier, letting a hideous 
 smile flicker on his lips. " Well, yo\x see I know all the 
 dangers. I've been ruined by justice, — I, a poor little 
 obscure lawyer. My experience has cost me dear, and 
 I put it at 3^our service." 
 
 " My God ! no, thank 3^ou ! " said the Cibot ; "I give 
 up the whole thing. I don't want nothing but my dues. 
 I 've been an honest woman these thirty 3'ears, mon- 
 sieur. M}' Monsieur Pons did sa}' he 'd recommend me 
 in his will to his friend Monsieur Schmucke. Well, I '11 
 end my days in peace with that good German." 
 
 Fraisier had overshot his mark ; he had discouraged 
 the Cibot, and was obliged to eflface the dreadful im- 
 pression he had made upon her. 
 
 " Don't let us despair," he said ; " go 3'our own way 
 quietl}' . Don't be afraid ; we will bring the aflair 
 through safel3^" 
 
 " Then tell me what I'm to do, my good Monsieur 
 Fraisier. How am I to get my annuity, and — " 
 
Cousin Pons. 245 
 
 *' — feel no remorse?" he said quickly, cutting short 
 her words. "To manage such matters is preciseh^ 
 what lawyers were invented for. People can't deal 
 with these things unless legally. You don't know the 
 law ; I do. With me you 've got it on your side ; you 
 will get your rights peaceabl}', in sight of all men. 
 As for your conscience, that 's your own affair." 
 
 *' Well, go on," said Madame Cibot, made happy 
 and inquisitive by these words. 
 
 " I can't say more at present. I have not studied 
 the affair in all its bearings ; so far, I have only con- 
 sidered the obstacles. The first step, of course, is to 
 induce Pons to make a will : you can't go wrong there. 
 But above all, let us know at once whom he means to 
 make his heir ; for if he leaves his money to you — " 
 
 "No, he won't; he don't like me! Ah! if I'd 
 known the value of his gimcracks, and if I 'd only sus- 
 pected what he told me the other day about his love- 
 affairs, I should n't be a bit uneasy now." 
 
 " Well," said Fraisier, " do 3'ou go on as usual. 
 Dying folks have queer fancies, my dear Madame Cibot ; 
 they upset all expectation. Let him make his will, and 
 we '11 see what comes of it. But, first of all, there 
 must be a valuation of the propert3\ You must put 
 me in communication with the Jew and with that Re- 
 monencq ; the}'' will be very useful to us. Trust me ; I 
 am yours. I am the friend of m}' client through thick 
 and thin, when he is mine. Friend or foe ; that's my 
 nature." 
 
 " Well, I '11 be yours," said the Cibot. " And about 
 your fees ; Monsieur Poulain will — " 
 
 " Don't mention them," said Fraisier. " Be careful 
 
246 Cousin Pons, 
 
 to keep Poulain in attendance on the patient ; the doc- 
 tor has the purest and most loyal heart that I know, 
 and we need — don't 3'ou see? — a trustwortliy man. 
 Poulain is worth a dozen of me ; I 've grown wicked." 
 
 " You look as if you had," said the Cibot ; " but I '11 
 trust you all the same." 
 
 '' And you '11 do right ! " he said. " Come and see 
 me whenever an3'thing happens, and keep on as you 
 are doing now. You are a clever woman, and things 
 will turn out well." 
 
 '' Adieu, dear Monsieur Fraisier ; good health to jom. ! 
 Your servant ! " 
 
 Fraisier accompanied his client to the door, and there 
 . — just as Madame Cibot herself had done the night be- 
 fore to the doctor — he said his final word : 
 
 " If you could induce Monsieur Pons to seek my ad- 
 vice, it would be so much gained." ^ 
 
 " I'll try to do so," said the Cibot. 
 
 ''My good woman," continued Fraisier, drawing her 
 back within the study, " I am very well acquainted 
 with Monsieur Trognon, the notar}^, — the notar}', you 
 know, of the whole neighborhood. If Monsieur Pons 
 has n't a notary, speak to him about Trognon ; see that 
 he employs him." 
 
 " I see ! " returned Madame Cibot. 
 
 As she moved awa}' she heard the rustle of petticoats 
 and the sound of a heavy foot trjing to step lightly. 
 Once alone and in the street, Madame Cibot, after 
 walking some little distance, recovered her freedom of 
 thought. Though she remained under the influence of 
 this conference, and was still in terror of justice, judges, 
 and the scaffold, she took a very natural resolution, 
 
Cousin Pons. 247 
 
 which, sooner or later, was to bring her secretly in con- 
 flict with her terrible adviser. 
 
 " He}^ ! " she said to herself, " what do I want part- 
 ners for? I'll line m}^ own pockets first, and then, 
 may be, I '11 take what they offer me to serve their own 
 interests." 
 
 This resolution was fated, as we shall see, to hasten 
 the end of the unhapp}" musician. 
 
248 Cousin Pons, 
 
 XX. 
 
 MADAME CIBOT AT THE THEATRE. 
 
 *' Well, my clear Monsieur Schmucke," said the Cibot, 
 entering the appartement, ' ' and how 's our dear love of 
 a patient ? " 
 
 " Ferry pad ! " answered the German ; " Bons has 
 peen vlighdy all naight." 
 
 *' What did he say?" 
 
 " Only zduff and nonzenze ! He zay he leaf me his 
 broberdy, — on gondission dat noding pe zold. And he 
 gried, boor man, he gried ! It prakes my heart ! " 
 
 "" That '11 all pass off, my lamb ! " said Madame Cibot. 
 '*IVe kept you waiting for your breakfast; here it is 
 nine o'clock ! But don't 3'ou scold me ; I Ve been mighty 
 busy, all about your affairs. For, you see, there was n't 
 no mone}^, and I've had to raise some." 
 
 " How tid you? " asked Schmucke. 
 
 '' Why, my uncle ! " 
 
 " Your ungle ! " 
 
 " Up the spout." 
 
 "Z-bout?" 
 
 *' Oh, the dear man, if he ain't innocent! You're 
 a saint, an angel, an archbishop o' purity, a man to 
 stuff and keep in a glass-case, as that olii actor used 
 to say. Here you Ve been in Paris and j-ou 've seen — 
 what haven't j-ou seen? — the Revolution o' Julj^ — and 
 
Cousin Pons. 249 
 
 you don't know what a pawnbroker is ! He 's the man 
 who lends you mone}^ on your clothes and things. I 've 
 just taken him all our silver forks and spoons ; eight on 
 'em, with bead edges. Bah ! Cibot must eat his food 
 with that Algiers metal ; the}^ say it 's all the fashion. 
 'Tain't worth while to tell our dear cherub nothing about 
 it : 't would only worret him and turn him yellower nor 
 what he is ; he 's fretted enough a'ready. Let 's save 
 him first, and think about the money afterwards. Take 
 it easy, and swim with the stream ; fit your back to the 
 burden, you know. Ain't that true ? " 
 
 ' ' Goot anchel ! Zubleeme heart ! " cried poor 
 Schmucke, taking Madame Cibot's hand and laying it 
 on his own heart with an expression of much feeling. 
 
 The angel raised her eyes to heaven and showed the 
 tears in them. 
 
 " Come, come, be done. Papa Schmucke ! You 're a 
 funny man ! That 's coming it a little strong. I ain't 
 nothing only a woman o' the people, and my heart 's in 
 my hand. Yes, I 've got something here ! " she cried, 
 striking her breast, ''as well as 3'ou ; though you've 
 both o' you got hearts of gold." 
 
 " Baba Schmucke ! " exclaimed the old pianist, much 
 moved. " Ah ! I zuffer zuch cri-ef, my dears are ploot. 
 I bray to Heaven zo mooch, zo mooch, I haf no laife 
 left ; I gan nefer zurfife Bons ! " 
 
 *' Goodness! I believe you. You'll kUl yourself, 
 my poor love ! " 
 
 "Lof!" 
 
 " Well, 3^es, my little son." 
 
 "Zone!" 
 
 " My darling, then, if you like it better." 
 
250 Cousin Pons, 
 
 " I toan'd know vat 3^ou zay." 
 
 " Well, well, 3'ou let me take care of you, and you do 
 what I tell 3^ou ! If you don't, I shall have two sick 
 men to look after. According to m}^ ideas, we 've got 
 to divide the nursing between us. You can't give no 
 more lessons. It tires you out, and you ain't fit for noth- 
 ing here, where you '11 have to sit up nights, remember ; 
 for Monsieur Pons, he 's going from bad to worse. 
 Had n't I better call round on all 3'our pupils to-day 
 and tell 'em you are ill ? and then you '11 be able to sit 
 up with our dear lamb, and sleep from five in the morn- 
 ing till, sa}^ two in the afternoon. I '11 do the hardest 
 nursing, — that 's in the daytime ; because then I 've got 
 to get 3'our breakfast and dinner, and take care of the 
 patient, and get him up and change him, and give him 
 his medicines. To go on as I 'm doing now, I could n't 
 stand it ten days longer nohow. Here's thirty da3's 
 I 've been ready to drop. What would become of both 
 o' you if I was to fall ill again ? And if you did ? Good- 
 ness ! it 's enough to make one shiver. Look how 3'ou 're 
 all used up just for nothing but taking care o' monsieur 
 last night." 
 
 She led Schmucke to a mirror, and he saw how 
 changed he was. 
 
 " So, if you '11 be guided by me, I'll get 3'ou 3'Our 
 breakfast in a trice, and 3'ou can watch the dear man 
 two hours. Then, if 3'Ou give me a list of the pupils, I '11 
 go round and see 'em all, and you '11 be at liberty for a 
 couple o' weeks. You shall go to bed as soon as ever I 
 get back, and sleep till evening." 
 
 This proposal was so judicious that Schmucke agreed 
 at once. 
 
Cousin Pons, 251 
 
 " Mum to Monsieur Pons, you know, for he 'd think 
 he was dead if we told him he must give up the theatre 
 and his lessons. The poor man would fancy he could n't 
 get back his pupils, or some such nonsense. Monsieur 
 Poulain says we can't save our dear Benjamin if we don't 
 keep his mind easy." 
 
 "Yes, yes ; mek de preakfast, and I vill mek a lizde 
 and gif you de at-tresses. You are raight; I know 
 dat." 
 
 An hour later, the Cibot, in her Sunday best, de- 
 parted, to the amazement of Remonencq, in a milord, 
 determined to represent in a suitable manner the con- 
 fidential housekeeper of the two Nut-crackers in all 
 the schools and to all the private pupils of the two 
 musicians. 
 
 It is unnecessary to report the divers discourses, exe- 
 cuted like the variations of a theme, into which the Cibot 
 launched in presence of schoolmistresses and in the 
 bosom of families ; it will suffice to depict the scene 
 which took place in the official sanctum of the Illustrious 
 Gaudissard, where Madame Cibot penetrated, not with- 
 out meeting unexpected difficulties. The directors of 
 Parisian theatres are more carefully guarded than kings 
 and ministers. The reason why they erect such strong 
 barriers between themselves and other mortals is not 
 far to seek. Kings defend themselves against ambitions 
 only ; but the director of a theatre has the self-love of 
 authors and actors to fear and to escape. 
 
 The Cibot, however, overcame all obstacles by the 
 sudden intimacj^ she set up between herself and the 
 female concierge. Porters have a common ground of 
 recognition, just as men of the various professions have 
 
252 Cousin Pons, 
 
 theirs. Each employment has its shibboleth, as it has 
 its deformities and its scars. 
 
 ^' Ah, madame, 3'ou are the doorkeeper of a theatre," 
 the Cibot said ; " I 'm only the poor concierge of a house 
 in the rue de Normandie, where the leader of your 
 orchesti'a. Monsieur Pons, lives. Oh! how happy I 
 should be if I had j^our situation, and could see the 
 actors and the authors and the ballet-dancers coming 
 and going. Why, you 've got the marshal's truncheon 
 of our calling, as the old actor said." 
 
 " And how is that good Monsieur Pons?" asked the 
 other. 
 
 '' Verj' poorly. He hasn't been out of his bed these 
 two months. He'll be carried out o' the house feet 
 foremost when he does go, that 's certain." 
 
 '' He'll be a great loss." 
 
 "That's so. I've come with a message to your di- 
 rector to explain his condition : can't j'ou manage, my 
 dear, to let me see him ? " 
 
 " A lady from Monsieur Pons." 
 
 It was thus that the valet of the theatre announced 
 Madame Cibot, having received his cue from the door- 
 keeper. Gaudissard had just arrived for a rehearsal. 
 It so happened that no one was waiting to speak to him, 
 and that the authors of the play and the actors were 
 late. He was delighted to get news of his leader ; ac- 
 cordinglj^, he made a Napoleonic gesture, and the Cibot 
 was ushered in. 
 
 The former commercial traveller, now tlie director of 
 a popular theatre, imposed upon his joint-stock company 
 and cheated it, regarding it much as a man regards a 
 legitimate wife. His financial development had reacted 
 
Cousin Pons. 253 
 
 upon his person. Grown healthy and fat and vo^y with 
 prosperity and good Hving, Gaudissard had frankly 
 emerged as a Mondor. 
 
 " We are aiming for Beaiijon," he would sa}', hoping 
 to crack the first joke at his own expense. 
 
 "You haven't got beyond Turcaret," retorted Bixiou, 
 who occasionally cut him out in the smiles of the first 
 danseuse at the theatre, the celebrated Heloise Brise- 
 tout. The truth is the ex-lUustrious Gaudissard worked 
 his theatre solely and imdisguisedl}' in his own interests. 
 After insisting on admission as collahorateur in the 
 various ballets, vaudevilles, and minor pieces which 
 were played at the theatre, he took advantage of their 
 authors' impecuniosit}' to buy out the remaining share. 
 These pieces, always added to the bill after the leading 
 play, brought Gaudissard a roj^alt}' of several napoleons 
 nightly. He ti'aded by proxy on the sale of the tickets, 
 and claimed a certain number for himself, as the per- 
 quisite of his oflflce, which insured him a tithe of the 
 profits. These three sources of managerial revenue, 
 besides the letting of his boxes and the gifts of incom- 
 petent actresses who wanted to fill the minor parts and 
 appear as pages or queens, together with his legitimate 
 third of the profits, ran up the total of his gains so 
 enormously' that the stock-compau}', to whom the other 
 two thirds belonged, had obtained little more than a 
 tenth of the actual receipts. Nevertheless that tenth 
 produced an interest of fifteen per cent on its value. 
 Consequentl}' Gaudissard, strong in the support that such 
 a dividend won him^ was accustomed to boast of his intel- 
 ligence, his integrit}', his zeal, and the great good fortune 
 of the company. When Comte Popinot, with an appear- 
 
2j4 Cousin Pons. 
 
 ance of interest, asked Monsieur Matifat, or General 
 Gouraud, Matifat's son-in-law, or Crevel, whether he was 
 satisfied with Gaudissard, Gouraud, lately made peer of 
 France, replied : " The}^ sa^^ he cheats us : but he is such 
 a good fellow and so witty, that we are satisfied." 
 
 *' Then it is like the old fable of La Fontaine," said 
 Comte Popinot, smiling. 
 
 Gaudissard employed his capital in business outside 
 of the theatre. He had taken the measure of the GraflTs, 
 the Schwabs, and the Brunners, and he invested in 
 the railways the new banking-house was concerned in. 
 Concealing his shrewdness beneath the careless ease 
 and frankness of a roue and a voluptuar}-, he seemed to 
 think of nothing but his pleasures and his toilet ; while 
 in fact he thought of ever}- thing, and put to use the 
 vast business experience he had acquired as a com- 
 mercial traveller. This upstart, who never took himself 
 seriousl}", lived in a luxurious appartement decorated by 
 an upholsterer, where he gave suppers and fetes to cele- 
 brated people. Ostentatious in all his ways, and liking 
 to do things handsomely, he gave himself out as an 
 eas}', accommodating fellow, and seemed the less dan- 
 gerous because he retained what he called the '' patter" 
 of his former calling, to which lie had latel}' added the 
 slang of the green-room. Now, the fashion of actors is 
 to sa}^ things bluntl}- ; and the wit that he borrowed from 
 behind the scenes, when added to the livel}^ drollery of a 
 bagman, gave him the air and reputation of an important 
 character. At the present moment he was thinking of 
 selling his theatrical license and " passing, " to use his 
 own language, " to other labors." He wished to be 
 the president of a railway, to become a '^ solid man," a 
 
Cousin Pons, 255 
 
 government official, and to marry Mademoiselle Minard, 
 the daughter of one of the rich maj'ors of Paris. He 
 hoped to be elected deputy, and to rise, under the 
 auspices of Popinot, to the Council of State. 
 
 " To whom have I the honor of speaking?" he said, 
 directing upon Madame Cibot his managerial glance. 
 
 " Monsieur, I am the confidential housekeeper of 
 Monsieur Pons." 
 
 " Ah, indeed ! And how is he, the dear fellow? " 
 
 "III, very ill, monsieur." 
 
 " The devil ! I 'm deucedly sorrj^ ; I '11 go and see 
 him, for he is one of those rare men — " 
 
 " Ah, 3^es, indeed, monsieur ! a real cherub. I 
 sometimes ask myself how such a man can belong to 
 a theatre." 
 
 " Madame, the theatre is a place for the improvement 
 of morals," said Gaudissard. "Poor Pons! there's 
 a model man ! and such talent ! When do you think he 
 can get back to his post? For a theatre, unfortunately, 
 is like a stage-coach, and starts, full or empty, at the 
 regular hour. We m^y be as son*}' as we like, but that 
 won't lead the music. Come, how is he reall}^? " 
 
 " Alas ! my good monsieur," said the Cibot, pulling 
 out her handkerchief and putting it to her eyes, " it is 
 dreadful to have to say it, but I 'm afraid we 've got 
 to lose him ; though we take care of him. Monsieur 
 Schmucke and me, like the apple of our e3'e. And 
 I 've even come to tell 3'ou that you must n't count no 
 more on Monsieur Schmucke, who has got to sit up 
 nights. We can't help doing as if there was still a 
 chance, and trying to tear the dear, good man from the 
 jaws o' death ; but the doctor has n't no hope." 
 
256 Cousin Pons. 
 
 *'Whatished3ingof?" 
 
 " Grief and jaundice and the liver, and all complicated 
 with farailj^ troubles." 
 
 "And a doctor to boot!" cried Gaudissard. "He 
 ought to have employed our Doctor Lebrun ; it would 
 not have cost him anything." 
 
 "Monsieur has a doctor like the good God himself. 
 But what can a doctor do, talent or no talent, against 
 such a lot o' causes? " 
 
 " 1 wanted those good old Nut-crackers for mj new 
 fair3'-piece — " 
 
 " Is it anything I can do for them?" said Madame 
 Cibot, with an air worth}^ of Jocrisse. 
 
 Gaudissard burst out laughing. 
 
 "Monsieur, I'm their confidential housekeeper; 
 there 's many things these gentlemen — " 
 
 As Gaudissard's peals of laughter resounded through 
 the room, a woman's voice cried out, — 
 
 "If you are laughing, old fellow, I suppose I can 
 come in ? " 
 
 And the first danseuse made an irruption into the 
 room and flung herself upon the on\y sofa that was in 
 it. This was Heloise Brisetout, wrapped in a magnifi- 
 cent scarf, called Algerine. 
 
 "What are you laughing at? Is it at madame? 
 What role does she want? " said the lady, flinging him 
 one of those masonic glances from artist to artist which 
 ought to be painted on canvas. 
 
 Heloise, a highly literary young woman of much 
 renown in Bohemia, intimate with the great artists, ele- 
 gant, delicate, and graceful, possessed very much more 
 mind than usually belongs to a leading ballet-dancer. 
 
Cousin Pons. 257 
 
 As she asked her questions she inhaled the pungent 
 perfume of a vinaigrette. 
 
 " Madame, all women are equal when they 're hand- 
 some ; and if I don't sniff at a nasty scent-bottle, or 
 plaster a lot o' brick-dust on my cheeks — " 
 
 " With what Nature has put there already you 'd be 
 supersaturated, my child," said Heloise, winking at the 
 director. 
 
 " I 'm an honest woman — " 
 
 " So much the worse for j-ou," said Heloise. " It 
 is n't ever}^ woman who can be well kept ; but I am, 
 madame, and devilishlj^ well too ! " 
 
 *' What do you mean, ^ so much the worse ' ? It is 
 very fine for you to have Algerine scarfs round your 
 neck and to give yourself airs," said the Cibot ; " but 
 you 've never had half the declarations o' love that I 've 
 had, ma'am ! You could n't hold a candle to the beau- 
 tiful oyster- girl of the Cadran-Bleu — " 
 
 The dancer jumped up suddenly, presented arms, and 
 touched her forehead with the back of her right hand, 
 like a soldier saluting his general. 
 
 " What ! " cried Gaudissard, " are you that beautiful 
 oj^ster-woman my father used to tell me about?" 
 
 "If that's the case, madame can't know either the 
 cachuca or the polka ; madame must be over fifty 
 years old ! " said Heloise. " Then — " Here the dan- 
 seuse struck an attitude and declaimed the line, — 
 
 " *Be we friends, Cinna! ' " 
 
 " Come, Heloise, madame is no match for you ; let 
 her alone ! " 
 
 17 
 
258 Cousin Pons, 
 
 "Ah! is madame the nouvelle Helo'ise?" said the 
 Cibot with a mock simplicity that was full of satire. 
 
 " Pretty good, my old woman ! " cried Gaudissard. 
 
 "That's been said a hundred times; the joke's 
 preadamite ! Find something better, old lady, or take 
 a cigarette." 
 
 "Excuse me, ma'am," said Madame Cibot; "I'm 
 too sad to keep on answering you. My two gentlemen 
 are very ill, and I've pawned ever3'thing I've got^ 
 even my husband's coats, to feed 'em and save 'em 
 from worreting. Here, you may see the tickets." 
 
 "Ha! the farce is turning into drama," cried the 
 beautiful Heloise ; "let 's hear about it." 
 
 " Madame tumbles from the clouds," said the Cibot, 
 "like—" 
 
 " — like a leading fairy," said Heloise. " I '11 
 prompt you ; go on, mec?eme." 
 
 "Come, I'm in a hurr}^," said Gaudissard; "no 
 more nonsense I Heloise, madame is the housekeeper 
 of our poor leader of the orchestra, who is djing. She 
 has come to say I must not depend on him any longer ; 
 I am in a tight place." 
 
 " Ah, poor man ! well, we must give him a benefit." 
 
 " That would ruin him," said Gaudissard. " The 
 next day the hospitals would come down on him for 
 five hundred francs ; they never believe in any wants 
 except their own. No, no. Look here, my good 
 woman, since 3^ou are evidently running for the prix 
 Monty on — " Gaudissard rang a bell ; the valet in- 
 stantly entered. ^' Tell the cashier to send me a bank- 
 bill of a thousand francs. Sit down, madame." 
 
 " Ah, poor woman ! — There, she 's crying ! " ex- 
 
Cousin Pons. 259 
 
 claimed the ballet-dancer. "How dismal! Come, 
 mother, cheer up ; we '11 all go and see him ! Look 
 here, old fellow," she went on, drawing Gaudissard into 
 a corner, ^' you want to make me play Ariadne. You 
 are going to marr}^, and j^ou know I can make you 
 miserable — " 
 
 " Heloise, I have got a heart like a frigate, — copper- 
 bottomed." 
 
 " I '11 produce children of yours ! I '11 borrow some." 
 
 *' I have openly declared our attachment." 
 
 " Come, be a good fellow, and give Pons's situation 
 to Garangeot, — the lad has talent, but he has n't a six- 
 pence, — do that, and I '11 promise to keep quiet." 
 
 " But wait till Pons is dead; the worthy soul may 
 come to life again." 
 
 "Oh! as for that, no, monsieur," said the Cibot; 
 " since last evening he 's been out of his head, delirious. 
 Unfortunatel}', it '11 soon be all over." 
 
 " Anyhow, put Garangeot in pro tetn.," said Heloise ; 
 " he has got the whole Press on his side." 
 
 At this moment the cashier entered, holding in his 
 hand two notes of five hundred francs each. 
 
 " Give them to madame," said Gaudissard. " Adieu, 
 my good woman ! Take care of the dear man, and tell 
 him I '11 go and see him to-morrow, or the day after, — 
 or at any rate as soon as I can." 
 
 "You've got so many irons in the fire," remarked 
 Heloise. 
 
 "Ah 1 monsieur," cried the Cibot, " hearts like yours 
 ain't nowhere except in a theatre. May God bless you ! '* 
 
 "To whose account am I to put that?" asked the 
 cashier. 
 
260 Cousin Pons. 
 
 " I '11 draw a cheque, and you are to charge the sum 
 to the gratuity account." 
 
 Before leaving the room Madame Cibot made an 
 elaborate courtesy to the ballet-dancer, and overheard a 
 question which Gaudissard put to his late mistress. 
 
 ' ' Is Garangeot capable of getting up the music for 
 the ballet of the Mohicans in ten days ? If he can pull 
 me out of that scrape, he shall have the old man's 
 place." 
 
 Madame Cibot, better paid for the harm she had done 
 than she w^ould ever have been for her good actions, 
 pocketed the thousand francs and the sums paid for the 
 lessons of the two friends, thus depriving them of all 
 means of existence in the event of Pons recovering his 
 health. By this perfidy she expected to bring about a 
 much-desired result, — the necessity of selling the pict- 
 ures so coveted by Elie Magus. To contrive this first 
 abstraction, the Cibot had to throw dust in the e^xs of 
 the terrible associate she had taken to her arms, the 
 barrister Fraisier, and also to make sure of the entire 
 discretion of Elie Magus and Remonencq. 
 
 As to the Auvergnat, he had been brought by degrees 
 under the dominion of a passion such as men of no 
 education conceive when they come to Paris from the 
 depths of the provinces, with fixed ideas born of the 
 isolation of country life, full of the ignorance of 
 primitive natures, and the savage desires which make 
 the framework of fixed ideas. The virile beauty of 
 Madame Cibot, her vivacity, and her coarse wit, had 
 long attracted the Auvergnat, who wished to carry 
 her off from Cibot and make her his concubine, — a 
 species of bigamy which is much more common in Paris 
 
Cousin Pons. 261 
 
 among the lower classes than people think for. But 
 avarice is a running noose which tightens more and 
 more around the heart, and ends by stifling the reason. 
 Remonencq, when he valued the payment to Madame 
 Cibot from himself and Elie Magus at forty thousand 
 francs, passed from illicit intentions to crime, and longed 
 to make her his legitimate wife. This love, which was 
 pure speculation, brought him, as he dreamed the long 
 dreams of a smoker, leaning against the lintel of his shop- 
 door, to wish for the death of the little tailor. He saw 
 that in this waj' he could almost triple his capital, and 
 thought what an excellent saleswoman the Cibot would 
 be, and what a fine figure she would cut in a splendid 
 shop on tlie boulevard. The two desires intoxicated 
 him. In his dreams he hired a shop on the boulevard 
 de la Madeleine, and filled it with the choicest curiosities 
 of the defunct Pons ; he slept on cloth of gold, and saw 
 milHons floating upward in the blue fumes of his pipe. 
 And then he woke up face to face with the httle tailor, 
 who was always sweeping out the court3'ard, the dooi-way, 
 and the street when the Auvergnat was opening his shop 
 and setting out his wares ; for since the illness of Pons, 
 Cibot did his wife's household work. Remonencq came 
 to consider the sallow, stunted, copper-colored little 
 tailor as the sole obstacle to his prosperit}^ ; and he 
 asked himself how he could get rid of him. Madame 
 Cibot was very proud of tliis growing passion on the 
 part of Remonencq, for she had reached the age 
 when women at last understand that the}' are growing 
 old. 
 
 One morning the Cibot, on getting up, looked reflec- 
 tively at Remonencq, who was arranging the odds and 
 
262 Cousin Pons. 
 
 ends in his shop-window, and she resolved to find out 
 to what lengths his love would cany him. 
 
 "Well!" said the Auvergnat, coming toward her, 
 " are things going as 3'ou wish ? " 
 
 "It's 3'ou I'm troubled about," returned the Cibot. 
 " You compromise me; all the neighbors can see 3'ou 
 making sheep's-eyes at me." 
 
 She left her own door and went into the depths of the 
 Auvergnat's shop. 
 
 " What an idea ! " said Remonencq. 
 
 "Come here; I want to speak to j'ou," she said. 
 " The heirs of Monsieur Pons are bestirring themselves, 
 and the}" 're likely to give us trouble. God knows 
 what '11 happen if they send lawyers to stick their noses 
 into things, like a setter-dog. I won't persuade Mon- 
 sieur Schmucke to sell a few pictures unless jou '11 
 promise me to keep the secret — ay ! keep it so that 
 with 3'our head on the block you won't tell neither 
 where the pictures came from, nor who sold 'em. Don't 
 you see that when Monsieur Pons is safely dead and 
 buried, nobody will be the wiser if there are only fift}'- 
 three pictures instead of sixty-seven ? Besides, if they 
 are sold while the old man is living, no one can say 
 nothing." 
 
 " Well," said Remonencq, " it is all the same to me ; 
 but Monsieur Elie Magus wants the receipts regular." 
 
 "You shall have 3'our receipts, bless you ! Do 3'ou 
 suppose I 'm going to write 'em ? Not I ; it '11 be Mon- 
 sieur Schmucke. But 3'ou must tell 3'our Jew that he 
 is to be as silent as you are," she added. 
 
 " We '11 be as mute as fishes ; silence is in our line. 
 As for me, I know how to read, but I can't write ; and 
 
Cousin Pons. 263 
 
 that 's why I want a wife clever and educated like 
 you. I, who am always laying b}" for old age, I 
 want some little Remonencqs. Come, you leave your 
 Cibot ! " 
 
 " Here comes your Jew ! " said the woman ; '' now we 
 can settle matters." 
 
 " Well, my good lady," said Elie Magus, who called 
 very early in the morning of ever}^ third day, to know 
 when he could have the pictures, " how are matters 
 going?" 
 
 " Hain't no one been to speak to you about Monsieur 
 Pons and his gimcracks ? " demanded the Cibot. 
 
 " I have received a letter from a lawyer," answered 
 Elie Magus. " He seemed to be one of those busy- 
 bodies ferreting for business, and I distrust such people ; 
 so I did not answer him. At the end of three da3's he 
 came to see me, and left his card ; I told my concierge 
 to say I was out whenever he came again." 
 
 " You 're a jewel of a Jew ! " said the Cibot, who was 
 unaware of the old man's caution. " Well, my lads, 
 in a few daj's I '11 have brought Monsieur Schmucke to 
 sell you six or eight o' them pictures, ten at the most ; 
 but on two conditions, — first, absolute secrec}'. No 
 matter what happens, I 'm not to appear in the busi- 
 ness. It is to be Monsieur Schmucke who sends for 
 you ; mind that. And it is Monsieur Remonencq who 
 proposed to Monsieur Schmucke to let 3'ou have them. 
 I ain't to have nothing to do with it. You are to pa}^ 
 forty-six thousand francs for the four pictures." 
 
 " I agree," said the Jew, with a sigh. 
 
 "Very good," said Madame Cibot. "The second 
 condition is, that you are to give me fort}^- three thou- 
 
264 Coumi Pons. 
 
 sand francs, and buy the pictures with the other three 
 thousand from Monsieur Schmucke : Remonencq can 
 bu}' four for two thousand francs, and pa}^ me the sur- 
 phis. Now, 3-0U see, my dear Monsieur Magus, that 
 I 've thrown a mighty good thing in your way, — in 
 yours and Remonencq's, — on condition of sharing the 
 profits between us. I'll take 3'ou to a lawj^er, or the 
 law3'er can come here. You'll estimate the value of 
 all there is in the collection at the prices 3^ou are able 
 to give, so that Monsieur Fraisier ma3' know the value 
 of what the old man has to leave. Onty he must not 
 come here before this first sale. You understand? " 
 
 "That's understood," said the Jew; "but it will 
 take time to examine the things and set a price on 
 them." . 
 
 " You shall have a whole half-da3'. I '11 manage it ; 
 that 's m3' affair. Talk the matter over between 3'our- 
 selves, my lads, and day after to-morrow the thing 
 shall be done. I '11 go and talk to that Fraisier, for he 
 knows what 's going on here through his friend Doctor 
 Poulain, and it '11 be might3^ hard to keep the rascal 
 quiet." 
 
 Half wa3^ between the rue de Normandie and the rue 
 de la Perle Madame Cibot met Fraisier, who was on 
 his way to see her, so anxious was he to get at what he 
 called the ' ' elements " of the affair. 
 
 " I was going to your house," he said. 
 
 Fraisier complained that Elie Magus would not see 
 him ; but the Cibot dispersed his passing gleam of 
 suspicion b3" assuring him that IMagus had only 
 just got back from a long journe3', and that she would 
 arrange an interview in Pons's appartement the da3' 
 
Cousin Pons. 265 
 
 but one following, for the purpose of valuing the 
 collection. 
 
 "Deal openly with me," answered Fraisier; "it is 
 more than likely that I shall be employed by the heirs 
 of Monsieur Pons. In that position I shall be much 
 better able to serve you." 
 
 The words were said so incisively that the Cibot 
 trembled. This starveling man of law, she felt, was 
 manoeuvring on his side as she was manoeuvring on 
 hers ; and she resolved to hasten the sale of the pic- 
 tures. She was not far wrong in her conjecture. The 
 lawyer and the doctor had clubbed together to buy a 
 new suit of clothes for Fraisier, so that he might pre- 
 sent himself decently dressed before Madame Camusot 
 de Marville. The time required to make the suit was 
 the sole reason why that interview, on which hung the 
 fate of the two friends, had been delayed. After his 
 visit to Madame Cibot, Fraisier intended to go to the 
 tailor's and try on the coat, waistcoat, and trousers ; he 
 found those habiliments finished and ready for use. 
 When he reached home he put on a new wig, and 
 started at ten o'clock in the morning, in a hired cab- 
 riolet, for the rue de Hanovre, hoping to obtain an in- 
 terview with Madame de Marville. 
 
 Fraisier in a white cravat, yellow gloves, a new wig, 
 and perfumed with eau-de-portugal, strongly reminded 
 one of certain poisons kept in crystal bottles, the stop- 
 pers held down l)y white kid, whose labels and all else, 
 even the thread around the kid, though tasteful in 
 appearance, only add to one's sense of danger. His 
 peremptory manner, his blotched face, his cutaneous 
 malady, his greenish eyes, his general savor of wicked- 
 
266 Cousin Pons. 
 
 ness, caught the eye like clouds on a blue sky. In his 
 study, as he had appeared to Madame Cibot, he was 
 but the vulgar knife with which an assassin commits a 
 crime ; here, at the door of Madame de Marville, he 
 was the elegant poniard a young woman hides in her 
 robe. 
 
Cousin Pons. 267 
 
 XXI. 
 
 FRAISIER IN FLOWER. 
 
 A GREAT change had taken place in the rue de Hano- 
 vre. The Vicomte and Vicomtesse Popinot and the 
 late minister and his wife were unwilling that Mon- 
 sieur and Madame de Marville should remove into hired 
 appartements and leave the house they had given up 
 to their daughter as part of her dot. The president and 
 his wife had accordingly gone up to the second floor, 
 now left vacant by the removal of the old ladj' its late 
 tenant to end her days in the country. Madame de 
 Marville, who retained Madeleine Vivet, the cook, and 
 the footman, had recovered from the vexation caused by 
 the change, — a vexation somewhat lessened by the pos- 
 session of a suite of rooms worth four thousand francs 
 a year, and an unembarrassed income of ten thousand 
 more. This aurea mediocritas^ however, seemed al- 
 ready insufficient to Madame de Marville, who wished 
 her fortune to match her ambition. But the cession of 
 all their property for the sake of marrjing their daughter 
 had entailed the loss of the president's vested rights of 
 election. Now, Amelie de Marville was determined to 
 make her husband a deputy ; for she never abandoned 
 l^r plans willingl}', and she still did not despair of 
 getting him elected from the arrondissement in which 
 Marville is situated. For the last two months, there- 
 
268 Cousin Pons, 
 
 fore, she had tormented her father-in-law, now Baron 
 Camusot (for the newly created peer of France had 
 been made a baron), to get him to advance a hundred 
 thousand francs on her husband's inheritance, for the 
 purpose, she said, of buying a small domain adjoining 
 that of Marville, which yielded a rental of about two 
 thousand francs. She and her husband could live 
 there, near their children, and the boundaries of the 
 Marville estate would be improved and eventually- ex- 
 tended by this purchase. Madame de Marville urged 
 upon her father-in-law the deprivations she was com- 
 pelled to endure for the sake of marrying Cecile to the 
 Vicomte Popinot, and asked him if he wished to block 
 the wa}^ for his eldest son to reach the highest honors 
 in the state, which were now granted only to a powerful 
 parliamentary position, — a position her husband would 
 know how to obtain, if elected to the Chamber, by mak- 
 ing himself feared by the ministry. 
 
 "Those gentry grant nothing unless you twist their 
 cravats about their necks till their tongues hang out," 
 she said. " They are all ungrateful. They owe every- 
 thing to Camusot. B}" enforcing the July laws, Camu- 
 sot brought about the elevation of the Orleans family." 
 
 The old man put her off on the ground that he was 
 involved in railways beyond his present means ; and 
 he postponed the donation — of which, however, he ad- 
 mitted the necessity' — until an expected rise in stocks 
 should occur. 
 
 This half-promise, extorted a few days earlier than 
 the particular time of which we write, had plunged 
 Madame de Marville into much vexation of spirit. It 
 was now doubtful whether the ex-owner of Marville 
 
Cousin Pons, 269 
 
 could be ill a condition for election when the new 
 Chamber was formed, as it required one year's owner- 
 ship of propert3^ 
 
 Fraisier succeeded without difficulty in seeing Made- 
 leine Vivet. The two viperous natures recognized at 
 sight their egress from the same egg. 
 
 "Mademoiselle," said Fraisier, with specious mild- 
 ness, " I should like to obtain a few moments' interview 
 with Madame de Marville on a personal matter which 
 concerns her propert}'. Tell her it is a question of 
 inheritance. I have not the honor to be known to her, 
 therefore my name will carry no weight. I am not in 
 the habit of attending to business affairs outside of my 
 office ; but I know Madame de Marville's claims to con- 
 sideration, and I have taken the trouble to come m}-- 
 self — all the more because the subject does not allow 
 of the least delaj'." 
 
 The matter thus broached, then repeated and ampli- 
 fied by the waiting-maid, naturally produced a favor- 
 able answer. The moment was a decisive one for 
 Fraisier's two ambitions. Therefore, in spite of the 
 intrepidity^ of the little provincial lawyer, pugnacious, 
 bitter, and incisive as he was, he felt as all great cap- 
 tains feel at the opening of a battle on which the suc- 
 cess of the campaign depends. As he entered Amelie's 
 salon he had what no sudorific, however powerful it 
 might be, was able to produce upon the pores of his 
 skin, choked and palsied as it was with direful diseases, 
 — a cold sweat upon his back and forehead. 
 
 "Ah!" he thought, "even if I don't make my for- 
 tune, my life is saved ; for Poulain told me I should 
 get my health the moment perspiration set in — 
 
270 Cousin Fans. 
 
 Madame," he said, seeing Amelie, who came forward 
 in a loose morning-dress. Fraisier stopped short to 
 bow with that extreme subservienc}' which, when em- 
 ployed towards government officials, or their famihes, 
 is intended as a recognition of the superior qualities of 
 the persons addressed. 
 
 "Sit down, monsieur," said Madame de Marville, 
 perceiving at once that he belonged to the regions of 
 the law. 
 
 " Madame, if I take the liberty" to address j'ou on a 
 matter which concerns the interests of Monsieur le 
 president, it is because I feel certain that, in his high 
 position, he is likel}^ to let things take their chance, 
 and thus lose seven or eight hundred thousand francs, — 
 a sum which ladies, who in m}" opinion know more about 
 private business affairs than judges and pubhc men, are 
 not so ready to despise." 
 
 " You mentioned an inheritance," said Amelie, inter- 
 rupting him. 
 
 Dazzled b}' the sum named, and wishing to hide 
 her astonishment and her delight, she imitated the 
 readers of novels, and looked over to the end of the 
 tale. 
 
 '* Yes, madame, an inheritance at present lost to 
 3'ou ; I may say wholly lost ; but which I can, — which 
 I am ready to recover for 3^ou — " 
 
 " Go on, monsieur," said Madame de Marville, coldly 
 measuring Fraisier with a sagacious eye. 
 
 ''Madame, I know your eminent talents. I m3'self 
 come from Mantes. Monsieur Lebceuf, the president 
 of the courts. Monsieur de Marville's friend, can give 
 you information about me — " 
 
Cousin Pons, 271 
 
 Madame de Marville shrugged her shoulders with 
 such cruel significance that Fraisier was compelled to 
 open and shut a parenthesis instantl}^, in the very 
 beginning of his discourse. 
 
 "A woman as distinguished as j'ourself will at once 
 understand why I speak to you in the first instance of 
 myself. It is the shortest wa^' to secure your inheri- 
 tance." 
 
 Madame de Marville replied to this crafty- remark b}^ 
 a gesture onl}^, and kept silence. 
 
 "Madame," continued Fraisier, encouraged b}' the 
 gesture to relate his history, "I was a barrister at 
 Mantes. My practice cost my whole fortune ; for I 
 bought that of Monsieur Levroux, whom you doubtless 
 know — " 
 
 Madame de Marville bowed her head. 
 
 "With a certain sum that was lent to me, and about 
 ten thousand francs of my own, I had just left the em- 
 ploy of Desroches, one of the ablest lawyers in Paris, 
 witli whom I had been head-clerk for six 3'ears. I 
 had the misfortune to displease the procureur-du-roi 
 at Mantes — " 
 
 "Olivier Vinet?" 
 
 " Yes, madame ; the son of the procureur-general. 
 He was courting a httle woman — " 
 
 "He!" 
 
 " Madame Vatinelle." 
 
 "Ah! Madame Vatinelle. She was very prett}', 
 and very — well known." 
 
 " She was intimate with me ; inch irce" returned 
 Fraisier. " I was young and active ; I wanted to pay 
 off my loan and marry. I had to get business, and I 
 
272 Cousin Pons. 
 
 looked about for it; I soon brewed more for myself 
 than all the other law-officials put together. Of course 
 they were one and all against me, the barristers of 
 Mantes and the notaries, even the sheriffs' officers. 
 They picked quarrels with me. You know ver}^ well, 
 madame, that in our vile business when the^^ want to 
 destroy a man it is soon done. They caught me as 
 attorn e}^ for both sides of a case. That is rather sharp 
 practice, I admit ; but in certain cases it is done in 
 Paris, where law3'ers pla}' into each others' hands. It 
 is not done at Mantes. Monsieur Bouyonnet, — for 
 whom I had previously done the same little kindness, 
 — instigated by his associates and encouraged by 
 the procureur-du-roi^ betrayed me. You see I hide 
 nothing from 3'ou. Well, there was a general hue-and- 
 crj'. I was a scoundrel ; the}' made me out blacker 
 than Marat ! They forced me to sell my practice, and 
 I lost everything. I came to Paris, where 1 have tried 
 to get clients ; but my wretched health onl}" enables me 
 to work two good hours out of the twenty-four. To- 
 da}' I am reduced to one ambition, and it is a paltry 
 one. You will some da}' be the wife of the Keeper of 
 the Seals, or perhaps the Chief-justice ; but I, poor and 
 feeble, have no other wish than to get some situation 
 in which I may end my days, some post where there 
 is no rise, where I can simply vegetate. I want to 
 be juge-de-paix in Paris. It would be a mere trifle 
 for you and Monsieur le president to obtain for me ; 
 for 3'ou doubtless render the present Keeper of the 
 Seals so uneas}' in his situation that he would be glad 
 to oblige you. But that's not all," added Fraisier, 
 seeing that Madame de Marville was about to speak, 
 
Cousin Pons, 273 
 
 and stopping her by a gesture. " I have a friend, who 
 is the physician of the old man whose property 3'ou and 
 the president ought to inherit. Now you see what I 
 am coming to. This doctor, whose co-operation is in- 
 dispensable, is in the same situation as that in w^hich 
 you see me, — a great deal of ability, and no luck ! It is 
 through him I heard that your interests were in danger ; 
 for at this very moment, as I am speaking to you, all 
 may be over, and the will which disinherits 3'ou and 
 Monsieur le president may be made. This doctor is 
 anxious to be appointed surgeon-in-chief of a hospital, 
 or of one of the royal medical colleges. In short, you 
 understand, he must have a situation in Paris the 
 equivalent of mine. Pardon me if I speak frankly of 
 these delicate matters ; but this affair will not admit 
 of the slightest ambiguity. This doctor is moreover a 
 man who is well thought of. He saved the life of Mon- 
 sieur Pillerault, the great-uncle of your son-in-law, 
 Monsieur le Vicomte Popinot. Now, if you will have 
 the goodness to promise me these two places, — juge- 
 de-paix for m3'self, and a medical sinecure for my 
 friend, — I undertake to hand you over your inheritance 
 almost intact. I say ' almost intact ' because it will be 
 saddled with a few obligations which we must be under 
 to the legatee and to certain persons whose assistance 
 is positively indispensable. You need not fulful your 
 promises until after I have fulfilled mine." 
 
 Madame de Marville, who during the last few mo- 
 ments had crossed her arms, like a person compelled 
 to listen to a sermon, now uncrossed them, looked at 
 Fraisier, and said, — 
 
 "Monsieur, you have the merit of making perfectly 
 18 
 
274 Couhin Pons. 
 
 clear all that 3'ou have to say about 3'our own affairs ; 
 but as to mine you are extremely ambiguous — " 
 
 *'Two words will suffice to enlighten you, madame," 
 returned Fraisier. "Monsieur le president is the sole 
 heir, in the third degree of consanguinity, to Monsieur 
 Pons. Monsieur Pons is verj- ill, and about to make 
 his will, if he has not already made it, in favor of a 
 German, his friend, named Schmucke ; and the value 
 of the property is more than seven hundred thousand 
 francs. In three days I hope to have an exact esti- 
 mate of the amount." 
 
 "If that is so," she said, half aloud, thunderstruck 
 at the possibility of such an inheritance, "what a mis- 
 take I made in quarrelling with him and driving him 
 away ! " 
 
 " No, madame ; for if it were not for that rupture, he 
 would still be as lively as a cricket, and would probably 
 outlive you. Providence has its own ways, and we 
 need not look too closel}^ into them." He added, as 
 if to disguise the odious thought, "But we business 
 agents, you know, must look at things as the}' are. You 
 understand now, madame, that in the high position 
 Monsieur de Marville occupies he would do nothing — 
 indeed he could do nothing — in the present condition 
 of the affair. He has quarrelled mortally with his 
 cousin ; you yourself no longer see PCns ; 3'ou have 
 banished him from your roof, — no doubt you had excel- 
 lent reasons for doing so, — the old man is now ill, and 
 bequeaths his property to his only friend. A president 
 of the Cour-royale can have nothing to say against 
 a will made under such circumstances. But between 
 ourselves, madame, it is verj^ disagreeable when we 
 
Cousin Pons. 275 
 
 have a right to an inheritance of seven or eight hun- 
 dred thousand francs — in fact, it may be over a milHon 
 — to see it taken from nnder our verj^ nose, and not 
 attempt to get it back. Onl}-, if we make the attempt 
 we must touch pitcli and meddle with dirt}' intrigues. 
 It is a difficult and ticklish thing to manage, and we 
 shall have to rub shoulders with common people, — 
 servants and underlings, — and rub them closely and 
 secretly too, so that no law3'er or notary in Paris can 
 get wind of it. You need a barrister without a brief, 
 like myself, whose abilities are genuine and earnest, 
 whose devotion is secured, and whose position, unhap- 
 pily precarious, is on a level with that of such people. 
 My business takes me among the lesser tradespeople, the 
 workmen, and the laboring classes of my arrondissement. 
 Yes, madame, that is the position to which I have 
 been reduced by the enmity of the procureur-du-roi 
 at Mantes, — a man who could not forgive m}^ superioritj'. 
 I know you well, madame, I know the solid strength 
 of 3'our protection, and I see that b}' rendering you 
 this service I shall reach the end of m}' own misfor- 
 tunes and secure the triumph of my friend Doctor 
 Poulain." 
 
 Madame de Marville remained thoughtful. It was a 
 moment of frightful agony to Fraisier. Vinet, pro- 
 cureur-ge7ieral, — now one of the orators of the Centre, 
 constantly pointed out as a future chancellor, — the 
 father of the procureur-du-roi at Mantes, was the an- 
 tagonist of this relentless woman. The haught}' official 
 made no pretence of hiding his contempt for president 
 Camusot. Fraisier was ignorant of this circumstance, 
 however. 
 
276 , Cousin Po7is. 
 
 " Have 3-0U nothing else upon your conscience than 
 the act of being the attorney on both sides?" asked 
 Madame de Marville, looking fixedly at Fraisier. 
 
 " Madame may ask Monsieur Leboeuf about me. 
 Monsieur Leboeuf was on my side." 
 
 "Are 3'ou sure that Monsieur Leboeuf would speak 
 well of 3'ou to Monsieur de Marville and Monsieur le 
 comte Popinot?" 
 
 "I'll answer for it, especially as Monsieur Olivier 
 Vinet is no longer at Mantes ; for, between ourselves, 
 that little magistrate kept the good Leboeuf in perpetual 
 awe of him. Moreover, madame, if you wish it, I will 
 go to Mantes and see Monsieur Leboeuf myself. It 
 will cause no dela}^, for I can't ascertain the exact 
 value of the property for two or three daj^s. I wish — 
 in fact I micsi conceal from madame some of the wires 
 I have to pull in this affair. But will she not regard 
 the price which I ask for m}^ devotion as a pledge of 
 success ? " 
 
 " Well, make Monsieur Leboeuf willing to answer for 
 you, and if the property is as large as j'ou sa}' it is 
 (which I doubt) , I will promise 30U the two places, — 
 provided 3'ou succeed, of course." 
 
 " I will answer for our success, madame, — onl3' 3'ou 
 must have the kindness to send for 30ur notary and 
 your attorney whenever I need their assistance. They 
 must give me a power-of-attorney to act for Monsieur 
 le president, and 3'ou must tell these gentlemen to fol- 
 low m3' instructions and to take no steps without m3' 
 consent." 
 
 " You have the responsibilit3^," said Madame de Mar- 
 ville impressivel3', " and 3'ou ought to have full powers. 
 
Cousin Pons. 277 
 
 But," she added, smiling, " is Monsieur Pons so very 
 ill?" 
 
 "Faith! madame, he might recover, especially when 
 cared for by so conscientious a man as Doctor Poulain ; 
 for my friend, madame, is only an innocent spy whom I 
 employ in your interests : he would be able to save the 
 old man ; but there is another person near the patient, 
 a housekeeper, who for thirt}^ thousand francs is ready 
 to push him into his grave ! She won't kill him, she 
 won't give him arsenic : she will do nothing so chari- 
 table ; she will murder him morally, and drive him into 
 a state' of irritable excitement every day. The poor 
 old fellow, if he were in an atmosphere of peace and 
 silence, and were well cared for and kindly treated 
 by friends, would recover. But worn to death by a 
 Madame Evrard (in her 3'outh one of the thlrtj^ hand- 
 some 03'ster- women Paris has celebrated), who is grasp- 
 ing, garrulous, and brutal, tormented by her to make 
 a will in which she should have a handsome share, the 
 poor creature is drifting fast and fatally into an indu- 
 ration of the liver, — in fact, the calculi ma}^ be already" 
 forming, and an operation (which he can't survive) will 
 be necessary to remove them. The doctor — ah, he 's a 
 noble soul ! — is in a very painful position ; he ought 
 to send awa\^ the woman — " 
 
 " Such a Megffira is a monster ! " exclaimed Madame 
 de Marville in her flut^' Httle voice. 
 
 This vocal likeness between himself and the terrible 
 woman made Fraisier smile inwardly ; for he knew very 
 well what to think of such soft, hypocritical modula- 
 tions of a voice that was naturally shrill. He recalled 
 a certain official, the hero of a tale in the dajs of 
 
£78 Cousin Pons, 
 
 Louis XI. whom that monarch put an end to by a sign- 
 manual. This magistrate, blessed with a wife modelled 
 after that of Socrates, but himself without the inward 
 philosophy of that great man, ordered salt to be strewn 
 on the oats of his horses and forbade that they should 
 be allowed any water. When the wife was driving to 
 her country-house along the banks of the Seine the 
 horses rushed into the river to drink, carrying her with 
 them ; and the magistrate thanked Providence who had 
 thus released him from his torment by natural means. 
 At this moment Madame de Marville was thanking God 
 for having placed beside Pons a woman who would re- 
 lieve her of him — honestly ! 
 
 "I would not accept a million," she said, "at the 
 price of an impropriety. Your friend ought to warn 
 Monsieur Pons and have the woman sent away." 
 
 "In the first place, madame, Messieurs Pons and 
 Schmucke think the woman an angel, and they would 
 onh^ send away mj' friend. Then that atrocious oyster- 
 woman has been the doctor's benefactress : she intro- 
 duced him to Monsieur Pillerault. lie tells her to show 
 the utmost gentleness to the patient ; but that advice 
 only shows the wretched creature how to make the ill- 
 ness worse." 
 
 " What does your friend think of my cousin's state ? " 
 asked Madame de Marville. 
 
 Fraisier made the woman tremble by his explicit an- 
 swer and the clear-sightedness with which he looked into 
 her heart, — a heart as rapacious as Madame Cibot's. 
 
 " In six weeks the property will be divided." 
 
 " Poor man ! " she said, trying, but in vain, to look 
 sad. 
 
Cousin Pons. 279 
 
 " Has madame any message to send to Monsieur 
 Lebo9uf ? I shall take the train to Mantes." 
 
 "Yes. Wait a few moments, and I will write and 
 invite him to dine with us to-morrow. I wish to see 
 him and arrange some plan by which the injustice you 
 have suffered may be repaired." 
 
 When Madame de Marville had left him, Fraisier, 
 who saw himself juge-de-paix^ was no longer the same 
 man : he swelled out ; his lungs drew in full draughts 
 of the air of happiness and the wind of success. Dip- 
 ping from the unfathomed reservoir of the will fresh 
 and powerful doses of that divine essence, he felt him- 
 self, like Remonencq, capable of a crime to insure suc- 
 cess, provided no proof of it remained. He had boldly 
 faced Madame de Marville, turning conjectures into cer- 
 tainties, affirming this and that as it suited him, with 
 the sole purpose of compelling her to employ him to ob- 
 tain the propert}' for her, and thus secure her protection 
 and influence. The representative of two lives of in- 
 tense poverty, two cravings not less intense, he kicked 
 away with disdainful foot his horrible home in the rue 
 de la Perle. He fingered prospectively three thousand 
 francs in fees from Madame Cibot, and five thousand 
 more from Madame de Marville. That meant the acqui- 
 sition of a suitable appartement. Moreover, he could 
 pay off his debt to Doctor Poulain. There are certain 
 malignant natures, bitter, and disposed to wickedness 
 bj' sufferings or disease, which, nevertheless, experi- 
 ence feelings of an opposite nature, and to an equally 
 intense degree. Richelieu was a good friend, though a 
 cruel enemy. Fraisier would have let himself be hacked 
 in pieces for Doctor Poulain, in gratitude for the sue- 
 
280 Cousin Pons. 
 
 cor he had received from him. Madame de Marville, 
 returning with a letter in her hand, watched for a 
 moment, without being seen herself, the man who was 
 dreaming of a happy and well-provided life, and thought 
 him less ugly than when she first glanced at him : be- 
 sides, he was about^to be useful to her ; and we look at 
 a tool of our own with another ej^e to that with which 
 we look at a neighbor's. 
 
 " Monsieur Fraisier," she said, '^you have shown me 
 that 3'ou are a man of intelligence, and I think you 
 capable of plain speaking." 
 
 Fraisier made an eloquent gesture. 
 
 "Well," she continued, " I summon 3'ou to answer 
 candidly one question : Will Monsieur de Marville or 
 myself be compromised hy any of 3'our proceedings?" 
 
 " I should not have sought yon out, madame, if I 
 expected to reproach myself some day for flinging mud 
 upon 3'ou, were it only a speck as big as a pin's head, 
 for on 3'ou the spot would seem as large as the moon. 
 You forget, madame, that to become, by 3'our means, 
 jiige-de-paix^ I must make sure that 3'ou are satisfied. 
 I received, early in life, too severe a lesson to risk 
 another such thrashing. And now, madame, one last 
 word. Ever3' step I take which concerns 3'Ou shall be 
 submitted to 3'OU in the first instance." 
 
 " Very good. Here is my letter to Monsieur 
 Lebceuf. I shall expect to hear the exact value of the 
 property." 
 
 ^' That 's the gist of the whole matter," said Fraisier, 
 astutel3% bowing to Madame de Marville with as much 
 grace as his native ugliness allowed him to show. 
 
 '' What a godsend ! " thought Madame de Marville ; 
 
Cousin Pons, 281 
 
 "ah, I shall be rich ! Camusot can be a deputy ; for 
 if we start this Fraisier in the arrondissement of Bolbec 
 he can get us a majority. What a tool ! " 
 
 ''How providential!" thought Fraisier, as he de- 
 scended the staircase. " What a deep and daring 
 woman that is ! I 'd like a wife of that kind. And 
 now to work ! " 
 
 And he departed for Mantes, where he was pledged 
 to obtain the good word of a man he knew but little. 
 He counted, however, on Madame Vatinelle ; for the 
 wrongs of love are often like the protested notes of a 
 solvent debtor, — they bear interest. 
 
282 Cousin Pons. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 ADVICE TO OLD BACHELORS. 
 
 Ihree days later, while Schmucke slept, — for Ma- 
 dame Cibot and the old pianist had already divided the 
 duty of nursing and watching the patient, — the Cibot 
 had what she called a " set-to" with poor Pons. It 
 may be as well to call attention to a sad pecuharity in 
 cases of hepatitis. Invalids whose livers are more or 
 less affected are inclined to be impatient and to get 
 angry ; such anger relieves them for the time being, and 
 even, under the stimulus of fever, occasionally brings 
 out unnatural strength. The excitement once over, 
 however, the reaction — or " collapse," as the doctors 
 call it — sets in, and the loss of vital power in the or- 
 ganism is evident in all its gravity. Thus in liver- 
 diseases, more especially in those resulting from severe 
 grief, the patient falls into a state of weakness after 
 such excitements, which is all the more dangerous 
 because he has been necessarily subjected to a low diet. 
 It is, in fact, a fever which fastens upon the tempera- 
 ment of a man, and is neither in the blood nor in the 
 brain. This excitability of the whole being produces 
 melanchol}^, and the patient takes a dislike even to 
 himself. In such a condition, the least thing will cause 
 dangerous irritation. Madame Cibot, in spite of the 
 doctor's warnings, did not believe — she, a woman of 
 the people, without experience or education — in any 
 
Cousin Pons. 283 
 
 such straining of the nervous sj^stem under the exacer- 
 bations of temperament. The cautions of Doctor Pou- 
 lain were to her nothing more than "doctors' talk." 
 She was determined, hke all women of the lower classes, 
 to feed Pons her own wa}^, and she was only prevented 
 from secretly giving him a slice of ham, a good omelet, 
 or vanilla chocolate, by the peremptory order of Doc- 
 tor Poulain, — 
 
 " Give him a single mouthful of anything, no matter 
 what, and it will kill him like a pistol-shot." 
 
 The obstinacy of the lower classes is so great in this 
 respect that a chief cause of their repugnance to go 
 to a hospital is that they believe persons are killed there 
 b}' want of food. The mortality caused by women who 
 take food privatel}' to their husbands has been so great 
 that physicians have now resolved to enforce a rigid 
 personal search of the patients on the days when their 
 relations come to see them. Madame Cibot, to bring 
 about a momentary quarrel which was necessary to secure 
 her immediate ends, related her visit to the theatre, not 
 omitting an account of her " set-to" with Mademoiselle 
 Heloise, the ballet-dancer. 
 
 " But what did you go there for? " asked the patient 
 for the third time, wholly unable to stop the Cibot 
 when she was once launched on a flood of words. 
 
 "And so, when I'd given 'em a bit o' m^^ mind, 
 Mademoiselle Heloise, who saw plain enough what I 
 was, knocked under, and we ended the best friends in 
 the world. And yet you ask me what I went there 
 for?" she added, repeating Pons's words. 
 
 Certain gabblers, and they are gabblers of genius, 
 catch up the questions, objections, and observations of 
 
284 Coumi Pons. 
 
 others as a species of aliment for their own discourse, — 
 as if the natural flow could ever dr}^ up ! 
 
 "Why, I went there to get your Monsieur Gaudis- 
 sard out of his scrape ; he wants music for his ballet, 
 and you ain't in no condition, my treasure, to scribble it 
 on that paper o' yours, or go and lead that orchestra. 
 I Ve managed it so as they 've engaged one Monsieur 
 Garangeot to make the music for the ' Mohicans * — " 
 
 "Garangeot!" cried Pons in a furj-, "Garangeot, 
 a man without any talent ! I would n't even have him 
 for a first violin! He is a man of a great deal of 
 cleverness, and he writes very good feuilletons about 
 music ; but 1 '11 defy him to compose an air ! How the 
 devil did 3'ou get the idea of going to the theatre ? " 
 
 " Come, come, my precious, don't boil over like a 
 saucepan o' milk ! (The old demon, ain't he as 
 obstinate as a mule !) Can 30U write music in the state 
 5'ou 're in ? Why, you hain't never looked at 3'ourself in 
 the glass. You 're nothing but skin and bone ; you 're 
 as weak as a sparrow : and d' ye think 3-ou 're fit to 
 write 3'our kind o' figures when you can't even write 
 mine ? — That reminds me I ought to go and see after 
 the gentleman on the third floor, who owes us seventeen 
 francs : 't ain't to be sneezed at ; for after I 've paid 
 the apothecary there won't be nothing but twent3' francs 
 left. I had to tell it all to that man, who looks like 
 a good fellow, that Gaudissard, — jollv' name! I like 
 it, — he's a regular Roger Bontemps that just suits me. 
 He won't never have liver diseases. So, as I was sa3'- 
 ing, I had to tell him how you are, — gracious ! you 
 know 3"ou ain't well, — and so he 's filled your place 
 for the time being — " 
 
Cousin Pons. 285 
 
 • 
 
 *' Filled my place ! " cried Pons in a thundering 
 voice, sitting up in bed. 
 
 As a general thing, sick men, and especially those 
 within sweep of the scathe of Death, cling to their situ- 
 ations with as strong a passion as they put, early in 
 life, into winning them. To find his place filled was to 
 the poor dying man a preliminar3- death. 
 
 " But the doctor tells me that I am doing very well," 
 he said, " and that I shall soon get b^ck to my usual 
 life. You have killed me, ruined me, murdered me ! " 
 
 ^'Ta, ta, ta, ta ! " cried the Cibot. '^ There you 
 go ! I 'm your executioner, am I ? That 's the kind o' 
 thing you tell Monsieur Schmucke behind my back. I 
 know very well what you say ; you are an ungrateful 
 monster 1 " 
 
 " But don't 3'ou know that if I am only fifteen days be- 
 hind time in getting well, they '11 call me, when I do go 
 back to the theatre, an old fogey, an old man ? They 'U 
 say I 'm past work, that I 'm Empire, an old wig, ro- 
 coco ! " cried the sick man, still eager to live. '•' Garan- 
 geot must have made himself friends in the theatre. He 
 has lowered the pitch for some actress who has n't a 
 voice ; he has licked Monsieur Gaudissard's boots ; he 
 has got some friend of his to put pufis about them in 
 the newspapers. In a concern like ours, Madame Cibot, 
 they can pick a hole in au}^ man's coat. What demon 
 sent 3'ou there ? " 
 
 '' My goodness ! Monsieur Schmucke talked it over 
 with me for a week. What is it you want? You don't 
 think o' nothing but yourself. You 're so selfish, you 'd 
 kill people who take care o' j^ou ! There 's that poor 
 Monsieur Schmucke, who 's been dog-tired for a month : 
 
286 Cousin Pons. 
 
 he 's that fagged-out he can't go nowhere, nor do nothmg, 
 nor give lessons, nor go to the theatre ; and yet you 
 won't see it ! He takes care o' 3'ou nights, and I take 
 care o' 3^ou days. If I was to sit up with you, as I did 
 at first, thhiking you would n't w ant nothing, I 'd have 
 to sleep all da^^ ; and then who 'd look after the house- 
 hold and make both ends meet, I 'd like to know ? Sick- 
 ness is sickness, and that 's all there is about it ! " 
 
 "It is impossible that Schmucke ever had such a 
 thought ! " 
 
 *' Perhaps you '11 say next that I trumped it up ! Do 
 3'ou tMnk we are made of iron ? If Monsieur Schmucke 
 had to go on with his work, and give six or eight lessons 
 a da}^ and spend the evenings from half-past six to 
 half-past eleven in the orchestra of 3'our theatre, he 'd 
 be dead in a week. Do 3'ou want to be the death o' 
 that worth}^ man, who'd shed his blood for 3'ou? B3' 
 the mother that bore me, no one never saw such a 
 patient as 30U are. What have 3'ou done with your 
 common sense? has it gone to the pawnbrokers? We 
 are all at our last gasp here for 3'ou, we do our ver3' 
 best ; and 3'Ou ain't satisfied. D '3'e want to drive us 
 into a madhouse? As for me, I 'm done for." 
 
 The Cibot might talk as she pleased, anger kept 
 Pons from saying a word ; he writhed in his bed, artic- 
 ulating faint interjections, and seemed almost dead. 
 As usual, when the quarrel reached this point, it turned 
 suddenl3' to caresses. The nurse darted at the sick 
 man, took his head, laid it on the pillow, forced him to 
 lie quiet, and covered him over with the bedclothes. 
 
 " Don't put 3'ourself in such a way ! " she cried. 
 " M J poor cat, it's all because 3'ou 're ill! Doctor 
 
Cousin Pons. 287 
 
 Poiilain saj^s so. Come, be quiet, ray little man. You 're 
 the idol of everybody who comes near you : don't the 
 doctor himself come to see you twice a da}^ ? What '11 
 he sa}^ if he finds 3'ou in such a pother? You put me 
 'most beside myself, you do ; it ain't right. When 
 3^ou 've got Mam' Cibot for a nurse, 3'ou ought to behave 
 yourself. Here you are talking and screaming ! and 
 that 's forbidden ; }'0u know it is. Talking irritates you. 
 Now, what are j^ou getting angry for? It 's you who 
 are to blame ; 3^ou are always nagging at me ! Come 
 now, be reasonable ; if Monsieur Schmucke and I, 
 whose bowels 3'earn over you, do what we think best, 
 3'ou ought to be satisfied. It 's all right, m3' cherub ! " 
 
 " Schmucke never told you to go to the theatre with- 
 out consulting me." 
 
 '' Must I wake him up, the poor dear man, who's 
 sleeping like a top, and make him testif3'?" 
 
 ''No, no!" cried Pons. "If my dear, tender 
 Schmucke resolved to do it, I must be worse than I 
 think I am," he added, casting a distressed and melan- 
 choly glance upon the objects of art which decorated 
 his chamber. " Must I bid farewell to m3^ dear pictures, 
 and to all these things that I had made my friends, and 
 to m3' own divine Schmucke ? Oh ! can it be ? " 
 
 Madame Cibot, cold-blooded actress that she was, put 
 a handkerchief to her eyes. This mute reply drove the 
 sick man into a gloomy re very. Crushed by these vital 
 blows on parts so sensitive, — his social life and his ph3'- 
 sical health, the loss of his situation and the prospect 
 of death, — he collapsed sud(lenl3', and no longer had 
 the strength to be angr3\ He lay there, dejected and 
 gloomy, like a consumptive at the point of death. 
 
288 Cousin Pons. 
 
 '' Now, don't you see," continued Madame Cibot, 
 perceiving that her victim was completel}' broken down, 
 '^ don't you see that for Monsieur Schmucke's sake you 
 ought to send for the notary of the quarter, Monsieur 
 Trognon, a very wortliy man?" 
 
 " You are always talking to me about that Trognon," 
 said the sick man. 
 
 " Oh ! I don't care, him or another, — for all jou '11 
 leave to me ! " 
 
 She shook her head, as if to mark her contempt for 
 riches. Silence reigned. 
 
 Just at this moment Schmucke, who had slept for six 
 hours, was roused by hunger, got up, and came into 
 Pons's room. He stood looking at him for several 
 minutes without uttering a word, for Madame Cibot had 
 put a finger on her lips as he came in. Then she rose, 
 went close to the German, and whispered in his ear : 
 
 " Thank God, he 's going to sleep ! He 's as vicious 
 as a red ass ! He fights his illness." 
 
 " On the contrary, I am very patient," said the poor 
 victim in a piteous tone which revealed his extreme 
 weakness. "But, my dear Schmucke, she has been to 
 the theatre and had my place filled." 
 
 He paused, unable to sa}^ more. The Cibot profited 
 by the interval to make a sign to Schmucke, signifjing 
 that Pons was out of his mind, and to whisper, — 
 
 " Don't contradict him ; if you do, you '11 kill him." 
 
 "And she declares j^ou sent her," continued Pons, 
 looking at the honest German. 
 
 "Yes, I tid," said Schmucke heroicallj'; "it vas 
 nayceszary. Toan 'd spick. Led us zave j'our laife. 
 Id ees nonzenze to vork hart venn 3'ou haf a draj'zure. 
 
Cousin Pons. 289 
 
 Gate veil; ve vill zell zome prig-a-prag, and ent our 
 taj's in beace, mlt our goot Matame Zipod." 
 
 "' She is deluding you ! " answered Pons, sadly. 
 
 Not seeing Madame Cibot, who had stepped behind 
 the bed to make signs to Schmucke which the patient 
 should not see, he thought she had left the room, and 
 added quickh', — 
 
 ' ' She is murdering me ! " 
 
 *' What do you mean ? I, murdering you ! " she cried, 
 coming forward with flaming eyes, her hands on her 
 hips. "This is what one gets for the devotion of a 
 spaniel. Good God ! " She burst into tears and fell 
 upon a chair. This tragic action caused a fatal revul- 
 sion of feehng in poor Pons. 
 
 " Well," she said, rising and looking at the two 
 friends with the eye of a malignant woman, which can 
 deliver a pistol-shot and a poisoned stab in each glance, 
 " I 'm sick o' doing nothing but just wearing myself out 
 body and soul. You must get a nurse." 
 
 The two friends looked at each other in terror. 
 
 " It 's all ver}^ well to make faces at yourselves like a 
 couple o' actors ! I 've made up my mind. I 'm going 
 now to Doctor Poulain to tell him he must find you a 
 nurse, and we '11 square up our accounts. You '11 re- 
 turn me all the money I Ve spent upon you, and which 
 I never meant to ask for. It 's only the other day I 
 went and borrowed five hundred francs more from Mon- 
 sieur Pillerault." 
 
 " It ees pegauze he ees zo zig ! " cried Schmucke, 
 precipitating himself upon Madame Cibot and seizing 
 her round the waist. ' ' Blease haf baychenze ! " 
 
 "You, 3^ou're an angel; I'd kiss your footprints, I 
 19 
 
290 Cousin Pons, 
 
 would," she said. " But Monsieur Pons never liked me ; 
 he always hated me. Besides, he may think I want 
 him to put me in his will." 
 
 " Hush ! you vill gill him ! " cried Schmucke. 
 
 *' Adieu, monsieur," she said to Pons, with a blast- 
 ing look, "you may live long for all the harm I wish 
 3'ou. When you are more friendly to me, and when 
 you choose to think what I do is well done, I '11 come 
 back to you. Till then, I shall stay at home. I was a 
 mother to you ; and who ever heard o' children turn- 
 ing against their own mothers? No, no. Monsieur 
 Schmucke ; I won't hear nothing 3'ou say. I '11 bring 
 3'ou your dinner, I '11 wait upon you ; but 3^ou must 
 get a nurse for Monsieur Pons : tell Doctor Poulain to 
 send 3'ou one." 
 
 And she went off, slamming the doors with such vio- 
 lence that the precious, fragile things about the apparte- 
 ment tottered. The sick man heard the clicking of 
 his porcelains, and in his tortured state it was like the 
 last stroke when a victim is broken upon the wheel. 
 
 An hour later Madame Cibot, instead of entering 
 Pons's bedroom, called to Schmucke through the door 
 and told him he would find his dinner ready in the 
 dining-room. The poor German went there with a 
 wan face covered with tears. 
 
 " Mein boor Bons ra-afes," he said; "he zay dat 
 you are vicket. It ees pegauze he ees zo eel," he added, 
 to soften Madame Cibot, without blaming Pons. . 
 
 "Oh, I've had enough of him and his illness! He 
 ain't neither my father, nor my husband, nor my brother, 
 nor yet my child. He 's took a dislike to me ; well, 
 that 's an end of it ! You I 'm willing to follow to the 
 
Cousin Pons. 291 
 
 ends o' the earth. But when it comes to giving one's 
 heart and one's life and all one's savings, and neglect- 
 ing one's husband, — for there 's Cibot ill now, — and 
 tlien to be called a wicked woman, it's too much; it's 
 making the coffee too strong ; it is — " 
 
 "Goffy?" 
 
 "Yes, coffee. I don't use no idle words, I mean 
 what I say. You owe me for three months, at a hundred 
 and ninety francs : that makes five hundred and sev- 
 enty ; then there 's the rent, which I ve paid twice for 
 you, and here 's the receipt, — six hundred, taking off the 
 sou per franc and j^our taxes : twelve hundred in all, 
 less a trifle ; and, lastly, the two thousand francs I lent 
 you — without interest, remember. The total comes to 
 three thousand one hundred and ninety-two francs. 
 Don't you see that you must have at least two thousand 
 francs in hand to pay the nurse and the doctor and the 
 apothecar}^, and to feed the nurse ? That 's why I Ve 
 borrowed a thousand francs from Monsieur Pillerault," 
 she added, showing the two five hundred-franc notes she 
 had just received from Gaudissard. 
 
 Schmucke listened to this running account with a 
 quite conceivable stupefaction ; for he was as much a 
 financier as a cat is a musician. 
 
 *' Matame Zipod, Bons ees oud ov hees het. Parton 
 heem. Dake gare ov heem. Gondinue to pe our Brof- 
 itence ; I ask id on my knees." 
 
 And the German knelt down before the Cibot and 
 kissed the hands of the executioner. 
 
 "Well, listen, my good soul," she said, raising him 
 and kissing him on the forehead. " There 's Cibot ill ; 
 he 's in bed, and I 've just sent for Doctor Poulain. 
 
292 Cousin Pons. 
 
 Under these circumstances I must get my money matters 
 into shape. Besides, Cibot, when he saw me coming 
 down in tears, put himself into such a fury that he for- 
 bade m}' setting foot up here again. It is he that insists 
 on getting his money back, for 't is his, you know ; we 
 women can't do nothing against men there. But if we 
 give him back his money, — three thousand two hundred 
 francs, — perhaps he '11 calm down. It 's all he 's got, 
 the poor man ; it 's his whole savings for twenty-six 
 years, — the sweat of his brow, as you may say. He 
 wants his money to-morrow, and there ain't no squirm- 
 ing out of it. You don't know Cibot ; when he 's angry 
 he 'd kill a man. I might possibly get him to let me go 
 on taking care o' both of j^ou, if the money 's paid. 
 You be eas}^ ; I sha'n't mind what he takes it into his 
 head to sa}' to me ; I '11 bear it all for 3'our sake, for 
 you 're an angel, 3^ou are — " 
 
 " No, no ; I am only a boor mann who lofs his frent, 
 who vould lay town his laife to zave heems." 
 
 ' ' But how about the money ? My good Monsieur 
 Schmucke, here 's an idea ! I suppose 3-ou have n't noth- 
 ing to give me, and yet we must have three thous- 
 and francs for your wants. Do 3'ou know what I would 
 do in your place? I shouldn't make no bones about 
 it ; I should just sell six or eight o' those rubbishing 
 pictures, and replace 'em with some 3'ou 've got in 3-0 ur 
 bedroom, stuck with their face against the wall because 
 there ain't no room to put 'em nowhere. One picture 
 is as good as another, so what would it matter?" 
 
 " Pud vy moost you blace any oder bigchurs dare? " 
 
 "Because he's so irritable. Yes, I know it's his 
 illness, for when he 's well he 's a lamb ; but he 's 
 
Cousin Pons. 293 
 
 capable o' getting up and ferreting round, and if he gets 
 into the salon — though, to be sure, he hasn't hardl}^ 
 strength to cross the threshold — he '11 .see the right 
 number, and he won't miss none." 
 
 ''Dat'sdrue." 
 
 *' We'll tell him about the sale when he gets well 
 again. If j'ou do confess it to him, 3'ou can throw 
 the blame on me, you can saj^ you had to pay me ; 
 my shoulders can stand it ! " 
 
 " I haf no raight to tisbose of dings dat do nod pe- 
 long to me," said the German, simply. 
 
 ''Well, then, I shall have to summon 3'ou both before 
 the court." 
 
 "Datvould gill heems!" 
 
 "Then choose between the two. My gracious! sell 
 the pictures, and tell him afterwards ; you can show 
 him the summons." 
 
 "Veil, denn ! zo pe id! Zummon uz. Dat vill pe 
 my egscuze ; I vill led heem zee de baber." 
 
 The same day, at seven in the evenings Madame 
 Cibot, who had consulted a sheriff, went to fetch 
 Schmucke. The German found himself in presence 
 of Monsieur Tabareau, who called upon him to make 
 payment ; and on his response, — whicli Schmucke made 
 trembling from head to foot, — he was summoned, to- 
 gether with Pons, before the court to receive judgment. 
 The aspect of this official, and the stamped paper with 
 its legal verbiage, produced such an effect upon the 
 mind of Schmucke that he resisted no longer. 
 
 " Zell de bigchurs," he said, with tears in his ej^es. 
 
 The next day, at six o'clock in the morning, Elie 
 Magus and Remonencq unhooked the pictures each had 
 
294 Coumi Pons. 
 
 selected from the walls. Two receipts for two thousand 
 five hundred francs were made out in due form and 
 signed by Schmucke ; the one for Elie Magus ran as 
 follows : — 
 
 " I, the undersigned, on behalf of Monsieur Pons, ac- 
 knowledge the receipt of two thousand five hundred francs 
 from Monsieur £lie Magus for four pictures which I have 
 sold to him; the said sum to be employed for the personal 
 needs of Monsieur Pons. One of these pictures, attributed 
 to Diirer, is the portrait of a woman; the second, of the 
 Italian school, is also a portrait; the third is a Dutch land- 
 scape by Breughel; the fourth, a Florentine picture repre- 
 senting the Holy Family, by an unknown master." 
 
 The receipt given to Remonencq was in the same 
 terms, and designated a Greuze, a Claude Lorraine, a 
 Rubens, and a Van D3^ck under the general name of 
 French and Dutch schools. 
 
 ' ' Zo mooch money meks me dink dat dose pauples 
 are really faluaple," said Schmucke, receiving the live 
 thousand francs. 
 
 "' They are worth something," said Rsmonencq; 
 "I'd give a hundred thousand francs for the whole 
 lot." 
 
 The Auvergnat, on being asked to render the little 
 service, substituted in the empt}' frames of these master- 
 pieces eight other pictures of the same dimensions, chosen 
 from among the inferior paintings which Pons had hung 
 in Schmucke's room. As soon as Elie Magus got pos- 
 session of his four treasures he called the Cibot down- 
 stairs, under pretence of settling their accounts. But as 
 soon as he got her there, he complained of his poverty, 
 
Cousin Pons, 295 
 
 found defects in the canvas, declared the pictures 
 must be rebacked, offered the Cibot thirty thousand 
 IVancs instead of fort}', and got her to take them by 
 showing the dazzUng bits of paper on which the Bank of 
 France engraves the words, " a thousand francs." Ma- 
 gus compelled Remonencq to give the Cibot a like sum 
 by lending it to him on the four pictures which the 
 Auvergnat deposited wdth him. In truth these pic- 
 tures seemed to Magus so magnificent that he could 
 not make up his mind to let them go ; and the following 
 morning he brought six thousand francs premium to the 
 iron-dealer, who made over the pictures and gave EHe 
 Magus a bill of sale for them. Madame Cibot, thus 
 enriched to the amount of sixty-eight thousand francs, 
 again demanded the utmost secrecy from her accom- 
 plices ; and she begged the Jew to tell her how to 
 invest the money so that no one should know that she 
 possessed it. 
 
 "Buy shares in the Orleans railway," he replied. 
 ''The}' are at thirty francs below par; 3'ou will double 
 3'our investment in three 3'ears, and 3'ou will get certi- 
 ficates which you can hide anywhere." 
 
 " Please wait here. Monsieur Magus ; I 'm going to 
 the business agent of JNIonsieur Pons's family. He 
 wants to know at what price 3'OU would bu3' the whole 
 heap o' them things upstairs. I'll go and fetch him." 
 
 " If she were onl3' a widow," said Remonencq to 
 Magus, "she'd be just what I want; for here she is, 
 rich — " 
 
 " Especiall3^ if she puts her money in the Orleans 
 railway ; in two 3'ears she will double it. I have put 
 my poor little savings there," added the Jew; "the}' 
 
296 Cousin Pons, 
 
 are to be mj- daughter's dot. Let us go and take a 
 turn on the boulevard while we are waiting for the 
 law^'er." 
 
 *' If God would only take Cibot to himself, — and he 's 
 sick already, — " thought Remonencq, " I should have 
 a fine wife to keep shop, and I 'd start in business on a 
 grand scale — " 
 
Cousin Fans. 29t 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 IN WHICH SCHMUCKE RISES TO THE THRONE OF GOD. 
 
 *' Good-day, my dear Monsieur Fraisier," said the 
 Cibot in a wheedling tone, entering the office of her 
 counsel. "What's all this your concierge tells me? 
 Are you going to move away from here?" 
 
 " Yes, my dear Madame Cibot, I have taken an 
 appartement on the first floor of the house where Doctor 
 Poulain lives, just above his, and I am going to borrow 
 two or three thousand francs and furnish it suitably ; 
 for the appartement is really a very pretty one ; the 
 owner has just done it up. I am emploj'ed, as I told 
 you, in the interests of Monsieur le president de Mar- 
 ville, as well as in 3^ours. I give up the business of a 
 mere agent, and I shall put my name down on the 
 list of barristers ; and therefore I must live in a good 
 house. The Parisian barristers won't let any man in- 
 to their ranks unless he has respectable belongings, a 
 librar}', etc. I am a doctor of laws, I have passed 
 through m}^ licentiate and been called to the bar, and 
 already I have powerful protectors. — Well, how is 
 our affair going on?" 
 
 " Perhaps you '11 accept my little hoard which is in the 
 savings' bank," said the Cibot ; " 't ain't much, — three 
 
298 Cousin Pons. 
 
 thousand francs, the fruit o' twenty-fiA-e j'ears' pinching 
 and privation. You can give me a bill of exchange, as 
 Remonencq says. I 'm so ignorant that I don't know 
 nothing but what others tell me." 
 
 " No ; the statutes forbid a law3'er to draw bills. I '11 
 give you a receipt bearing interest at five per cent, and 
 you can return it to me if I get you into the will of old 
 Pons for an annuitj^ of twelve hundred francs." 
 
 The Cibot, caught in a net, kept silence. 
 
 *• bilence gives consent/' said Fraisier ; "bring me 
 the money to-morrow." 
 
 "Well, I'll willingly pay j'ou your commission in 
 advance," said Madame Cibot; "that '11 be making 
 sure o' m}' annuit3\" 
 
 "How do matters stand now?" resumed Fraisier, 
 giving an affirmative nod with his head. " I saw 
 Poulain last night. It seems jou are harassing 3'our 
 patient finely ; another such bout as that you had 3'es- 
 terda}", and stones will form in the bladder. Be gentle 
 with him. Don't j^ou see, my dear Madame Cibot? 
 You must n't lay up remorse for yourself, or 3'ou won't 
 make old bones." 
 
 "Let me alone with j^our remorse! Don't ,you 
 never speak to me o' the guillotine again ! Monsieur 
 Pons is just as obstinate as a mule ! You don't know 
 him ; it is he that makes me mad. There ain't a 
 worse man nor he : his relations are quite right, 
 he 's artful, vindictive, and pig-headed. — Monsieur 
 Magus is at the house, as I told you; he's waiting 
 for you." 
 
 "Very good; I'll be there as soon as you. Your 
 annuity depends on the value of this collection ; if it 
 
Cousin Pons, 299 
 
 comes to eight hundred thousand francs, you will have 
 fifteen hundred a year : that 's a fortune ! " 
 
 ''Well, I'll tell 'em to value the things conscien- 
 tiously." 
 
 •An hour later, while Pons was sleeping heavily, 
 after taking from Schmucke's hand an anodyne ordered 
 by the doctor, of which Madame Cibot, unknown to the 
 German, had doubled the dose, Fraisier, Remonencq, 
 and Magus, three devils incarnate, were examining 
 piece b}^ piece the seventeen hundred specimens con- 
 tained in the old man's collection. Schmucke was in 
 bed, and the three vultures scenting the carcase were 
 masters of the situation. 
 
 "Don't make no noise," said the Cibot every time 
 Magus went into an ecstasy, or explained to Remonencq 
 the value of some fine work. 
 
 It was a sight to rend the heart, — four shapes of the 
 lust of greed, weighing in the palms of their hands 
 the property of the sleeping man whose death was the 
 object of their eager desire ! The valuation of the 
 treasures in the salon took three hours. 
 
 "On an average," said the dirty Jew, "each thing 
 here is worth a thousand francs." 
 
 " That would be seventeen hundred thousand francs ! " 
 exclaimed Fraisier, thunderstruck. 
 
 "Not to me," replied Magus, whose e3^e sank back 
 into its cold tints ; *' I will not give more than eight 
 hundred thousand francs. No one knows how long such 
 property may stay on his hands. There are master- 
 pieces that can't find a sale in ten 3'ears, and the orig- 
 inal cost is doubled at compound interest; but I am 
 willing to pa}^ cash." 
 
300 Cousin Pons. 
 
 " In the bedroom there are miDiatures, enamels, 
 gold and silver snuff-boxes, and glassware," remarked 
 Remonencq. 
 
 '' Can we examine them?" asked Fraisier. 
 
 "I'll go and see if he's sound asleep," answered 
 the Cibot. 
 
 At a sign from the woman the birds of prey entered. 
 
 "There were the masterpieces," said Magus, every 
 hair of whose white beard quivered, making a sign 
 over his shoulder at the salon, "but here are the 
 riches ! And what riches ! Kings have nothing finer 
 in their museums." 
 
 Remonencq's eyes, kindling at the snuff-boxes, glowed 
 like carbuncles. Fraisier, cold and quiet as a snake 
 coiling for its spring, stretched out his flat head and 
 stood in the attitude which painters give to Mephisto- 
 pheles. The three embodied greeds, thirsting for gold 
 as devils thirst for the dews of Paradise, cast each a 
 glance at the possessor of all tliis wealth, who made 
 a movement in his sleep as if from nightmare. Sud- 
 denl}', under the glitter of those diabolic eyes, the sick 
 man opened his own and uttered a piercing crj* , — 
 
 " Thieves ! robbers ! Help ! they will murder me! " 
 
 Evidently he continued to dream, though wide awake ; 
 he sprang up in his bed ; his e3'es were staring, white, 
 and fixed, and unable to turn. Elie Magus and Rcmo- 
 nencq ran to the door, but there the}^ were rooted to the 
 ground by these words, — 
 
 ' ' Magus here ! I am betrayed ! " 
 
 The sick man was awake now, roused hy the instinct 
 of preservation of his treasures, — a feeling fully equal 
 to that of personal preservation. 
 
Cousin Pons. 801 
 
 *' Madame Cibot, who is that man?" he said, shud- 
 dering at the sight of Fraisier, who stood motionless. 
 
 " My gracious ! how could I turn him out? " she said, 
 winking a sign to Fraisier. *' Monsieur has just come 
 with a message from 3'our relations — " 
 
 " Yes, monsieur, I am here on behalf of Madame de 
 Mafville, her husband and her daughter, to express 
 their regret at your illness ; they heard of it accident- 
 ally, and are anxious to nurse you themselves. They 
 propose that you should go to their countrj'-seat at 
 Marville to recover yoxxv health. Madame la vicomtesse 
 Popinot, the little Cecile whom you love so well, will 
 be your nurse. She has taken 3'our side against her 
 mother, and has made her see she was mistaken." 
 
 ''And they have sent 3'ou here, my heirs! have 
 the}^?" cried Pons indignantly', "with the cleverest 
 connoisseur and the keenest expert in all Paris for a 
 guide ! Ha ! the errand is a good one," he went on, 
 laughing like a madman. "You have come to value 
 my pictures, my curiosities, my snuff-boxes, mj' minia- 
 tures ! Value, indeed! why you've got a man with 
 you who not only knows everj'thing there is to be known 
 about them, but one who could bu}' them all twice over, 
 for he is ten times a millionnaire. My dear relations 
 won't have to wait long for their inheritance," he added, 
 with bitter iron}', "they've dealt me my death-blow — 
 Ah ! Madame Cibot, you called yourself m}' mother, and 
 3'ou've brought these people, my rival and the Cam u- 
 sots, here while I slept. Out, all of 3'ou ! " 
 
 And the unhappy man, beside himself through the 
 double effect of fear and anger, leaped out of bed like 
 a spectre. 
 
302 Cousin Pons, 
 
 i(. 
 
 Take my arm, monsieur," said the Cibot, t^ keep 
 him from falling. ' ' Be calm ; the gentlemen have 
 gone." 
 
 " I wish to see the salon ! " cried the dying mnu. 
 
 Madame Cibot signed to the crows to fl}^ away ; then 
 she seized Pons, lifted him like a feather, and put him 
 back in his bed, in spite of his cries. Seeing that the 
 wretched man was utterly exhausted, she went to close 
 the outer door of the appartement. The three assassins 
 were still upon the landing ; and when the Cibot saw 
 them she told them to wait, for she overheard Traisier 
 saying to Magus, — 
 
 ''Write me a letter, signed by both of you, in 
 which 3'ou pledge yourselves to pay nine hundred 
 thousand francs cash for the collection of Monsieur 
 Pons, and I'll make sure that 3'ou get a large premium 
 on it." 
 
 Then he whispered in Madame Cibot's ear a word — 
 a single word — which no one heard, and went down- 
 stairs with the two others to the porter's lodge. 
 
 " Madame Cibot," said the unhappy Pons when the 
 woman returned to him, " are they gone? " 
 
 " Gone ! who?" she demanded. 
 
 "Those men." 
 
 "What men? Come, what men do 3'ou suppose 
 3'ou 've seen ? " she said. " You 've had a raging fever ; 
 if it had n't been for me you 'd have jumped out o' the 
 window, — and 3'ou talk to me about men ! — How long 
 are 3-ou going to behave like this ? " 
 
 " Do you mean to saj^ that there was not a man 
 standing there just now who said he was sent by my 
 family ? — " 
 
Cousin Pons. 303 
 
 " Ar3 3'ou going to stand me out about it?" she 
 cried. " M}- gracious ! do you know where you ought 
 to ber In a Umatic asylum. Talk about seeing men, 
 indeed ! " 
 
 '' Elie Magus, Remonencq — " 
 
 *'0L! as for Remonencq, yes, you ma}^ have seen 
 him ; for he came up just now to tell me m}^ poor 
 Cibot is very ill. I'm going to leave you and see 
 after him. My Cibot first of all, I say. When my man 
 is ill I don't think o' nobody else. Now, you try to 
 keep quiet and go to sleep for two hours. I 've sent for 
 Doctor Poulain, and I'll bring him up when he gets 
 here. Take 3'our drink, and be good." 
 
 " Was there no one in my room, standhig there, just 
 now, when I woke up?" 
 
 '' No one," she said ; " 3'ou must have seen Monsieu/ 
 Remonencq in the mirror." 
 
 " You are right, Madame Cibot," said the sick man, 
 suddenly becoming as docile as a lamb. 
 
 '' Well, there, now 3'ou are reasonable ! Adieu, my 
 cherub ; keep 3'ourself quiet, and I '11 soon be back." 
 
 When Pons heard the door of the appartemeut close, 
 he collected all his remaining strength to get out of 
 bed ; for he said to himself, — 
 
 " The3^ are deceiving me, the3^ are plundering me! 
 Schmucke is a mere child ; he would let them tie him 
 in a sack ! " 
 
 And the poor man, roused by the desire to clear up 
 his suspicions in regard to the frightful scene which had 
 just occurred, and which seemed to him too real to be 
 a delusion, had strength enough to reach the door of 
 his bed-room. He opened it with diflScult3^ and entered 
 
804 Cousin Pons. 
 
 the salon, where the sight of all his dear pictures, his 
 statues, his Florentine bronzes, his porcelains, his treas- 
 ures, revived his heart. The old collector, in his dress- 
 iiig-gown, with bare legs and his brain on fire, was able 
 to walk round the lanes formed bj^ the sideboards and 
 tables which divided the room longitudinallj- into 
 two parts. At a glance he counted everything, and 
 saw that the museum was intact. He was about to 
 return to his bed when his eyes were attracted by a 
 picture of Greuze put in the place of the Knight of 
 Malta b}' Sebastian del Piombo. Suspicion tore its 
 way through his mind as -lightning rends the stormy 
 heavens. He looked at the places of his eight master- 
 pieces and saw they were each replaced by other pic- 
 tures. A black veil was suddenly drawn over his eyes, 
 he fainted, and fell upon the floor. The swoon was so 
 complete that he laj^ there two hours, and was found 
 by Schmucke when the German, having wakened, 
 came out of his own room to go to his friend's. 
 Schmucke had much difficulty in raising the dying man 
 and putting him back to bed ; but when he questioned 
 the quasi-corpse and obtained only a glazed look and 
 muttered words, the poor German, instead of losing 
 his head, became a hero of friendship. Under the 
 pressure of despair, this child-man had inspirations 
 such as come to loving women and to mothers. He 
 heated towels (he actually found towels !) and wrapped 
 them round his friend's hands and put them to the pit 
 of his stomach ; then he took the cold, damp brow 
 between his own hands and called back the vital spark 
 with a potenc}' of will worthy of Apollonius of Tyana. 
 He kissed his friend upon the eyelids like those Marys 
 
Cousin Pons. 305 
 
 beside the Dead Christ whom the Italian sculptors call 
 La Pieta and carve upon their bas-reliefs. These 
 divine eftbrts, this transfusion of one life into another, 
 this act of motherhood, this work of love, was crowned 
 with success. At the end of half an hour Pons was 
 warmed to life, and seemed once more a human form ; 
 natural color came back to his eyes, and surface- 
 warmth restored the action of the internal organs. 
 Schmucke made Pons drink an infusion of balm mixed 
 with wine, which revived the vital spark in the failing 
 body ; intelligence shone once more upon the brow 
 lately as senseless as a stone. Pons understood the 
 sacred devotion, the potent affection, to which his 
 resuscitation was due. 
 
 *' Without thee I should have died ! " he said, feeling 
 his face softl}^ bathed in the tears of his friend, who 
 laughed and wept by turns. 
 
 Hearing these words, and racked by the delirium of 
 hope, which equals that of despair, poor Schmucke, 
 whose strength was exhausted, collapsed like a torn 
 balloon. It was his turn to give way, and he let him- 
 self fall into an arm-chair, clasping his hands and thank- 
 ing God in fervent prayer. A miracle had been wrought 
 for him ! He took no thought of the virtue of his own 
 prayer of action ; he believed only in the power of the 
 God whom he invoked. Nevertheless, the seeming 
 miracle was an effect of natural causes which has often 
 been verified hy physicians. A patient surrounded by 
 affection, cared for by persons anxious to save his life, 
 will be saved, if his chances for life are equal, when 
 another man in charge of hired nurses will succumb. 
 Doctors refuse to see in this the effect of involuntary 
 
 20 
 
306 Cousin Pons. 
 
 magnetism ; they attribute the result to intelligent care, 
 to an exact observance of their orders. But many 
 mothers know the virtue of these passionate projections 
 of a steady desire. 
 
 " My good Schmucke ! — " 
 
 ''Toan'd spick ; mein heart unterzdants : rezd, — rezd 
 and zleeb." 
 
 " Poor friend ! noble creature! child of God, living 
 in God's presence ! the only being who ever loved me ! " 
 said Pons by interjections, discovering hitherto unknown 
 modulations in his voice. 
 
 The soul about to take its flight breathed through 
 these words, which gave to Schmucke ecstasies well- 
 nigh equal to those of love. 
 
 " Yez, yez ! Und I vill pegome a lion ; I vill vork ; 
 I vill deach for dwo." 
 
 '' Listen, my good and faithful and precious friend! 
 Let me speak : the time is short ; I am dying ; I can- 
 not recover from these repeated shocks." 
 
 Schmucke wept like a child. 
 
 *' Listen now: you shall weep later," said Pons. 
 " Christian, you must submit. I have been robbed — 
 by Madame Cibot ! Before I leave you I must tell 3'ou 
 certain things ; for you know nothing of life. They 
 have taken eight pictures, which are worth a large sum 
 of money — " 
 
 '' Forgif me ! I haf zold dem I " 
 
 ''You!" 
 
 t'l — " said the poor German. "You und I vare 
 zummoned be-for de goord." 
 
 " Summoned ! By whom? " 
 
 " Vait a minute." 
 
Cousin Pofis. 807 
 
 Schmucke went to fetch the stamped paper left by 
 the sherifi''s officer, and brought it back. 
 
 Pons read it attentively ; then he let the paper fall, 
 and kept silence. This student of human labor, who up 
 to the present time had ignored the moral aspects of life, 
 suddenly perceived each thread of the net woven by the 
 Cibot. His intuition as an artist, his intelligence as a 
 pupil of the Academy of Rome, al] his youth, flashed 
 back upon him for a few moments. 
 
 " My good Schmucke, obey me as soldiers obey their 
 captain. Listen. Go down to the porter's lodge and 
 tell that horrible woman that I wish to see the person 
 who was sent here by m}' cousin the president, and 
 that if he does not come, I intend to bequeath my col- 
 lection to the Musee ; and I shall proceed to make my 
 will." 
 
 Schmucke did the errand. But at the first word 
 Madame Cibot began to smile. 
 
 " Our dear patient has had a raging fever, ray good 
 Monsieur Schmucke," she said. *' He fancied he saw 
 people in his room. I give you my word, as an honest 
 woman, there was n't no one come from the familj' o' 
 the dear man." 
 
 Schmucke returned with that answer, which he re- 
 peated verbatim. 
 
 " She is more daring, more astute, more cunning, 
 more Machiavelian, than I thought for," said Pons, 
 smiling. "She fies, even in her lodge! Now, listen 
 to me. She brought here this morning a Jew named 
 Elie Magus, Remonencq, and a third man whose name 
 I don't know. She counted on my being asleep to let 
 them appraise the value of my collection. I woke by 
 
308 Cousin Pons, 
 
 accident, and I saw them weighing my snuff-boxes in 
 their very hands ! Then the unknown man said that he 
 was sent here by the Camusots. I talked with him ; 
 but that itifamous Cibot maintained to me that I was 
 dreaming ! My good Schmiicke, I was not dreaming : 
 I heard the man plainly ; he spoke to me. The two 
 others were frightened, and ran to the door. I felt sure 
 the Cibot would deny it to 3'ou. Her scheme shall fail. 
 I will set a trap of my own, in which the infamous crea- 
 ture shall be caught. M3' poor friend, you think 
 Madame Cibot an angel. She is a wretch who for a 
 month past has been slowly killing me for her own 
 covetous ends ! I could not believe such wickedness 
 existed in a woman who has served us faithfully for 
 many 3'ears. My confidence has destroyed me. How 
 much did the}' pay 3'ou for those eight pictures ? " 
 
 " Faife dousant vrancs." 
 
 ''Good God! they were worth twentj^ times as 
 much !" cried Pons ; " they were the flower of my col- 
 lection. I have no time now to bring a suit to recover 
 them ; besides, it would only be exposing }^ou as the 
 dupe of these scoundrels. A lawsuit would be the 
 death of you ! You don't know what the law is : it is 
 the sewer of all moral infamies ! At the mere sight of 
 such villanies souls like 3'ours would expire. And, 
 besides, j^ou will be rich enough. Those pictures cost 
 me four thousand francs. I have had them thirty- six 
 years. We have been robbed with astonishing clever- 
 ness. I am on the verge of the grave. I care for 3'ou ; 
 I think of you alone, — you, the best of human beings. 
 I will not have you stripped of everything, for all 
 that I possess is yours. Therefore, 3'ou must learn to 
 
Cousin Pons, 309 
 
 distrust others, 3^ou who have never known what dis- 
 trust means ! God protects 3'ou, I know it ; but he 
 may forget you for a moment, and then you will be 
 pillaged, like a merchant-vessel by buccaneers. The 
 Cibot is a monster ; she is killing me : and you be- 
 lieve she is an angel ! I wish to show 3'ou what she 
 is. Go and tell her to send me a notar}^ for I intend 
 to make m}^ will. I will show you that woman in the 
 act of robbing us ! " 
 
 Schmucke listened to Pons as if he were reciting the 
 Apocalypse. If there really- existed so vile a nature, if 
 Pons were right, then it was for him the negation of 
 Providence. 
 
 *' Mein boor frent Bons ees eel," he said, again de- 
 scending to the lodge, and addressing Madame Cibot. 
 " He vants to mek his vill : go and gate a nodary." 
 
 This was said in presence of several persons ; for by 
 this time Cibot was dangeroush' ill. Remonencq, his 
 sister, two concierges from neighboring houses, three 
 servants belonging to the other tenants, and the tenant 
 of the first floor looking toward the street, were all 
 standing in the porte-cochere. 
 
 *' You' may- just go and find 3'our notar3' 3'ourself," 
 cried the Cibot, her eyes full of tears, " and have your 
 will made b3' whom 3'ou please. It 's not likely that 
 when m3' poor Cibot is dying I should leave his bed- 
 side. I'd give all the Ponses in the world to save m3^ 
 Cibot, — a man who hain't never given me so much as 
 two ounces o' grief in the thirty years I 've lived with 
 him." 
 
 And she went into the inner room, leaving Schmucke 
 bewildered. 
 
310 Cousin Pons. 
 
 "Monsieur," said the tenant of the first floor, "is 
 Monsieur Pons very ill ? " 
 
 This tenant, named Jolivard, was emplo3'ed in the 
 record-office at the Palais-de- Justice. 
 
 " He nearlj^ tied an hour aco," answered Schmucke, 
 mourn full}^ 
 
 "Close b}^ here, in the rue Saint-Louis, there's a 
 Monsieur Trognon, a notary," observed Jolivard ; "he 
 is the notary for this quarter." 
 
 ' ' Should you like me to go and fetch him ? " said 
 Remonencq to Schmucke. 
 
 " Eef you bleaze," answered Schmucke; "for eef 
 Matame Zipod gan not nurse my boor frent, I moost 
 not leaf him in der zdade he ees in." 
 
 " Madame Cibot told us he was crazy," observed 
 Jolivard. 
 
 " Grazy ! " cried Schmucke, terror-stricken, "grazy ! 
 he nefer hat his mindt zo goot, — and dat ees joost vat 
 mek me zo uneazy." 
 
 All the persons grouped about the speakers listened 
 to the conversation with a very natural curiosity which 
 helped to imprint it on their memories. Schmucke, who 
 did not know Fraisier, bad not observed that satanic 
 head with its brilliant eyes. The lawyer, by two words 
 in the Cibot's ear, had prompted this bold scene, which 
 would otherwise have been bej'ond the woman's own 
 powers, but which she now plaj'ed with astonishing 
 ability. To have it thought that the patient was out of 
 his mind was a corner-stone of the edifice the man of 
 law was engaged in erecting. The incident of the morn- 
 ing had played into Fraisier's hand ; but if he had not 
 been present at this moment it is possible that Madame 
 
Cousin Pons. 311 
 
 Cibot, in her trouble, might have lost her head when the 
 innocent Schmucke spread Pons's net and requested her 
 to recall the emissary of the Camusot family. Reino- 
 nencq, who at this moment saw Doctor Poulain ap- 
 t^roaching, asked nothing better than to get awa}' . The 
 reasons for his haste are as follows. 
 
312 Cousin Fans. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 THE CRAFT OF A TESTATOR. 
 
 For the last ten days, Remonencq had played the part 
 of Providence, — a course singularh^ displeasing to Jus- 
 tice, who boasts of being the sole representative of deit}^ 
 Remonencq was resolved to get rid, at any cost, of the 
 one obstacle that stood in the way of his happiness. To 
 him, happiness consisted in marrying the captivating 
 concierge and tripling his capital. So, observing the 
 little tailor as he drank his herb-tea, the thought came 
 into the Auvergnat's head to convert a passing indis- 
 position into a fatal illness ; and his business of iron- 
 working put the means in iiis way, 
 
 One morning, as he smoked his pipe, leaning, as 
 usual, against the post of his shop-door, dreaming of the 
 fine shop on the boulevard de la Madeleine where Ma- 
 dame Cibot, gorgeousl}^ dressed, should rule the roast, 
 his eyes fell on a brass disk covered with verdigris. 
 The idea of cleaning his disk into Cibot's tisane darted 
 through his mind. He fastened the disk, which was 
 about the size of a five-franc piece, to his dress by a bit 
 of twine ; and ever}' daj^ while Madame Cibot was busy 
 with " lier gentlemen," Remonencq went to inquire for 
 the health of his friend the tailor. During this visit, 
 which lasted some time, he put the disk to soak in the 
 tea, and when he went away he pulled it out by the bit 
 
Cousin Pons, 313 
 
 of string. This slight addition of the oxide of copper, 
 commonly called verdigris, introduced a deleterious ele- 
 ment into the beneficial tisane, though in infinitesimal 
 proportions, which made insidious inroads into the s^^s- 
 tem. The following are the exact results of this criminal 
 iiomoeopathic treatment. On the third day poor Cibot's 
 liair began to fall oflf, his teeth loosened in their sockets, 
 and the whole mechanism of the system was aflfected by 
 the imperceptible dose of poison. Doctor Poulain puz- 
 zled his brains over the effects of the decoction, for he 
 knew enough to recognize the presence of some destruc- 
 tive agent. Unknown to every one, he carried oflf the 
 tisane and analyzed it himself; but found nothing. It 
 so chanced that on that day Remonencq, frightened at 
 his own work, had omitted to use the fatal disk. Doctor 
 Poulain squared the matter with his own mind and the 
 demands of science by supposing that the blood of the 
 little tailor, who sat cross-legged on a table before 
 the window of his damp den, had become vitiated and 
 decomposed, partly from want of exercise, but above all 
 from perpetually breathing the fetid exhalations of the 
 street gutter. The rue de Normandie is one of the old 
 streets with a cleft roadway, or open gutter, which the 
 city of Paris has not yet supplied with water-sluices, and 
 w'here the black stream of household slops filters among 
 the stones and makes the sort of mud which is peculiar 
 to the streets of Paris. 
 
 Madame Cibot herself went and came, and led an 
 active Hfe, while her husband, an indefatigable work- 
 man, was always sitting like a fakir in front of his one 
 window. His knees had become ossified, the blood had 
 settled on his chest, his legs, shrunken and distorted, 
 
314 Cousin Pons, 
 
 had dwindled away until they were nearly useless. 
 Moreover, the copper-colored skin of the little man 
 seemed to show that he had been sickly for a long time. 
 The good health of the wife and the bad health of the 
 husband appeared natural results to the doctor under 
 the circumstances. 
 
 "What is really the matter with m^' poor Cibot?" 
 the woman asked of Doctor Poulain. 
 
 " My dear Madame Cibot," the doctor answered, " he 
 is dying of the disease of door-keepers. His general 
 debility shows an incurable vitiation of the blood." 
 
 A crime without any object, for no gain, and to serve 
 no apparent interests ended b}' lulling Doctor Poulain's 
 suspicions. Who could want to kill Cibot? His wife? 
 The doctor saw her tasting his tisane as she sweetened 
 it. A large number of crimes escape the vengeance 
 of society ; and they are commonly those which are 
 committed, as in this instance, without startling signs 
 of violence — such as bloodstains, strangulation, or 
 bruises — or clumsy blunders, more especially when 
 they result in no apparent profit, and are committed 
 among the lower classes. Crime is usually betrayed by 
 its antecedents, — h\ rancor, or some obvious cupidity, 
 known to the persons who surround the scene of it. But 
 in the case of the little tailor, Remonencq, and Madame 
 Cibot, no one had the least reason or interest to suspect 
 a crime, except the doctor. The sickly, copper-colored 
 tailor, adored hy his wife, had no fortune and no ene- 
 mies. The motives and the passion of Remonencq were 
 as safely hidden from sight as the ill-gotten gains of 
 Madame Cibot. The doctor knew the woman and all her 
 feelings, through and through ; he believed her capable 
 
Cousin Pons. 315 
 
 of tormenting Pons : but he knew her to be with- 
 out the desire or the will to commit a crime ; moreover, 
 he saw her taking a spoonful of Cibot's food whenever 
 she gave it in his presence. Poulain, the only person 
 able to come at the truth, believed there must be some 
 accidental cause, some one of those surprising ex- 
 ceptions to known laws which render the practice of 
 medicine so uncertain ; and in truth the little tailor, as a 
 consequence of his stunted existence, was unfortunately 
 so far reduced in health that the addition of these infini- 
 tesimal doses of verdigi'is was sufficient to cause his 
 death. The neighbors and the gossiping old cronies 
 took a tone which completeh' screened Remonencq and 
 gave sufficient reason for this sudden death. 
 
 "Ah!" said one, "I've said for a long time that 
 Monsieur Cibot was n't well." 
 
 " He worked too hard, that man," said another ; " he 
 has dried up his blood." 
 
 " He would n't listen to me," cried a neighbor. " I 
 proposed to him to go out for a walk Sundaj's, and to 
 take a day off sometimes. Two days a week ain't too 
 much for recreation." 
 
 In short, the gossip of the neighborhood, usually so 
 accusative, and to which justice listens through the ears 
 of the commissary of the police, that sovereign ruler of 
 the lower classes, explained quite naturally the death 
 of the little tailor. Nevertheless, the thoughtful air and 
 the anxious eyes of Doctor Poulain made Remonencq 
 very uneasy ; so, seeing him approach, he proposed to 
 Schmucke with much eagerness to go in search of this 
 Monsieur Trognon, who was known to Fraisier. 
 
 " I '11 be back by the time the will is made," whispered 
 
316 Couiiiii Pons. 
 
 Fraisier to the Cibot. " In spite of your grief, you must 
 look after the main chance, you know." 
 
 And the little barrister disappeared like a shadow to 
 meet his friend the doctor. 
 
 " Eh ! Poulain," he cried, " it 's all right ; we are set 
 up for life ! I '11 tell you about it to-night. Decide 
 what place will suit 3'ou best, and you shall have it ! As 
 for me, I 'm to hQ juge-de-palx! Tabareau won't refuse 
 me his daughter now. I take upon myself to get you 
 married to Mademoiselle Vitel, the granddaughter of 
 the present justice. " 
 
 Fraisier left Poulain naturall^^ bewildered by these 
 words, and hopped upon the boulevard like a ball, 
 where he signed to a passing omnibus, and in ten min- 
 utes was deposited b}- that modern stage-coach at the 
 head of the rue de Choiseul. It was about four o'clock 
 in the afternoon ; Fraisier was sure of finding Madame 
 de Marville alone, for the judges never left the Palais 
 until five. 
 
 Madame de Marville received Fraisier with marks of 
 distinction which showed that, according to a promise 
 made to Madame Vatinelle, Monsieur Leboeuf had 
 spoken favorably of the former barrister of Mantes. 
 Amelie was almost as caressing to him as Madame de 
 Montpensier must have been with Jacques Clement ; the 
 little law^'er was her knife. But when Fraisier presented 
 her with the letter signed by Elie and Remonencq in 
 which they pledged themselves to take the whole of Pons's 
 collection for nine hundred thousand francs in cash, Ma- 
 dame de Mandlle gave him a glance in which all the 
 gold of that sum glittered. It was a tide of the lust of 
 greed flowing from her e3'es to those of the barrister. 
 
Cousin Pons. 317 
 
 "Monsieur de Marville," slie began, "has charged 
 me to invite you to dine with us to-morrow ; it will be 
 a famil}- partj'. You will meet Monsieur Godeschal, 
 the successor of Maitre Desroches, mj' attorney* ; also 
 Berthier, our notarj^, and m}' daughter and son-in-law. 
 After dinner, you and I and the attorne^^ and notary- 
 will have the little conference 3'ou asked for, and I will 
 then give 3-ou full powers to act. The two gentlemen 
 will obe}- your directions as you request, and they will 
 see that all is done properh'. You . shall a power 
 of attorney from Monsieur de Marville whenever 
 necessary — " 
 
 " I must have it b}' the da}' of the death." 
 
 "It shall be ready." 
 
 "Madame, if I ask for a power of attorne}', and if 
 I desire that your own lawyer shall not appear in 
 the case, it is far less for my interests than for yours. 
 "When I devote myself to my clients m^^ devotion is 
 unreserved ; therefore, madame, I ask in return the 
 same fidelity, the same confidence, from my protectors 
 — I dare not, in your case, sa}' clients. You ma}' per- 
 haps think that in acting thus I wish to fasten myself 
 upon this affair. No, no, madame ; but if anything 
 reprehensible were to happen, — for in a matter of 
 inheritance people are sometimes carried awa}', more 
 especiall}' when it is a question of nine hundred thou- 
 sand francs, — 3'ou could not throw the blame on a 
 man like Maitre Godeschal, who is known to be integ- 
 rit}' itself, but you could put what you like on the 
 shoulders of a miserable little agent like me." 
 
 Madame de Marville looked at Fraisier with admira- 
 tion. 
 
318 Cousin Pons, 
 
 "•You will certainly go ver}^ high or very low," she 
 said. " If I were 3'ou, instead of wishing to retire as a 
 mere Juge-de-paix^ I should seek to be procureur-du- 
 roi Sit Mantes, and carr}^ everything before me." 
 
 " I know what I am doing, madame. The office of 
 juge-de-paix is a curate's cob for Monsieur Vitel ; it will 
 be a war-horse for me." 
 
 Madame de Marville was thus led into making her 
 final confidence to Fraisier. 
 
 ''You seem to me so devoted to our interests," she 
 said, " that I shall confide to 3'Ou the difficulties of our 
 position, and also our hopes. At the time of a projected 
 marriage between my daughter and an adventurer who 
 has since become a banker, the president was desirous 
 of adding to the Marville estate by the purchase of 
 some grass-lands, then for sale. When our daughter 
 married the Vicomte Popinot we relinquished that mag- 
 nificent property, as you are aware ; but I am very 
 anxious, m^^ daughter being an only child, to acquire 
 the adjacent grass-lands. Part of these beautiful mead- 
 ows have been sold to an Englishman, who is about to 
 return to England after living on the estate nearly 
 twenty years. He has built a most charming cottage in 
 a delightful situation, between the park of Marville and 
 the fields which formerl}^ belonged to the estate ; and 
 he has bought up, to make a park of his own, wood- 
 lands and game-preserves and gardens, at really fabu- 
 lous prices. The cottage and its dependencies make a 
 fine piece of landscape-gardening ; moreover, it adjoins 
 my daughter's park- wall. We can bu}^ the whole, the 
 lands and buildings, for seven hundred thousand francs ; 
 the net proceeds of the land are about twenty thousand 
 
Cousin Pons, 319 
 
 francs a 3'ear. But if Mr. Wadman knew that we were 
 seeking to bu}' the property he would no doubt ask two 
 or three hundred thousand more, — he really loses as 
 much as that ; for in countr}^ neighborhoods they esti- 
 mate only the value of the land, the buildings go for 
 nothing." 
 
 " Madame, 3'ou are, I think, so certain of this inher- 
 itance from 3'our cousin that I shall be happj^ to pla}^ 
 the role of purchaser on 3'our behalf; I will engage to 
 get you the property at the lowest possible price, under 
 private seal, — the usual method in sales of landed 
 estate. I understand such matters : they were ray 
 specialt}' at Mantes. Vatinelle doubled liis practice 
 in consequence, for I worked in his name." 
 
 " Your liaison with little Madame Vatinelle grew out 
 of it, perhaps. That notary ought to be rich by this 
 time." 
 
 " But Madame Vatinelle is so extravagant — Well, 
 madame, don't give yourself any anxiety ; I will dish up 
 3'our Englishman, done to a turn." 
 
 " If you can manage it you will earn my everlasting 
 gratitude," she replied. "Adieu, my dear Monsieur 
 Fraisier ; we shall hope to see you to-morrow." 
 
 Fraisier departed, bowing to Madame de Marville 
 with less servilitj^ than on the former occasion. 
 
 *'I dine to-morrow with Monsieur Camusot de Mar- 
 ville ! " lie thought to himself " Well done ; I 've got 
 those people ! But to be absolute master of the whole 
 affair, I must be the legal adviser of that German, in 
 the person of Tabareau, the sheriff of the juge-de- 
 paix^ — Tabareau, who won't give me his daughter ! an 
 only daughter ! But he '11 let me have her when I am 
 
320 Cousin Fans. 
 
 justice myself. Mademoiselle Tabarcau, that tall, red- 
 haired, consumptive girl, possesses in her own right, 
 through her mother, a house in the place Roj-ale ; so I 
 shall be eligible for the Chamber. At the death of her 
 father she will have another six thousand francs a 3'ear. 
 She 's not handsome ; but hang it ! when 3'ou jump 
 from nothing to eighteen thousand a year, it won't do 
 to look at your feet." 
 
 As he walked back along the boulevard to the rue de 
 Normandie, he let himself float upon the current ^f 
 these golden dreams. He imagined himself forever 
 above the wretchedness of want ; he thought how he 
 would marry his friend Poulaifi to Mademoiselle Vitel, 
 daughter of a ju(/e-de-paix. He saw himself, supported 
 by the doctor, a king in his own quarter ; he ruled over 
 the elections, — municipal, political, and military. The 
 boulevards seem short indeed when, as we walk along, 
 our ambitions ride upon the wings of fanc3^ 
 
 When Schmucke returned to his friend Pons, he told 
 him that Cibot was dying, and that Remonencq had 
 gone to fetch Monsieur Trognon, the notary. Pons 
 was struck by the name, which Madame Cibot was for- 
 ever dragging into her interminable discourse, recom- 
 mending him this notary as integrity itself. The sick 
 man, w^hose suspicions had grown intense since the 
 morning, was seized with a vivid idea, which completed 
 the scheme he had formed to baffle Madame Cibot and 
 expose her to the credulous Schmucke. 
 
 " Schmucke," he said, taking the hand of the poor 
 German, who was bewildered by so many new and 
 strange events, ''there must be great confusion in the 
 
Cousin Pons. 321 
 
 house. If the porter is at the point of death, we shall be 
 at liberty for a time, — that is to sa}', free from spies ; 
 for we are spied upon, you ma^^ be sure of that ! Go 
 out now, and take a cabriolet, and drive to the theatre ; 
 tell Mademoiselle Heloise, our leading danseuse, that I 
 want to see her before I die ; ask her to come here to- 
 night at half-past ten o'clock, when the ballet is over. 
 From there, go to your two friends Schwab and Brun- 
 ner, and beg them to come here to-morrow at nine 
 o'clock in the morning and ask how I am, as if the}' 
 had happened to call, and then to come up and see me." 
 The plan laid b}^ the old artist, who felt himself to 
 be dying, was as follows : He wished to provide for 
 Schmucke b}^ making him his sole heir ; and to protect 
 him against all legal quibbling he determined to dictate 
 his wiU to a notar\' in presence of witnesses, so that no 
 one could subsequently declare that he was out of his 
 mind. He would thus deprive the Camusots of all pre- 
 text for interfering with his last wishes. The name of 
 Trognon made him suspect some machination : he fan- 
 cied a legal error would be introduced into the will, or 
 that some treacher}^ was premeditated b^' the Cibot ; and 
 he resolved to employ Trognon to witness a will which 
 he intended to write with his own hand, and would then 
 seal up and put away in the drawer of his bureau. He 
 counted on being able to show Schmucke (whom he 
 meant to hide in a wardrobe near his bed) the sight of 
 Madame Cibot getting at the will, unsealing it, reading 
 it, and sealing it up again. He intended to destroy that 
 will the next day, and make another, before a notar}^, 
 which should be legal and incontestable. When the 
 Cibot treated him like a lunatic and a visionar}^, he saw 
 
 21 
 
322 Cousin Pons. 
 
 in that pretence a hatred, vengeance, and greed worthy 
 of Madame de Marville ; for the poor man, confined 
 to his bed for the last two months, had, during those 
 sleepless nights and those long hours of solitude, gone 
 over and over in his mind all the events of his life. 
 
 Sculptors, both ancient and modern, often place on 
 either side the portals of a tomb angels who bear a 
 lighted torch. These ra3's, as \\\Qy light the path to 
 death, reveal to the dying the history of their faults 
 and errors. Sculpture here presents a great idea, and 
 gives form to a fact of human nature. Death-beds 
 have their own sagacit3\ Often young girls of tender 
 years attain the wisdom of old age, speak with the 
 voice of prophecy, judge their own families, and cease 
 to be the dupes of an}' illusion. That is the poetr}' 
 of Death. But — and here is a strange truth worthy of 
 note — there are two ways by which men die. This 
 poetry of prophetic intuition, this gift of looking before 
 and after, belongs only to those dying persons whose 
 physical powers are attacked, and who are perishing 
 through the destruction of the vital organs of the body. 
 Victims poisoned, like Louis XIV., by gangrene, con- 
 sumptive persons, sick men dying like Pons of fever, 
 like Madame de Mortsauf of diseases of the chest, or like 
 soldiers from wounds received in the vigor of life, often 
 attain this sublime lucidity of mind, and their deaths are 
 admirable, in fact amazing ; while those who die of what 
 w^e ma}- call diseases of the intellectual forces, seated 
 in the brain or in the nervous system, — which latter 
 serves as an intermediary between the body and the 
 mind, and furnishes the combustible for thought, — such 
 persons die wholly and at once. In their case mind 
 
Cousin Pons. 323 
 
 and body succumb together. The former — souls with- 
 out bodies — are the realization of Biblical spectres ; 
 the others are corpses. This virgin man, this epicu- 
 rean Cato, this righteous soul well-nigh pure from sin, 
 had tardil}^ discerned the gall that filled the heart of 
 Madame de Marville : he divined the world at the mo- 
 ment of quitting it ; and thus for the last few hours he 
 gayl}^ played his part, like a jo^^ous artist to whom all 
 events are the pretext for a satire or a jest. The last 
 ties which bound him to life — the chains of admiration, 
 the strong links which hold the connoisseur to the mas- 
 terpieces of art — had snapped that morning. When 
 he saw that Madame Cibot had robbed him, Pons said a 
 Christian farewell to the pomps and vanities of art, to 
 his collection, to his love for the creators of such glori- 
 ous things ; he wished to think only of death, and in 
 the spirit of our ancestors, who placed it among the 
 Christian fetes. His tenderness for Schmucke inspired 
 the effort to protect him even from be3^ond the grave. 
 That paternal thought was the motive which made him 
 choose the ballet-dancer as a means of succor against 
 the treacherous natures who surrounded him, and who 
 doubtless would not spare his appointed heir. 
 
 Heloise Brisetout was one of those natures which re- 
 main true in a false position. Capable of anj^ trick or 
 folly against her rich adorers, a girl of the style of 
 Jenny Cadine or Josepha, she was, nevertheless, a good 
 comrade, not afraid of any earthly power, by dint of 
 perceiving the weakness of all, and of battling with the 
 police during the carnival and at the beds champetres 
 (which had little that was sylvan about them) at 
 Mabille. 
 
324 Cousiii Pons, 
 
 " If she has got my place for her friend Garangeot," 
 thought Pons, " she will be all the more willing to help 
 me." 
 
 Schmucke left the house without being observed in 
 the confusion which now reigned in the porter's lodge ; 
 and he got back with the utmost rapidit}', so as not to 
 leave Pons too long alone. 
 
 Monsieur Trognon arrived to make the will just as 
 Schmucke returned. Though Cibot was actually at 
 the point of death, his wife accompanied the notary, 
 brought him into the sick-room, and then retired, leav- 
 ing Schmucke, Monsieur Trognon, and Pons together; 
 but she caught up a little hand-glass of curious work- 
 manship, and took her station behind the door, which 
 she left ajar. She could thus not only hear but see 
 all that went on at this most vital moment for her 
 interests. 
 
 " Monsieur," said Pons, "I have, unfortunatel}', all 
 m}^ faculties, for I feel that I am dj'ing ; and, doubtless 
 b}^ the will of God, I have been spared none of the 
 agonies of death. This is Monsieur Schmucke." 
 
 The notary bowed to Schmucke. 
 
 " He is the only friend I have on earth," resumed 
 Pons, '' and I wish to make him my sole heir. Tell me 
 how to draw ray will in such a way that my friend — 
 who is a German, and knows nothing of our laws — maj- 
 obtain the propert}' without opposition." 
 
 "It is possible to contest everj'thing, monsieur," 
 said the notary : " that is one of the inconveniences of 
 human justice ; but in the matter of wills, they can be 
 drawn so as to be incontestable." 
 
 " In what wa^'? " asked Pons. 
 
Cousin Pons, 325 
 
 ''Bj' making them before a notar}^ in presence of 
 witnesses who certif}^ that the testator is in possession 
 of all his faculties, and in case he has neither wife nor 
 children, father nor brother — " 
 
 " That is my case. My affections are all centred upon 
 my dear friend Schmucke, whom you see here." 
 
 Schmucke wept. 
 
 " If you have none but distant collateral relations, 
 the law allows you the free disposal of all 3'our prop- 
 erty', real and personal, provided you do not bequeath 
 it in a waN^ to offend public morality. You must have 
 seen wills attacked on account of the eccentricities of 
 the testator ; but a will made before a notar}' is certain 
 to hold good, — the identity of the testator cannot be 
 denied, the notary can prove his saliit}', and the signa- 
 tures are above suspicion. Still, a will drawn in the 
 testator's own handwriting, in legal form and clearl}', 
 is seldom open to discussion." 
 
 "I have decided, for reasons known to mj'self, to 
 write my will, at your dictation, with m}' own hand, and 
 to give it in chaige of my friend here. Can that be 
 done?" 
 
 '' Certainl}'," said the notary. " Will you write? I 
 will dictate." 
 
 '' Schmucke, give me mj' little desk of Boule. 
 Monsieur, dictate in a low voice, if you please ; for," 
 he added, " some one may be listening." 
 
 "Tell me first what your intentions are," said the 
 notary. 
 
 At the end of ten minutes Madame Cibot — who was 
 visible to Pons in a mirror — saw the will sealed, after 
 the notary had examined it and Schmucke had lighted 
 
326 Cousin Pons. 
 
 a candle. Pons next handed the document to Schraucke, 
 telling him to put it awaj^ in a private drawer in the 
 secretar3^ The testator then asked for the key of the 
 drawer, tied it in a corner of his handkerchief, and put 
 the handkerchief under his pillow. The notar}^ — ap- 
 pointed executor by courtesy, and to whom Pons left a 
 valuable picture (one of the things the law permits a 
 notary to accept) — then left the room, and found Ma- 
 dame Cibot in the salon. 
 
 ''Well, nionsieur," she said, "has Monsieur Pons 
 remembered me ? " 
 
 " My dear woman, 3^ou surely don't expect a notarj" to 
 betray the secrets that are confided to him ? " answered 
 Monsieur Trognon. " All that I can tell 3'ou is that 
 rapacit}'- and covetousness will be foiled, and a great 
 manj^ hopes baffled. Monsieur Pons has made an ad- 
 mirable will, full of good sense, — a patriotic will, of 
 which 1 highly approve." 
 
 It is difficult to imagine the pitch of curiosity to which 
 Madame Cibot was excited b}' these words. She went 
 down to pass the night at Cibot's bedside, resolved to 
 put Mademoiselle Remonencq in her place at two 
 or three o'clock in the morning, and return to Pons's 
 appartement and read the will. 
 
Cousin Pons, 327 
 
 XXV. 
 
 THE FICTITIOUS WILL. 
 
 The visit of Mademoiselle Heloise Brisetout at half- 
 past ten at night seemed natural enough to Madame 
 Cibot ; but she was so alarmed lest the danseuse should 
 speak of the thousand francs given b}^ Gaudissard that 
 she accompanied her upstairs with all the flatter}" and 
 politeness due to a sovereign. 
 
 "Ah! m}^ dear, you are very much better on your 
 own ground than at the theatre," said Heloise as they 
 mounted the stairs ; '' I advise you to staj^ where you 
 are." 
 
 Heloise, escorted in a carriage by Bixiou, who was 
 just then the friend of her heart, was magnificently at- 
 tired, for she vvas going to a soiree given by Mariette, 
 one of the illustrious leading-ladies of the opera. Mon- 
 sieur Chapoulot, a former fringe-maker in the rue Saint- 
 Denis, the tenant of the first floor, who was just returning 
 from the Ambigu-Comique with his wife and daughter, 
 was dazzled, and his wife also, by meeting such a 
 toilette and such a prett}^ woman on the staircase. 
 
 "Who is it, Madame Cibot?" asked Madame 
 Chapoulot. 
 
 " She ain't no account! You can see her skipping 
 half-naked any night for forty s^iiftr^-^ii^i^ed the 
 
 0^ THe '^ 
 
 nair-naKea anj^ nignt lor lony ^o^ i ^j^ ii^^^ea 
 Cibot in reply. /^^^^ *"'^^?^ 
 
 £l^/FORNlA. 
 
328 Cousin Pons. 
 
 '' Victorine ! " cried Madame Chapoulot, " m}^ little 
 gill, let madame pass at once ! " 
 
 The cry of the alarmed mother was understood by 
 Heloise, who turned round. 
 
 '' Is your daughter more inflammable than tinder, ma- 
 dame, that you are afraid she will take fire from me? " 
 
 Heloise looked at Monsieur Chapoulot with an agree- 
 able air, and smiled. 
 
 ' ' On m}' word, she is \Qry pretty off the stage ! " 
 said Monsieur Chapoulot, lingering on the landing. 
 
 Madame Chapoulot pinched her husband till he cried 
 out, and pushed him into tlieir appartement. 
 
 '' Dear me ! " said Heloise, " this second floor seems 
 as high as a fourth." 
 
 " Madame is, however, accustomed to heights," re- 
 marked the Cibot, opening the door of the appartement. 
 
 " Well, old man," said Heloise, entering the bedroom 
 where the poor musician was lying, pale and shrunken, 
 upon his bed, " so you are not very well? Every- 
 body at the theatre is anxious about you ; but you 
 know how it is, people may have good hearts, and 
 yet they have their own affairs to attend to. There 's 
 Gaudissard, he has been talking of coming to see you 
 day after day, and every morning he is caught by some 
 business or other. But we all love you." 
 
 "Madame Cibot," said the sick man, "have the 
 goodness to leave me alone with mademoiselle ; we 
 have some theatrical business and m}^ place in the or- 
 chestra to talk about. Schmucke will show madame 
 the way out." 
 
 Schmucke, at a sign from Pons, opened the door for 
 the Cibot and slipped the bolt behind her. 
 
Cousin Pons, S29 
 
 *'Ah! the German blackguard! he is getting cor- 
 rupted too, is he ? " said Madame Cibot, hearing the 
 significant sound. "It's Monsieur Pons has taught 
 liira that ! Ycni shall pay me dear for it, mj^ little 
 friends," she thought to herself as she went down the 
 stairs. " Bah ! if that butterfly of a ballet-girl tells 'em 
 about the thousand francs, I '11 swear it ain't nothing 
 but a theatre joke." 
 
 And she sat down beside Cibot, who was complaining 
 of his burning stomach, for Remonencq had given him 
 something to drink in his wife's absence. 
 
 " My dear child," said Pons to the danseuse, while 
 Schmucke was getting rid of the Cibot, "I can trust 
 no one but you to send me a notarj^, an honest man 
 who must be here to-morrow morning at nine o'clock 
 punctually', to make my will. I want to leave all I have 
 to my friend Schmucke. If the poor German should be 
 persecuted in consequence of it, I shall rely on that 
 notary to advise him and defend him ; that is win' I 
 want one of reputation, — a rich man, above all those con- 
 siderations which temj)t ordinary lawyers ; for my poor 
 friend will need a strong supporter. I don't trust Ber- 
 thier, the son-in-law of Cardot. And you, who know so 
 man}' people — " 
 
 ' ' I know just what 3'ou want," said Heloise : ' ' there 's 
 the notary of Florine, the Comtesse du Bruel, Leopold 
 Hannequin, — a virtuous man, who does n't know what 
 a lorette is. He is like a fairy godfather, a worth}' soul 
 who won't let you commit an}^ follies with the money 
 you earn. I call him the father of figurantes ; for he 
 has inculcated principles of economy in all m}^ friends. 
 In the first place, my dear, he has an income of sixty 
 
330 Cousin Pons, 
 
 thousand francs besides his practice. Then he is a no- 
 tary such as notaries used to be in the olden time. He 
 is a notary waking or sleeping, walking or sitting still ; 
 he has given birth to positively none but little notaries 
 and little notaresses. He is a heavy, pedantic man ; 
 but he won't yield to any influence whatever when he is 
 in the exercise of his functions. Pie has never had a 
 female drain upon him ; he is a fossil father of a famik ! 
 His wife adores him and does n't deceive him, though 
 she is a notary's wife ! There is n't anything better in 
 Paris in the way of a notary. He 's patriarchal ; he 
 is n't so amusing as Cardot was with Malaga, but he 
 won't run away like that little What 's-his-name who 
 lived with Antonia. I '11 send him to-morrow morning 
 at nine o'clock. Sleep in peace. Besides, I hope 3'ou 
 are going to get well, and make us some more pretty 
 music, — though, after all, life is sad enough ; managers 
 shillj'-shally, kings save their mone}^, ministers hatch 
 plots, and rich men are getting economical. Artists 
 have nothing to reh' on but that ! " she said, striking her 
 heart. " Yes, it is time to die. Adieu, old fellow ! " 
 
 ''Heloise, I ask 3'ou, above all things, to be silent 
 about all this." 
 
 " It is not a theatre matter," she said, "so it 's sacred 
 to an artist." 
 
 '"■ Who is your monsieur, little one? " 
 
 " The mayor of your arrondissement, Monsieur Bau- 
 do^'er, as stupid a man as the late Crevel ; would you 
 believe that Crevel, one of Gaudissard's old stock-com- 
 pany, died the other day, and actually left me nothing, 
 not so much as a pot of pomatum ! That 's what makes 
 me say that our epoch is disgusting." 
 
Cousin Pons. 331 
 
 "What did he die of?" 
 
 *' His wife. If he had stayed with me he would be 
 alive now. Well, good-b}', 1113' dear old fellow ! I talk 
 to you about departing this life because I know in 
 ten days I shall see you lounging along the boulevard 
 and ferreting after your pretty curiosities : you are 
 not ill, for your eyes are brighter than I ever saw 
 them." 
 
 And Heloise went away, certain that her protege Ga- 
 rangeot was secure in his place as leader of the orches- 
 tra. Garangeot was her cousin. All the doors on the 
 staircase were ajar, and all the households a-foot to see 
 the leading danseuse pass out. It was a great event in 
 that establishment. 
 
 Fraisier, like a bull-dog, which never lets go the morsel 
 he gets between his teeth, was stationed in the porter's 
 lodge beside Madame Cibot when Mademoiselle Heloise 
 passed under the porte-cochere and called for the door. 
 He knew the will was made, and had just questioned 
 his accomplice ; for Maitre Trognon declined to say 
 a word about it to him as well as to Madame Cibot. 
 Naturally the man of law noticed the danseuse, and 
 inwardly determined to make some use of this visit in 
 extremis. 
 
 "My dear Madame Cibot," said Fraisier, "this is 
 a very critical moment for you." 
 
 " Ah, 3'es!" she said. " My poor Cibot! just sup- 
 pose he shouldn't live to enjoy what I'm going to 
 get!" 
 
 "The question is, has Monsieur Pons left you anj^- 
 thing? That is, are you mentioned in the will at all, or 
 have you been forgotten?" continued Fraisier. "I 
 
332 Cousin Pons. 
 
 represent the natural heirs, and 3'ou will get nothing 
 from them in any case. The will is in his own hand- 
 writing ; it is, therefore, easily attacked. Do 3^ou know 
 where the old man put it? " 
 
 " In the private drawer of his secretary ; and he took 
 the ke}^" she answered, " tied it in a corner of his hand- 
 kerchief, and put the handkerchief under his pillow. I 
 saw it all." 
 
 '' Was the will sealed up? " 
 
 ''Alas, yes!" 
 
 " It is a crime to abstract a will and suppress it, but 
 it is only a misdemeanor to look at it ; and, anyhow, 
 that would n't be much, — a peccadillo, without wit- 
 nesses. Does the old man sleep heavily?" 
 
 ''Yes; but that day when 3'Ou were examining and 
 valuing the things, and he ought to have slept like a 
 dormouse, did n't he go and wake up ? However, I '11 
 see what can be done. I 'm to relieve Monsieur 
 Schmucke at four o'clock in the morning, and if 3'Ou 
 like to come then, you shall have the will in your 
 own hands for ten minutes." 
 
 "Very good," said Fraisier. "I'll be here at four 
 o'clock, and I '11 knock very softlj'." 
 
 " Mademoiselle Remonencq, who takes my place by 
 Cibot, will know jou are coming and pull the cord ; but 
 you had better tap on the window, so as not to wake 
 nobody." 
 
 " All right," said Fraisier. " You will have a light, 
 won't you? A candle will be enough." 
 
 At midnight the poor German, overpowered by grief, 
 was sitting in an arm-chair and gazing at Pons, whose 
 
Cousin Pons. 333 
 
 face, drawn like that of a dying man, showed signs of 
 faintness after his exertion which seemed to threaten 
 immediate dissohition. 
 
 " I think I have just strength enough to Uve until to- 
 morrow evening," said Pons philosophically. ''My 
 death will doubtless occur, my poor Schmucke, in the 
 course of to-morrow night. As soon as the notary and 
 your two friends liave left me in the morning, you must 
 go and fetch our good Abbe Duplanty, the vicar of the 
 church of Saint-Fran§ois ; the worthy man does not 
 know that I am ill. I wish to receive the holy sacra- 
 ments to-morrow at midday' — " 
 
 Pie made a long pause. 
 
 " God has not willed that life should be to me what I 
 longed for," continued Pons. "I could have loved a 
 wife and children and family so well ! To be cherished 
 by a few beings in a quiet home, was my sole ambition. 
 LifeisJbittej::,^todl ; I have seen others possessing that 
 which I so vainl}' wished for, and they were not happy. 
 At the close of life the good God let me find unhoped- 
 for consolation by giving me a friend in thee. I have 
 never undervalued or misjudged thee ; that is not upon 
 my conscience. My good Schmucke, I have given thee 
 my heart and all my powers of loving. Don't weep, 
 Schmucke, or I must be silent, and it is so sweet to 
 talk to thee of us, — ourself. Had I listened to th}- ad- 
 vice, I still might live ! Had I left the world and my 
 old habits, I should not have received these mortal 
 wounds. But now I desire to think onl}' of thee." 
 
 "Toan'd dink of me!" 
 
 " Do not oppose me ; listen to what I say, dear friend. 
 Thou hast the innocence, the guileless nature of a child 
 
834 Cousin Pons. 
 
 that has never left its mother's side. I revere it ; I think 
 that God himself takes care of beings like to thee. But 
 men are wicked, and I must forewarn thee. Thou wilt 
 lose thy noble faith, thy sacred credulit}^, that grace of 
 spotless souls which belongs onlj- to men of genius or 
 to hearts hke thine. Presently thou wilt see Madame 
 Cibot, who watched us through the half-closed door ; 
 she will come here and take the will I made. I be- 
 lieve the worthless creature will do this towards morn- 
 ing, when she thinks we are asleep. Listen to me 
 attentively, and follow m}^ instructions to the letter. 
 Do 3'ou hear me?" cried the sick man. 
 
 Schmucke, overwhelmed with grief, and trembling 
 frightfuU}', had let his head fall over on the back of his 
 chair, and seemed to have fainted away. 
 
 " Yez, 1 hear you, pud as eef you vare a gra-ate 
 tizdanze off. I zeem to zink into der doom — mit 3'ou ! " 
 said the German, crushed by his misery. He came 
 nearer to Pons, took one hand which he held between 
 his own, and offered an inward pra3'er. 
 
 *' What are you murmuring to j^ourself in German? " 
 asked Pons. 
 
 "I bra}' to Gott to dake us to heemzelf togedder," 
 he answered simpl}', when he had finished his prayer. 
 
 Pons leaned over with difficult}^, for he suffered in- 
 tolerable pain about the liver ; but he stooped until he 
 touched Schmucke and kissed him on the forehead, 
 shedding his soul, like a benediction, upon the fellow- 
 creature, the lamb meekly lying at the feet of God. 
 
 " Listen to me, m}' good Schmucke ; you must obey 
 the dying." 
 
 " I leesten." 
 
Cousin Pons. 335 
 
 " There is an entrance between your room and mine 
 through the little door in your alcove which opens into 
 my cabinet." 
 
 ' ' Pud it ees all joked up mit bigchurs." 
 
 ^' You must clear them out immediately, without 
 making too much noise." 
 
 " Yez." 
 
 *' Clear the passage at both ends, into your room and 
 mine ; then leave your door ajar. When the Cibot 
 comes to relieve your watch (and she is likely to come 
 earlier than usual) you must go away as if to bed, and 
 seem to be very tired. Try to put on a sleepy air. As 
 soon as she settles in her chair, come through your door 
 and keep watch, there, behind the little muslin curtain 
 of the glass-door in my cabinet, and watch all that 
 happens. You understand?" 
 
 "I unterzdant; dat zinful greechur means to purn 
 de vill." 
 
 *' I can't say what she will do, but I know this, — 
 you will never think her an angel again. Now, give 
 me some music ; improvise ; make me happy with 3'our 
 inspirations : they will occup}' your mind, the}^ will 
 drive out its gloomy thoughts, and fill the sad night 
 with poems." 
 
 Schmucke placed himself at the piano. Thus invoked, 
 the inspiration came in a few moments, quickened by 
 the quivering of grief and the agitation which it caused 
 him ; transporting the good German, as it ever did, 
 beyond the confines of earth. Sublime themes came to 
 him, on which he wrought his rhythmic fancies, sometimes 
 with the sorrow and Raphaelesque perfection of Chopin, 
 sometimes with the passion and Dantesque grandeur of 
 
336 Cousin Pons. 
 
 Liszt, — two musical oi*ganizations which approach the 
 nearest to that of Paganini. Execution brought to this 
 degree of perfection puts the performer on the level of 
 a poet ; he is to the composer what an actor is to an 
 author, — a divine interpreter of tilings divine. During 
 this night, as Schmucke sounded in the ear of Pons the 
 coming harmonies of heaven, the delicious music which 
 made the instruments of art fall from the hands of 
 Saint Cecilia, he was at once Beethoven and Paganini, 
 the creator and the interpreter. Inexhaustible as the 
 nightingale, sublime as the sky beneath which it 
 sings, rich and varied as the forest which it fills 
 with the gurgle of its notes, he surpassed himself, 
 and plunged the old musician, as he listened, into the 
 ecstasy which Raphael painted, and the world goes to 
 see at Bologna. 
 
 The poem was interrupted by loud ringing. The maid 
 of the tenant on the first floor came to beg Schmucke, 
 in her master's name, to put a stop to the racket. Mon- 
 sieur, Madame, and Mademoiselle Chapoulot had been 
 awakened, and could not go to sleep again ; and the}^ 
 begged to observe that the day was long enough to re- 
 hearse theatrical music, and that no one ought to strum 
 the piano all night in a house in the Marais. It was 
 then three o'clock in the morning. At half-past three, 
 as foretold by Pons, who really seemed to have heard 
 the conference between Madame Cibot and Fraisier, the 
 woman came up to relieve Schmucke. Pons gave his 
 friend a look which meant : " Did I not guess right? " 
 and then he turned over and assumed the attitude of a 
 man wlio was fast asleep. 
 
 Madame Cibot had such firm belief in Schmucke's 
 
Cousin Pons, 337 
 
 simplicity (a quality which is the chief means, as well 
 as the chief reason, of the success of childhood's strata- 
 gems) that she did not suspect him of falsehood when 
 he came up to her and said, with an air that was both 
 gloomy and jo^'ful, — 
 
 '" Bons has hat a treadful naight ; his eg-zidemend 
 vas tiapolique ! I vas opliged to mek zome muzique to 
 galm heem ; and der beoble pelow, dey zend vort dat 
 I moost pe zilend ! It ees horriple ! it gon-zairns de 
 laife of my frent. I am zo dired, zo dired, mit blay- 
 ing der muzique all naight long dat I am retty to trob 
 dis mornings." 
 
 " My poor Cibot, too, is very ill. Another day like 
 yesterday, and there won't be no hope for him. But 
 what can one do? It 's the will o' God ! " 
 
 " You are zo goot, your zoul ees zo lofely, dat eef 
 Zipod ties, ve vill lif togedder," said the wily Schmucke. 
 
 When simple and upright people begin to dissimulate, 
 they are terrible, — absolutely like children, who lay 
 their traps with the art of savages. 
 
 '• Well, you go and sleep, my lad ! " said the Cibot ; 
 '' 3'our ej'es are just starting out o' 3'our head, you 're so 
 tired. I will sa}^ the one thing as could console me for 
 losing Cibot is to think I should finish my days with 
 a good man like 3^ou. You be easy ; I '11 lead that 
 Ma'ame Chapoulot a prett}^ dance ! I 'd like to know 
 what right a retired shopkeeper has to set up such 
 pretensions ! " 
 
 Schmucke established himself in his post of observa- 
 tion. The Cibot had left the door of the appartement 
 ajar ; and P'raisier, after entering, closed it ver^^ gently. 
 He carried a lighted candle g,nd a piece of extremely 
 
 ?2 
 
3C8 Cousin Pons, 
 
 fine brass wire, with which to open the will. The Cibot 
 had no difficult}^ in abstracting the handkerchief in 
 which the key was knotted, and which was under Pons's 
 pillow ; for the sick man had carefully left the end of it 
 in sight below the bolster, and he helped the woman's 
 manoeuvre by keeping his face to the wall and lying in 
 an attitude which made it easy to draw away the hand- 
 kerchief. The Cibot went straight to the secretary, 
 opened it, endeavoring to make as little noise as pos- 
 sible, found the spring of the secret drawer, and ran 
 with the will in her hand into the salon. This last pro- 
 ceeding puzzled Pons to the utmost. As for Schmucke, 
 he was trembUng from head to foot, as if he had com- 
 mitted a crime. 
 
 " Go back to your post," said Fraisier, receiving the 
 will ; "for if he wakes up, lie must see you there." 
 
 After unsealing the envelope with an adroitness which 
 proved that it was not his first attempt, Fraisier was 
 plunged into profound astonishment by the perusal of 
 the following remarkable document : — 
 
 "THIS IS MY WILL. 
 
 *' To-day, April fifteenth, eighteen hundred and forty-five, 
 T, being of sound mind, as this will, written in presence of 
 Monsieur Trognon, notary, will prove, feeling that I am 
 about to die of the disease which attacked me in the early 
 part of February last, and desiring to dispose of all my prop- 
 erty, hereby make known my last wishes as follows : — 
 
 "I have always been struck with the perils which often 
 injui'e and sometimes destroy the great masterpieces of the 
 painter's art. I have pitied noble pictures condemned to 
 travel from country to coimtry, never stationary in any one 
 place where their admirers might go to see them. I have 
 
Cousin Pons, 339 
 
 long thought that those immortal pages of the famous masters 
 ought to be the property of nations, kept incessantly before 
 the eyes of the peoples, like light itself, God's own master- 
 piece, which shines for all his children. 
 
 " And whereas, having passed my life in choosing and col- 
 lecting pictures by the greatest masters, which pictures are 
 genuine, not repainted, nor even retouched, I have thought 
 with pain that these treasures, which have made the happi- 
 ness of my life, might come to the hammer, and go to Eng- 
 land or to Russia, dispersed and scattered as they were before 
 they came together in my possession ; I have therefore re- 
 solved to save them from such peril ; also to save the mag- 
 nificent frames which inclose them, and which are all by the 
 best workmen. 
 
 " With such motives, therefore, I give and bequeath to the 
 King, to make part and parcel of the Musee du Louvre, 
 the pictures of my collection, on condition, in case the legacy 
 be accepted, that he shall pay to my friend Wilhelm Schmucke 
 an annuity of two thousand foui' hundred francs. 
 
 ♦' If the King, as usufructuary of the Mus6e, does not ac- 
 cept the legacy on this condition, then the said pictures are 
 to form part of the bequest which I hereby make to my friend 
 Schmucke of all the property of which I die possessed, direct- 
 ing him to give my Monkey's Head by Goya to my cousin 
 the president Camusot ; the flower-piece of tulips by Abraham 
 Mignon to Monsieur Trognon, notary (whom I appoint my 
 executor) ; and to pay Madame Cibot, who has had charge of 
 my household for the past ten years, a yearly sum of two 
 hundred francs. 
 
 " And, finally, I request my friend Schmucke to give my 
 Descent from the Cross by Rubens — the sketch of his 
 famous picture at Antwerp — to my parish church, for the 
 decoration of a chapel, in gratitude for the kindness shown 
 to me by Monsieur le vicaire Duplanty, to whom I owe the 
 privilege of dying as a Christian and a Catholic, etc., etc." 
 
340 Cousin Pons. 
 
 " It is ruin ! " said Fraisier to himself; " the ruin of 
 all my hopes ! Ah ! I begin to believe what Madame 
 de Marville told me about the old fellow's malignity — " 
 
 '' Well? " said the Cibot, coming in. 
 
 " Your old man is a monster ! He has given everj^- 
 thing to the Musee, — to the State ! It is n't possible 
 to bring a suit against the State. The will can't be 
 broken. We are robbed, ruined, plundered, assassi- 
 nated ! — " 
 
 " What has he left to me? " 
 
 " Two hundred francs a j^ear." 
 
 ' ' A fine bequest, indeed ! Why, he *s an out-and- 
 out rascal ! " 
 
 " Go in," said Fraisier, " and 111 put your rascal's 
 will back into its envelope.'* 
 
Cousin Pons, 341 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 IN WHICH THE WOMAN SAUVAGE REAPPEARS. 
 
 As soon as Madame Cibot's back was turned, Frasier 
 rapidly substituted a sheet of blank paper in place of 
 the will, which he put into his pocket ; then he fastened 
 the envelope so cleverly that he showed the seal to 
 Madame Cibot when she returned, and asked her if she 
 could see the slightest trace of the operation. The 
 Cibot took the envelope, felt it over, found it full, and 
 sighed heavily. She hoped that Fraisier would have 
 burned the fatal paper himself. 
 
 "Well, what are we to do, m}^ dear Monsieur 
 Fraisier?" she demanded. 
 
 "Ah! that's jour affair. As for me, I'm not an 
 heir; but if I had the slightest right to that," he 
 answered, pointing to the collection, *' I know very 
 well what I should do." 
 
 " That's just what I 'm asking 3'ou," said the Cibot, 
 rather stupidly. 
 
 " There's a fire in the chimnej^-place," said Fraisier, 
 getting up to go awaj^ 
 
 " Any how, nobody but you and I would know it ! " 
 said the Cibot. 
 
 "It can never be proved that a will existed," re- 
 turned the man of law. 
 
 " And you? what will 3'ou do? " 
 
342 Cousin Pons. 
 
 "I? If Monsieur Pons dies without a will, I will 
 gULiruntee you a hundred thousand francs." 
 
 "Oh, I know!" she said; "that's all very well. 
 People will promise mounds o' gold ; but when they 
 get hold o' what they 're after, and it comes to paying 
 for it, don't I know how thej^ '11 chop you down ! " 
 
 She stopped in time, for she was on the point of tell- 
 ing Fraisier about her transaction with Elie Magus. 
 
 " I 'm off,'' said Fraisier. " For your sake, it won't 
 do for me to be seen in this appartement ; but I '11 meet 
 you below in the lodge." 
 
 After closing the outer door, Madame Cibot returned 
 with the will in her hand, fully determined to throw it 
 into the fire ; but when she got back into the room and 
 was moving towards the chimney, she was seized by 
 both arms, and found herself in the grasp of Pons and 
 Schmucke, who had been standing close to the wall on 
 each side of the doorway. 
 
 " Ah ! " screamed the Cibot. 
 
 She fell flat on her face in hon-ible convulsions, 
 whether real or pretended was never known. The 
 sight made such an impression upon Pons that he was 
 seized witli deadl}" faintness, and Schmucke let the Cibot 
 lie where she was while he put him back into his bed. 
 The two friends trembled like persons who, in the exe- 
 cution of a desperate purpose, have gone beyond their 
 strength. When Pons was again in bed, and Schmucke 
 had recovered his breath, they heard sobs. The Cibot, 
 on her knees and dissolved in tears, was stretching 
 out her hands to the two friends and supplicating them 
 with a most expressive pantomime. 
 
 " It was pure curiosity! " she cried, seeing that the 
 
i 
 
 Cousin Pons. 343 
 
 pair were noticing her; "indeed it was, m}- good 
 Monsieur Pons : that 's the failing o' women. But I 
 could n't manage to read your will, and I 've brought it 
 back — " 
 
 "Tebart! pegone ! " cried Schmucke, springing to 
 his feet, and drawing himself up to his full height in 
 the majesty of his indignation. " You aire a monzder ! 
 3'ou haf dried to gill my goot Bons. He vas raight ! 
 you aire vorse dan a monzder — 3'ou aire a teffel ! '* 
 
 The Cibot, seeing the horror which was painted on 
 the honest German face, rose, proud as Tartufe, cast a 
 glance at Schmucke which made him tremble, and went 
 out, carrying under her gown a glorious little picture by 
 Metzu which Elie Magus had greatly admired and called 
 '* a diamond." The Cibot found Fraisier waiting for 
 her in the lodge, devoutly- hoping that she had burned 
 the envelope and the blank paper he had substituted for 
 the will ; he was much astonished when he saw the 
 convulsed face of his terrified client. 
 
 " What has happened?" 
 
 ''This has happened, my good Monsieur Fraisier, — 
 that under pretence of giving me good advice and di- 
 recting me what to do, 3'ou 've made me lose my annuit}' 
 forever, and the good-will o' both my gentlemen." 
 
 And she launched into one of those cataracts of words 
 for which she had a genius. 
 
 " I don't want any idle talk!" said Fraisier drjly, 
 stopping her short. " What 's happened ? quick ! " 
 
 '' Well, it was this wa}' — " and she related the scene 
 that had just taken place. 
 
 " I had nothing to do with it," said Fraisier. " The 
 two gentlemen doubted your honest}', or they would n't 
 
344 Cousin Pons. 
 
 have set that trap ; they were waiting for you, they 
 had been watching 3'ou ! — You have n't told me all," 
 added the man of law, casting a tigerish look at the 
 woman. 
 
 ''I! — do 3'Ou think I'm hiding things from 3'ou, 
 after all that wx have done together ! " she said, 
 trembling. 
 
 " But, my dear, I have done nothing reprehensible," 
 said Fraisier, showing plainly that he meant to deny his 
 nocturnal visit to the appartement of the two friends. 
 
 The Cibot felt her hair stand on end, and a cold chill 
 ran down her back. 
 
 " What do 3'ou mean? " she cried, astounded. 
 
 " It is a criminal matter: you can be charged with 
 the abstraction of a will," replied Fraisier, coldl3\ 
 
 The Cibot gave a start of terror. 
 
 *' Make your mind casj', I 'm 3'our counsel," he added. 
 " I only wish to show 3'ou how easy it would be, in one 
 way or another, to bring about what I warned 3'Ou of. 
 Come, tell me what you have done to make that in- 
 nocent German hide himself in that room and watch 
 you." 
 
 "Nothing at all; it was only that affair the other 
 da3^, when I faced Monsieur Pons down about liis 
 dreaming he'd seen you. Ever since that da3' m3- gen- 
 tlemen have turned right round against me. And so, 
 as I sa3% 3"ou are the cause of all m3' troubles ;-for even 
 if I did lose my control over Monsieur Pons, I was 
 sure of the German, who was talking of manying me — 
 or living with me; it's all the same thing." 
 
 The explanation seemed so plausible that Fraisier was 
 forced to accept it. 
 
Cousin Pons. 345 
 
 " Well, make 3'ourself easy," he said ; " I have prom- 
 ised you an annuitj^ and I shall keep my word. Up to 
 this time, the affair was all hypothetical ; but now it 
 is worth hard cash ; you shall not have less than 
 twelve hundred francs a year. But remember, my dear 
 Madame Cibot, that you have got to obey my orders, 
 and execute them intelligently." 
 
 *' Yes, my dear Monsieur Fraisier," said the woman, 
 with servile submission, for she was completely crushed. 
 
 '' Well, adieu ! " returned Fraisier, leaving the lodge 
 and carrying away with him the dangerous will. 
 
 He went home joyously, for the document was a 
 powerful weapon. 
 
 " I 've got a strong securit}^ against Madame de Mar- 
 ville," he said to himself. " If she takes it into her 
 head not to keep her word to me, she shall lose the 
 inheritance." 
 
 At da3^break, Remonencq, after opening his shop and 
 leaving everything in charge of his sister, went, accord- 
 ing to a custom he had lately adopted, to inquire for his 
 good friend Cibot, and found Madame Cibot contem- 
 plating the picture by Metzu, and asking herself why 
 that little bit of painted wood should be worth so much 
 mone3\ 
 
 ''11a! ha!" said Remonencq, looking over her 
 shoulder, "that's the onl}^ one Monsieur Magus re- 
 gretted not having ; he said if he only had that little 
 thing, his happiness would be complete." 
 
 '' What will he give for it?" asked the Cibot. 
 
 '' Now, if you '11 promise to marr^^ me in the year of 
 your widowhood," answered Remonencq, "I'll engage 
 to get you twenty thousand francs from Elie Magus ; 
 
346 Cousin Pons, 
 
 if you don't marry me, yon will never be able to get a 
 thousand francs for it yourself." 
 
 ^' Why not?" 
 
 " Because you would be obliged to give a receipt as 
 the owner of it, and the heirs would claim it and bring 
 a suit against you. If 3'ou are my wife, I shall sell it to 
 Monsieur Magus, and nothing is required of a dealer 
 but the entry in his books ; I shall enter the picture as 
 sold to me by Monsieur Schmucke. Come, put it in 
 my hands ! If your husband dies, you 'd be worried to 
 death about it ; whereas nobody will think it odd that 
 I have got a picture. You know me well enough 
 to trust me. Besides, if 3'ou like, I '11 give you a 
 receipt." 
 
 The criminal situation in which she was caught, com- 
 pelled the rapacious woman to agree to the proposal 
 which bound her for life to the Auvergnat. 
 
 "You are right; bring me a receipt," she said, put- 
 ting the picture in a bureau drawer and locking it up. 
 
 "Neighbor," said Remonencq in a low voice, draw- 
 ing the Cibot to the threshold of the door, "I see 
 plainl}^ that we can't save our good Cibot ; Doctor 
 Poulain gave him up last night, and said he could n't 
 outlive the day. It's a great misfortune ; but, after 
 all, you are not in 3'our right place here. You ought 
 to be in a fine curiosity-shop on the boulevard des Ca- 
 pucines. Do you know that I 've laid b}^ nearly a hun- 
 dred thousand francs in ten years ? And if you get as 
 much more some day, I'll engage to make your for- 
 tune ; that is, if you are my wife. You will be a 
 bourgeoise ; my sister shall wait upon you and do 
 the housekeeping, and — " 
 
Cousin Pons, 347 
 
 The tempter was interrupted by the heart-rending 
 moans of the Uttle tailor, whose death-agony was 
 beginning. 
 
 " Go away ! " said the Cibot ; " you 're a monster to 
 talk to me like that when my poor man is dying in such 
 a state — " 
 
 ''Ah! it's because I love 3'ou," said Remonencq; 
 " I can't think of an3'thing else." 
 
 ''If you loved me, jou wouldn't tell me so just 
 now." 
 
 And Remonencq returned home quite sure of marry- 
 ing the Cibot. 
 
 At ten o'clock there was something like a tumult in 
 and around the porter's lodge, for the last sacraments 
 were being administered to the little tailor. All his 
 friends and the concierges, male and female, in the rue 
 de Normandie and the adjacent streets crowded the 
 lodge, the porte-cochere, and the pavement before the 
 house. No one, therefore, paid the least attention to 
 Monsieur Leopold Hannequin, who came with one of 
 his clerks, nor to Schwab and Brunner, all of whom 
 went up to Pons's appartement without being seen by 
 Madame Cibot. The concierge of the opposite house, 
 from whom the notar3' inquired on which floor Monsieur 
 Pons lived, pointed out the appartement. As for Brun- 
 ner, who came with Schwab, he had already- been to the 
 house to see the collection, and he passed in without a 
 word, taking his companion with him. Pons formally 
 revoked his will of the da}- before, and bequeathed his 
 whole propert}^ to Schmucke. This act accomplished. 
 Pons, after thanking Schwab and Brunner, and ear- 
 nestly committing the interests of Schmucke to the care 
 
348 Cousin Pons, 
 
 of Monsieur Hannequin, became so exhausted in con- 
 sequence of the wonderful energy he had displaj^ed in 
 the nocturnal scene with the Cibot, and also in this last 
 act of his earthly life, that Schmucke begged Schwab to 
 go at once and notify the Abbe Duplanty, for Pons was 
 asking for the sacraments, and he himself was unwilhng 
 to leave his friend's side. 
 
 Sitting at the foot of her husband's bed, Madame 
 Cibot had forgotten Schmucke's breakfast, and in fact 
 she had been turned out of their appartement by the 
 two friends ; but the events of the morning, the spec- 
 tacle of his friend's resigned death — for Pons was 
 leaving the world heroically — had so wrung Schmucke's 
 heart that he felt no hunger. 
 
 Nevertheless, about two in the afternoon, having seen 
 nothing of the old German, Madame Cibot, as much from 
 curiosity as from self-interest, begged Renionencq's 
 sister to go up and see if Schmucke wanted anything. 
 At this moment the Abbe Duplant3', to whom the poor 
 musician had made his last confession, was administering 
 extreme unction. Mademoiselle Remonencq disturbed 
 that ceremonj' by reiterated pulls at the bell. Pons 
 having made Schmucke swear that he would admit no 
 one (so great was his fear of being robbed), the old 
 German let Mademoiselle Remonencq go on ringing, 
 until, quite frightened, she went down and told Madame 
 Cibot that Schmucke would not open the door. This 
 marked circumstance w^as taken note of hy Fraisier. 
 Schmucke, who had never seen any one die, was about 
 to encounter all the difficulties which surround a man in 
 Paris when he has a corpse upon his hands and is, 
 moreover, without help or representative or means of 
 
Cousin Pons. 349 
 
 succor. Fraisier, who knew that relations, if really 
 afflicted, lose their heads at such a time, and who since 
 morning had installed himself in the porter's lodge, so 
 as to be in constant communication with Doctor Pou- 
 lain, now conceived the idea of himself directing all 
 Schmuclie's proceedings. 
 
 The following means were emplo^'ed by the two 
 friends, Fraisier and Poulain, to bring about this im- 
 portant result. 
 
 The beadle of the church of Saint-Francois, a former 
 dealer in glass-ware named Cantinet, lived in the rue 
 d'Orleans in the house adjoining that of Doctor Poulain. 
 Madame Cantinet, who collected the rent of the chairs at 
 Saint-Francois, had been treated gratuitously by Pou- 
 lain, to whom she wa^ naturally grateful, and to whom, 
 also, she had often related her troubles. The two Nut- 
 crackers, who attended the services at Saint-Frangois 
 on Sundays and fete-days, were on good terms with 
 the beadle, the verger, the dispenser of holy water, — 
 in short, with the whole ecclesiastical militia called in 
 Paris the "lower clergy," to whom the faithful are in 
 the habit of giving small donations. Madame Cantinet 
 therefore knew Schmucke as well as he knew her. The 
 woman was afflicted with two sources of anxiety which^ 
 enabled Fraisier to make a blind and involuntary instru- 
 ment of her. Her son, passionatel}' fond of the theatre, 
 had refused a church career, in which he might have be- 
 come a verger, and had made his appearance among the 
 supernumeraries of the ballet at the Cirque-Olympique, 
 where he led a disorderly life which greatl}' distressed 
 his mother, whose purse was often drained by his forced 
 loans. Moreover Cantinet himself, given over to lazi- 
 
£50 Coualn Pons. 
 
 ness and liquor, had been driven out of business bj 
 those vices. Far from correcting them, the unfortunate 
 man found fresh food for the two passions in his present 
 employment as beadle ; he did no work, and drank with 
 the men who brought the wedding-parties and drove 
 the hearses, and also with the beggars whom the cure 
 relieved, so that b}' twelve o'clock in the day his face 
 was usuall}^ cardinal-colored. 
 
 Madame Cantinet saw herself doomed to poverty in 
 her old age after having, as she said, brought a fortune 
 of twelve thousand francs to her husband. The histor}^ 
 of her misfortunes, related a hundred times to Doctor 
 Poulain, suggested to him the idea of using her to 
 enable Fraisier to place Madame Sauvage with Pons 
 and Schmucke as cook and servant of all work. To 
 propose Madame Sauvage herself- was impossible ; the 
 distrust of the two Nut-crackers was fully roused, and 
 the refusal to open the door to Mademoiselle Remonencq 
 proved it plainly enough to Fraisier's mind. But it was 
 evident to doctor and lawyer that the pious old mu- 
 sicians would blindlj' accept any one proposed to them 
 by the Abbe Duplanty. Madame Cantinet, according 
 to their scheme, should be accompanied by Madame 
 Sauvage ; and Fraisier's servant, once there, was quite 
 as good as Fraisier himself. 
 
 When the Abbe Duplanty came down, he was detained 
 a moment in the porte-cochere by the concourse of Cibot's 
 friends, who were testifying their respect for the oldest 
 and most esteemed concierge of the neighborhood. 
 
 Doctor Poulain bowed to the abbe and took him 
 aside, saying, — 
 
 '' I am going up to see that poor Monsieur Pons. He 
 
Cousin Pons. 351 
 
 may still recover : it is a question of his submitting to 
 the operation of removing the stones which have formed 
 in the bladder ; the}" can be felt, and they have induced 
 an inflammation which will cause death, — though there 
 may still be time to arrest it. You should use your in- 
 fluence over 3"0ur penitent and persuade him to submit 
 to the operation ; I will answer for his life, provided 
 nothing unfortunate intervenes during the operation." 
 
 "I will return as soon as I have carried the sacred 
 vessels to the church," said the Abbe Duplant}^ ; "for 
 indeed Monsieur Schmucke needs rehgious support." 
 
 " I have just learned that he is all alone," said Pou- 
 lain. "The good German had a little altercation this 
 morning with Madame Cibot, who has been their 
 housekeeper for ten years. It is only a passing quarrel, 
 no doubt ; but he must not be left alone, under the cir- 
 cumstances, without help. It is a work of charit}" to 
 look after him. Here, Cantinet," said the doctor, call- 
 ing up the beadle, "ask your wife if she is willing to 
 nurse Monsieur Pons and look after the housekeeping 
 for Monsieur Schmucke for a few days in Madame 
 Cibot's place — in fact Madame Cibot, even without 
 this quarrel, must have found a substitute. Madame 
 Cantinet is a trustworthy woman," added the doctor, 
 addressing the Abbe Duplanty. 
 
 " You could not choose a better one," answered the 
 worthy priest; " she has the confidence of the society 
 for whom she lets chairs." 
 
 A few moments later. Doctor Poulain was noting at 
 Pons's bedside the progress of the old man's dissolution, 
 while Schmucke was vainly imploring his friend to sub- 
 mit to the operation. The old musician only answered 
 
352 Cousin Pons. 
 
 the poor German's supplications by negative signs of 
 the head, occasional!}^ making impatient gestures. At 
 last, gathering up his strength, he cast a terrible 
 glance at Schmucke, and exclaimed: ''Let me die 
 in peace ! " 
 
 Schmucke nearly died of grief ; but he took the hand 
 of his friend, kissed it softl}^, and held it between his 
 own hands, endeavouring to transfuse his life once 
 more into Pons. At that moment Doctor Poulain, hear- 
 ing the bell ring, went to the door and admitted the 
 Abbe Duplanty. 
 
 " Our poor patient," said Poulain, " is beginning his 
 last agony. He will die in a few hours ; you will 
 pj obably have to send a priest to watch with the body 
 to-night. But we must now employ Madame Cantinet 
 and a helper to take charge of the appartement for Mon- 
 sieur Schmucke. He is incapable of attending to an}-- 
 thing : I fear for his reason ; and there is i^roperty here 
 which ought to be looked after by trustworthy people." 
 
 The Abbe Duplanty, a good and worthy priest, guile- 
 less and without suspicion, was struck by the justice 
 of Doctor Poulain's remarks, and he made a sign to 
 Schmucke from the threshold of the death-chamber to 
 come out and speak to him. Schmucke could not 
 bring himself to let go the hand of Pons, which was 
 cramped and clasped to his as if the dying man were 
 falling from a precipice and sought to fasten upon some- 
 thing that might save him. But those about to die are 
 often, as we know, a prey to hallucinations which 
 impel them to seize ever3'thing about them, like people 
 in haste to save their valuables at a fire ; and Pons 
 suddenly released Schmucke's hand to grasp the bed- 
 
Cousifi Pons. 353 
 
 clothes and draw them round his body, with a horrible 
 and significant movement of haste and avarice. 
 
 "What can 3'ou do, all alone, when your friend 
 dies?" said the good priest to the German, who then 
 came to him ; " you have lost Madame Cibot — " 
 
 " Matame Zipod ees a mondzder who has gilled 
 Bons ! " he said. 
 
 " But 3'ou must have some one with j'ou," interposed 
 Doctor Poulain, " for the corpse will have to be watched 
 to-night." 
 
 " I vill va-atch, I vill bray to Gott," answered the 
 innocent German. 
 
 " But 3'ou must eat ; who will cook for 3'ou ? " said 
 the doctor. 
 
 " Zorrow has daken avay mein abbedide," said 
 Schmucke, naivel3\ 
 
 " But," said Poulain, " the death must be sworn to 
 b3' witnesses, the body must be prepared for burial and 
 sewn in a winding-sheet, the funeral must be ordered at 
 the Pompes Funebres, the nurse who takes charge of 
 the corpse and the priest who watches at night, must 
 have their meals ; and how can 3'ou attend to such 
 things all alone ? People can't be allowed to die like 
 dogs in the capital of civilization." 
 
 Schmucke opened a pair of frightened e3'es, and was 
 seized with a momentary attack of madness. 
 
 " Pud Bons shall nod tie ! I vill zafe heems ! " 
 
 " You can't last much longer without sleep ; and who 
 is there now to take 3'our place? There is still some- 
 thing to do for Monsieur Pons ; he must have his 
 drink, and his medicines." 
 
 "Ah, dat ees drue ! " said Schmucke. 
 23 
 
354 Cousin Pons. 
 
 *'Well," remarked the Abbe Duplanty, "I think 
 of giving you Madame Cantinet, — an honest, worthy 
 woman." 
 
 These details of the last duties to his friend so over- 
 came Schmucke that he longed to die with Pons. 
 
 *' He is a mere child," said the doctor to the abb^. 
 
 " A ji-ild ! " repeated Schmucke mechanically. 
 
 '' Come ! " said the vicar ; " I will go and speak to 
 Madame Cantinet and send her to 3'Ou." 
 
 '' Don't give yourself that trouble," said the doctor ; 
 " she is my neighbor, and I am now on my way home." 
 
 Death is like an invisible assassin with whom the 
 dying struggle ; in the final contest they receive the 
 last blows, they endeavor to strike back, they resist 
 desperately. For Pons this supreme moment had now 
 come ; he uttered groans, mingled with cries. Schmucke, 
 the Abbe Duplanty, and Poulain ran to his side. Sud- 
 denty, as the last stab reached his vitality and cut the 
 thread which holds the soul to the bod}^. Pons regained, 
 for a few moments, the perfect quietude which follows 
 the d3ing struggle; he came to himself; the serenity 
 of death was on his face, and he looked on those 
 around him with a smile that was almost jo3'ful. 
 
 '' Ah ! doctor," he said, " I have sufiered much ; but 
 you are right, I am better now. Thanks, my good 
 abbe ; I was missing Schmucke — " 
 
 "Schmucke has not eaten an3^thing since the night 
 before last ; it is now four o'clock. You have no longer 
 any one to look after you, and it would be dangerous 
 to recall Madame Cibot — " 
 
 " She is capable of anj- thing ! " said Pons, showing 
 his horror at the very name of the Cibot. " You are 
 
Cousin Pons. 355 
 
 right ; Scbmucke needs some honest person to look 
 after him." 
 
 " The Abbe Duplanty and I," said the doctor, " have 
 been thinking about you both — " 
 
 " Ah, thank yon ! " said Pons ; " I did not reflect — " 
 
 " And the abbe has suggested Madame Cantinet — " 
 
 " Who lets the chairs? " cried Pons ; " yes, an excel- 
 lent creature." 
 
 " She does not like Madame Cibot," said Poulain, 
 " and she will take good care of Monsieur Schmucke." 
 
 " Send her to me, jny good Monsieur Duplantj^, 
 she and her husband ; then I shall be easy : the}' will 
 not rob me." 
 
 Schmucke had again laid hold of Pons's hand, and was 
 holding it joyfully, believing that life and health had 
 come back to him. 
 
 " Let us go, monsieur Tabbe," said the doctor. ''I 
 will send Madame Cantinet at once ; I see how it is, — 
 probably she will not find Monsieur Pons living." 
 
356 Cousin Pons. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 DEATH AS IT IS. 
 
 While the Abbe Duplanty was inducing the dying 
 man to emplo}^ Madame Cantlnet, Fraisier had sent for 
 the woman and subjected her to his corrupting talk and 
 to the craft}^ influence of his wily power, — a power 
 which it was difficult to resist. Madame Cantinet — a 
 j^ellow, shrivelled woman with large teeth and pallid lips, 
 dulled by misfortune, like many women of the lower 
 classes, and reduced to find her whole happiness in petty 
 daily profits — soon agreed to take Madame Sauvage 
 with her as assistant in Pons's household. Fraisier's 
 servant had already got her cue. She had promised to 
 weave a wire net round the two musicians, and watch 
 over them as a spider watches a captured fly. Madame 
 Sauvage was to receive in return for her trouble a 
 license for the sale of tobacco. Fraisier thus found a 
 means of getting rid of his pretended foster-mother, as 
 well as of putting a spy and a gendarme over Madame 
 Cantinet. As the appartement of the two Nut-crackers 
 had a small kitchen and a servant's room, Madame 
 Sauvage could sleep on the premises and cook for 
 Schmucke. At the moment when the two women, 
 brought by Doctor Poulain, presented themselves, Pons 
 had just drawn his last breath ; but Schmucke was not 
 aware of it, and he still clasped his friend's hand, 
 
Cousin Pons. 357 
 
 though the warmth was leaving it by degrees. He 
 motioned to Madame Cantinet not to speak ; but the 
 soldierly bearing of Madame Sauvage astonished him so 
 much that he made an involuntary gesture of fear, — 
 to which, indeed, that male woman was accustomed. 
 
 "Madame," whispered Madame Cantinet, presenting 
 her, " is sent by Monsieur Duplanty. She has been 
 cook to a bishop ; she is honesty itself : and she will do 
 the cooking." 
 
 "You can speak out loud," said the powerful and 
 asthmatic Sauvage; "the poor gentleman is dead: he 
 has just gone." 
 
 Schmucke uttered a piercing cry ; he felt Pons's icy 
 hand stiffening within his own, and he sat with staring 
 ej'es looking fixedly into those of Pons, whose expres- 
 sion would have driven him mad if Madame Sauvage, 
 doubtless accustomed to such scenes, had not gone to 
 the bed and held a mirror to the dead man's lips. As 
 no breath clouded the glass, she hastil}^ separated 
 Schmucke's hand from that of the corpse. 
 
 " Let go, monsieur," she said, " or 3'ou won't be able 
 to get loose ; you don't know what bones are when they 
 harden. Dead bodies soon stiifen. If you don't pre- 
 pare them while \X\Qy are still warnffV^you are sometimes 
 obliged to break their limbs," 
 
 It was, therefore, this horrible woman who closed the 
 poor musician's eyes. Then, with the methodical habit 
 of a sick-nurse, — a business she had foHowed for ten 
 years, — she took off the dead man's clothing, stretched 
 him out at full length, fastened the hands to each side 
 of the body, and drew the sheet over him, precisely as a 
 shopman makes up a parcel of. goods. 
 
358 Cousin Pons, 
 
 '' I want a sheet to wrap him in : where can I get 
 one?" she said to Schmucke, who was speechless with 
 terror at the sight. To witness this species of packing, 
 after watching the profound respect with which rehgion 
 treats the creature destined to so glorious a future in 
 the heavens, and to see his friend treated like a chattel, 
 was an anguish fit to dissolve the very elements of 
 thought. 
 
 " Dake vat you laike ! " answered Schmucke me- 
 chanicall}^ 
 
 It was the first time the innocent creature had seen a 
 man die, — and that man was Pons, the only friend, the 
 onl}' being who had ever understood and loved him ! 
 
 " Then I shall go and ask Madame Cibot where the 
 sheets are," said the Sauvage. 
 
 " We must have a flock bed for this lady," said Ma- 
 dame Cantinet to Schmucke. 
 
 Schmucke made a sign with his head, and burst into 
 tears. Madame Cantinet left the poor soul in peace ; 
 but at the end of an hour she returned, and said to 
 him, — 
 
 "Monsieur, have you any money to give us to buy 
 some necessarj^ things ? " 
 
 Schmucke turned a look on Madame Cantinet that 
 might have disarmed the most ferocious enemy ; he 
 pointed to the white, sharp face of the dead as if it 
 were the sole answer that could be given. 
 
 "Dake all, and led me mourn and bray," he said, 
 kneeling down. 
 
 Madame Sauvage had gone to announce the death to 
 Fraisier, who rushed in a cabriolet to Madame de Mar- 
 ville and requested her to have the power of attornej', 
 
Cousin Pons. 359 
 
 which should give him the right of representing the 
 heirs, read}' for the morrow. 
 
 " Monsieur," said Madame Cantinet to Schmucke an 
 hour after her last question, " I have been to see Ma- 
 dame Cibot, who knows all about 3'our household, and 
 asked her to tell me where to find the things ; but she 
 has just lost Monsieur Cibot, and she has half crazed 
 me with her talk — Monsieur, please listen to me." 
 
 Schmucke looked at the woman, who had no concep- 
 tion of her own cruelty ; for the lower classes habitually 
 endure great mental griefs stolidly. 
 
 " Monsieur, we must have linen for the winding- 
 sheet, also we want money to buy a flock-bed for the 
 cook ; and we need kitchen-utensils, plates, dishes, 
 glasses, for a priest will be here to-night, and there is 
 absolutely nothing in the kitchen." 
 
 " Yes, monsieur," began the Sauvage, " I must have 
 wood and coal to prepare the dinner, and I don't see 
 an}^ It isn't surprising, as it seems Madame Cibot 
 supplied you with ever3'thing — " 
 
 '' My dear lady," said Madame Cantinet, pointing to 
 Schmucke, who la}' at the dead man's feet in a state of 
 semi-insensibilit}', " 3'ou wouldn't believe me, but you 
 see for 3'ourself he can't answer anything." 
 
 " Well, my dear," returned the Sauvage, "I'll show 
 you what's to be done in that case." 
 
 So saying, she cast about the room a look such as 
 thieves cast when they try to guess the places where 
 mone}^ is hidden. She went straight to Pons's bureau 
 and pulled out the top drawer, saw the bag in which 
 Schmucke had put awa}' the remainder of the money 
 derived from the sale of the pictures, and showed 
 
860 Cousin Pons. 
 
 it to Sehmucke, who made a sign of mechanical 
 consent. 
 
 " Here's money, m}^ dear," said the Sanvage to Ma- 
 dame Cantinet. " I '11 count it, and take as much as we 
 shall want for wine and provisions and lights, — in 
 short, ever3'thing ; for thej' reall}" have nothing at all. Do 
 look in the drawer and see if you can find a sheet to 
 wrap round the body. The}' told me the poor man was 
 a simple creature ; but he 's worse than that. I 'm sure 
 I don't know what he is, — a new-born babe ; and we 
 shall have to feed him with a spoon." 
 
 Sehmucke looked at the two women and at all they 
 did, exactly as an idiot might have looked at them. 
 Exhausted with grief, sunk into a state that was half 
 cataleptic, he never ceased to contemplate the face of 
 Pons, which held him by a spell as the lines grew purer 
 and clearer in the peace of death . He hoped to die ; 
 to all else he was indifferent. The room might have 
 been in flames, and he would not have stirred. 
 
 " There are twelve hundred and fifty-six francs," said 
 the Sauvage. 
 
 Sehmucke shrugged his shoulders. When the Sau- 
 vage attempted to prepare the bod}^ for burial, and to 
 measure the linen over it so as to cut out the winding- 
 sheet and sew it on, a frightful struggle took place be- 
 tween herself and the unfortunate German. Sehmucke 
 was like a dog who bites all who attempt to touch the 
 body of his master. Madame Sauvage, getting impa- 
 tient, seized him, thrust him into an arm-chair, and 
 held him there with herculean power. 
 
 "Come, my dear, sew up the corpse in the sheet 
 while I hold him," she said to Madame Cantinet. 
 
Cousin Pons. 361 
 
 When the operation was over, the Sauvage let 
 Schmucke go back to his place at the foot of the bed, 
 and said to him, — 
 
 "Can't 3'ou understand? We had to truss up the 
 poor man properly, as a corpse." 
 
 Schmucke wept ; the two women left him and went 
 to take possession of the kitchen, where, between them, 
 they soon collected all the necessaries of life. After 
 running up a preliminary bill of three hundred and sixty 
 francs, Madame Sauvage prepared a dinner for four 
 persons ; and what a dinner ! The pheasant of cobblers 
 — a fat goose — was the solid dish ; then came a sweet 
 omelet, a salad of vegetables, and the sacramental pot- 
 au-feu^ whose ingredients were so extravagant in quan- 
 tity that the broth was as thick as jelly. At nine o'clock 
 in the evening the priest, sent by the vicar to watch 
 beside the body of Pons, came with the beadle, Canti- 
 net, who brought four wax-tapers and the church candle- 
 sticks. The priest found Schmucke lying at full length 
 on the bed beside his friend, holding him tightly clasped 
 in his arms. It required the authority of religion to 
 induce Schmucke to part from the body. He fell on 
 his knees, and the priest sat down comfortably in an 
 arm-chair.' While the latter read his prayers, and 
 Schmucke, kneeling before the body of Pons, besought 
 God to reunite him to his friend by a miracle, that he 
 might be buried in the same grave, Madame Cantinet 
 went to the Temple and bought a flock-bed and bedding 
 all complete for Madame Sauvage, making havoc in 
 the twelve hundred and fifty-six francs discovered in the 
 bureau drawer. At eleven o'clock at night Madame 
 Cantinet came to see if Schmucke would eat a morsel. 
 
362 Cousin Pons. 
 
 The German made signs that he was to be left in 
 peace. 
 
 " Your supper is ready, Monsieur Pastelot," she said 
 to the priest. 
 
 Schmucke, left alone, smiled like a madman who sees 
 that he is free to accomplish a desire comparable only 
 to the longing of a pregnant woman. He flung himself 
 beside Pons and held him once more tightly clasped. 
 The priest came back at midnight and rebuked 
 Schmucke, who let go his grasp and returned to prayer. 
 At daybreak the priest went away. At seven o'clock 
 in the morning Doctor Poulain came to see Schmucke, 
 and kindly tried to make him eat ; but the German 
 refused. 
 
 " If you eat nothing now, you will feel hungry when 
 you return," said the doctor; " for you must go to the 
 ma^'or's office, with some one who can identify you, to 
 declare the decease of Monsieur Pons and get the burial 
 certificate." 
 
 " I ! " exclaimed the German, terrified. 
 
 " Who should it be? You were the only person who 
 saw him die." 
 
 '' I haf no zdrengd," answered Schmucke, imploring 
 pity of Doctor Poulain. 
 
 " Take a carriage," said the h3'pocritical doctor, 
 gentl3^ " I have made out the certificate of the death. 
 Get some one about the house to accompany you. 
 These two women will take care of the rooms in j^our 
 absence." 
 
 It is diflScult to imagine what these vexations of the 
 law are to a real grief, — enough, surel}', to make us 
 hate civilization, and prefer the customs of savages. At 
 
Cousin Pons, 863 
 
 nine o'clock Madame Sauvage brought Schmucke down- 
 stairs, holding him under the arms, and he was obliged, 
 when he got into the hackney-coach, to ask Remonencq 
 to accompany him and declare the death at the mayor's 
 office. Wherever we turn, and in all matters, inequality 
 of conditions is manifest in Paris, — a cit}^ drunk with 
 the idea of equality ! This immutable force of circum- 
 stances is seen even in the events attending a death. In 
 wealthy families, a relation, a friend, a business agent, 
 spares the mourners all knowledge of the hideous de- 
 tails ; but in this, as in the assessment of taxes, the 
 masses, the proletaries, have to bear the burden of 
 such horrors without assistance. 
 
 "Ah! you've good reason to regret him," said 
 Remonencq as a gi'oan escaped the poor martyr ; " he 
 was a very worthy man, a very honest man, who has 
 left behind him a fine collection. But don't j^ou see, 
 monsieur, 3'ou, who are a stranger here, are likely to 
 get into a deal of trouble? — for they say Monsieur 
 Pons has left you everything." 
 
 Schmucke was not listening ; he was plunged in such 
 grief that he was YQvy nearlj^ out of his mind. The 
 soul has its lock-jaw as well as the hoAy, 
 
 '' You ought to be represented by a lawyer or a 
 business agent." 
 
 *'Peazenez achend," repeated Schmucke mechani- 
 call3\ 
 
 '' You '11 see that you '11 have to get some one to act 
 for you. If I were you, I should find some man of 
 experience, a man known in the neighborhood, a trust- 
 worthy man. I myself, in my little business, I employ 
 Tabareauj the sherifi^s officer. If you give a power of 
 
86^ Cousin Pons, 
 
 attorney to bis head-clerk 3'ou will have no anxiety 
 yourself." 
 
 This suggestion, first made by Fraisier, and approved 
 by Remonencq and theCibot, stuck in Schmucke's mem- 
 or}^ ; for in certain moments, when grief congeals the 
 soul, as it were, and arrests its functions, the memory 
 retains impressions which mere accident has imprinted 
 upon it. Schmucke heard Remonencq, though he con- 
 tinued to look at him with an eye so devoid of intelli- 
 gence that the Auvergnat said no more. 
 
 " If he is such an imbecile as that," thought Remon- 
 encq, " I shall be able to buy the whole heap of those 
 things upstairs for a hundred thousand francs, — that is, 
 if the}' are reall}^ his — Monsieur, here we are at the 
 maj'or's office." 
 
 Remonencq was forced to lift Schmucke out of the 
 
 coach and support him under the arms to get him into 
 
 the. office for civil certificates, where Schmucke found 
 
 himself in the midst of a wedding-party. The poor 
 
 German was a prey to an anguish hke that of the 
 
 Savifoiir of men. 
 * 
 
 " Is this Monsieur Schmucke? " asked a man in black 
 clothes, addressing the German, who was bewildered at 
 hearing his own name. 
 
 ' ' Well," said Remonencq, ' ' what do 3'ou want 
 with him ? Let him alone ; don't you see he is in 
 trouble?" 
 
 " Monsieur has just lost his friend, and doubtless 
 wishes to honor his memor}^ in a worthy manner, as 
 the property is left to him," said the stranger. " Mon- 
 sieur will certainly not be parsimonious ; he will of 
 course buy a grave in perpetuit3\ Monsieur Pons was 
 
Cousin Pons. 365 
 
 a lover of art : it would be a pity not to put upon his 
 tomb a group of Music, Painting, and Sculpture, — three 
 fine figures represented as weeping — " 
 
 Remonencq made the gesture of an Auvergnat to 
 drive the man away ; but the man replied by another 
 gesture, meaning, " Let me alone ; I know what I am 
 about," which the other understood. 
 
 "I am an agent for the house of Sonet & Co., con- 
 tractors for mortuar}^ monuments," resumed the runner, 
 whom Walter Scott might have called '' the young man 
 of the tombs." "If monsieur would be pleased to 
 give us an order, we will save him the annoyance of 
 going to the cemetery to hny the ground necessary 
 for the burial of the friend now lost to him and to the 
 arts — " 
 
 Remonencq nodded his head in assent, and nudged 
 Schmucke with his elbow. 
 
 "We take charge of all these formalities every day 
 for many families," said the man, encouraged b^' the 
 Auvergnat's nod. " In the first moments of grief it is 
 so hard for an heir to attend to such details himself, and 
 we are glad to do these httle services for our customers. 
 The price of our monuments, monsieur, is regulated by 
 a tariff", — so much a foot in free-stone, so much in mar- 
 ble. We also dig the graves for family tombs, — in 
 short, we undertake the whole affair, at reasonable 
 prices. Our house put up the magnificent monument 
 over the beautiful Esther Gobseck, also that of Lucien 
 de Rubempre, which is one of the finest ornaments of 
 Pere-Lachaise. We employ the best workmen — I 
 advise monsieur to beware of the small undertakers, 
 who do things in a shabby way," he added, observing 
 
366 Cousin Pons. 
 
 that another man in black was bearing down upon 
 them, in the interests of another house of monumental 
 sculpture. 
 
 It has often been said that death is the end of a 
 journey ; few persons realize how close the parallel is in 
 Paris. The dead man, above all if he was a man of 
 quality, is greeted on the sombre shore as though he • 
 were a traveller arriving at his destination, where all 
 the runners of the various hotels harass him with their 
 recommendations. No one, if we except certain phi- 
 losophers and a few families sure of being long-lived, 
 who build themselves tombs just as the}' build them- 
 selves houses, ever thinks of death and its attendant 
 consequences. Death always comes too soon ; more- 
 over, a feeling, easily understood, keeps the survivors 
 from supposing it possible. Therefore nearl}' all who 
 lose father, mother, wife, or children, are immedi- 
 ately assailed by those interested in the business of 
 death, and who profit by the bewilderment of grief to 
 obtain an order for their services. In former times 
 the agents for sepulchral monuments used to group 
 themselves in the vicinity of the famous cemetery of Pere- 
 Lachaise, where thej^ formed a lane called the " Street 
 of Tombs," and assailed the heirs as the}' left the gi-ave 
 or the gates of the cemetery ; but, little hy little, com- 
 petition, the genius of speculation, has pushed them to 
 greater assurance, and thej^ have now established them- 
 selves in the neighborhood of the mayor's offices. In 
 fact, these runners, with the plan of a tomb in hand, 
 often work their way into the house of death. 
 
 " I am doing business with monsieur," said the agent 
 for the Maison Sonet to the new-comer. 
 
Cousin Pons, 367 
 
 "Pons, deceased!" called out the clerk. "Where 
 are the witnesses? " 
 
 *' Come, monsieur," said the mortuary agent, ad- 
 dressing Remonencq. 
 
 Remonencq requested the man to lift Schmucke, who 
 was sitting like an inert mass upon a bench, and to- 
 gether they led him to a balustrade, behind which the 
 clerk who drew up the certificates for burial sheltered 
 himself from the rush of pubhc grief. Remonencq, who 
 was now Schmucke's protector, was reinforced at this 
 moment by Doctor Poulain, who came to give the nec- 
 essary information as to the age and birthplace of Pons. 
 The signatures once appended, Remonencq and the 
 doctor, followed by the runner, carried the poor Ger- 
 man back to the coach, into which the eager agent, 
 determined to obtain the coveted order, managed to 
 slip. The Sauvage, who was watching on the steps of 
 the porte-cochere, took Schmucke, half fainting, in her 
 arms, and with the help of Remonencq and the man 
 from the Maison Sonet, got him upstairs. 
 
 "He is going to be ill," said the runner, who was 
 bent on endhig his own affair satisfactoril}^ 
 
 "I should think so!" returned Madame Sauvage; 
 " he has wept for twent3'-four hours, and won't 
 eat anything. Nothing destroys the stomach like 
 grief." 
 
 " Now, my dear client," said the runner to Schmucke, 
 " take a little broth. You have so many things to do ; 
 you must go to the Hotel de Ville and buy the grave 
 over which 3'ou intend to erect a monument to that 
 friend of the arts which shall testify your gratitude — " 
 
 " Why, he ought to have more sense," said Madame 
 
868 Cousin Pons. 
 
 Cantinet, coming in at the moment with the broth and 
 some bread. 
 
 " M3' dear monsieur," said Remonencq, "if j^ou are 
 so feeble, you ought really to get some one to represent 
 you ; for you have a host of things to do. You must 
 order the funeral procession : you don't want 3'our friend 
 to be buried like a pauper ? " 
 
 " Come, come, my good monsieur," said the Sauvage, 
 seizing a moment when Schmucke's head fell on the 
 back of the chair to pour a spoonful of soup into his 
 mouth, and continuing to feed him like an infant, in 
 spite of himself. "There, now yoxx are sensible, 
 monsieur ; and if 3'ou wish to give waj' to j^our grief 
 quietly, you must choose some one to represent 
 you — " 
 
 "As monsieur intends to erect a fine monument to 
 his friend," said the runner, "he need onlj' put the 
 whole matter into my hands, and I will attend to it — " 
 
 "What's that? what's that?" cried the Sauvage. 
 " Has monsieur given you any orders ? Who are you ? " 
 
 " An agent for the house of Sonet & Co., my good 
 lady ; the largest establishment for monumental statu- 
 ary in Paris," answered the man, puUing out a card 
 and presenting it to the powerful Sauvage. 
 
 "Ah! very good, very good; you'll be sent for 
 when the}^ think proper. You can't take advantage of 
 the state monsieur is in. You see very plainly that he 
 is out of his mind — " 
 
 " If you will manage to get us the order," whispered 
 the agent of the Maison Sonet in the ear of Madame 
 Sauvage as he drew her out upon the landing, "I am 
 able to offer you fort}^ francs." 
 
Cousin Pons. 369 
 
 " Well, give me your address," said the Sauvage, be- 
 coming civilized. 
 
 Schmucke, finding himself alone, and really feeling 
 better for his forced meal of broth and bread, returned 
 quickl}" to the side of Pons and again knelt down to 
 pray. He was lost in the abysses of his grief, when he 
 was roused from the void, as it were, by a young man 
 dressed in black, who said to him for the eleventh 
 time, — 
 
 "Monsieur!" 
 
 The poor martjT heard the call because he was 
 twitched by the sleeve of his coat. 
 
 " Vat ees id now?" he asked. 
 
 "Monsieur, we owe to Dr. Gannal a sublime dis- 
 covery. We do not deny his glorj- ; he has restored to 
 practice the miracles of ancient Egypt. Nevertheless, 
 we have made improvements by which we obtain aston- 
 ishing results. Therefore, if you wish to see 3^our friend 
 as he was in life — " 
 
 "Zee heems — in laife ! " cried Schmucke. " Vill 
 he spick to me?" 
 
 "Not absolutel}' — speech itself will be absent," re- 
 plied the agent for embalming; "but he will remain 
 through all eternitj^ such as the art of embalming will 
 show him to you. . The operation will take only a 
 few minutes. An incision into the carotid arterj^ 
 and one injection suffices. But there 's no time to be 
 lost; if 3'ou wait half an hour longer you will lose 
 the tender satisfaction of preserving the body of jour 
 friend." 
 
 ' ' Pegone ! der teffel dake you ! Bons ees a zoul, 
 und dat zoul ees een de zkies." 
 
 24 
 
370 Cousin Pons. 
 
 (( 
 
 The man has n't a bit of gratitude," said the young 
 rival of Dr. Gannal as he went through the porte- 
 cochere ; " he refuses to have his friend embalmed." 
 
 "What can you expect, monsieur?" said Madame 
 Cibot, who had just had her darling embalmed. " He 's 
 the legatee ; now that he 's got all he wanted, the 
 deceased ain't nothing to him." 
 
Cousin Pons, 371 
 
 XXYIIL 
 
 schmucke's martyrdom continued ;• showing how 
 people die in paris. 
 
 An hour later, Schmucke saw Madame Sauvage enter 
 the room, followed by a man in black who appeared to 
 be a workman. 
 
 ''Monsieur," she said, " Cantinet has been good 
 enough to send you this person, who supplies the coffins 
 for the parish." 
 
 The coffin-maker bowed with an air of condolence 
 and commiseration, but like a man sure of his position 
 and aware that he is indispensable. He looked at the 
 body with the eye of a connoisseur. 
 
 "How does monsieur wish to have it?" he said. 
 " In common wood, or plain oak, or oak lined with 
 lead ? Oak lined with lead is very stylish. The body 
 seems to have the ordinary dimensions." 
 
 He felt for the feet, so as to measure the bod}^ 
 
 '* One metre, seventy," he added. "Monsieur no 
 doubt intends to order a funeral semce at the 
 church?" 
 
 Schmucke flung a look at the man such as madmen 
 dart when the}^ are about to make an attack. 
 
 "Monsieur," said Madame Sauvage, "you really 
 must employ some one to attend to all these details for 
 you." 
 
372 Cousin Pons, 
 
 " Yez," said the victim at last. 
 
 " Do you want me to go and fetch Monsieur Taba- 
 reau ? for you '11 have many more things on your shoul- 
 ders presently. Monsieur Tabareau, let me tell you, 
 is the most honest man in the neighborhood." 
 
 " Yez, Monsir Dapareau, de}^ tid spick to me of 
 heems," answered the vanquished Schmucke. 
 
 ''Very good; monsieur shall be left in peace, and 
 free to indulge his grief, when he has once had a talk 
 with an agent and given him full powers." 
 
 About two o'clock the head-clerk of Monsieur Taba- 
 reau, a 3'oung man who considered that he was destined 
 to the career of sheriff, modestly presented himself. 
 Youth has amazing privileges ; it excites no alarm. 
 The young man sat down beside Schmucke and waited 
 for the right moment to speak to him. This considera- 
 tion touched Schmucke. 
 
 "Monsieur," said the 3'outh, "I am the head-clerk 
 of Monsieur Tabareau, who has sent me here to look 
 after your interests and attend to all the details of the 
 funeral. Is it 3-our wish that I should do so ? " 
 
 " You gannod za-afe my laife, I haf nod long to lecf ; 
 pud vill 3'ou led me tie in beace ? " 
 
 " You shall not be troubled," answered Villemot. 
 
 " Denn, vat moost I do? " 
 
 " Sign this paper, in which you appoint Monsieur 
 Tabareau your proxy in all matters concerning the 
 inheritance." 
 
 " Gif it to me!" said the German, wishing to sign 
 instantl3% 
 
 *' No, it is my duty to read over the instrument to 
 yon." 
 
Cousin Pons, 373 
 
 *'Reetid." 
 
 Sehmucke paid not the slightest attention to the read- 
 ing of what was a general power of attorne}* ; and then 
 he signed it. The j^oung man took his orders for the 
 funeral, for the purchase of the ground where Sehmucke 
 wished the grave to be, and also for the services at the 
 church, assuring him that he should have no further 
 trouble, and that no demands for money should be made 
 upon him. 
 
 "To pe levd in beace, I vould gif all dat I boz-ezz," 
 said the unfortunate man, who once more knelt down 
 beside the body of his friend. 
 
 Fraisier triumphed ; the legatee could not make one 
 step outside the circle where the Sauvage and Villemot 
 now held him fast. 
 
 There is no grief that sleep cannot conquer. Towards 
 evening the Sauvage found Sehmucke lying asleep be- 
 side the bed on which the body of Pons was stretched ; 
 she carried him off, and laid him maternallj' in his own 
 bed, where he slept until the morrow. When he woke, 
 — that is to say when, after this truce, his sorrows re- 
 turned upon him, — the body of Pons was lying in the 
 porte-cochere, in the chapelle-ardente of a funeral of 
 the third class ; he sought his friend in vain throughout 
 the appartement, which seemed to him a vast loneliness 
 filled only with cruel memories. Madame Sauvage, 
 who managed Sehmucke with the authority of a nurse 
 over her suckling, compelled him to eat some breakfast 
 before starting for the church. While the poor victim 
 forced himself to swallow food, she called his attention, 
 with lamentations worthy of Jeremiah, to the fact that 
 he did not possess a black coat. Schmucke's wardrobe, 
 
374 Cousin Pons. 
 
 like his dinner, had come down, even before his friend's 
 illness, to its simplest expression, — two coats atid two 
 pairs of trousers. ^ 
 
 ' ' You are not going as you are to the funeral ? It 
 would be an abomination that would disgrace you. in 
 the neighborhood ! " 
 
 ' ' How moost I CO ? " 
 
 ''In black." 
 
 "Pla-ag!" 
 
 " Propriety requires — " 
 
 " Brobriedy ! I toan'd gare for any zooch non- 
 zenze," said the poor man, driven to the last pitch of 
 exasperation to which suffering can force a childlike 
 soul. 
 
 "Why, he's a monster of ingratitude!" cried the 
 Sauvage, turning to a man whose sudden appearance 
 in the room made Schmucke shudder. 
 
 This functionar}^, magnificently dressed in black 
 cloth, with black knee-breeches and black-silk stock- 
 ings, white cuffs, spotless white muslin cravat, white 
 gloves, and wearing a silver chain, from which hung 
 a medal, — an official of the type of those who conduct 
 all public obsequies, — held in his hand an ebony wand, 
 and, beneath his left arm, a three-cornered hat with a 
 tricolor cockade ; these were his insignia of office. 
 
 " I am the master of ceremonies," said this personage 
 in a soft voice. 
 
 Accustomed, in the daily exercise of his functions, to 
 manage funerals and enter families plunged in afflic- 
 tion, real or feigned, this man, in common with all his 
 colleagues, spoke in a low voice, gentl3\ He was 
 decent, civil, and seemly by profession, — like a statue 
 
Cousin Pons, 375 
 
 representing the Spirit of Deatli. This announcement 
 gave Schmiicke a nervous shock, as though he had seen 
 the executioner. 
 
 "Monsieur is the son, the brother, or the father of 
 the deceased ? " inquired the official. 
 
 " I am all dat, and more, — I am hees frent," said 
 Schmucke, with a burst of tears. 
 
 " Are 3'ou the heir? " asked the master of ceremonies. 
 
 "Heir!" repeated Schmucke; "I toan'd gare for 
 an3'ding in dis vorld." 
 
 " Where are the relations? " demanded the official. 
 
 " Here, all of dem ! " cried Schmucke, pointing to 
 the pictures and the curiosities. " Neffare, neffare 
 tid dese relachions mek mein goot Bons creef ! Here 
 ees all he lofed, mit me ! " 
 
 "He is crazy, monsieur," said the Sauvage to the 
 master of ceremonies ; " it is useless to listen to him." 
 
 Schmucke had reseated himself with an expression 
 that was once more idiotic, as he mechanically wiped 
 away his tears. At this moment Villemot, the head- 
 clerk of Monsieur Tabareau, appeared ; and the master 
 of ceremonies, recognizing the person who had called 
 to order the funeral, turned to him and said : — 
 
 "Well, monsieur, it is time to start: the hearse is 
 here ; but I have seldom seen such a procession as this 
 will be. Where are the relations and friends ? " 
 
 "We did not have much time," answered Monsieur 
 Villemot, "and this gentleman was plunged in such 
 grief that he could think of nothing ; there is only one 
 relation." 
 
 The master of ceremonies looked at Schmucke with 
 an expression of pitj^, for that expert in suffering was 
 
376 Counn Pons. 
 
 able to distinguish the true from the false ; and he went 
 close to him. 
 
 ''Come, my dear monsieur," he said; "think of 
 doing honor to your friend's memorj-." 
 
 " We have forgotten," said Villemot, "to send notices 
 of the funeral ; but I did take pains to send a messenger 
 to Monsieur Camusot de Marville, who is the relation 
 to whom I alluded. There are no friends, and I don't 
 suppose the compan}- of the theatre where the deceased 
 led the orchestra, intend to come. The gentleman is 
 left, I think, sole legatee." 
 
 " Then he must be chief mourner," said the master 
 of ceremonies. "Haven't you a black coat?" he 
 added, examining Schmucke's clothes. 
 
 "I am all pla-ag eenzite," said the poor German 
 in heart-rending tones; " zo pla-ag, zo pla-ag, I veel 
 'I am apoud to tie ! Gott vill haf merz}^ ubon me, and 
 u-naight me in der gra-afe mit meinem freund, — zo 
 vill I dank heem ! " 
 
 He clasped his hands. 
 
 " I have often told our administration, which has 
 already introduced such improvements," said the master 
 of ceremonies, addressing Villemot, "that it ought to 
 keep a mourning wardrobe and let out black garments 
 to the heirs ; it is a thing that is getting more and 
 more necessary every da^'. However, if monsieur is 
 the heir, he really must put on a mourning cloak, 
 and the one I have here will wrap him so completely 
 that no one will observe the impropriety^ of his dress. 
 Will 5^ou have the goodness to rise?" he said to 
 Schmucke. 
 
 Schmucke rose, but he tottered on his legs. 
 
Counn Pons, 377 
 
 *' Hold him up," said the master of ceremonies to the 
 head-clerk, " as 3'ou are his prox3\" 
 
 Villemot supported Schmucke by grasping him under 
 the arms, and the master of ceremonies caught up the 
 ample and horrible black mantle which they throw over 
 heirs when they follow the hearse on foot from the 
 house of death to the church, and fastened it around 
 Schmucke's neck by tying the black silk cords under his 
 chin. Schmucke was thus dul^^ apparelled as the heir. 
 
 "Now, here's another great difficulty," said the 
 master of ceremonies. ''We must have four persons 
 to hold the four corners of the pall. If there are no 
 friends, how are we to get pall-bearers? It is now 
 half-past ten," he added, looking at his watch ; '' the}- 
 are waiting for us at the church." 
 
 " Here comes Fraisier ! " cried Villemot, very impru- 
 dently-. 
 
 No one, however, took notice of this admission of 
 complicit}-. 
 
 " Who is the gentleman? " asked the master of cere- 
 monies. 
 
 " Oh ! he comes from the family." 
 
 "What family?" 
 
 " The disinherited family. He is the prox}^ of Mon- 
 sieur le president Camusot." 
 
 "Very good," said the master of ceremonies, in a 
 tone of satisfaction ; " we can at least have two of the 
 tassels held, — one by you, the other by him." 
 
 Satisfied by the fact of a couple of tassels being held, 
 the master of ceremonies fetched two splendid pairs of 
 white doeskin gloves, and presented them first to Frai- 
 sier, and then to Villemot, with a polite air. 
 
378 Cousin Pons, 
 
 *' Will these gentlemen be kind enough each to take 
 a corner of the pall ? " he said. 
 
 Fraisier, all in black, dressed with care, white cravat, 
 official demeanor, was enough to cause a shudder ; he 
 seemed to carry a hundred briefs. 
 
 *' Certainly, monsieur," he replied. 
 
 " If only two more persons would come," said the mas- 
 ter of ceremonies, " the four tassels could all be held." 
 
 At this moment the indefatigable agent for the house 
 of Sonet & Co. made his appearance, followed b}^ the 
 onh^ man who had thought of Pons and wished to pay 
 him the last duties. This was a jack-of-all-work at the 
 theatre named Topinard, whose business it was, among 
 other things, to lay out the scores on the desks in the 
 orchestra, and to whom Pons gave a monthly gratuit}' 
 of five francs, knowing him to be the father of a family. 
 
 " Ah ! Dobinard," cried Schmucke, recognizing him ; 
 *'youlofedBons!" 
 
 .*'Yes, monsieur, and I have called every da}^ to 
 inquire for him — " 
 
 "Effry tay? Boor Dobinard!" said Schmucke, 
 grasping him by the hand. 
 
 ''Perhaps they took me for a relation, for they 
 treated me very ill. It was no use saying I came 
 from the theatre and wanted to know how Monsieur 
 Pons was ; they said the}^ were up to such dodges. I 
 begged them to let me see the poor sick gentleman, but 
 they would n't let me come up." 
 
 "Dat in-varaooz Zipod ! " said Schmucke, pressing 
 the horny hand of the man-of-all-work to his heart. 
 
 " He was a king of men, that good Monsieur Pons. 
 He gave me a hundred sous every month ; he knew 1 
 
Cousin Pons. 379 
 
 was poor, and had three children and a wife. My wife 
 has gone to the church." 
 
 " I vill ti-fite my lasd gruzd mit 3'ou," cried Schmucke, 
 in his joy at having some one near him who loved Pons. 
 
 "Will monsieur take one of the tassels?" said the 
 master of ceremonies ; " that makes up the four pall- 
 bearers." 
 
 The runner for the house of Sonet had been easily 
 persuaded to take a tassel, more especialh' when he saw 
 the fine pair of gloves which, according to custom, was 
 to be his perquisite. 
 
 "It is a quarter to eleven! we must start immedi- 
 ately ; the}' are waiting at the cliurch," said the master 
 of ceremonies. 
 
 The six persons descended the stairs. 
 
 " Close the door of the appartement, and stay in- 
 side," said Fraisier to the two women, who were stand- 
 ing on the landing. "Mind what I say, if you wish 
 to keep the place, Madame Cantinet I It is forty sous 
 a-day for 3'ou." 
 
 By an accident, which is not at all uncommon in 
 Paris, there were two coffins under the porte-cochere, 
 and, consequentl}', two funeral processions, — that of 
 Cibot, the defunct concierge, and that of Pons. No 
 one appeared to pa}^ a tribute of affection to the hand- 
 some catafalque of the friend of art, but all the door- 
 keepers of the neighborhood flocked to sprinkle the 
 mortal remains of their comrade with holy water. This 
 contrast between the crowd assembled to do honor to 
 Cibot and the solitude around the coffin of Pons, was 
 noticeable not only in the house and the porte-cochere, 
 but also in the street, where no one followed Pons 
 
380 Cousin Pons. 
 
 except Schmucke, who was supported by an undertaker's 
 assistant, for he came near fainting at every step. From 
 the rue de Normandie to the rue d'Oileans, where the 
 church of Saint-Frangois stands, the processions passed 
 between two hedges of curious spectators ; for, as we 
 have ah'eady said, everything is an event in that quiet 
 quarter of Paris. People remarked upon the splendor 
 of the white hearse (from which hung an escutcheon 
 with a large P embroidered upon it), and the singular 
 fact that only one man followed it, while the simple 
 coffin of the cheapest class of funeral was accompanied 
 by an immense crowd. Schmucke was fortunately so 
 bewildered by the heads at the windows, and the hedges 
 of gaping people through which he passed, that he heard 
 nothing, and only saw the concourse through a veil of 
 tears. 
 
 '' Ah ! it's a Nut-cracker," said one, " the musician ; 
 don't you know ? " 
 
 " Who are those pall-bearers?" 
 
 ''Bah! only actors!" 
 
 " Look ! Here comes the procession of poor Pere 
 Cibot ! Eh ! there 's a hard-worker gone ; what a 
 drudge he was, to be sure ! " 
 
 " He was always at home, that man I '* 
 
 " He never took a holida}' ! " 
 
 " How he did love his wife ! " 
 
 ''Poor woman ! " 
 
 Remonencq was following his victim's coffin, and re- 
 ceiving condolences on the loss of his neighbor. 
 
 The two processions arrived at the church, where 
 Cantinet had arranged with the verger that none of the 
 beggars should speak to Schmucke. Villemot had 
 
Cousin Pons. 381 
 
 promised the heir that he should be left in peace, and 
 he kept his word hy watching over him and pa} ing all 
 the minor charges. The humble funeral of Cibot, fol- 
 lowed by sixty to eighty persons, was escorted hy the 
 whole concourse to the cemetery. When the funeral of 
 Pons left the church, four mourning-coaches were in 
 waiting, — one for the clergy, the three others for the re- 
 lations ; only one, however, was required, for the runner 
 had departed during the service to apprise Monsieur 
 Sonet of the approaching procession, in order that he 
 might be on hand to present the design and the estimate 
 for the monument as soon as the legatee left the grave. 
 Fraisier, Villemot, Schmucke, and Topinard occupied 
 the first coach, and the two other coaches, instead of 
 returning to their establishment, went empty to Fere- 
 Lachaise. This needless trip of empty carriages often 
 occurs. Wlien deceased persons have no celebrity, and 
 therefore attract few mourners, there are always too 
 many carriages. Dead men need to have been beloved 
 when living to be followed to the grave in Paris, where 
 everybody wants to find a twenty-fifth hour among the 
 twent3'-four. But the drivers of the funeral coaclies 
 would lose their drink-mone}' if they failed to make their 
 appearance ; and so the carriages go, full or empty, to 
 the church and to the cemeteiy, and return to the liouse 
 of death, where the coachmen ask for their gratuities. 
 We little imagine how many persons thrive on a death. 
 The lower clergy, the poor of the church, the under- 
 takers' men, the drivers of the coaches, the grave-diggers, 
 all such spongy natures, swell out after a funeral. 
 
 From the church, where the heir was assailed, as 
 he left it, by a flock of paupers, who were immediately 
 
382 Cousin P.ons. 
 
 repressed by the verger, to the grave in Pere-Lachaise, 
 poor Schmucke went as criminals go from the Palais- 
 de-Justice to the place de Greve. He was conducting, 
 as it were, his own funeral, holding by the hand the 
 jack-of-all-work, Topinard, the sole being who had 
 felt in his heart a real regret for the death of Pons. 
 Topinard, extremely touched b}^ the honor of being 
 made a pall-bearer, and pleased at driving in a carriage 
 and possessing a pair of white gloves, began to feel that 
 Pons's funeral was one. of the greatest events of his life. 
 Sunken in grief, sustained only by contact with a hand 
 that represented a heart, Schmucke let himself be 
 rolled along like those miserable calves which we see 
 carried in carts to the slaughter-house. On the forward 
 seat of the carriage sat Fraisier and Villemot. Every- 
 body who has had the misfortune to accompany friends 
 and relations to their last resting-place is aware that 
 all hypocrisy is laid aside in the funeral coaches on the 
 road, often verj- long, between the church and the east- 
 ern cemetery, — that particular Parisian cemetery where 
 all vanities, all luxuries, and all sumptuous monuments 
 seem to have mustered. The non-afflicted people begin 
 the conversation, and the most afflicted end by listening 
 to, and then sharing it. 
 
 "Monsieur de Marville had started for the Palais," 
 said Fraisier to Villemot, " and I did not think it worth 
 while to drag him from the court-room ; he would have 
 got here too late, in an}' case. As he is the natural and 
 legal heir, though disinherited in favor of Monsieur 
 Schmucke, I thought it sufficient if I were present my- 
 self, as his proxy." 
 
 Topinard began to listen. 
 
Cousin Pons, 383 
 
 * ' Who is that queer fellow who made the fourth 
 pall-bearer? " said Fraisier to Villemot. 
 
 " He 's tlie agent for a firm that puts up monuments 
 and tombstones, and he wants to get an order for a 
 tomb, on which he proposes to carve three marble 
 figures, Music, Painting, and Sculpture, weeping over 
 the deceased." 
 
 " That's quite an idea," returned Fraisier ; " the old 
 man deserves something of the kind. But such a monu- 
 ment would cost at least from seven to eight thousand 
 francs." 
 ' *' Oh ! at least." 
 
 " If Monsieur Schmucke gives the order, they can't 
 recover payment out of the property, for, if so, it might 
 be eaten up in such expenses." 
 
 " They '11 bring a suit, and win it." 
 
 " Well, that will be Schmucke's affair. It would be 
 a good trick to play those fellows," said Fraisier in a 
 low voice ; "for when the will is broken, and I '11 an- 
 swer for that, — or if there should be no will at all, — 
 how are they to get their money ? " 
 
 Villemot laughed sl^ly. The man of law and the 
 head-clerk spoke in whispers or in low tones ; but de- 
 spite the noise of the wheels and other hindrances, 
 Topinard, accustomed to guess at meanings in the 
 green-room, discovered that the two lawyers were plot- 
 ting to drive the poor German to the wall, and he 
 finally heard a significant mention of Clichy, the debt- 
 ors' prison. From that moment the worthy and faith- 
 ful servant of the drama resolved to keep watch over 
 the friend of Pons. 
 
 At the cemetery, where, thanks to the agent of the 
 
384 Cousin Pons. 
 
 Maison Sonet, Villemot had bought ten feet of ground 
 from the administration, announcing that a fine monu- 
 ment would be erected on it, Schmucke was led b}^ 
 the master of ceremonies through a crowd of idlers to 
 the grave, into which the body was about to be lowered. 
 But when he saw the square hole, over which four men 
 were holding the coffin of Pons, suspended by ropes, 
 while the priest was saying the last praj'er, Schmucke's 
 heart died within him, and he fainted away. 
 
Cousin Pons, " 385 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 IN WHICH WE SEE THAT WHAT IS CALLED COMING INTO 
 POSSESSION OF PROPERTY MAY MEAN DISPOSSESSION. 
 
 TopiNARD, assisted hy the agent of the house of 
 Sonet and by Monsieur Sonet himself, carried poor 
 Schmucke to the establishment of the marble-cutter, 
 where the kindest and most generous attentions were 
 showered on him by Madame Sonet and Madame 
 Vitelot, wife of Monsieur Sonet's partner. 
 
 In about an hour — that is, at half-past two — the poor 
 innocent German recovered his senses. He fancied 
 that he had been dreaming for two days, and thought 
 he should wake up and find Pons living. So many 
 damp cloths were on his head, and the people about 
 him were putting so much salts and vinegar to his nose, 
 that he opened his eyes. Madame Sonet forced him to 
 drink sope good strong broth, for the pot-au-feu was 
 simmering at the monumental establishment. 
 
 " We don't often meet with customers who show such 
 deep feeling," remarked Madame Sonet; " though we 
 do see them, now and then, in a king's reign." 
 
 At last Schmucke spoke of returning to the rue de 
 Normandie. 
 
 " Monsieur," said Sonet, " here is the design which 
 my partner Vitelot made expressl}^ for 3'Ou ; he sat up 
 all night to do it. He was truly inspired ; it will be a 
 fine thing." 
 
886 Cousin Pons. 
 
 " One of the finest things in P^re-Lachaise," said 
 little Madame Sonet. ' ' You are right to honor the 
 memor}' of a friend who has left 30U his whole fortune." 
 
 This tombstone, " designed expressl}^ " for Pons, had 
 originally been prepared for de Marsa^^ the famous 
 minister ; but his widow preferred to intrust his monu- 
 ment to Stidmann, and the design of the marble-cutters 
 had found no sale, for people in general have a horror 
 of ready-made monuments. The three figures origi- 
 nally represented the days in July when that great 
 minister distinguished himself. Since then Sonet and 
 Vitelot had turned the three " glorieuses," ^ with cer- 
 tain modifications, into Army, Finance, and Family, as 
 a suitable monument for Charles Keller ; but his heirs 
 also preferred to have one executed by Stidmann. 
 For the last eleven years the design had been adapted 
 to ever}' possible familj^ circumstance, and on this occa- 
 sion Vitelot had transformed the three figures into 
 Music, Painting, and Sculpture. 
 
 " The cost is really nothing, when we consider the 
 details and the masonry, which will take six months," 
 said Vitelot. *' Monsieur, here is the estimate, and the 
 contract, — seven thousand francs ; of course not includ- 
 ing the quarrying — " 
 
 " If monsieur wishes marble," said Sonet, who was 
 more particularly^ a marble-cutter, " it will cost twelve 
 thousand, and monsieur will immortalize himself as 
 well as his friend." 
 
 '' I have just heard that the will is to be contested/* 
 whispered Topinard to Vitelot, '' and that the heirs are 
 
 1 Les Glorieuses : popular name for the three days* Revolution of 1830, 
 which were called " glorieuses " in the official language of the time. — Tr. 
 
Cousin Pons. 387 
 
 certain to recover the property ; you had better go and 
 see Monsieur Camusot de Marville, for this poor inno- 
 cent won't have a penn}^" 
 
 '* You are always bringing us customers like that ! '* 
 said Madame Vitelot angrily to the runner, beginning a 
 dispute. 
 
 Topinard took Schmucke back to the rue de Norman- 
 die on foot, for the carriages had alread}^ returned there. 
 
 '' Toan'd leaf me ! " said Schmucke to Topinard. 
 
 Topinard wished to go away after consigning 
 Schmucke to the hands of Madame Sauvage. 
 
 "It is four o'clock, m}^ dear Monsieur Schmucke, 
 and I must go and get my dinner ; my wife, who is a 
 box-opener, won't know what has become of me. You 
 know the theatre opens at a quarter to six." 
 
 " Yez, I know; pud joost dink! I am aloan in de 
 vorld, I haf no frent. You, who lofed Bons and 
 mourned for heems, inzdrugd me, dell me vat I moost 
 do ; my mindt ees targ as naight, and Bons delled me I 
 vas zurrountet mit zgountrels." 
 
 " I saw that myself," said Topinard, " and I've pre- 
 vented them from putting you to bed in Clichy." 
 
 " Gligy?" cried Schmucke ; *' I toan'd unterztant." 
 
 *' Poor man ! well, don't be troubled ; I'll come and 
 see you again ; good-b3'e." 
 
 " Atieu ; redurn zoon," said Schmucke, dropping 
 down, almost dead with weariness. 
 
 " Adieu, monsieur ! " said Madame Sauvage to Topi- 
 nard in a tone that struck that dramatic observer as 
 peculiar. 
 
 '-'- Well, what's the matter with joxxV he said, jok- 
 ing ; ' ' you stand there like the traitor in a melodrama J " 
 
388 Cousin Pons. 
 
 " Traitor j^ourself ! What are 3'ou poking your nose 
 into? Don't you go and meddle with monsieur's affairs 
 and play him false." 
 
 " Play him false, scullion ! " replied Topinard scorn- 
 fully. " I am only a poor worker at a theatre ; but 
 1 belong to artists, and I'd have you know I ask 
 nothing from any one. Did I ask 3'ou for anything? 
 What have I to do with jou, hey, old woman ? " 
 
 "You belong to the theatre, do you? Praj^ what's 
 3'our name ? " said the virago. 
 
 " Topinard, at 3'our service.'* . 
 
 ' ' That 's all I want to know. My compliments to 
 medeme 3'our wife, if monsieur is married — " 
 
 " Wh}^, what's the matter, my dear?" said Madame 
 Cantinet, who came in just at this moment. 
 
 "This is the matter, — that j^ou are going to stay 
 here and look after Monsieur Schmucke, and I 'm going 
 to kick that fellow downstairs — " 
 
 '' He 's downstairs already ; I hear him talking with 
 that poor Madame Cibot, who is shedding all the tears 
 in her body," said Madame Cantinet. 
 
 The Sauvage rushed down the stairway with such 
 rapidity that the stairs shook under her feet. 
 
 "Monsieur!" she said to Fraisier, drawing him a 
 few steps away from Madame Cibot. 
 
 She pointed to Topinard at the moment when that 
 worthy man was departing, proud of having paid his 
 debt to his benefactor by hindering, with a craft worthy 
 of the side-scenes (where every one is more or less 
 roguish), the friend of Pons from falling into a trap. 
 Moreover, he resolved to protect the pianist of his or- 
 chestra against all the^snares that might be set for him. 
 
Cousin Pons, 389 
 
 "Do you see that little wretch?" said the Sauvage 
 to Fraisier. ' ' He has been poking his nose into Mon- 
 sieur Schmucke's affairs." 
 
 '' Who is he? " asked Fraisier. 
 
 ''Oh! a nobody." 
 
 '' There is no such thing as a nobody in business." 
 
 *' Well," she said, "he is a man belonging to Mon- 
 sieur Schmucke's theatre, named Topinard." 
 
 " Very good, Madame Sauvage. Go on as 3'ou are 
 doing now, and 3'ou shall have 3'our tobacco license." 
 And Fraisier went back to his conversation with 
 Madame Cibot. 
 
 " As I was saj'ing, my dear client, 3'ou have not 
 played fair with us, and we are not bound to keep terms 
 with an associate who deceives us." 
 
 " How have I deceived you? " said the Cibot, putting 
 her hands on her hips. " Do 3'ou think you can 
 frighten me with 3'our sour looks and 3'our snak3' wa3^s ? 
 You are only hunting for bad reasons to break your 
 promises. And you call 3'ourself an honest man ! Do 
 you know what you are ? You 're the scum of the earth ! 
 Ha! the cap fits, does it? Put that in your pipe, and 
 smoke it ! " 
 
 "Don't get angry, my dear," said Fraisier. " Lis- 
 ten to me. You have made your private haul. This 
 morning, while waiting upstairs for the funeral to 
 start, I found this catalogue, in duplicate, written 
 throughout in Monsieur Pons's ow^n hand, and my e3'es 
 chanced to fall upon this item." 
 
 He opened the manuscript catalogue, and read as 
 follows : — 
 
390 Cousin Pons. 
 
 *' No. 7. Magnificent portrait, painted on marble by 
 'Sebastian del Piombo in 154^5 ; sold by a family who took 
 it from the cathedral of Terni. This portrait (which 
 formerly had a companion portrait of a bishop, which \Yas 
 bought by an Englishman) represents a Knight of Malta 
 in prayer, and was placed over the tomb of the Rossi family. 
 If it were not for the date, this picture might be attributed 
 to Raphael. It seems to me superior to the portrait of 
 Baccio BandinelU in the Musee, which is a little injured; 
 whereas this Knight of Malta has a freshness of color due 
 to the preservation of painting on lavagna (slate).'* 
 
 " When I looked," resumed Fraisier, " at the place of 
 No. 7 I saw there the portrait of a lady, signed Chardin, 
 and no No. 7 at all ! While the master of ceremonies 
 was completing the number of his pall-bearers, I 
 verified all the pictures, and I found eight substitutions 
 of common pictures, without numbers, for works named 
 as celebrities by the late Monsieur Pons, which are 
 no longer in the collection. There is also missing a 
 little picture on wood by Metzu, which is designated 
 as a masterpiece." 
 
 " Was I the keeper of the pictures?" demanded the 
 Cibot. 
 
 '' No, but you were the confidential housekeeper, and 
 attended to all Monsieur Pons's affairs ; and if there has 
 been a robbery — " 
 
 "Robbery! You will please understand, monsieur, 
 once for all, that the pictures were sold by Monsieur 
 Schmucke, under the orders of Monsieur Pons, to meet 
 their expenses." 
 
 "Sold to whom?" 
 
 " Messieurs Elie Magus and Remonencq." 
 
 "For how much? " 
 
Cousin Fans. 391 
 
 " I don't recollect." 
 
 " Listen to me, m}^ dear Madame Cibot. You have 
 lined j'oiir pockets pretty well, and they are full," 
 resumed Fraisier. '' I 've got my eye on you ; you are 
 in my power. Serve me well, and I will be silent ! In 
 any case, j'ou will please understand that you are to 
 receive nothing from Monsieur de Marville, inasmuch 
 as 3'ou have thought proper to rob him." 
 
 " I knew very well, m}^ dear Monsieur Fraisier, that 
 I should be left out in the cold," answered the Cibot, 
 softened by the promise of silence. 
 
 " Look here ! " said Remonencq, who now showed 
 himself, ' ' are you picking a quarrel with madame ? That 
 is n't fair ! The sale of the pictures was made on a 
 mutual agreement among Monsieur Pons, Monsieur 
 Magus, and myself; it was three days before the 
 deceased would come to an agreement, for he actually 
 dreamed of those pictures. We have the receipts all in 
 order ; and if we gave, as we did, a few fortj'-franc 
 pieces to madame, she onl}^ got what it is the custom to 
 give in all the middle-class houses where we conclude a 
 bargain. My good monsieur, if you are tr3ing to cheat 
 a defenceless woman, 3'ou've come to the wrong shop. 
 Do you hear me, trickster and sharper that you are? 
 Monsieur Magus is master of the whole affair. And if 
 you don't draw it gently with madame here, and if \ou 
 don't paj' her what you promised, I will go to the sale 
 of the collection ; and you '11 see what 3'ou '11 lose if j-ou 
 have Monsieur Magus and me against 3'ou. We could 
 stir up the dealers ; and instead of getting eight hun- 
 dred thousand francs, you would not get two hundred 
 thousand." 
 
392 Cousin Pons, 
 
 "Very good, very good; we'll see about that!" 
 said Fraisier. " We won't sell at all, or we will sell in 
 London." 
 
 " We know London ! " cried Remonencq. " Monsieur 
 Magus is as powerful in London as he is in Paris." 
 
 "Adieu, madame ; I'll pluck 3:our feathers," said 
 Fraisier to Madame Cibot, "unless you obey me — 
 always," he added. 
 
 " You little sharper ! " she screamed. 
 
 "Take care !" said Fraisier; "I'm to he Juge-de- 
 paix." 
 
 They parted with menaces which were well under- 
 stood on both sides. 
 
 "Thank jow, Remonencq," said the Cibot; "it's a 
 good thing for a poor widow to find a protector." 
 
 That evening, about ten o'clock, Gaudissard sent for 
 Topinard to come to his private room at the theatre. 
 Gaudissard, standing before the fireplace, took the 
 Napoleonic attitude he was fond of assuming now 
 that he directed a whole world of actors, dancers, 
 musicians, and machinists, and negotiated treaties with 
 authors. He habitually slipped his right hand into his 
 waistcoat and grasped his left suspender, holding his 
 head at a three-quarter profile and casting his glance 
 into the void. 
 
 ' ' Ha ! Topinard, have you property to live upon ? " 
 
 "No, monsieur." 
 
 " Are you looking out for some place that's better 
 than the one you are in ? " 
 
 " No, monsieur," answered the hireling, turning 
 pale. 
 
Cousin Pons. 893 
 
 *' What the devil do you want, then? Your wife is 
 box-opener on the first tier, — I let her keep that posi- 
 tion out of respect for my predecessor ; I gave you the 
 job of cleaning the lamps of the side-scenes during 
 the day ; you have charge of the orchestra and the 
 scores at night. And that's not all! you get twenty 
 sous extra pay for all the goblins, and for marshalling 
 the devils when there 's a hell. It is a place every man 
 in your position ought to covet, — and it is coveted, 
 my good friend, in this theatre, where you have got 
 enemies — " 
 
 " Enemies ! " cried Topinard. 
 
 *' You have three children, and the eldest plays the 
 juvenile parts at fifty centimes — " 
 
 "Monsieur!" 
 
 " Let me speak ! " said Gaudissard in a thundering 
 voice. " In such a position as that, you wish to quit 
 the theatre — " 
 
 '' Monsieur! " 
 
 " You choose to meddle with other people's business, 
 and stick your finger into wills and legacies ! But, you 
 fool, 3'ou '11 be crushed like an Qgg ! I have his Excel- 
 lenc}' Monseigneur le Comte Popinot for m^^ protectory 
 a man of intelligence and high character, whom the 
 King in his wisdom has called to a place in the Council. 
 This statesman, this high political power, — I speak of 
 Comte Popinot, — has married his son to the daughtei 
 of Monsieur Camusot de Marville, one of our most im^ 
 portant and most respected judges, the chief luminary' 
 of the law at the Palais. You know the Palais dc 
 Justice? Well, this judge is the heir of his Cousin 
 Pons, the late leader of our orchestra, to whose funeral 
 
394 Cousin Pons. 
 
 3'ou went this morning. I don't blame you for paying 
 the last duties to that poor man. But you won't keep 
 your place here if you go and meddle in the affairs of 
 the worthy Monsieur Schmucke, to whom I wish well, 
 but who will find himself in hot water with the family 
 of Pons. Now, as this German is nothing at all to me, 
 and as Comte Popinot and Monsieur de MarA^Ue are a 
 great deal to me, I advise you to let the excellent Mon- 
 sieur Schmucke disentangle his own affairs. There 's a 
 special God for Germans, and 3'ou 'd make a very poor 
 sub-God. Take my advice, and stay what you are ; 
 you can't do better." 
 
 ''Enough, monsieur le directeur!" said Topinard, 
 nearly heart-broken. 
 
 Schmucke, who expected all the next day to see 
 Topinard, the only being who had shed a tear for Pons, 
 thus lost the protector whom chance had seemed to 
 bestow upon him. The poor German woke on the mor- 
 row to a sense of his great loss as he gazed on the 
 emptj^ appartement. During the preceding days, the 
 events and the bustle attending death had produced 
 around him the excitement and stir which insensibly 
 distract the e^^e. But the silence that follows the de- 
 parture of a friend, a father, a son, a beloved wife to 
 the tomb, the cold and dreary silence of the morrow, is 
 terrible, it is glacial. Led hy an irresistible influence 
 into the chamber of his friend, the poor man could not 
 endure its aspect ; he drew back and returned to the 
 dining-room, where Madame Sauvage was serving break- 
 fast. He sat down, but could not eat. Suddenly the 
 bell rang rather loudly, and three men in black ap- 
 peared, for whom Madame Cantinet and Madame 
 
Cousin Pons. 395 
 
 Sauvage made wa}-. The first was Monsieur Vitel, 
 juge-de-2mix ; the second, his clerk ; while Fraisier 
 brought up the rear, more harsh and bitter than ever, 
 having just encountered the disappointment of hearing 
 that there was another will, legallj^ drawn, which an- 
 nulled the first document, the powerful weapon he had 
 so audaciously stolen. 
 
 "We have come, monsieur," said the. jug e-cle-paix 
 to Schmucke, gently, " to aflfix the seals." 
 
 Schmucke, to whom these words were Greek, gazed 
 at the three men with a frightened air. 
 
 " We have come at the request of Monsieur Fraisier, 
 barrister, the proxy of Monsieur Camusotde Marville, the 
 heir of his cousin, the late Sieur Pons," added the clerk. 
 
 " The collection is there, in that large salon, and in 
 the bedroom of the deceased," said Fraisier. 
 
 " Ver}^ good ; then we will pass on. Excuse us, 
 monsieur ; go on with your breakfast," said the justice. 
 
 The invasion of the three men in black had stiffened 
 Schmucke with terror. 
 
 " This gentleman," said Fraisier, fixing on Schmucke 
 one of those venomous glances with which he mag- 
 netized his victim just as a spider magnetizes a fl}', 
 " this gentleman, who has contrived to get a will made 
 in his favor before a notarj^ must expect to meet with 
 opposition from the rightful heirs. No famil}^ will per- 
 mit a stranger to rob them without making resistance ; 
 and we shall see, monsieur, which will carry the day, — 
 fraud and corruption, or family ties. We have the 
 right, as the legitimate heirs, to demand that the seals 
 be affixed. I shall watch that this protective act be 
 performed with the utmost rigor ; and it will be." 
 
396 Cousin Pons. 
 
 "Mein Gott! mein Gott! vat grime haf I gommid- 
 ded accainst heffen ? " said the innocent Schmucke. 
 
 "There's a deal of talk about you in the house," 
 said the Sauvage. "While 3'ou were asleep a little 
 fellow dressed all in black, a mere pupp3% the head- 
 clerk of Monsieur Hannequin, was here. He insisted 
 on seeing you ; but as you were sleeping, and worn 
 out after the ceremonies of yesterdaj', 1 told him 
 you tad given a power of attorne}- to Monsieur Ville- 
 mot, the head-clerk of Monsieur Tabareau, and that if 
 he had come on business he had better go and see him. 
 ' Ah ! ver}^ good,' he said ; ' I can come to an under- 
 standing with him : we are going to deposit the will, after 
 showing it to the president.' So I asked him to send 
 Monsieur Villemot here as soon as he could. Don't be 
 anxious, monsieur," she added, "3'ou have plenty of 
 people to defend 3'our rights. They can't shear the 
 wool from your back. You 've got somebody behind 
 you with claws and teeth. Monsieur Villemot will send 
 'em to the right-about. As for me, I have been in such 
 a passion with that horrid Ma'ame Cibot, who presumes 
 to judge her masters ! She declares you 've filched the 
 propertj' from the heirs, and that you locked up Mon- 
 sieur Pons and made a tool of him ; she says he was 
 out of his mind. But I avenged you on her finely, the 
 wretch ! ' You 're a thief and a low deceiver ! ' I said 
 to her, ' and 3'ou '11 be sent to the assizes for the things 
 3'ou 've stolen from your gentleman,' — that stopped 
 her mouth, I can tell 3'Ou." 
 
 "Does monsieur wish to be present when the seals 
 are affixed in the bedroom of the deceased ? " said the 
 clerk, coming back to fetch Schmucke. 
 
Cousin Pons. 397 
 
 "No, no!" said Schmucke ; ''led me aloan, led 
 me tie in beace ! " 
 
 " People have the right to die as the}^ like," said the 
 clerk, laughing, "and our chief business is with the 
 property they leave behind them ; but we seldom see 
 the heir of all following the testator to the grave, and 
 dying with him ! " 
 
 " I am tying, mit heems," said Schmucke, who felt, 
 after so many blows, an intolerable anguish in his 
 heart. 
 
 "Ah! here comes Monsieur Villemot," cried the 
 Sauvage. 
 
 " Monsir Fillemod," said the poor German, " bleaze 
 to rebrezend me." 
 
 "Instantly," said the head-clerk; "I came to tell 
 3'ou that the will is all in order, and will certainl}- be 
 admitted by the court, which will put you at once into 
 possession. You will have a fine property." 
 
 "Broberdy! I — " cried Schmucke, in despair at 
 being thought to care for it. 
 
 "Meantime," said the Sauvage, "what's that Juge- 
 de-paix doing in there, with his candles and his little 
 bits of wire ribbon ? " 
 
 "Ah! he is affixing the seals. Come, Monsieur 
 Schmucke, you have the right to be present." 
 
 "No; bleaze go yourzelv." 
 
 " But why does he put on the seals, if monsieur is in 
 his own home and the property belongs to him ? " de- 
 manded the Sauvage, making the law for herself, like 
 all women, who interpret the Code to suit their fancy. 
 
 "Monsieur is not in his own home, but in that of 
 Monsieur Pons," said Villemot. " It will all belong to 
 
398 Cousin Pons. 
 
 him, no rlonbt ; but a legatee can take the property only 
 b}^ what we call ^ a mandate of possession,' and that is 
 issued by the court. If the dispossessed legal heirs 
 contest the mandate, then a suit is brought ; and as it 
 is doubtful what decision ma}^ be rendered, seals are 
 affixed to the property, and the notaries of the heirs 
 and of the legatee proceed to make the inventory during 1 
 the dela}' required by law. That's how it is." 
 
 Hearing this legal jargon for the first time in his 
 life, Schmucke's head completel}^ gave way ; it felt too 
 heavy to hold up any longer, and he let it fall upon the 
 back of the arm-chair in which he was sitting. Villemot 
 went to talk with the justice and his clerk, and assist, 
 with the coolness of a practised hand, in affixing the 
 seals, — which, if the heirs are not present, is seldom 
 accomplished without a few jests and observations on 
 the articles that are thus fastened up until the time 
 comes for their distribution. At last the four lawj'ers 
 closed the salon and returned to the dining-room, where 
 the clerk continued his work. Schmucke mechanically 
 watched the operation, which consists in sealing with < 
 the official seal of the juge-de-paix a wire ribbon to 
 each leaf of the door, if it is a folding-door, or from 
 the door-panels to the wall-partitions when the single ' 
 doors of the rooms and closets are to be closed. 
 
 " Let us go into this room," said Fraisier, pointing to 
 Schmucke's bedroom. 
 
 " But that 's monsieur's own room," said the Sauvage, 
 springing forward, and putting herself between the 
 law3'ers and the door. 
 
 '' Here is the lease of the appartement," said the 
 odious Fraisier ; "we found it among the papers. It 
 
Cousin Pons. 399 
 
 Is not made out in the name of Pons and Schmucke, it 
 is in the name of Monsieur Pons onl3^ This apparte- 
 ment is part of the property ; and besides — " He 
 added, opening the door of Schraucke's room, "See, 
 monsieur le juge, it is full of pictures." 
 
 ''So it is," said the juge-de-paix^ giving in to 
 Fraisier at once. 
 
400 Cousin Pon%. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 THE FRUITS OF FRAISIER. 
 
 " Stop a moment, gentlemen," cried Villemot. " Do 
 you think that you are going to turn the legatee out 
 of doors when his rights are nothing more than 
 contested ? " 
 
 "Yes, yes!" exclaimed Fraisier ; "we forbid the 
 delivery of the legacy." 
 
 " Under what pretext? " 
 
 " You '11 soon know all about it, my little man ! " said 
 Fraisier, jeering^. " At this stage of the proceedings 
 we won't prevent the legatee from withdrawing all arti- 
 cles personally belonging to him in this chamber, but 
 the room will then be sealed up. Monsieur can go and 
 lodge where he likes." 
 
 "No," said Villemot; "monsieur will stay in his 
 own room ! " 
 
 " How will 3^ou manage it?" 
 
 " I will make application before the court and bring 
 proof that he is part-tenant of this appartement, and 
 that you cannot turn him out. Take away the pic- 
 tures and decide on what belonged to the deceased and 
 what belongs to m}" client, if you like ; but my client 
 will stay here, my little man ! " cried Villemot. 
 
 "I vill leaf!" said Schmucke, whose energ}- came 
 back to him as he listened to the horrible dispute. 
 
 *' You had better," said Fraisier; " you will escape 
 
Cousin Pons, 401 
 
 costs, for 3'ou could n't win a suit. The lease to Mon- 
 sieur Pons is formall}" made out." 
 
 ''The lease! the lease!" cried Villemot; "it is a 
 matter of equit}^ and good faith." 
 
 *' You can't prove it, as in criminal cases, by testi- 
 mon}'. Are 3'ou going to rush into questions of tenure, 
 and get interlocutory judgments, and bring a suit?" 
 said Fraisier. 
 
 " No, no ! " cried Schmucke, terrified ; " I gif ub ; I 
 vill moof oud ; I vill leaf de house." 
 
 Schmucke's life was that of a philosopher, cynical 
 without knowing it, reduced as it was to its simplest 
 expression. He possessed only two pairs of shoes, one 
 pair of boots, two complete suits of clothes, twelve 
 shirts, twelve silk handkerchiefs, twelve pocket-hand- 
 kerchiefs, four waistcoats, and a superb pipe, which 
 Pons had given him, with an embroidered tobacco- 
 pouch. Roused to action by a fever of indignation, he 
 went into his room, gathered up his belongings, and laid 
 them on a chair. 
 
 *' All dat ees mine," he said, with a simplicity 
 worthy of Cincinnatus ; " de biano ees alzo mine." 
 
 " Madame," said Fraisier to the Sauvage, " get some 
 man to help you, and put these things and the piano 
 out on the landing." 
 
 "You are too harsh," said Villemot to Fraisier. 
 " The juge-de-paix is the one to give such orders ; he 
 is master of this affair." 
 
 "There is property there," said the clerk, pointing 
 to the bedroom. 
 
 " And, moreover," observed the justice, " monsieur 
 leaves of liis own free-will." 
 
 26 
 
402 Cousin Pons. 
 
 ' ' Did I ever see such a client ! " exclaimed Villemot, 
 turning on Schmucke indignantly ; " 3'ou are as limp as 
 a rag ! " 
 
 " Vat gan it madder vare I tie ? " said Schmucke, turn- 
 ing to go. " Dese men, dey loog ad me laike di-gars. 
 I vill zent for my boor dings," he added. 
 
 " Where is monsieur going? " 
 
 " Var-effer it bleazes Gott," said the heir of all, with 
 a gesture of profound indifference. 
 
 " Let me know where," said Villemot. 
 
 " Follow him," whispered Fraisier to the head-clerk. 
 
 Madame Cantinet was appointed guardian of the 
 seals and of the moneys found on the premises, receiv- 
 ing an allowance of fifty francs. 
 
 " It is all going right," said Fraisier to Vitel, the Juge- 
 de-20(nx, when Schmucke had departed. " If 3'ou intend 
 to resign 3'our position in my favor, go and see Madame 
 de Marville, and come to an understanding with her." 
 
 " That man is made of butter ! " said Vitel, pointing 
 to Schmucke, who was standing in the court-3'ard, looking 
 up for the last time at the windows of the appartement. 
 
 "Yes, h^ can't resist!" said Fraisier. "You may 
 safely marry your little daughter to Poulain ; the doctor 
 is to be surgeon-in-chief of the Quinze-Vingts." 
 
 "We'll see about it. Adieu, Monsieur Fraisier!" 
 said the juge-de-paix in a tone of fellowship. 
 
 " That 's a man of resources," said the justice's clerk ; 
 "he '11 go far, that cur! " 
 
 It was now eleven o'clock ; the old German went his 
 way, mechanically following the streets he was wont 
 to take with Pons, thinking ceaselessl}- of his friend, 
 
Cousin Pons, 403 
 
 and fancying he was at his side. As he reached the 
 theatre, Topinard, who had just cleaned all the lamps 
 of the side-scenes, was coming awa}', with his mind full 
 of the director's tj'ranny. 
 
 *' Ah ! here ees joost vat I vant ! " cried Schmucke, 
 stopping him. " Dobinard, haf you a blace to lif in ? '* 
 
 '' Yes, monsieur." 
 
 *^ A houzeholt vare 3^ou ead? " 
 
 ''Yes, monsieur." 
 
 '' Gan you dake me to poard? I vill bay you veil ; 
 I boz-ess nine hundert vrancs a-j^ear. I haf nod long 
 to lif. I shall pe no druppel, I ead zo liddel ; mein 
 only lugzury ees to zmoak m}^ bibe. You aloan haf 
 creeft for Pons, und zo I lof you I " 
 
 " Monsieur, I would take you with much pleasure ; 
 but you must know that Monsieur Gaudissard has been 
 wigging me — " 
 
 " Vig-gin? " 
 
 '' Well, I mean combed my hair — " 
 
 '•' Goamt 3'our hair? " 
 
 " He scolded me for taking an interest in you ; and 
 if you come to live with me we must be very discreet. 
 Even if you do come, I don't believe you '11 stay long ; 
 you don't know what the home of a poor devil like 
 me is." 
 
 " I breffare de boor home of a goot heart dat lofed 
 Bons, pedder dann de Duileries mit men laike di-gars. 
 I haf lefd di-gars in Bons's abbardemend who vill 
 tefower all." 
 
 " Come with me, monsieur," said Topinard, " and j'ou 
 shall see just how it is. But — stay, there is a loft ! 
 We will consult Madame Topinard." 
 
404 Cousin Pons. 
 
 Schmucke followed Topinard like a sheep as he led him 
 into one of those homble localities which may be called 
 the cancers of Paris. The place is named the cz^e-Bordin. 
 It is a narrow passage, flanked with houses built as they 
 build houses on speculation, and it opens from the rue 
 de Bond}' near that part of the street which is overshad- 
 owed by the immense building of the theatre of the Porte- 
 Saint-Martin, one of the warts of Paris. This passage, 
 whose road-bed is sunk below the level of the street 
 pavement, shelves down in the direction of the rue des 
 Mathurin-des-Temples. The cite ends with a transver- 
 sal street that bars it at one end, in the form of a T. 
 These two lanes, standing thus at right angles, contain 
 about thirty houses of six or seven stories each, whose 
 various tenements and inner courtyards are crowded 
 with warerooms, small manufactories, and industries of 
 every sort. It is the faubourg Saint-Antoine in minia- 
 ture. Here they make furniture, engrave brass, sew 
 costumes for the theatre, blow and cut glass, paint 
 porcelains, and manufacture all the novelties and 
 varieties of the commodity called the article- Paris. 
 Dirt}- and productive as commerce itself, this passage, 
 swarming with human beings coming and going, and 
 with hand-carts and drays, is repulsive in aspect, and 
 the population which hives there is in keeping with the 
 products and the premises. The}' are people of small 
 trades and manufactures ; intelligent in manual labor, 
 but their intelligence is all absorbed in it. Topinard 
 lived in this cite — flourishing b}' reason of its indus- 
 tries — because the rents were low. He occupied the 
 second house to the left of the entrance. His apparte- 
 ment, on the sixth floor, had a view of a zone of 
 
Cousin Pons. 405 
 
 gardens which are still to be seen, and belong to the 
 three or four fine mansions in the rue de Bondy. 
 
 Topinard's tenement included only a kitchen and two 
 chambers. The first chamber belonged to the children, 
 and contained two little white wooden bedsteads and a 
 cradle ; the second w^as the bedroom of the father and 
 mother. The family took their meals in the kitchen. 
 Above was a half-stor}^ or loft, about six feet in 
 height, with a zinc roof, lighted from above. It was 
 reached by a stairway of white wood, called in builders' 
 jargon " a miller's ladder." This room, intended for 
 a servant, enabled the owner of the house to call the 
 Topinards' lodging a complete appartement, and to 
 charge four hundred francs a-3'ear for it. At the 
 entrance, to mask the kitchen, was a thin partition, 
 or screen (lighted by a circular window opening into 
 the kitchen), in which were three doors. The rooms 
 were all floored with brick, painted wood-color in a 
 vulgar style, and filled with the belongings of a family 
 of five, three of whom were children. The walls 
 showed deep scratches made by the children as high 
 up as their arms could reach. Well-to-do people can 
 hardly imagine the paucitj^ of the kitchen utensils, 
 which consisted of one Dutch oven, one kettle, one 
 gridiron, one saucepan, two or three coffee-pots, and 
 a frying-pan. The plates and dishes, of brown and 
 white earthenware, were worth about twelve francs. The 
 table did the double dut}' of kitchen-table and dining- 
 table ; and the rest of the furniture comprised only two 
 chairs and two stools. The space under the oven was 
 filled with a provision of wood and coal. In a corner 
 stood a tub, in which the family washing was frequently 
 
406 Cousin Pons, 
 
 done during the night. The room occupied by the 
 children had clothes-hnes stretched across it, and it 
 was papered with a medley of theatrical posters and 
 engravings cut from newspapers or from the pro- 
 spectuses of iUustrated books. The eldest hope of 
 the Topinards, whose school-books lay in a corner of 
 the room, was evidently intrusted with the care of the 
 household when the father and mother departed, at six 
 o'clock in the evening, for their service at the theatre. 
 In many poor families, as soon as a child is six or seven 
 3'ears old, he plays the part of a mother to his younger 
 brothers and sisters. 
 
 This slight sketch will serve to show that the Topi- 
 nards were, in popular phrase, poor but honest. Topi- 
 nard was about forty years of age, and his wife, a 
 former leader of the chorus (the mistress, it was said, 
 of the bankrupt director who had preceded Gaudis- 
 sard) , was thirty. Lolotte had been a beauty ; but 
 the misfortunes of the late administration had re- 
 acted upon her so far as to oblige her to contract a 
 '' theatre marriage " with Topinard. She never doubted 
 that when they were a hundred and fifty francs ahead 
 of the world, Topinard would redeem his promises and 
 marry her legally, if only to legitimize the children, 
 whom he adored. In the mornings, during her leisure 
 moments, Madame Topinard sewed for the property- 
 room of the theatre. This indefatigable pair earned 
 by incessant labor about nine hundred francs a-year 
 between them. 
 
 " Another flight ! " Topinard had remarked, from the 
 third floor up, to Schmucke, who was so absorbed in his 
 misery as not to know whether he was going up or down. 
 
Cousin Pons. 407 
 
 At the moment when the former, dressed in white linen, 
 like all the persons emplo3'ed about a theatre, opened 
 the door of the kitchen, the voice of Madame Topinard 
 was heard calling out, — 
 
 " Come, children, be quiet; here's papa! " 
 
 As the children evidentlj' did what thej' liked with 
 papa, the eldest, mounted on a broomstick, continued 
 to lead a charge of cavalry, in remembrance of the 
 Cirque-Olympique, the second to toot on a tin fife, 
 while the third brought up the rear as the rank and 
 file of the arm3\ The mother was sewing on a theatri- 
 cal costume. 
 
 "Be quiet!" cried Topinard in a formidable voice, 
 "or I '11 thrash j'ou — Alwa3's have to say that, 3^ou 
 know," he added in a whisper to Schmucke. " Here, 
 my girl," he said to Madame Topinard, " here 's 
 Monsieur Schmucke, the friend of that poor Monsieur 
 Pons ; he does not know where to go, and so he 
 wants to come to us. It's in vain that I tell him 
 we are not gorgeous, that we hve on the sixth floor, 
 and have nothing but a loft to give him ; he insists on 
 coming — " 
 
 Schmucke had seated himself on a chair which 
 Madame Topinard placed for him, and the children, 
 silenced by the arrival of a stranger, were huddled 
 together in a group, devoting themselves to that pro- 
 foundly critical, mute, and quicklj^ finished examination 
 which distinguishes childhood, accustomed, like dogs, 
 to scent tilings rather than judge of them. Schmucke 
 took notice of the pretty group, in which was a httle 
 girl about five yeai's old, the one who blew the fife 
 and had maofnificent blond hair. 
 
408 Cousin Pons, 
 
 " She ees laike a liddel Chermann !" said Schmucke, 
 making her a sign to come to him. 
 
 " Monsieur will be very uncomfortable in the loft," 
 said the mother; " if I were not obliged to have my 
 children near me, I would ask him to take our room." 
 
 She opened the door of the chamber as she spoke, 
 and showed it to Schmucke. The whole luxur}' of the 
 appartement was concentrated there. The mahoganv 
 bedstead was draped with curtains of blue calico, edged 
 with white fringe. The same blue calico, in the form 
 of curtains, decorated the window. The bureau, the 
 secretarj', and the chairs, also of mahogany, were all 
 well cared for. On the mantelshelf was a clock and 
 some candlesticks, — doubtless the gift of the bankrupt, 
 whose portrait, a hideous painting hy Pierre Grassou, 
 hung above the bureau. The children, to whom all 
 entrance into these sacred precincts was forbidden, cast 
 Inquisitive glances across the threshold. 
 
 ''Monsieur would be comfortable there," said 
 Madame Topinard. 
 
 " No, no," answered Schmucke. " I haf nod long to 
 lif ; I onl}' neet a gorner in vich to tie." 
 
 Madame Topinard shut the chamber-door, and led 
 the wa}' to the loft. As soon as Schmucke saw it he 
 cried, — 
 
 '' Dis ees joost raight ! Pefore I lift mit Bons, I vas 
 nefare pedder houzed dan dis." 
 
 " Well, then," said Topinard, "we shall onl}' have 
 to buy a cot-bed, two mattresses, a bolster, a pillow, 
 two chairs, and a table, including w^ash-basin and 
 things, and a little bed-side carpet. Fifty crowns will 
 do it all ; and that is n't the death of a man ! " 
 
Cousin Pons. 409 
 
 It was all arranged ; but the fift^^ crowns seemed to 
 be lacking, and Schmucke, who was within two steps of 
 the theatre, naturally thought, when he saw the poverty' 
 of his new friends, of asking the director for his salar3'. 
 lie went at once to the theatre and found Gaudissard. 
 That magnate received him with the rather stiff civility 
 he assumed towards artists, and was astonished at 
 Schmucke's request for a month's salar3\ Neverthe- 
 less, on examining the accounts, the demand was found 
 to be a just one. 
 
 '^The devil! My dear fellow," cried Gaudissard, 
 " you Germans know how to keep accounts, even in 
 the depths of affliction ! I thought you 'd be grateful 
 for the gift of that thousand francs — a whole year's 
 salary — which I sent 3'ou, and for which you ought to 
 have given me a receipt." 
 
 " Ve nefare reziefed id," said Schmucke. " Und eef 
 I now goam to you, it ees begauze I am triffen indo 
 de zdreeds mit-oud a benny. Py whom tid you zend 
 de money?" 
 
 " By your housekeeper." 
 
 " Matame Zipod ! " cried the pianist. ''She gilled 
 Bons ! she roppt heems, she zolt his broberdy, she 
 dried to purn his vill ! She ees a hoozy — a monzder ! " 
 
 *' But, my dear fellow, how is it you have n't a penny, 
 and are turned into the streets without a home, when 
 the whole property was left to you ? It is n't logical, 
 as we say." 
 
 " De}^ durned me oud of toors. I am a zdrancher ; 
 I know noding of de laws." 
 
 "Poor man!" thought Gaudissard, seeing in his 
 mind's eye the probable end of the unequal struggle. 
 
410 Cousin Pons. 
 
 ''Listen to me," he said aloud. " Do you know what 
 you ought to do ? '* 
 
 " I haf a peazenez achent.' 
 
 " Well, then, negotiate at once with the heirs. The}- 
 will pay 3"0U a sum down and give you an annuity ; and 
 then you can live in peace." 
 
 " Beace — dat ees all I vant," said Schmucke. 
 
 " Very good ! then let me arrange it for 3'ou," said 
 Gaudissard, to whom Fraisier had revealed his scheme 
 the night before. 
 
 It occurred to the Illustrious Gaudissard to ingra- 
 tiate himself with the 3'oung Vicomtesse Popinot and 
 her mother by getting them out of the dirtj^ affair, and 
 thus forward his hopes of being councillor of state at 
 some future day. 
 
 " I audorize 3'Ou to achd for me." 
 
 "80 be it! Now attend. In the first place," said 
 the Napoleon of the theatres, "here's three hundred 
 francs." He took fifteen louis from his purse and gave 
 them to Schmucke. " The}^ are 3'ours ; they are six 
 months' advance on your salarj^ : if 3'ou leave the 
 theatre, wh3', 3'ou '11 pay them back to me. Now, let's 
 make an estimate. What do 3^ou spend a 3'ear ? How 
 much do you want to make 3'Ou happ3'? Come now! 
 consider 3'ourself a Sardanapalus ! " 
 
 ' ' I neet a zuit of gloaz for vinder, and anoder for 
 zummaire." 
 
 " Three hundred francs," said Gaudissard. 
 
 " Poods, four bairs — " 
 
 " Sixty francs." 
 
 " Den bairs of zdoggins — " 
 
 " Say twelve — thirty-six francs." 
 
Cousin Pons, 411 
 
 "Zigsjhirds — " 
 
 " Six cotton shirts, twent3^-four francs ; same of 
 linen, fort3'-eight : seventj-tvvo francs. Here we are, 
 four hundred and sixty-eight — say five hundred, count- 
 ing cravats and handkerchiefs ; a hundred more for 
 1 washing, — six hundred francs. Now tlien, how much 
 I do you need to Uve on ? three francs a daj' ? " 
 
 '' No, dad ees too mooch." 
 
 " Stay, 3'ou must have hats ! Call it fifteen hundred, 
 and five hundred for rent, — two thousand. Do you 
 w^ant me to get you an annuity of two thousand francs, 
 good security'?" 
 
 " Pud my dopaggo? " 
 
 "True; two thousand four hundred francs. Ha, 
 ha ! papa Schmucke, so you call it tobacco ! Well, 
 well ! we '11 throw in the tobacco. Then it is to be two 
 thousand four hundred francs annuity?" 
 
 " No, dad ees nod all. I moost haf a zome town ; 
 een gash — " 
 
 "Pin-mone^M the old Robert Macaire ! Those Ger- 
 mans, are not they naive ! " said Gaudissard to him- 
 self. "Well, what do 3'ou want?" he said aloud; 
 " but remember, this must be the last item." 
 
 " It ees to bay a zagret tett." 
 
 "A debt!" thought Gaudissard; "the old scamp! 
 Wlw, he is worse than an eldest son ! He '11 talk about 
 notes-of-hand next ! I must pull him up short, for that 
 Fraisier can't see things on a grand scale — What 
 sort of debt, m3' dear fellow? tell me." 
 
 " Der ees a mann, der onh' mann dad mourned for 
 Bons mit me : he has a bredd3' liddel curl, mit hair dat 
 «es magneefeezend ; she zeemed to me, joost now, laike 
 
412 Cousin Pons. 
 
 de Cheniuz of mein own Chermanny, — vich I oiighd 
 nefare, nefare to haf quiddet ; Paris ees no blace for 
 Chermanns, dey ritigule dem here," said Sehmucke, 
 with a little gesture of the head, signifying that he 
 was a man who saw all things clearly in this lower 
 world. 
 
 " He is mad," thought Gaudissard. 
 
 Moved to pitj^ for the poor innocent, the director's 
 eyes filled with tears. 
 
 " Ha ! 3'ou unterzdant me, Monsir Cautizart ! Veil, 
 dat mann, who has de breddyliddel curl, ees Dobinard, 
 who addends in de orgezdra und laights de lambs. 
 Bons lofed lieem and dook gare ov heems ; he vas de 
 zole mann dad aggompaneet my frent — mein only 
 frent — to de jurch, to de zimedary, to hees cra-afe ! I 
 moost haf dree douzant vrancs for heem, and dree 
 douzant more for de liddel curl." 
 
 " Poor man ! " thought Gaudissard. 
 
 The selfish parvenu was touched to the heart by 
 such generous gratitude for a mere nothing, — nothing, 
 as the world sees it, but to the e3'es of this divine 
 lamb it outweighed, like Bossuet's cup of water, all 
 the victories of conquerors. Beneath his conceit and 
 vanity, beneath a ruthless desire to force his way, and 
 rise to the level of his old friend Popinot, Gaudissard 
 hid a good heart and a kind nature. He at once 
 effaced all his hasty impressions of Sehmucke, and 
 came over to his side. 
 
 " You shall have it all ; I will do my verj^ best, my 
 dear Sehmucke. Topinard is an honest man." 
 
 " Yes, I haf joost zeen heem in his boor liddel home, 
 where he is habby und gon-dend mit his jiltren." 
 
Cousin Pons. 413 
 
 "I'll give him the cashier's place; old Baudrand is 
 going to leave me." 
 
 " Ha ! may Gott plez you ! " 
 
 "Well, my dear good man, come to Monsieur Ber- 
 thier's, the notary, at four o'clock this afternoon, and 
 ever^^thing shall be settled ; 3'ou shall be at ease for the 
 rest of 3'our days. You shall receive your six thousand 
 francs, and I '11 give 3'ou the same salary under Garan- 
 geot that you had under Pons." 
 
 " No," said Schmucke ; " I gan nod lif. Mein heart 
 ees proken ; I am zdriggen town." 
 
 "Poor sheep!" said Gaudissard to himself as the 
 German bowed and went awa3\ " The world lives on 
 cutlets ; in the words of our sublime Beranger, — 
 
 " * Poor sheep I forever sheared P " 
 
 And he sang that political sentiment to get rid of his 
 emotion. 
 
 "Call up my carriage," he said to the attendant in 
 the office. 
 
 Then he went down, and cried to the coachman, 
 " Rue de Hanovre ! " The man of ambition was once 
 more uppermost; he saw himself in the Council of 
 State. 
 
414 Cousin Pons, 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 ScHMUCKE was at that moment buying flowers, with 
 w^hich he returned almost joyousty to the c^7e-Bordin, 
 bringing some cakes for the children of Topinard. 
 
 " I gif 3'ou zome gakes — " he said with a smile. 
 
 It was the first smile that had come to his lips for 
 three months, and any one seeing it would have shud- 
 dered. 
 
 '' — Pud on one gondission," he added. 
 
 "You are too good, monsieur," said the mother. 
 
 " De liddel curl moost giss me, und arranche de 
 flowers een her hair joost laike de liddel Chermann 
 curls." 
 
 ''Olga, my daughter, do just what monsieur tells 
 you," said Madame Topinard, severe 1}% 
 
 " Toan'd zgolt mein liddel friiulein," cried Schmucke, 
 who saw his own dear Germany in the little child. 
 
 ••'The furniture is coming up on the backs of three 
 port'irs," cried Topinard, making his appearance. 
 
 *' Ah ! " said the German, " Dobinard, mj' frent, 
 here are doo hundert vrancs to bay for eet — You haf 
 a goot vaife here, und 3'ou moost marry her. I gif you 
 dree dousant vrancs ; und de liddel curl, she vill haf a 
 tode of dree dousant mo^-e, vich jou moost bood een der 
 
Cousin Pons. 415 
 
 pank een her name — Und you are to pe gachier, in 
 blace of Pautran ! " 
 
 *' I ! in place of Baudrand? " 
 
 "Yez." 
 
 "Who told you so?" 
 
 '' Monsir Cautlzart." 
 
 *'I shall go mad with joy! Hey, Rosalie! sha'n't 
 we cany our heads high at the theatre? But it isn't 
 possible ! " he added. 
 
 "Our benefactor mustn't sleep in the loft," said 
 Madame Topinard. 
 
 " It toos ferry veil for de few tays T haf to lif," said 
 Schmucke. "It ees ferry goot. Atieu ; I co to de 
 zimedary to zee vat has peen tone mit Bons, and to 
 la}^ dese flowers on his cra-afe." 
 
 Madame Camusot de Marville was a prey to anxiety. 
 Fraisier held counsel with her, and with Godcschal and 
 Berthier. Berthier, the notary, and Godeschal, the 
 attorne}^ considered the will, made b}' two notaries in 
 presence of two witnesses and drawn b\' Leopold 
 Hannequin in the most precise and formal manner, as 
 incontestable. According to the worthy Godeschal, 
 Schmucke, even if his present counsellor managed to 
 deceive him, would soon be enlightened, were it only b}' 
 those attorney's who have recourse to acts of appar- 
 ent generosit}' that are in reality speculations to obtain 
 cases. The two ministerial lawyers quitted Madame de 
 Marville, after strongh' advising her to beware of Frai- 
 sier, about whose character they had now informed 
 themselves. At this moment Fraisier himself, who had 
 gone to the rue de Hanovre after affixing the seals in 
 
416 Cousin Pons, 
 
 Pons's appartement, was writing out a legal summons 
 in the president's private room, where Madame de 
 Marville had sent him, at the request of Godeschal and 
 Berthier, who, thinking the transaction too foul for a 
 judge to be mixed up in, wished to express that opinion 
 to Madame de Marville without being heard by Fraisier. 
 
 ''Well, madame, where are those gentlemen?" said 
 Fraisier, returning. 
 
 "Gone; advising me to give up the affair," an- 
 swered Madame de Marville. 
 
 " Give it up ! " cried Fraisier in a tone of suppressed 
 anger. "Listen, madame." And he read the follow- 
 ing paper : — 
 
 " On the requisition of, etc., etc. (I omit the legal ver- 
 biage.) 
 
 " Whereas, there has been deposited in the hands of the 
 judge of the first civil court a will drawn by Maitre Leopold 
 Hannequin and Alexandre Crottat, notaries of Paris, in 
 presence of two witnesses, Messieurs Brunner and Schwab, 
 foreigners domiciled in Paris, by the which will the Sieur 
 Sylvain Pons, deceased, bequeaths his whole property to a 
 Sieur Wilhelm Schmucke, to the prejudice of his natural and 
 legal heir, the present complainant ; 
 
 " And whereas, the complainant is able to show that the 
 said will is the work of undue influence, and the result of 
 stratagems which are against the law; and that eminent 
 personages are ready to prove that it was the intention of 
 the testator to leave his fortune to Mademoiselle Cecile, 
 daughter of the present complainant, the Sieur de Marville, 
 and that the will, which the said complainant now asks may 
 be set aside, was extorted from the testator when enfeebled 
 and out of his right mind ; 
 
 " And whereas, the Sieur Schmucke, for the purpose of 
 
Cousin Pons, 417 
 
 obtaining this legacy, kept the testator in durance, and 
 prevented the family from approaching his death-bed, and 
 after obtaining the said legacy was guilty of notorious 
 ingratitude, which scandalized the houseiiold and the neigh- 
 bors, who were present to pay the last duties to the door- 
 keeper of the house in which the testator deceased ; 
 
 " And whereas, still other and more important facts, for 
 the proofs of which the complainant is now seeking, will be 
 laid before the court; 
 
 "Therefore, I, the undersigned, etc., etc., summon the 
 said Sieur Schmucke to appear before the judges of the said 
 court, and show cause why the said will, drawn by Messieurs 
 Hannequin and Crottat, shall not be regarded as null and of 
 no effect. And I do, moreover, protest against whatever 
 powers and qualifications the Sieur Schmucke may assume 
 as sole legatee, intending to oppose, and hereby opposing, by 
 this petition presented this day before the court, the order of 
 possession asked for by the said Sieur Schmucke, on whom a 
 copy of this present summons has been served ; of which the 
 costs are, etc., etc." 
 
 "I know the man, madame, and when he has read 
 that love-letter, he '11 come to terras ; he will consult 
 Tabareau, and Tabareau will tell him to accept our 
 offers. You are willing to give him an annuity of three 
 thousand francs?" 
 
 ' ' Certainly ; I should be glad to pay the first instal- 
 ment at once." 
 
 '' It can all be settled in three days. This summons 
 will startle him in the first bewilderment of his grief; 
 for the poor man really does regret Pons ; he has taken 
 the loss seriously." 
 
 " If the summons is served, can it be withdrawn?" 
 asked Madame de Marville. 
 
 27 
 
418 Cousin Pons. 
 
 " Certainly, madame ; we can alwa3'S abandon the 
 case." 
 
 " Well, monsieur, then go on ; do as you think best. 
 Yes, the property 3'ou offer me is worth the risk. Be- 
 sides, I have arranged with Vitel, who will send in his 
 resignation ; but 3'ou must pa}^ the sixty thousand francs 
 1 have promised him out of the proceeds of the Pons 
 estate. And so, 3'ou see, we positively must succeed." 
 
 ' ' You have Vitel's resignation in hand ? " 
 
 "Yes, monsieur; Monsieur Vitel has perfect confi- 
 dence in Monsieur de Marville." 
 
 "Well, madame, I have already saved j'ou sixty 
 thousand francs which we calculated to give to that 
 vile creature Madame Cibot. But I must insist upon 
 the tobacco-license for Madame Sauvage, and the va- 
 cant place of surgeon-ln-chief of the Quinze-Vingts." 
 
 " That's understood ; it is all arranged." 
 
 " Ver}' good ; then everything is settled. Everybody 
 is on your side in this affair, — even Gaudissard, the 
 director of the theatre, whom I went to see yesterda}^ 
 and who has promised to crush the man who warned 
 Schmucke against us." 
 
 "Oh! I know why. Monsieur Gaudissard is de- 
 voted to the Popinots." 
 
 Fraisier left the house. Unfortunatel}" he did not 
 meet Gaudissard, and the fatal summons was at once 
 despatched. 
 
 Money-loving people will understand, and honest 
 people will execrate, Madame de Marville's joy. 
 Twenty minutes after Fraisier had left her, Gaudis- 
 sard came to report his conversation with poor 
 Schmucke. Madame de Marville approved of every- 
 
Cousin Pons. 419 
 
 thing, and was also infinitely obliged to the director 
 for making certain remarks which eased her scruples, 
 and which she thought eminently just. 
 
 '^ Madame," said Gaudissard, "I have been think- 
 ing, as I came along, that this poor devil would never 
 have known what to do with such a fortune. He 's as 
 simple as a patriarch ; innocent, truly German ; he 
 ought to be kept in a glass-case like a little wax Jesus. 
 In fact, it is m}' opinion that he is alread}^ embarrassed 
 with his two-thousand-five-hundred-franc annuity' ; you 
 are really inciting him to dissipation." 
 
 " It is the duty of noble hearts to benefit a man who 
 regrets our cousin Pons," said Madame de Marville. 
 "I greatly deplore the little misunderstanding which 
 parted Monsieur Pons and me ; if he had come back 
 to us, all would have been forgiven : my husband 
 reall}^ misses him. Monsieur de Marville was much 
 distressed at receiving no notice of the death ; he has 
 a truly religious reverence for all famil}'^ duties, and he 
 would certainly have attended the funeral and been 
 present at the cemetery. I myself should have gone 
 to the church." 
 
 "Well, madame," said Gaudissard, "be so good as 
 to have the deed prepared at once ; I '11 bring the Ger- 
 man to Berthier's office at four o'clock. Present ray 
 respects to your charming daughter, the Vicomtesse 
 Popinot ; ask her to say to my illustrious friend, her 
 good and excellent father, that distinguished statesman, 
 that I am heartily devoted to him and his, and that I 
 beg him to continue his precious favor to me. I owe 
 my life to his uncle, the judge, and I owe my fortune 
 to him ; and I desire to obtain through you and your 
 
420 Cousin Pons. 
 
 daughter the respect and consideration which attach 
 to those who hold honorable positions in life. I wish 
 to leave the theatre and become an earnest man." 
 
 ''You are that alread}^, monsieur," said Madame de 
 Marville. 
 
 "Adorable!" exclaimed Gaudissard, kissing her 
 lean hand. 
 
 At four o'clock, Fraisier, the wire-puller of the whole 
 transaction, Tabareau, holding Schmucke's power of 
 attorney, and Schmucke himself, brought by Gaudis- 
 sard, were assembled in the office of Monsieur Berthier, 
 notary. Fraisier had taken care to put bank-notes to 
 the amount of six thousand francs, together with six 
 hundred francs for the first instalment of the annuit}', 
 on the notary's table under the e3'es of the old German, 
 who, amazed at the sight of so much money, paid not 
 the slightest attention to the deed which was being 
 read over to him. The poor soul, seized upon by Gau- 
 dissard on his way back from the cemetery, where he 
 had been talking with Pons and promising to rejoin 
 him soon, was not in full possession of his faculties, 
 shaken as they were b}' so many shocks. He therefore 
 did not hear the preamble of the deed, in which he was 
 represented as assisted b}' Maitre Tabareau, sheriff, his 
 prox}^ and counsel, and in which the charges contained 
 in Monsieur de Marville's summons in the interests of 
 his daughter were stated. Schmucke was thus made 
 to injure himself; for by signing the deed, he admitted 
 the truth of Fraisier's horrible assertions. But he was 
 so overjo3'ed at getting the mone}" for the Topinard 
 famil}^ and so happy to enrich, according to his hum- 
 ble ideas, the only man who loved Pons, that he did 
 
Cousin Pons. 421 
 
 not hear a single word relating to the Marville suit. 
 While the deed was being read a clerk entered the 
 office. 
 
 " Monsieur," he said to his employer, " a man wishes 
 to speak to Monsieur Schmucke." 
 
 The notary, at a sign from Fraisier, looked at the 
 clerk significantly. 
 
 '* We can't be disturbed when signing deeds. Ask 
 the name of the — is he a man, or a gentleman? or a 
 creditor?" 
 
 The clerk went away, but soon returned, saying, — 
 
 " He sa3's he positively mast speak to Monsieur 
 Schmucke." 
 
 "His name?" 
 
 *'Topinard." 
 
 "I'll go and see him. Sign the deed," said Gau- 
 dissard ; " finish what you are doing. I will find out 
 what he wants." 
 
 Gaudissard understood Fraisier, and both scented 
 danger. 
 
 "What are you doing here?" said the director to 
 his hireling. "Don't you want to be cashier? The 
 first duty of a cashier is — discretion ! " 
 
 " Monsieur!" 
 
 " Go about your business ! You '11 never be anything 
 at all if you stick your nose into people's affairs in this 
 way." 
 
 "Monsieur, I'll eat no bread if every crumb of it is 
 to stick in my throat! Monsieur Schmucke!" — he 
 called out. 
 
 Schmucke, who had signed the deed and held the 
 money in his hand, came out on hearing Topinard's cry. 
 
422 Cousin Pons. 
 
 " Here ees zomediiig for de liddel Chermann, and for 
 3^ou — " he said. 
 
 "Ah! my dear Monsieur Schmucke, 3^ou have en- 
 riched monsters ; these people have robbed 3'ou of 
 3'our good name. Read that ; I 've carried it to an 
 honorable man, a law^'er who knows that Fraisier, and 
 he sa3'S 3'ou ought to punish such wickedness b3" meet- 
 ing the suit, and that would frighten them, and the3' 
 would give it up." 
 
 And this imprudent friend gave Schmucke the sum- 
 mons, drawn up by Fraisier and approved b3^ Madame 
 de Marville, which had been left for the poor German 
 at the cite Bordin. Schmucke took the paper and read 
 it. The discovery of how he had been treated was liis 
 death-blow ; the gravel choked his heart. Topinard 
 caught him in his arms ; the3^ were standing under the 
 notar3^'s porte-cochere. A coach passed ; Topinard 
 called to the driver and got into it with the poor Ger- 
 man, who was now suffering the agon3" of a congestion 
 of the brain. His sight was dim, but he still had 
 strength to give the money to Topinard. Schmucke 
 did not die under the first attack, but he never recov- 
 ered his reason ; his movements were all unconscious ; 
 he ate nothing, and died in ten da3's without uttering a 
 complaint, for he never spoke again. He was nursed 
 by Madame Topinard, and was buried in a humble 
 wa3% side by side with Pons, under the directions of 
 Topinard, the sole person who followed the poor stran- 
 ger to his grave. 
 
 Fraisier, appointed juge-de-paix^ and very intimate 
 in the household of Monsieur Camusot de Marville, is 
 much appreciated by Madame de Marville, who has 
 
Cousin Pons, 423 
 
 not allowed him to many " Tabareau's clangliter ; " 
 she has promised something infinite I3' better than that 
 to the clever man to whom she owes (according to her 
 own sense of her obligations) not onlj^ the acquisition 
 of the meadows around Marville and the charming 
 cottage of the Englishman, but the political elevation 
 of Monsieur de Marville, who became a deputy in the 
 general election of 1846. 
 
 P^ver}^ one will doubtless wish to know what has be- 
 come of the heroine of this history, — a history which, 
 unfortunatelv, is only too true in all its details, and 
 which, together with its predecessor (to which it bears 
 the relation of a younger sister),^ proves that the grand 
 social force is strength of character. You guess at 
 once, O amateurs, connoisseurs, and dealers, that this 
 heroine is none other than the collection of our poor 
 Pons. It will suffice if we are present at a conversa- 
 tion which took place at the house of Comte Popinot, 
 who, only a few days ago, was showing his magnificent 
 collection to certain foreigners. 
 
 " Monsieur le Comte," said an Englishman of dis- 
 tinction, "you possess treasures!" 
 
 " Oh ! my lord," said Comte Popinot, modestly, " in 
 the matter of pictures no one, I will not say in Paris, 
 but in Europe, can pretend to rival an obscure indi- 
 vidual, a Jew named Elie Magus, an old picture-maniac, 
 the chief of such fanatics. He has collected over a 
 hundred pictures which are reall}^ enough to discourage 
 all amateurs from attempting to collect. France will 
 some day have to devote seven or eight millions to. the 
 1 Cousin Bette ; another volume of The Poor Relations. 
 
424 Cousin Pons. 
 
 I^urchase of this collection when the old Jew dies. As 
 to curiosities, my collection is certainlj- fine enough to 
 deserve mention." 
 
 ' ' How is it possible that a man so occupied as you 
 are in public affairs, and whose original fortune was 
 honestly won in commercial pursuits — " 
 
 "As a druggist," said Popinot, ''how is it that I J 
 care for these things ? " 
 
 "No," replied the foreigner, "but how have 3'ou 
 found time to search for them? Curiosities do not come 
 to us of themselves." 
 
 " My father," said the Vicomtesse Popinot, " alwa3's 
 had the nucleus of a collection ; he was fond of works 
 of art and masterpieces. But the greater part of his 
 collection came through me." 
 
 "Through 3'ou, madame? So 3'oung ! Are 3'ou ad- 
 dicted to these vices ? " said a Russian prince. 
 
 The Russians are such imitators that thej^ reflect 
 all the diseases of civilization. The bric-a-brac mania 
 rages at St. Petersburg, and, as a result of the vigor 
 natural to the Russian people, the}- have raised the 
 price of what Remonencq called " that article " so 
 high that the work of the collector is rendered wellnigh 
 impossible. The prince was now in Paris for the sole 
 purpose of adding to his collection. 
 
 "Prince," said the vicomtesse, "I inherited this 
 treasure from a cousin who loved me much, and who 
 spent more than forty 3'ears, from 1805, in picking up 
 these works of art in all countries, but more especially 
 in Italy." 
 
 " What was his name? " asked the Englishman. 
 
 "Pons," said the president. 
 
Cousin Pons. 425 
 
 *' He was a charming man," said Madame de Mai- 
 ville, in her flut}^ httle voice, '' full of wit, original, and 
 with it all, he had a good heart. This fan which yon 
 admire, m}^ lord, came from him ; he gave it me one 
 morning with a pretty Uttle speech which you must 
 excuse my repeating.*' 
 
 And she glanced at her daughter. 
 
 " Tell us the pretty little speech, raadame la vicom- 
 tesse," said the Russian prince. 
 
 " The speech is worthy of the fan ! " said Cecile, — 
 to whom, indeed, it was stereotyped. " He told my 
 mother that it was time the fan should pass from the 
 hands of vice into those of virtue." 
 
 The English lord looked at Madame de Marville with 
 an air of doubt that was extremely flattering to so 
 shrivelled a woman. 
 
 " He dined with us three or four times a week," she 
 said; "he loved us so much! We knew how to ap- 
 preciate him, and artists like those who share their 
 tastes. My husband was his only relation ; and when 
 the property came to us (Monsieur de Marville did not 
 in the least expect it) , Monsieur le Comte Popinot pre- 
 ferred to buy the whole collection rather than have it 
 sold at auction. Of course we were glad to part with it 
 in that wa}^ ; it would have been extremel}^ painful to 
 see all these beautiful things which our dear cousin had 
 so enjoyed, dispersed in ever}- direction : Elie Magus 
 appraised them. And it was thus, my lord, that I was 
 able to buy the cottage built bj^ 3'our uncle, where 3'ou 
 must do us the honor to come and see us." 
 
 The cashier of the theatre, of which Gaudissard re- 
 signed the directorship about a 3'ear ago, is still Mon- 
 
426 Cousin Pons. 
 
 sieur Topinard ; but Monsieur Topiuard has become 
 gloomy, misanthropical, and taciturn. He is thought 
 to have committed some crime, and the wits of the 
 theatre declare that the change came after he married 
 Lolotte. The name of Fraisier makes him start. Per- 
 haps the reader may think it strange that the only being 
 worthy of Pons should be found on the third floor of a 
 boulevard theatre. 
 
 Madame Remonencq, mindful of the prediction of 
 Madame Fontaine, is unwilling to retire into the coun- 
 try : she still remains in her splendid shop on the 
 boulevard de la Madeleine, once more a widow. The 
 Auvergnat, having so arranged the marriage contract 
 that the survivor should inherit the whole property, left 
 a little glass of vitriol within reach of his wife, expect- 
 ing an accident ; and his wife having, with the best 
 intentions, placed the little glass elsewhere, Remonencq 
 swallowed the poison. This end, worthy of such a vil- 
 lain, tells in favor of Providence, whom the painters 
 of manners and morals are accused of forgetting, — 
 possibly because the endings of so many dramas put 
 Providence in the wrong. 
 
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